Detroit Public Works, 48217 Slow Streets Improvements Community Meeting

3:09PM Feb 3, 2025

Speakers:

Keywords:

Slow Streets

sidewalk repairs

ARPA funding

community meeting

traffic calming

median islands

ADA compliance

wayfinding signs

pedestrian safety

utility fixes

speed bumps

seating for seniors

historical signage

grant programs

neighborhood improvements.

We can go ahead and get started. I know it's 613 now. Good to see you, everyone. My name is Gabriella, Santiago Romero. You call me Gabby. I'm your council member here in District Six. Proud to be your council member and excited to give you some updates. Over to DPW to give us some updates on what we've been able to do with the $1.4 million so for folks who don't know, I was able to negotiate with the mayor some ARPA funding for for street improvements. We very often about sidewalks into being approved, or street suits it to be safer. So we were able to get $1.4 million for 40 217, and then another 1.3 something for 4210 these are two neighborhoods in the district I grew up in four to 10 who feel as if they're overlooked often. So I wanted to at the first chance that I could put so much this isn't a lot of money. I realize now I don't come from money. That million was a lot of money. It's not when it comes to these projects. It can only spread so so thin. But now that we know we're going to advocate for more, and truly, I believe in the EW can conflict and know more as well. Once we invest in an area, the city wants to do more. If we already put money into sidewalk repair, we want to make sure we're looking at the street lights, we're looking at the rest of the neighborhood as well. So that was another goal that I have, is to at least start to invest money into the neighborhood to make sure that we are encouraging the rest of the city. We've got a massive plan going on right now as well. So I think this really puts us in a good position to be able to invest more money. So I wanted to share that. Let me pull my notes up to me to make sure I don't miss anything. So so far, we were able to replace 600 over 600 slates of sidewalks, slides aside sidewalks. I will be able to get some updates of that as well. And then today we're going to hear around some of the options that we have for what we can do with the rest of the funding that we that we received. So that's the purpose of today is phase two, essentially, and we'll go through a little bit of what that looks like. Also, keep in mind, this is a beginning. So as we're looking at these options, thinking about what we can build, I think that's always been thinking about what we can build and add on, because it helps me know what we should be advocating for in the future. So if we can't do what other whatever kind of streets think we want now, what are the opportunities that we can pull that back? Because we doing budgeting and capital planning, we're able to say, hey, in order to one second, we've got some ideas. We already put some money in. Can we invest more so things are processing takes some time, but we're starting now. The other things that I'll share while I'm here, before turning it over to DPW, is, I know often we are concerned about fourth streets, and I've been asked many times to look at Fourth Street and we can do to make it safer. We know that forest Street is a state road. It's controlled by m.so if the council we don't have much control over that, the best that we can do is advocate for you, which we have been doing. We passed the resolution last year for m.to conduct a traffic study, which they are going to do, so they're going to begin the process of looking at Ford Street, and I know they done this in the past, but at least our office will have that report and that analysis that we can use to then advocate with state legislators. The stomach is going to require money as well to to invest in safe upgrades for fourth streets. So wanted to let folks know about Fourth Street as well. The study will begin in the Spring this year, so being able to look up for that you should see end up this year. Come this spring, with that, I will turn it over now to PW, I don't believe there's anything else that I have to share. Thank you all so much for being here. Thank you for the work that you looking forward to hearing what we're going to do here is there? Are there any questions for me before I turn you over to DPW? If not, I want to make sure before you leave that

you talk to this lady she's been talking about. She know you already

starting to with you about starting the black club, okay? And it was back in fall, the summer of last year,

okay? And

third, me to people who can assist me, and it's been a slow process because I'm still waiting on the deputy. Definitely, yeah, don't get back in contact with me so that we can do alright.

Okay, happy to help with that. So I guess before I jump off stage, Trish is here for my community, senior community as well. Happy to help you with that we can follow up with and don't you. Processes, because we want to have a new block club for folks who may not know our office at about 30 community organizing. We are encouraging block clubs to be creative. We are working with the block club leaders. We have individually called the block Club. We're very inviting leaders to come and organize with us. We're talking about safe cleanups, going around the districts and supporting each other, doing the network some anxiety. We want to do that we'll get your information intricate and without letting us know all the information, because we want to make

sure that we have Yes, and I will say my team gets the work done I usually refer and is not going to have an incredible Feel free. Thank you so much. Really appreciate this.

