My name is Mona Ali. I'm a district seven manager of the mayor's office. And I want to also introduce my district five counterpart, Josh.
Hello, this is Josh Roberson, this refi, manager for department neighborhood.
And then our team members in the back, Alexia Davis, Keith Butler, Sammy, Alhaji our business liaison, the whole team is here. And I also wanted to hand it over to our district seven Councilman Councilman their health to see a few words tonight. Good evening, everyone. Good evening.
Good evening, everyone.
We're going to hear some great things about Dexter Avenue tonight, as you know, that is someplace that is very near and dear to my heart, whether it's the Dexter hammers Community Center, or just being a neighborhood that I grew up in close to Russell woods, and so could not be more excited tonight, to see some of these great plans and some of the input that you have put in, we have a mayor here tonight, who will go deeper into that as well. But again, I just want to thank everyone that is here. Whether you're in district five side of Dexter, or the district seven side of Dexter. This is something that I know our community leaders have been advocating for and working for so many years, even when I was a child. And so thank you so much for being here tonight. We're sitting in district seven right now. So thanks to the carpenters and Miele rice for hosting us tonight. And so here's some great information and want to say thank you to the mirrors, team and administration as well. We are bringing Dexter back to life. So God bless you all Happy Holidays, if I don't see you before that, and we will see you soon.
Thank you very much, Councilman. We're just going to read off a few administrative summaries for you and I'm heading over to Justin.
Alright, the city of Detroit Department of Public Works is making improvements to Dexter Avenue, between West Davidson Street and Webb Street in the spring of 2023. To improve safety for all pedestrians, transit users and drivers. The total estimated design and construction costs of this project are $2 million. The streetscape will include road resurfacing, sidewalk improvements, new lighting, landscaping and pavement markings. And construction is anticipated to be completed by November 2023.
Thank you, Josh. And this has been a team effort. So we're really glad that residents on both sides were able to come out again. So thank you all for being here today.
You know, without further ado, I will hand it off to Mayor Duggan to take up tonight's presentation.
All right, well, we're gonna make a decision tonight is basically going to define how this business corridor looks for the next 20 years. So some of you remember when I ran for mayor, I said, Every neighborhood has a future. And I always believe that. And I believe that when we got to Dexter, we would be making significant progress. And I'm going to show you the different areas we've been in. But every single time, what we've done is what we're going to do tonight is I'm going to show you a group of choices, we're going to ask everybody to comment on what you like and what you don't like. And at the end of the night, you're going to vote. And there's a lot of things that are coming this way. But how this neighborhood is going to look for the next 20 years is going to depend on decision to make and here's what I believe you're in a neighborhood, your neighbor might argue over the fence, you might argue over the color of a paint. But I believe in collective wisdom, when you bring the entire neighborhood together and you listen to each other. I found that the group makes the right decision. And that's what we're gonna do tonight, everybody's gonna get a chance to talk, I'm going to ask you to please listen to your neighbors, because they're going to have a different perspective. And when I couldn't be in a hurry, I've been I've done eight of these now. On East Warren, we had 300 People in the big soccer goal. The meeting only took a half an hour and what was 295 to five everybody agree that we had about this number of people I make Nichols meeting going on for an hour and a half. And the folks change their minds because the neighbors with kids were talking what they wanted for safety and the neighbors listen to each other. The only way I vote is if it's a tie. I don't care. But we're going to listen to you so I'm not sure why this is here. Let me move this out of the weeks and once you're able to see what we're talking about
Andre can do everything. Everybody knows I'm planning director right this is the man behind this. So you we've done seven of these. This is gonna be a Are you gonna live or not? Right? This was the first one we did look like this. And the neighbors voted on it. And today of course, if you've been living on a Saturday night you can't find a parking space. It is absolutely beautiful all the storefronts that were boarded up eight years ago, every single one was occupied. They're building new buildings. We have our housing there. But it was an interesting thing. When the city came up with a good streetscape plan the neighborhood Neighbors reported it took off. And so that was the first one. And then Westman Nichols boy a touchy thing here. What's been Nichols looks almost exactly three years ago, like Dexter does today, all those boarded up buildings, every one of them was boarded. In the three years since we started you could drive down there right now it's from living all over the Greenlawn. And you have all kinds of buildings open somebody's building a new apartment building. It looks like this now, and this is when they was born, incorrigible a VanDyke looks like this. Now, this is another streetscape project and neighbors decided this is what they wanted. Not only are all these buildings occupied, this is a brand new apartment building that was built because the neighborhood's coming back. We didn't know apartment building. Now you got more people than ever now more of those storefronts open up, they take down the plywood, and they put it in real stores. What would that feel like? A lot of people's will remember where Dexter was a vibrant business court. Sometimes you remember where Dexter was so dark window streetlights, right? Yeah, you didn't want to be out