The Michigan Department of Transportation is moving forward with plans to remove Interstate 375 in Detroit and replace it with a city street with landscaped medians and bike lanes, according to the Detroit Free Press.
It would mark the first Detroit expressway to undergo such conversion, but it won’t likely happen before 2022, the newspaper reports. Funding is not yet earmarked for construction.
The one-mile freeway connects I-75 and Jefferson Avenue. It was built in the 1960s and is in need of major rehabilitation, MDOT says.
MDOT conducted a study that views rehabilitating the I-375 corridor as a way to improve economic development in the area and move away from an automobile-centric focus by encouraging biking and walking and improving connectivity between the neighborhood and adjacent areas.
The study was conducted in 2014, coming up with six alternatives for the freeway. MDOT has received funding to conduct an environmental assessment and held a public meeting on the alternatives and the assessment on December 5.