Thank you very much. I like to thank everybody for being here today. I know I am competing with the EPA today, and I know those meetings are very well attended, so I thank you guys for being here. Thank you for just spending your evening with me. This is community meeting number two, about 48217, slope streets, and we want to talk about some of the improvements that we've done thus far, and then move forward what we will be doing and be looking at after this presentation and question and answer, we can go and talk around some of our role plots that are on table or some of the boards up there. I have our my colleague here, Christina Peltier, that helped me out as well. And we have our Spalding and detector team that's working on design work back in the back that will help us out as well. So if you have any questions, if you can't get to me, they will be able to help out. I know Trish is here from Spa as a citizen, but she kind of jumps in and helps out as well too, so she might end up helping out also. So since this is very intimate and not a lot of people here, feel free to just stop me anytime you have any questions about anything, if I'm going too fast, if I'm going too slow, let me know. But this is going to be concentrated just on the 40 217, slope streets project, and everything that has to do with that 1.4 5 million that the council person talked about. If we have any other things that we want to bring up, I have a little blue book that I can place it in, but there is your best hope, right there, with third 13 there, with TJ and everyone else, just come along for the ride. Alright, let's see if we are working. There we go. So like I said, we're going to kind of recap what we did at the first community engagement session. This is community engagement session two of two, and that doesn't mean I love you or we're going to be done. I'll be able to please in contact with you guys as much as you need. Throughout the process, I have my information up at the end as well. We'll also talk about some of the sidewalk repairs that we did in phase one, and then talk about what we're looking to do in phase two, we'll talk about some of the slow street interventions that we want to look at, and some of the things that we'll try to define, such as the median islands, chicanes and Healthy Streets. We'll also talk about the wayfinding sides. These are some of the things that you guys chose in the first community meeting, and some of the things that we've been working on. We also voted on starting some of the sidewalk repairs that we've done within the area. We'll talk about how many flags we got done and what square footage that meant, if you guys are into that type of stuff also. And then we'll get into question and answers next steps, and then we'll get out of here. Well, at least I'll get out of here. So just to recap, it was about 20 community members that we hosted here at the Kennedy rec center back on October 16. And basically what we did, we had an exercise as to where we had road plots sitting out, and we talked about kind of what we wanted to do with some of the treatments that we can do with this 1.45 list. Sounds like a lot that was in my bank account. I wouldn't be here right now talking to you guys, but in order to do certain big projects, like a full streetscape project, it would have been about ten million per month. So we don't have a terrible amount of money to do a lot with, but we have enough to start something that can do a lot of good. A lot of these sidewalks were trip hazards and something that we worked on, and you guys helped us decide where some of those things will go. So as you see, we were in some of the areas, working on those streets. Why wasn't my street chosen? Well, we have what's known as a slow street network, and this was vetted years ago, before I even got to DPW, and these streets were part of this network, and these streets were picked out by council's office through that network, because we vetted this through council's office, and that slow street network was approved of. So we're trying to make sure that the streets that we have brought to you, that you've learned. Out, and they're brought to you as a community. And you talked about, through over the years, we're actually doing what we said. So we're working on the streets that we told you we will work on, and we understand there's more need, just as council person talked about, we have a lot of need that we want to make sure that we are trying to make a as much change as we can and as little bit of time as we have left. So let's talk about phase one. This is what some of our sidewalks look like. It even worse. We didn't put everything down that we had. We had some that looked just like a field going across the driveways, because they were just that bad. So what did we do. We listened, and we took some of the funds that we had and we used them on what you guys said was some of the most important things, for trip hazards, for traveling, for seniors, for people. Heck, you might not even be a senior, because, look, might have a bad knee that day. You might end up having surgery, and you can't get around is good. You want something that you can feel safe about going up and down the street and again, these are slow street projects. We want to make not only the streets safe for you to walk on, as far as where cars are involved, but also while you're on the sidewalk as a pedestrian. Yes, didn't we

have a third of all that you had to make, uh, settler successful to handicap. That

is what our ADA Americans with Disabilities Act. It has to be accessible for all users. So no matter whether you

have a disability, where's the federal money that came with that? No

federal money came with it. That is a mandate that comes with every federal dollar that we use. So whenever we get a federal dollar, we have certain mandates and laws that we have to follow while we use those federal dollars. And if we don't do so, we get deemed or some I'm sure, yes, I just thought,