there. Now we're coming back. We got a ways to go. And so Conan, every one of these, I hit immediate like this. The neighbors voted east. Warren we're building right now. West Warren, we're building right now and not far from here. Our Rosa Parks from Grand Boulevard to Claremont is being built right now. Every one was a little different based on what that neighborhood one. And so let me talk about what we're doing today. Because the thing about this is, we don't go into any block of the city and just don't do a commercial district. Businesses are going to invest where they think there's activity. And so we started this process seven or eight years ago, because I always believed the Dexter Linwood area has enormous potential. And so you know, what we've done is us with Park, right? It used to look like that. And now it's been rebuilt. That was a step that was good for the families. But it was one step. Hardly anybody ready in a heartbeat and cafe, right? This month, okay. It seems like a small thing. It's amazing when one person puts a shop in a storefront and people start to gather, somebody starts looking at the next building and the next building. All right, and so tremendous place, we're putting the pop up stores. If you see what it looks like those containers are stacked up up near the Davison. I know it looks awful right now. But I'm ready by next spring says it's gonna look like this. So this is going to be a pop up shops, you can rent them for a month to three months at a time starting up your business. So you got a business idea. You think you make a new clothing line or to rely whatever it may be, you can start out real cheap. In here, if your business starts to take off, we say why don't you take a look at a more permanent location along this corridor. So that site right next to the BP, right that's going to look like this, in the spring is going to be a local shopping place. And then the Dexter Elmhurst Rec Center, which Helen Moore heroically kept going for a long time, but the millions of dollars it would cost to renovate that couldn't be there. We now have an agreement where the city is going to reopen this as a city run rec center. And you know how it looks today. Here's how it's gonna look. Everybody always wore a debt of gratitude for all the years she fought. And then that right this eyesore right next to it yourself is going to look like all right, this is what we're doing a piece of attack. This is why I believe that this stretch of Dexter from web today was is the next commercial quarter is going to take off. I think it's got that potential. I have no trouble talking to every single business person. Why is that CVS closed in this stretch? I think there's potential to be there but we have to show them we believe in the neighborhood. And so this is what you're going to do today. What do you want the streetscape to look like? And I'm gonna give you a bunch of choices and then we're gonna ask everybody to express their opinion till we get to a final conclusion. So you know the area, Davis interweb This is
it Is this the only clicker we've got? I've done this a lot in my life, and I've never had this issue.
All right, we're going to try and go slow. So this is Davidson, right? You're no one inside that, right? Here's what Davison is. You might not think about this because you drive it every day. It has five driving lanes right to northbound, left turn lane.
is Dexter. You said yes.
So Father basketball. So we're talking about Dexter, we got two parking lanes, you can park on both sides of the street. And we got to bike lanes, these little strips here. So as long as you go slow, and the guy doesn't open his cargo, is you're right, you're right. This is Dexter today, we got about 75 feet to work with. And the question is, what would you do if you had your choice. And so I'm going to give you four choices. The first one is the one I always give, which is leave it the way it is. Because I have tell you the truth. If you choose one of these broad broad niches in the back, or DPW, Director, Rob, raise your hand, Ron is going to design it through the winter, and this spring, he's going to tear this road up, you're probably going to have one lane going in each direction, or most 23. So I don't want you to think there's no consequences. One thing is, it's just fine. The way it is, is kind of coming back. Let's leave it. There, we're gonna find out quicker. Alright, so there's the first one. Here's your second choice. If you like five lanes of traffic, you can go pretty good at five lanes of traffic, right? You like the five lanes of traffic you can keep will resurface the five why's leave it just the way it is your two parking lanes your two bike lanes, your five lanes of traffic. But here's what we'll do rebuild the sidewalks or the wall new sidewalks all the way up and down. And though some of those sidewalks are pretty off, we'll put in all the streetlights so it'd be nice street lighting looks like a nice commercial district. And we'll put in new trees and greening in that whole area. So if you like the traffic pattern today, for five lanes of traffic, we'll make it look nice. And that's an option that's available. If you want to slow the traffic, yeah, we can go to a three lane option. And so here's what a three lane option could look like. If you like this better. Yeah, you'd have three driving lanes now. So you got northbound lanes southbound lane, left turn lane. All right, so you're down to three lanes of traffic, you would have on this option, parking on the west side of the street and bike lane on the east side of the street. And here's the thinking behind this. Most of the businesses are on the west side. So you want to jump in the car as a car, go to your dry cleaners, go into the in harmony, cafe, etc, you'll be able to park right along the curb on this side. On the other side, you have your bikes here, your cars would walk across. And so what you get from this is the other thing is you'd have bump out crosswalks probably about five. CSC. What we're thinking about here is that if you're trying to walk across the street, you can come out to here have a marked crosswalk, have only three lanes that you have to walk across. So they'd be about five points