WITHOUT LOCAL JOURNALISM

The pandemic that gripped the area and the nation in 2020 took its toll in many ways, including on the local business community, along with the field of journalism. One local newspaper temporarily suspended its publication schedule and another ultimately stopped publishing.

Thanks to the generosity of those listed on this page and the support from our partners in the local business community, Downtown Newsmagazine was able to withstand the challenge.

Aside from our monthly newsmagazine, we post regularly to our website (downtownpublications.com) and we send out a Weekly News Update newsletter every Friday along with special email alerts when there is breaking news of interest. During the month we also send out our political gossip newsletter (Oakland Confidential) and each month we also send out our restaurant news column (Metro Intelligencer). During the pandemic, we launched The COVID-19 Diary, a daily/weekly curation of articles from over several dozen news and government sources, to keep local residents up-to-date on the crisis we were all facing. In June will be launching an environmental newsletter/website – ThreatenedPlanet.com.

We started strong and have remained strong. But to continue offering our product at no charge, and continue to grow in terms of what we offer to readers, we continue to this day to ask local residents for community support in the form of donations.

Our thanks to those listed below who donated to support local journalism, and to donors who asked to remain anonymous.

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The Health Nut

Walker Professional Writing Services vision for southeast Michigan.

Nearly all major transportation improvements made in southeast Michigan receive federal funding. Most often, the federal government pays for 80 percent of a project, and the local community or transportation agency matches their funds with the remaining 20 percent. But, before a transportation project can receive those federal funds, it must take a series of steps to ensure the money is well spent. Each step presents an opportunity for citizen involvement.

Fedorowicz said SEMCOG’s role in all of this is to facilitate cooperation between MDOT and all the individual municipalities located along all the region’s main truncates.

“It is not up to SEMCOG to create a broad vision for what the Woodward Corridor or any of these roads should be for the future,” Fedorowicz said. “It’s SEMCOG’s role to bring MDOT and individual communities together to facilitate that conversation and make sure everyone’s voices are heard. There are varying issues along the Woodward Corridor. While some want a smaller footprint with lane reductions, others want to facilitate commuter travel. So, there’s a difference of voices here.”

Right now, there are several TIP projects in the books for Woodward. Of those, they include: In Bloomfield Township, construction on Woodward from Square Lake Road to 1-94, is a $3.6 million MDOT project. Work on this project began in 2023.

In Pontiac, beginning in 2024, MDOT will embark on its $26 million project to remove the Pontiac Loop and reconstruct the city’s stretch of Woodward as detailed above.

Also in Pontiac, this year MDOT embarked on a $3.1 million project in Pontiac, closing southbound Woodward Avenue south of the Pontiac Loop, from Rapid Street to South Boulevard for intersection improvements at the I-75 Business Loop at Woodward Avenue and South Boulevard intersection. The project will reconstruct southbound I-75 bound lanes and install indirect left turns.

Fedorowicz said unlike the long-term overall planning concepts and studies that SEMCOG conducts which reach far into the future, projects such as the lane reduction and reconfigurations in Ferndale and Pleasant Ridge are described as Construction Maintenance Projects. Meaning, these are enhanced road repair projects that were already scheduled as regular maintenance. MDOT worked with the municipalities to customize these sections of the corridor with what residents and businesses have in mind.

“These projects are not complete reconstruction endeavors, as what we will see in the future for Pontiac, but rather maintenance ones,” Fedorowicz explained. “MDOT was scheduled to repair the pavement anyway, and they worked with the community asking for their input and interests.”

She continued: “Reconstruction projects, which are more long-range and involved, are very expensive. And corridor-wide projects become more complicated when multiple municipalities are involved, so you want to start that conversation early. That’s why SEMCOG is out there seeking information for entire corridors such as Woodward – to get the community conversation going.”

When he was a reporter at the Detroit Free Press beginning in the late 1980s, John Gallagher wrote about futuristic business and economic redevelopment projects, some that only came to fruition during his last few years at the paper before he retired in 2019. He now enjoys the city’s more walkable and bikeable neighborhoods and routes that move in and around Detroit and up into the metro area, which were things he wrote about years ago and that few predicted would come true.

“When I first wrote about pedestrianonly squares and wider sidewalks, setting aside traffic lanes for bicycles, and even the creation of the people’s plaza at the intersection of Woodward and Jefferson, there was some groaning about how this was going to affect traffic,” Gallagher recalled. “But parts of Detroit have become a very welcome, walkable environment, and the (vehicle traffic) has adapted.”

An avid cyclist, Gallagher now enjoys Detroit’s connectedness of its bicycle routes along the Dequindre Cut, the Riverfront and parts of Woodward, although most of the stretch remains offlimits to safe riding.

“Although there are places along Woodward I could not imagine biking or walking (such as around Bloomfield Township), there are other areas where making it more walkable and bikeable just makes more sense,” he said. “At one point, the (Pontiac) Loop was built to prioritize traffic and transit at the expense of the environment. But there is talk now to reunite this part of the road with the rest of the surrounding neighborhoods, urban areas and roads like Woodward, with neighborhoods to make the traffic slow down, to make them more walkable.” hough the Q-Line was designed as a demonstration project, Gallagher said that for the light rail to truly become a vital part of transportation infrastructure, it would need to run up to Birmingham.

In 2014 Gallagher penned an article that predicted long-term economic and commercial growth in and around Detroit, including the Woodward Avenue Corridor. Back then, commercial and residential real estate was just beginning to pick up on the street and the tracks for the Q-Line had yet to be laid.

In his last years at the Detroit Free Press, Gallagher traveled the Q-line when he had out of the office meetings.

“I know there are issues with that,” Gallagher admitted. “For one, it is very expensive. And it would have to operate at high speeds and stop less in the suburbs and then move more slowly with more frequent stops in Detroit. As it stands now, it is not an essential mode of transportation such as the El in Chicago or the subway in New York.”

He continued: “It’s encouraging to see the work getting done in Ferndale and Pleasant Ridge to make way for bikers and pedestrians and to see bike lanes opening in and around Detroit.”

Looking further into the future at the city’s other main arteries, Gallagher said he is optimistic of the transformation and raising I-375 and making it a more walkable, livable boulevard that may redeem and restore the history of the destruction of the predominantly African American Black Bottom neighborhood and the vibrant life of what was Hastings Street. MDOT is proposing to spend $150 million on the I-375 project, with estimated construction to begin in 2027.

“We are beginning to recognize what it means to bring back walkability in our urban neighborhoods, and what that means to the quality of one’s life,” said Gallagher. “There are lots of new zoning trends that 15 to 20 years ago were unheard of but now are becoming more commonplace. The trend is called the ‘20minute neighborhood.’ The concept is built around the idea that people can have most everything they need, from housing to work to other services and features, within a 20-minute walk. It’s becoming a priority because cities are beginning to understand what was lost when we put highways through neighborhoods.”