usually when they come up with a law like that, they come with some money,

I wish. So we have certain things that are called unfunded mandates, yeah, and sometimes they say, do this, and they're saying, do with the money you have, with the money that you'll get in the future. So this is one of those mandates that no matter what you're doing, you have to make sure that you're accessible for all walks of life, right? So yeah, and they controlled her well, the feds, pretty much, I don't know if you remember years ago, the drinking age in New Orleans was lower than 21 New Orleans said, we're not raising our drinking age. They said we won't get this money. And they're like, we're raising the drinking age. That's what we think we're going to do. So ultimately, yes, they do control the the purse strings. And I have to get too far down the weeds, our gas tax goes to the federal government. We get a certain percentage of it back, and we're what's known as a donor state. So as a donor state, states that don't make a lot of money from the gas tax, we ended up giving money to those other states, and the rest goes into the general fund. So we get about 92.3% of the money back from gas tax. And that's how the federal government does. And then we do that and other funds that come through, and those are the ones we use to fix our roles, some of the things like grants that we have, and these are the dollars we can use as well. It just depends. But yet they didn't give us that. No. So yeah. So basically, what we did in that phase one, we looked at all of the flags. Flags are those squares that are either six or five feet wide that we looked at replacing because we wanted to make sure look you guys were safe to walk down the street. We did an intentional walk through with the spawning and Decker team and the kdo team, which are our consultants. We walked that whole strip. Actually, I walked half that strip and walked back half that strip, and had a meeting ahead and get to after that. But they ended up walking that whole strip twice, I believe, in order to make sure they captured everything, they took pictures of everything, aerials of everything, to make sure they picked out and fixed everything that needed to be fixed. So this is what we did prior to the end of 2024 this was done around the end of November and into December before the weather got bad. And this is part of phase one, where we fixed the four foot sidewalk flags, which were 1500 square feet, and we fixed the six foot ones, which about 5000 square feet, leaving us about over 23,000 flags that we 2300 flags, was it, yeah, that we fixed all together. So we wanted to make sure that we can make the roads as safe as possible.

When and all of you voted that sidewalks Yes, anyone who was at the last meeting voted that sidewalks were a fire. Yes,

I mentioned that earlier, that you guys voted in that first meeting, and we. Got you guys on camera too. So everybody

that was not here at the meeting to vote, they may have been overlooked in their area,

where where the parents needed no so the money, meaning that these are ARPA dollars, there is a lot of background work that we have to do. We can't spend this outside. We're from scratch. We can't spend this outside of where the dollars are stated to go. So if you said, Look, I'm from electric street that I know is Miami beacon and Beatrice, I want it on electric. As long as those dollars have been granted to those areas, we can't move them outside of that area. Yeah. So that's

what my issue is, if, if it's if money was allotted for the project to go to surface streets to electric, how does some of it that you get done and not all of it

was within the footprint of the cross section. So it would not what you see on electric. Was not us, that was utility. So at the same time, we jumped on the utilities backs for where they didn't do what they were supposed to do. We said, Hey, we need you to come in and fix some of these streets. So it's a lot of area on Beatrice that had utility fixes that were not up to stuff. So we made sure that they were up stuff as well. And I know it was a lot of utility fixes. And at the same time, we're still as the city as a whole, dealing with our sidewalk program in the neighborhoods. So there are certain fixes that are coming through as well with our side.

Now, during the construction, they deconstructed a lot of self to make that sound false. Happen. Yes. What if they feel short putting things back,

they will be in trouble, because what we do is we

found a lot of areas

that they lack. They safety

issue for kids or kill themselves, or some of these old them homes has been there for three months, and they can't cross the street there. We keep wanting these kids, they be playing in the field and right there, next to the field before the street. It's a four foot hole, about

a foot and this is in the field itself.

It's like it's at the it's at shaker, shaker in Miami, between shakers on electric, at the media, okay, in an island, and they came in and they did repairs, but

even if it snows outside, but

That's not my point. Where's my city inspector.

So with utilities is different from the work we're talking about, specifically with 4217, so they had inspectors with them the whole time. Utilities you might not have that.

That's why I'm asking this question. Now, yes,

this is something that we unfortunately have to rely sometimes it's not all time, sometimes on the residents to give us a heads up if these things do happen with utilities.

So we have about eight people through DPW that are trying to monitor the city going across the city, but it's a lot of roads. So if you see issues like that, please report it on improve Detroit, or call Calvin, yeah, but this

side of the town is not that big. What do you mean

that eight people are all so when you see those issues, please report it on Detroit. Let us know, and we'll send an inspector out there. We just can't keep eyes on everything. That's

what I'm saying something, because that's a problem.