between web and Davidson, where you could walk through that kind of dedicated crosswalk slows traffic down, it's gonna take you longer to get up to Davidson, easier if you want to cross the street and shop on one side or the other. The other possibility if you want to go to three lanes, that's Option three. The other possibility, if you want to go to three lanes, is shrink it by putting a bike lane on each side as opposed to the one side. And so here you get your new sidewalks you do streetlights, your new trades. In the various ones I've done, I live annoying Warren. They wanted to make it balance. And Rosa Parks. I'm coachable. I'm in Nichols. They had most businesses on one side and so they wanted to park right against the curb on the side the business had and they wanted the bikes to be on the other side. Those are just kind of conversations we've had. So every single neighborhood decides themselves what's right for them. So we're talking four options leaving the same. five lanes resurfaced. Trees, sidewalks, lights, three lane He's with the bikes on the one side and the short crosswalks. And then the other would be three lanes with bikes on both sides. So those are the four options. Somebody's got a twist on one you can tell us to throw it out. We'll talk about it Ryan and Andre are here. They can tell you whether the different ideas are feasible. But what I asked now is, I live microphones are somewhere right here. So we're going to take the time every Thursday to talk ones I'm going to ask you let everybody get through once before you start raising your hand and a second or third time, we'll come back again, we're not in any hurry if you're not. And we're just going to talk about tell me what you like, tell me what you don't like, what's your first choice? Is there one yet? Hey, whatever you think So who would like to start this? And you're
gonna ask if you can come up here and line up if you have questions, just to make it easier to get to everybody. So if you can come up over here, you guys first.
Hello, everyone. Casey Michael, first question is how long
will each of those names except the person?
Pretty much so what I think you will see on all of them is pretty much the same thing, that in 2023, it will be the street will be redone, get into the sidewalk and the trees might take into 2024. But it won't affect the traffic beyond 23. But Ron, Ron, you want to speak to that? Oh, Ron Brundage is our DPW director. He's the man who's gonna get it done. He's the one who built every single one of those software
will be able to move forward in time. Next spring, put it out for me I have a contractor on the road construction will be on the roof. But the possibility of some of the trees on the landscaping may not go in and most importantly, are going to impact you.
So road done in 23 sidewalks done by the end of 2014.
George follow Russell was association would 12 Three Rosa Parks Boulevard D it could be an option. Yep, this
well again, so I'll be glad. This is why we so I just showed you what they did of Rosa Parks. And everybody's different Rosa Parks didn't have five lanes of traffic and two parking lanes to work with. So this is theirs was far more narrow. And so this is what they decided. But as you know, Rosa Parks doesn't have the kind of businesses at least business storefront that you have along the road they did one day at Wall Street. But that's those those buildings are all long gone. So this is what they voted for there. But I would just say to you remember, you have gotten a bunch of vacant buildings and come back all the way up here. The Rosa Parks didn't have something just to keep in mind. As we talked about the options. Yes.
Hello. My name is Misty Knight, with inner city action networking. And my choice was number one,
you leave it alone.
The because when the bus goes up Dexter, and it has to pause. It holds up tracking. Again, you have a lot of people to steal wants to see. They don't see people trying to run across the street because everybody's not going to cross at the crosswalk. So you're subject to have somebody injured seriously, because of the speeding in the city also.
We have five lanes right now. And so do you think that you need to keep all five lanes? Yeah, you say that you're okay.
To live noise to six miles isn't obstruction to me.
If you don't want anything done right. I'll be the happiest guy the winner because if one was next project, yeah. So all right. Well, we got the fact I should have said this. Everybody tell us what your first choice is. We won't hold you to it. You got to try to change your mind. But it's interesting to be thinking. Okay. Diehard lions fan? I like,
Yeah, I'm here. I am a business owner in that very block. Garrison. AutoGlass. Okay, I'm on Dexter. Between Tyler and labor. I've been there close to 24 years. And I've been there when business was was booming somewhat versus to where we are now. And what I've noticed because I was lacking option three, because what I'm getting I've been getting a lot of feedback from my customers and potential customers is that hey, I wrote past it because the cars are coming past me so fast. And you're also looking at the type of people that the speeding is coming through. And by the roads being smaller, it will make people significant slow down significantly. Yes. And be aware and say, Hey, I didn't know that right there. And it also gives a lot of the other businesses a I so people can see that they're there. You know, and at the same time, it gives you enough time when you're driving down, you can enjoy what you're looking at.
You know, so we got two options. I got to vote for option three. That's, that was pretty much what living? I did. They went from five lanes to three. And the business community made the same argument. People were speeding tassel faster than ever saw their businesses. Yes.
Good evening there. I'm Denise Lyles with district five. I'm going with
option two,
because I spoke to over 100 residents in district five. And they would rather have the five lanes because they feel like the three lanes would slow down things too much in some areas. And then you would have people using that passing lane. Just cutting through they're going around, jumping in front of people.
