Detroit Archives - The Handbuilt City

Public Safety Infrastructure Small Business Streetscaping

New Grand River Streetscaping: Safer, Slower, Greener

May 4, 2021May 4, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments bike lanes, black-owned business, crosswalk, crosswalks, Detroit, effect of streetscaping on public safety, garden stores, gardening, gardening store, gilmour garden tools, grand army of the republic building detroit, grand river, grand river avenue, grandmont-rosedale, highland park, home depot, local business, maumee lake region, native plants, neighborhood investment, north rosedale park, pages bookshop, pedestrian safety, public safety, raised crosswalks, street safety, streetscaping and public safety, tina castleberry, traffic violence

New streetscaping improvements have turned portions of Grand River Avenue, on Detroit’s West Side, from a street-level freeway into something more closely resembling a real city street that people might be able to safely hang out and shop on.

Public Safety Transit infrastructure

Morning Coffee, Detroit Traffic: The Post-COVID Craze Is About To Be Wild

May 3, 2021May 3, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments ambassador bridge, bicycle safety, bike safety, car culture, cars, cycling infrastructure, cycling safety, Detroit, detroit police, detroit river, detroit traffic, dodge challenger, dodge charger, dodge durango, driving, gratiot, hi-riser, infrastructure, jeep, Mikki Taylor-Hendrix, nonmotorized infrastructure, pedestrian safety, riverfront park, traffic violence, west riverfront park, why do people always rev their dodge charger

Yesterday, Detroit was a whole traffic jam, as an increasingly vaccinated cross-section of, well, everyone, emerged from the cocoons of Michigan winter and lockdowns.

Urban Planning Mobility Infrastructure Tech

Webinar: Tech To Reduce Guesswork for Safer Streets

April 26, 2021April 26, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments amazon, amazon web service, Amazon Web Services, AWS, big tech, break up big tech, breaking up big tech, CASE, cloud computing, congestion, connected, connected autonomous, connected autonomous shared electric, cycling safety, Detroit, distributed structures, elizabeth warren, intelligent transportation systems, intersections, ITS, jeff bezos, jeff bezos rocket ship, joe biden, mobility, pedestrian safety, public safety, redundancy, roadside unit, rsu, safe streets, sensors, smart transportation, switching costs, tony geara, traffic, traffic management, traffic safety

Traffic technology has improved by leaps and bounds in recent decades. While the ultimate solutions to ending traffic violence must come with better street designs and a reduced reliance on single-occupant automobiles, there are some interesting developments in technology that are allowing better modeling to understand driver behavior, intersection safety, and more. We learned about it from a webinar co-hosted by Canadian tech company Miovision.

Policy Public Safety

Police Reform: Imagining New Roles For A Safer, More Functional Society

April 23, 2021April 23, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments 1312, abolish the police, acab, angie schmitt, austerity, black lives matter, BSEED, budgets, building department, building inspections, building inspector, building officials, community engagement, community meetings, cycling, cycling safety, dave bell, defund the police, democracy, Detroit, detroit police chief james craig, detroit police department, detroit will breathe, fuck the police, james craig, jessica parker, legal aid, municipal budgets, municipal government, nonmotorized transportation, pedestrian fatalities, pedestrian safety, police, police abolition, police brutality, police brutality lawsuits, police departments, police reform, policing in the united states, prison abolition, prison reform, public funding, reform the police, safe mobility, safe streets, social justice, social safety net, social welfare, social work, social worker, social workers, traffic safety, traffic violence

We expect police to respond to, well, everything. And they’re not suited for it. Rethinking policing in the United States will require us to figure out alternatives for who is responding to what issue.

Mobility Cycling

Strava’s Heat Map Makes The Case For Safer Streets.

March 26, 2021March 26, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments Detroit, GPS tracking, grosse pointe, location data, nonmotorized infrastructure, safe mobility, safe streets, safer streets, safety, strava, strava cycling, strava heat map, strava running

Dion Thompson-Davoli showed us his Strava Heat Map of Detroit. It’s exactly as you would expect– showing a gaping hole of activity in most of the city proper.

Public transit Cities & Urban Planning

Why Do Airports Not Want Us To Have Nice Things?