And then we have that in here again. While we were doing our work, we noticed, because we walked it, and we made sure that the utilities came good. As long as we can get on them, they will come out and fix what they have messed up. Now that doesn't mean that there's other issues from private contractors or other things too. Those things might be prevalent as well, but where we know there is a fact, when we deal with our contractors, we have actual inspectors on site with them. They test their concrete, they test and make sure they're doing what they're supposed to, make sure they're cleaning up. If not, we dig them right away. We

don't, and the mayor tracks everything that goes through Detroit, so all our departments have to report back to him how fast we're

responding to those tickets. So now, man. Us a few things that they doing. It's a safety issue, and how much you get paid. It's a safety issue, the city engineer need to, need to do something about it. It's just that so they don't even cost money you already paying them. In

addition to the folks who are monitoring facility companies. We also have our city engineering inspectors that go up, but again, we're not going to catch up.

Consider your cause so

people that are

visited and moving forward, people that are

visiting my garden, if you want to

follow me and other issues that you see on the road,

she sees something too, and I wrote it down too after this weekend, I said, drive over there and you got my information

on more reason To have a black love, black love to be the eyes and ears for you all these kids and seniors

too. Because, like you said, it's

all about making sure everybody's safe, regardless of what age they are. And we have a mixed community of seniors and children, and we want to make sure that everybody I know that you all's playing too, but still, if we don't speak up,

you won't know. And again, I wrote it down when this meeting ends, if it's not too dark, but if I can see the whole put in the right

if all three of us wrote it down and we don't get it

the next time you see us, just remember,

okay, so yeah, but yeah. So with just this specific process for 40 217, solo Street, that wouldn't have been an issue with these guys and their sub, the issue you guys are the stuff that's that's crazy. But the the issue is that, again, like we were talking earlier, right before the meeting, it's a way more infrastructure than we have people that we have back, like you said, 1956 and moving forward, we're trying to make sure that we've been good stewards of the money and also the infrastructure and doing everything we can in order to try to fix it, but we need to make sure that we're doing it as diligently as possible. But again, this is a large city. We need eyes and ears to tell us, Look, this is wrong, and we are getting things fixed when we hear things not everything is getting quickly fixed. Now, progress. Yeah, don't get the twist. We see progress. So I want to swiftly go for these, because again, you guys have seen them. These are part of our phase one. These are just some of the stretches that you can see just how long some of our was in the red. These are the stretches that we have done so far, and again, some of them were so unsafe we had to walk in the street. And you guys know that already, because you guys walk your streets, and you can see where we made sure that we ended up getting as much as we could right before we got into phase two, and I think we get over 98% of everything as far as phase one goes on all of the sidewalks. Now that brings us into phase two, going back to where we were talking about with the Americans with Disability Act, we have what they're called the tactile or truncated domes at the crosswalks you see either the red or the metallic dome where there are there for those with visual impairments of people to see that this is a crosswalk you're about to enter traffic, we want to make sure that we're taking care of those as well in order for everyone to be as safe As it can crossing the streets, and we're going through again, and we're making sure that we capture all of those within the neighborhood. We have a few more of those that we want to get phase two. So the other piece of Phase two will be traffic calming. We know we've heard in the last meeting of meetings before is that people are driving way too fast. And unfortunately, no matter what you do, people are going to drive way too fast unless you try to treat some of the symptoms of fast driving. And some of the things that we are looking at are things such as median islands, and these are are deterrents for people that are driving fast trying to turn these corners at way higher of a rate of speed. We know the speed kills. We know the speed doesn't mix with pedestrians and a person versus a car. That's not a winning situation. We want to do everything we can while people are crossing the street. Streets for them to be as safe as possible. And these are some of the things that we've talked about in other meetings before. Some of the treatments that we're looking at in order to make these crossings safer, these streets safer, some of these poles that we use, these flexible poles, delineators, where cars could not hit or to slow down, we'll put in these meetings, some of these raised up berms we'll put in to make sure that cars do not try to run over pedestrians or speed down the streets. And we do have other treatments that we can use, such as things called chicanes. It's when you kind of do that sneaking situation down the street and making sure that drivers are able to slow down and not just drive like it's a fair way. Because when you see some of these streets where you see just a long straight way to start speeding, and they speed and they play their music loud, and you don't like it, especially at night, and that's when you have some of your biggest accidents, because people aren't very visible sometimes, and then sometimes people are impaired too when they're speeding. So we want to make sure we're doing everything to make things visible and to make sure that we can keep people alert as they're driving down the streets. I One of the other treatments is looking at Healthy Streets. Healthy Streets are for not only cars. They are for pedestrians, walkers, people, playing, biking and whatever. And we want to make sure that we can change things like this here at this skirt and be interested. People are going to the park. People are crossing the streets. And viscer is a street where you see a lot of high rate of speed. We want to make sure that we can look at some changes where we can have either the zebra or the ladder crossings, where they're more visible. We can put in better stock bars for people who have more visibility. We can put in bump outs for people to be able to slow down as they get to some of these intersections, and give people also a wider, a less than a wider berth to cross, so they'll have a shorter crossing distance, which it'll be safer for those that are crossing, especially for those that are impaired and are not able to make it across the street as swiftly as some of these young folk out here. So the stop bars are going to be these bars right here,