Okay, so you want to stay in five lanes. Go ahead. So we got a vote for one vote for two and a vote for three. This is why we do this business owner. I'm down that was your business,
Chris because barber
shop. Okay, down the
street. And I was just wondering, can take just the joy roll.
Thank you. All I would love to. But right now I need to prove this section as extra comes back. We've already got some folks talking about renovating some apartment buildings between weapons joy. And if this comes and now they've got a shopping district nearby, we have a lot of vacant apartment buildings. Yes, yes. Yeah. Make them more. This is all I could do today. Right. Next to the web. Good question. There's no There's no debt. But the poor up.
I'll say keep it a little wider because it's a little crazy over here. And we don't want to people to be under
water to shoot.
So I want to
All right. All right. I got one to choose what great. All right. Go ahead.
Good evening, everyone. This is we have Davis here. I will go with option two. I think that's more logical because we're there in the areas. I'm a former police commissioner, I know about traffic flow, traffic index flows, and what are the areas that the traffic's been greatly reduced. There's more rage, you get more people upset driving. And that, you know, like say if you want to have just the air between web and date with the errors before then act that is going to be a big change in traffic flow. That's why I had a lot of problems that I'm pressing for retirement. And I had a lot of complaints all over the city about what the traffic's been great to change like that. So option two is done the logical one good thing,
good. Resident aggressive words, but I own two properties in district two and district seven. for option two. We know what's happening. What is that on mechanicals? Where is it? It's just horrible. There was people are trying to drive, you know, towards the toilet. from Illinois, to St. Greenlaw. Yeah, we don't want that in our area at all. We know people are moving back into the neighborhood, the digital riding their bikes and taking the class like it sometimes. So we want option two.
Thank you. Evening, Mayor and everyone my name is Jean and people. First of all, I just want to say I've been in the neighborhood for over half a century. So I see a lot of history in that neighborhood. And I do want to see some improvements. And I'm for option two, five lanes. I think any length shorter than that will cause a problem. It will cause a lot of drivers to go down to the neighborhood streets to get around because it'd be so narrow and frustration and I've driven down six miles away and we live in noise almost hit a car. I saw what they saw that hit the bus station, little bus stand because it was in the way of the street. feasible. So I think five lanes and also what the gentleman about we should have been brought down to zero and Dexter plenty is the basket How to answer that in one way or the other. Thank you. All right, good, fine.
I'm with option two. My reason is no nice when you start getting any stock investors that maintained to the fullest when it's wintertime, and be hard to get back and forth, down Dexter, especially when you've really had a terrible snowstorm and lack of salt and then you know, people, you know, he's not driving as carefully as they would normally do. But five minutes did you do it? This money district where people this gas stations,
okay. And this will be easier than I thought.
Hello, my name is Mario Ramsay. And I've been a resident over here for 30 years. And I'm also a biker, so I adore national MySQL. And I host bicycle ride from Russell was part and other rides. And I would say we should do to bike parking line. Because I really liked option four, option four. Okay. All right, where? Yeah, cuz I've almost been paid for five lanes. I don't know how many times they owe me three feet. And they owe us like was three. When Dexter, the five lengths they'll go 4045 feet don't care. Yeah. So I feel like if we have parking lanes, we can close it up a little bit. And also take care of snow removal when it gets cold. It shouldn't be a problem. They have to just don't go to the speed bumps down and stop them from doing that. So they got to slow down. If they slow down, they'll see some businesses with five lanes. They'll keep driving fast. They'll keep passing on the right and it will be nice. Yeah, they will. Okay, good.
I like option two. We are we have a business we are in district five, we have Dexter hardware we just opened up in June. So my concern would be like someone else said earlier, to bring it down a little bit part of that we are a few blocks down from this area. We're Webb's, that's it. And we are trying to revitalize that particular whole strip, we own that whole strip there, we're gonna be putting new businesses there as well. So I appreciate your efforts that you are trying to revitalize the city of Detroit because it does make a difference. And I believe with this particular option to once this once you guys do revitalize this particular year, again, we will have more trending. So I do believe that we
will try to get down to you. Tell me what your business is called the
COVID. We took over Dexter hardware.
New blocks, but we want to get
our partner index to her where
I gotta tell you, I've been ones where the partners and spouses voted against each other. So are you going to be on the same side?
No. But also, you know, the Dexter building is a three bedroom apartments and six storefront. So I'm one of the others. storefront next to the hardware would be DPI home renovation services.
All right. Yeah, no, it's fabulous. Business. Money to contract. Right. We do more city match every quarter the last two quarters, the biggest number winners have been Dexter laneway. And you were one of the winners. It's really exciting to see what's happening. Thank you.
So option two is what we feel is best, especially if it continues to come down.
Love what you're doing. In America, CLI Jones wrestling Association. I like option two, with the exception of the bike lanes being closer to traffic. If we could have something where the bike lanes were closer to the businesses. To me that would be a little safer for the bikers, because I ride bikes as well.