February 25, 2021February 25, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments accessibility, accessible transit, airport parking, airport revenue, airports, autonomous vehicles, big blue deck, buses, Detroit, detroit airport parking, detroit metro airport, detroit michigan, detroit wayne airport, disruptive innovation, donald shoup, DTW, DTW ground transportation, DTW transit options, DTW transportation, high cost of free parking, litigation, louis armstrong airport, MSY, new orleans, new orleans airport, parking and the city, parking revenue, public transit to detroit airport, self-driving cars, signage, tampa, tampa airport, tampa florida, TPA, transit, transit accessibility, transit to DTW, wayne county

Detroit’s airport has historically had some problems with accessibility, especially to transit. This is a problem, because of the airport’s reliance on parking revenues. But there are some options!

Politics Public Safety Law

Taxpayers Spend Hundreds of Millions Per Year On Police Brutality Settlements. That Money Could Be Better Spent.

February 23, 2021February 23, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments 538, 911, 911 calls, amelia thomson-deveaux, black lives matter, corktown, damini sharma, Detroit, detroit will breathe, detroit will breathe lawsuit, fivethirtyeight, hulk hogan gawker lawsuit, hulk hogan lawsuit, laura bronner, lawsuit, lawsuits, litigation, nate silver, new york city, nonviolent crimes, police abolition, police brutality, police brutality lawsuits, police lawsuits, police reform, police violence, police violence lawsuits, settlement, settlements, springfield mass, violent crimes

A new article from FiveThirtyEight looks at the staggering sums of money taxpayers are liable for in police brutality lawsuit settlement in 31 American cities. The data are unsurprisingly incomplete, and unsurprisingly appalling.

Detroit Public transit Michigan Transit infrastructure

What If We Can’t Wait? Public-Private Partnership Solutions for Infrastructure

February 2, 2021February 2, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments amtrak, Amtrak NEC, augean stables, austerity, ben stupka, brooks patterson, BRT, bus, chicago parking meters, dave coulter, Detroit, economic development, FRR, l. brooks patterson, macomb county, MBA, mba capstone, megan owens, metro detroit, michigan, mikel oglesby, mobility infrastructure, new york fear city, oakland county, philanthropic capital, PPP, private sector, public sector, public transit, public-private partnership, regional infrastructure, regional planning, regional transit, regional transit authority, robert moses, RTA, ryan friedrichs, stephanie farmer, transit, transit infrastructure, transportation, transportation riders united, TRU, why is macomb county awful

The RTA is planning on returning in 2022– again- to revisit a ballot measure to fund regional infrastructure investment in Southeast Michigan. Can we wait for 2022? Should we explore alternatives in the meantime?

Urban Planning Government Vacancy

Why Is Detroit Giving Industrial Slumlords Like Moroun A Free Pass?

January 11, 2021January 11, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments ambassador bridge, BSEED, building department, building inspections, building inspector, corktown, dan gilbert, Detroit, detroit international bridge company, DIBC, economic development, enforcement, gordie howe, gordie howe international bridge, green dot stables, logistics, manuel moroun, matty moroun, Mike Ilitch, moroun, northern border transit, rosa parks blvd., southwest detroit, trucking, UST properties, UST Properties of Michigan, ust properties of michigan llc, Vacancy, warren, west side industrial

The owners of the Ambassador Bridge, their trucking empire, and a plethora of shell corporations own many acres of prime real estate close to Detroit’s downtown. Why have they avoided regulatory scrutiny?

Sustainability Poverty Energy Housing Utilities

MPSC December Meeting: Neighborhood-Level Equity and Energy

December 3, 2020December 3, 2020 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments affordable housing, Brad Banks, Briana Parker, CMS, Consumers Energy, Detroit, DTE Energy, economic justice, Elevate Energy, energy, energy justice, housing, Indiana Michigan Power, mary templeton, metro detroit, michigan, michigan public service commission, MPSC, public utilties, racial justice, racism, redlining, SEAS, segregation, SEMCO, Sharonda Williams-Tack, Sierra Club, Tim Skrotzki, Tony G. Reames, Tony Reames, utilities, water justice

Dr. Tony G. Reames of the University of Michigan, Briana Parker of Elevate Energy, and others presented at an MPSC meeting on some approaches to the question of equity in energy efficiency for low-income communities and communities of color.

← Previous