Yeah, that's pretty much option four. You can't really do a protected bike lane without shrinking the number of traffic and so it's just an interesting conversation as we've done these. Most people aren't making a decision based on whether it's bike lanes or that in a number of places walking For us five lanes of traffic, they think is hazardous and shrinking slows the traffic down. Other places it doesn't sound like that's as much of a concern here. I will say for those who are talking about technicals, I have never seen a stretch where empty buildings have been converted to businesses faster than that stretching nickels from living. I'd agree on almost every one of those CLI was have been pulled down but people are talking to write it takes you longer to get down. McNichols down. Now if you live in the neighborhood, you're walking across verticals to get to the neighborhood store. That's a good thing. If you're trying to zip from the east side of the west side a lot more lanes of traffic so you can zip through right. So those are the decisions, but we really can't do a protected bike lane. So it sounds like you're a boat for two. Okay.
Good evening, Mr. Mayor, and everybody. My name is Ty with in harmony cafe. Okay, so I am definitely for option four. Okay, okay, first of all, we definitely need to slow the lanes down. People are zipping past our place and don't even know what's there. And also the bike lanes. I'm a biker. I mean, I ride my bike to work. And my employee does plan on doing the same thing. So I think option four to slow down and traffic is is going to be key to get people to recognize our business. Okay, all right. All right. So,
borders.
This is why we're doing tracing prior, and I remember when Richard and I like absent three because it puts them together and not the cars protecting the bikers. Would it be in together because you can park on this side so that you if people are right up dancing, they decide to hit something. They don't get parked cars.
Andre, you got three different options that people liked. This is a record for your presentation. This This was the play department's job was was to give you choices. Right? So go ahead. Yes.
Chris Johnson. And I'm not in this area, actually with Commissioner McComas office, but I am in the area where the the mechanicals and I just want to say in my cleaners, you guys probably should choose option three or four. One it has helped to businesses over there, they get a lot of traffic, a lot of business companies so for business owners that will be option in for the bikers is much much safer. So I can understand a lot of times when people choose this they think about the street and traffic you got to understand it's only a small section. You know, yeah, traffic is a little bit slower on Matt Nichols. But that's a good thing. Because before that no one talked about accidents beforehand. He only talked about one accident that took place and the person who died and actually it was their fault. So I just my team, option three or four will be good
stuff again, my name is Andrew Petro resident districts tournament. I you know, a lot of people probably aren't either an expert on traffic patterns and stuff I just wanted to get the opinion of the city and maybe the DPW about which of the options is the safest because I mean I you know, I've only been there about two years and in that time I got hit with a car drunk driver crossing Dexter at the data set on my bike. So what's the what do you think is like the safest safest options?
So I'm gonna let Ron talk about safety but we were trying really hard not to try to influence what one decision or another but right as far as safety and traffic patterns, why don't you talk about how the blades effect
I think one of the first things to take into consideration is when you go to the three lane configuration traffic is going to slow down when you when you just got one lane of traffic compared to we all see what's happening right now and Dave on Dexter, it's not uncommon for folks have been driving over the speed limit. So for those of you that are most interested in in seeing the traffic speed slowdown from a safety perspective, that's something to take into consideration. Also think for folks that are cross before pedestrians that are crossing the street crossing decks and as five lanes compared to just crossing green lane, just by the nature makes it safer for pedestrians to cross the street. They don't have to cross as far as the distance but they less likely to encounter vehicles that are gone that are going at a faster speed. So I think just from those two perspectives, I think from DPW his position, we feel that if you're able to slow down traffic on any court, are you making it safer than what currently exists? Yes.
Hello, my name is Robert Yan, my wife, we lead a nonprofit organization because it's love outreach. And we also lead a young adult ministry out of our home in Russell woods. So we let right off the left lazy street on Dexter Avenue. If I had to give my opinion, we lived there for 11 years, I've probably would say either option three or four. I do enjoy the slower, you know, as far as traffic is concerned, I think it will make the streets safer. Also, I think it would really just give like this new fresh look at Dexter Avenue. You know, it definitely has potential, I've definitely seen the growth and what's happening there. I think a new fresh look to jumpstart this will be something that the community would definitely benefit from, but my option would be for three or four and I especially like light lanes and just the introduction of like the the greenery. I think we increase more crosswalks that would also help. You know, as far as safety is concerned, and you will be able to cross safely versus having a spread out in excess, but three or four would definitely be my option.
Okay. Good evening, everyone. My name is Terrence Willis. I'm the new owner of the GET BACK UP building on Dexter. Our plans are to create a space similar to tech town, but instead of the high technology entrepreneurs, arts and culture. I've personally and also to my brother lives on starting index, he's a, he's a permanent bike rider, he doesn't drive automobiles at all. And he's been hit multiple times on Dexter. So I would like to see the traffic slow down. And for both reasons. Because with with our location, we have that outdoor space in between the two buildings that we want to activate. And we envision, you know, having food trucks parked on the west side, right near the building for pop up types of type of events and things. And so option three would be my first choice, you want that
right next to your food trucks. He has a perspective, that's great.
And then then also, you know, if there was a second option, I don't know if this would be bacterial boy voting. But option four would be the next.
So we're gonna we're gonna tear we're not going to be in any hurry here. So but you're saying three is your first choice. And yes, I compare your food trucks decision.
Hello, to me air and everyone. My name is Kiana bars and I'm from in how many cafes we see more. Thank you. Now this isn't necessarily for in her new cafe, but my vote would be for the children and the elders. And that will be for action three or four to slow down the traffic. And I say that because while I've been there and in harmony, cafe suites and more, I have seen people drive across our front door on the sidewalk at high speeds. And I don't know if you've noticed that we've made a picnic area there. And I could only imagine if we had kids over there while we have people running up and down the sidewalk. And I also think option three and four will be perfect looking in the future if we're going to have the rec center and we're going to have children coming to and fro from the Rec Center. And I don't think it's safe for them to be on this five Lane freeway. Thank you
very much name is Brianne Lewis and I am originally not from that area, and I'm from Midwest time and where the event with Joe moose Greenway project is in a beautiful? Oh, absolutely. And I am a strong Small Business supporter. And my option will be either option three or four. Because I'm the type of person who will stop for small business and to add a little coup de gras to the streetscape project. Shut up re upgrade to traffic signals from overhead cables to key boosted master arms like like the afternoon passion.
Rod. You know, I agree with that. What are the prospects of doing something on the traffic lights?
Okay? That's a very good question. You got to make the decision.
Every streetscape project 2021 Other streetscape project,
in my humble opinion.
Okay, well right now, right committed to Dexter.
Yeah. Hello, my name is Melvin Toony. I'm wearing about four hats right now. I'm currently working project manager, Detroit Police Department. And this is part of my area, which I'm like the mini manager working under a grant, as well as the president of the Russell wood southern area association. So I'm here to represent them. And I'm a resident of that area as well. And I'm a property owner for properties in the same area. So I have a lot vested in this project. I've been following it since 2018. And those five driving lanes, I need to go. I did 27 years as a police officer as well, at this precinct, many, many, many bad accidents. And for what we're doing, we need to be safer and slower. And that's the problem that we still encounter on Dexter today. And that option number three, I think is wonderful because you have those wide bike lanes, and we have the business side. And so I agree with option number three.
Hello, good afternoon. My name is Michelle Roatan, and I have grandchildren that live in this area. So I'm very interested in that. The question is, when you talk about greenery and making it beautiful, how are you going to maintain it? So if the trees have leaves, and they fall? Who is responsible for maintaining that? Would it be residents businesses? How are you gonna keep next are beautiful and say?
That's a great question for all of the streetscape projects that we've done. They've all had a landscaping and greenery component. So the city takes on that responsibility. Moving forward, we require our contractor to maintain for a couple of years, part of the contract. And then after that, we're working with the city's general services, dental services department, we assume responsibility, none of that will be borne by the residents and business owners.
Did you have a vote for 123? Or four? Okay, go ahead.
Good evening, I want to 20 minutes of time. And first, let me say kudos to the designers on these plans. My vote is for option two. But in looking at these plans, my concern is that you're looking at these plans. But nowhere did I see where the current bus stops. And so I don't know if public transportation was even factored into that. And it's a beautiful thing at lighting. And Mr. Mayor, outside of Dexter as this lady here I've been a resident like some 60 years off of Fulton and Dexter and have seen thriving businesses on Dexter. I've seen them come I've seen it go. But also in the midst of the years that I've been there. I've also seen the deterioration of the neighborhood and lighting is a big factor in our neighborhoods, not just on Dexter but some like the streets you don't Colton started and Waverly Tyler and on down and there seems to be a problem if we have lighting is good enough by the trees and so we need something.
I've noticed that that we have not done a good enough job of keeping the trees off the linesman today I want to actually get into a decision. So you like option two? The question on the bus stops is a good one. And I know Ron, you can talk about this. But the if we take option two bus stop, don't change and stay exactly where they are. What will happen under Option three, and we don't show it here but we should is just as those bump outs and walkways. They will be bump outs where the bus stops off because you've got the you got the room to do it here. So instead of a car there, there'd be a bus stop. bump out there right I don't know if you want to talk about I don't know if we're going to change the number of bus stops limit
the number of bus stops as well as the locations of arm Dexter will remain the same and won't be affected. The only thing that could be affected depending on which option you select is that there's a possibility of cross stop or remove from the curb to where the new parking lane is, depending on which option you select, stops overpaying.
So if we get down to three lanes, then that means that there's a bus stop in the bump app, then traffic is held up, correct?
Yeah, it will. It will. So what would happen is your shelter would probably sit where that green car is. So your bus stop would be right there. The bus will stop. You stop by our shelter. That's the way it's working on liberty. That's the way it will work on McNichols. So there's no doubt if you're voting for three lanes, you're telling people you're not in a hurry to get down. Decks. That's the decision you're making. That's why we're having this conversation.
rustling solid neighborhood is more of a comment on options, two, three, and four. They talked about the need for public transit. We've talked about the safety of crossing the road. About every five to seven blocks between Davison all the way down the web. We have major businesses, for children, whether it's the art center that's going at the corner of Dexter and Cortland. That's also the same street that children walk to reach Hope Academy and Portland as well. We have the rec center for the kids, we have zussman Park, what I would like instead is if we could just add at least those kind of three points, or maybe even right after when the bus stops are have this protected crosswalks. Maybe it stays at the four lanes or five lanes for a majority of it. But at least those three points, I would like to see the road come in and have to protect the crosswalks. Because we know there's children crossing there.
So here's your problem with that approach. You can't have five lanes all the way down that assessment Park cut down to three lanes, then go to five lanes, then at the Rec Center go back to three lanes, it just doesn't work. So in this is this is the choice we make you either slow traffic and everybody accepts the fact it's going to take longer to get up Dexter, or we resurface five lanes, but you can't have it every four blocks, right losing the lane.
Even if we lost like a parking spot or just anything that is a parking spot on either side of those streets, just something that creates a stronger presence for crossing there. Because I personally know at the corner of Portland and Dexter, there's a bus stop there on either side. There's now going to be the Art Center. There's going to be youth crossing, I see groups of five. Trying to run across this all day long.
I'm gonna try to say this as delicately as I can. But here's the truth. It really paints a really nice crosswalk across the five lane of traffic. You have a Dexter right now with the patterns. If people start to walk out of that crosswalk picking their say, I don't I bet I'd extra enough to know. I don't think the painting the crosswalk, cross five lanes of drive is gonna make you safer. You might disagree with me on that. But I think you're making a decision as a community. Okay, do we just accept the fact that we got to zip across the street on those five lanes? Or do we will Are we willing to drive slower on next year in order to get across safely? It's a decision only you can make?
Yes. Hi everyone.
My name is Leslie Gan. I am also a resident of wrestlers, I actually stay on Leslie street. So this directly affects me and my husband forgot to mention that we have four beautiful children as well. And they often asked to go to a park they often asked to go with Family Dollar or family tree and instead of walking we drive because of the traffic. So I am all for option three because of the just the beauty of it. The landscaping the flowers, I can just only imagine what that will look like in the summer. And also it it means the improvement will help with property value as well. I've seen Dexter up and down up and down, up and down. My family has been in the neighborhood for over 50 years. I've seen Esquire right there on Dexter and Leslie. Now it's motorcycle club. But I mean it 3am All day for me and like Kiana said the safety of the children is number one because not only do we have four children. There are several children right there on that first block off the street politics
Quick question. Yes. With a three lane road with the fire trucks, the police are the EMS emergency.
So they will move just as they do on liberty oil and many other related streets. Go into the left turn lane.
Between the Wyoming
there's no line over here. No, that's. So we're talking about Dexter right now. And so what you have what you have this is, this is I mean, you see what traffic is like when the fire engines and the police come down and traffic's jammed up, they're going to left her land to go down the road. That's how it's, it's done. You got three lanes to work with. If you had two lanes to work with, you've got a much bigger problem. I don't see it. Okay. But that's okay. Okay. Lots of people came out tonight. Anybody else have anything they want to add? Go ahead.
I was thinking more speaking to the side, like when the buses come down,
they move like to the curb and out of the way. drive back.
Oh, that's not going to happen. The earlier question was right, what will happen is this, imagine this flower, if you were down a block or two, this is gonna be a bus shot, right there. So the bus will come down, it will stop right there, you'll back up till the person gets on or off into the shelter. And then it will go on. So the bus will stop driving late. So you're making the decision. If you go to three lanes, it's going to slow down. That's why we're doing this. So you can get a feel for is this what I want? Alright, anybody else who hasn't spoken would like to speak
to everybody. Besides trees, can't you put flowers out there? Also?
You can that I think the point she was making was the bump outs give you a little bit more. That's really the difference between the two? Is the added flowers on the bump house.
planners out there for options. Well, no, they'd be in the road. No, no. on the on the grass.
Yeah, you can do you can do whatever you want here on the shrubbery. And we're gonna landscape it nicely. It'll be more than just those trees. Thank you.
From district five. My question is, like my neighbor, we've grown up in that neighborhood. You guys after everything's going on, you took out most of the streetlights that were controlling the flow of traffic there you go from Dexter down poor. Yeah, those major intersections have been left to wide open, high up people drive. And now nobody goes to drive was trying to and they don't have drivers etiquette. Everybody grinds everybody off the road. But if it was more controlled streetlights, traffic lights, traffic lights that it would make the situation a little bit.
So if there is a particular intersection you think to have a traffic light, Ron can address the safety of that particular one.
So Ron does planning. So can you go back to some of those old plans that you had said you would show when street light I mean, in its tracks, blacks used to be poor, because it's so many that are missing from that, even though Dexter and Davidson. It has the most accidents and in in our neighborhood and Lynwood awesome. So I just think, planning to do something to help us as as representatives, be able to move a little more freely in our neighborhood. Right, I talked about traffic for a second.
And so I'm not sure which intersection you might be talking about. One thing we can take a look at is, is comparing the number of traffic signals that currently exist along that extra corridor to maybe what existed 20 years ago, whatever time period it might be. And one of the things that our traffic engineering division does on a regular basis, is that we're always looking at how traffic is flowing along a corridor and we making a utilize that information to determine And where traffic signals are needed. So if there's some specific intersections of you feel that maybe there's too long of a gap between the existing traffic signals, that's something that we can take a look at. To be quite honest, I traffic engineering division does this on a regular basis. And if a traffic signal existed before and it was removed, it was it should have been because the determination was made, that it was no longer needed. But we can certainly take another look at make sure you're comfortable.
Tuxedo for one, yep.
Okay. Yes,
I have one more question. So with all of these options, one of the things I really love about what happened with limonoids was that the increase of the width of the sidewalks, I think, that definitely promoted you know, as far as like, small businesses, people in the start, you know, just gather more to communicate with one another, or, you know, they're just promoted a lot of beneficial things. I think as far as community is concerned, as far as these options are concerned, would we be doing the same thing within the
sidewalk, think about what happens, the water runs down the storm drain, to move the sidewalk, you've got to tear out, the storm rains down both sides of the road. So after living, we've never moved another sidewalk. And living the protests over the construction
Jackson for option three afford to slow down we need to slow down. But what what what's gonna happen when people are just slowing down, we're gonna start getting that traffic one to the neighborhood. And that fast traffic to get around that that's what we did was that we realized that
it isn't happening as much as we were expected. I knew a lot of speed humps in here. But you got to be pretty backed up to want to go down a side street over speed humps turn around, go down a side server speed up. This is a decision that you guys have to make today. You know, your neighbor better than I do, which is why we're doing it this way. I don't think anybody's going down a side street because of buses stop. Now traffic Black couple block? Maybe they are. And that's something you have to evaluate.
Just one last question. Just as part of this initiative, one of the biggest problems in our neighborhood is you know, just the public services, things like you know, DT having major outages we've had, you know, at least basically like a week about a just every year. And then I'm sure a lot of people here were affected by the flooding, and the sewage backups, is there anything that's going to be done develop either those two issues.
So we need to be honest. But what we're doing here, I'm trying to rebuild the commercial corridor. So you have a place you can walk to the chicken shop, like many of you can remember, it isn't going to solve your basement flooding. It's not going to solve DTE power outages. But for those who have been here long enough to remember what Dexter was like when you could walk up to the local store, where you can take your kids with you. That's all we're trying to do here, obviously is more than that. But this decision, so here's what we're going to do, because we're not I don't want anybody to feel better about this. We're going to ask for one last time, and then we're gonna, we're going to ask your first choice, whatever the top two vote getters are, where they're going to discuss those choices and make a final vote. So this won't be your last quote. But I want to get a chance to talk to each other. When you see what the top two choices as well as category do the first draft Go ahead.
Okay, last question. Can we put down no matter what decision you make? Can you put down like, places where you could lock your bike? Where like, you know, different avenues it's like has other places you have places where you can lock up? And there's not a lot of places? Like how can we get that? So we'll take a look at that.
Okay, so let's go through and say maybe everybody agrees or maybe we're going down the road.
How many people here Mona, will you please count write this down. Ray or whoever. Who's O'Connor? Who's the chief car? All right.
So Okay. How many people would like us to leave it alone?
Option one, no construction next up. No, one time. This is like a real election. You get one vote.
All right. All right. Go vote for versa. We don't make one decision. How many lights option to the five lanes of traffic. Let's count these up. You don't get extra votes by yelling krill. We're always looking for an edge over here over here, at in vaults for option two balls for option 317
On this side
you got 32 for option three, how many for option four? One for our 23344 option four, five for option four, six. Do that right. So nobody undecided option for it all right. Okay, so can you give us our counts for the round one of the vote
32 and 80 with a top 218 For option 232 For option three,
how many for option four?
Six, okay,
so we're down with two and three.
Let's see,
to sit on the floor. Okay. So I want to take the time and give you a chance. If you want to persuade your neighbor about why yours is right