where cars should stop at, oh, those. So we put these well before the intersection crossing, because we want to make sure that cars are aware. This is where you stop at to give a safe distance from pedestrians and people crossing. What do people usually do? They roll through now we give you more of a visible stopping there, and we give you more to watch out for. These have been shown by studies to slow people down and get people to be more aware of these crossings. And we want to make sure that we're giving every driver a chance in order to make sure that they are aware of this is a stop, slow down, let these pedestrians cross more visible ladder or zebra crossings at the crosswalks. These are what's called bump outs. We'll do painted bump outs. We'll do violence people usually don't roll over the bollards unless they're impaired, unfortunately, and we're working on impairments, so that's just something that just happens unfortunately, and it's just going to happen as long as but every treatment that we can do, we're going to try to do in order to make things safer for you as a pedestrian or bicyclist.

So you can see how this is one. I believe this is Toronto, correct? Christina, yup. So that first picture is a image in Toronto where you see that they have shortened the crossing distance between one curve to the other, so it'll be safer for people to cross, and you've given a barrier from the COVID. So these are some of the treatments that we can work on. Yes. Now

they did a lot more than that. They showed the area of the the width of the street. Also, yes, I don't even know how they allow parking and bicycles on that. Some streets won't take that. So they on the avenue of fashion going through that yes, so

some streets are able to take it. Streets here that we're dealing with, we won't have biceps, no, no. We won't have bicycle lanes. We won't have shareholders or anything like that for bicycles and cars. So we'll just have bump outs that are represented, or certain delineators that are represented. That's

why. We pushing speed bumps, because when nobody else is there, they don't want to tear up their

car, yep. So the other thing this does is, you see, like a miniature little speed bump here, yeah? So it forces the driver to make a tighter turn, so they have to slow down. They try to make that turn too fast. They're going to feel the

ball. We pushing that, yeah, you know the those are things that we can introduce and bring in, but

we pushing that because they don't cost that much. Don't take much of it down. Nobody complains about a speed bump in front of the house.

Not a lot you gotta. You gotta way to complain versus the safety

risk. It just the you never want to get 100% it's just going to be some. We've had people that have asked for speed bumps. Then we're not in front of my house. Or they'll say, well, well, we don't want them anymore. So it's not everyone, but you'll get some complexity and there

and the delineators, we know people hit them, consider them like training wheels for drivers. So they're allowed to take so many hits before they move into place, right? They're actually meant to do that so they don't hurt the driver, but they notify the driver.

So I have a question. So between and I know we talked about the practice going forward, it's being initiated. But between Downey and Omaha on port Street, though there's blind spots so you can't see the ongoing oncoming traffic, because people are parking their cars close to the the side street, if you know what I'm saying. So the corner, I'm sorry, thank you. The corner so you can't see the traffic coming. So if you're inching out, you might hit somebody, or somebody might hit you, because there's cars parked up and down. Maybe, I don't know how many feet from the corner, but it's, it's a blind spot. If we, we were turning the corner on Downing, and there's trucks and cars there, and they were doing construction on down where we had to go around the destruction project. It was a big gift, and so there was a tree there that had not been cut down, and it scratched the side of our vehicle. So we got on a new vehicle. It's because there's a there's not enough room for you to turn the corner. When we turn that corner, there's a stop sign meeting stoplight. When we turn that corner, we're actually running into oncoming traffic. We gotta make sure that we slow down enough so that we won't hit the people that are coming. Oh, we have to

sit that way to the right, clear until they leave. Until they leave, they don't fix it. They finish their construction system. Yeah. So

there's a couple of ways we can address this and and you have our contract always false on these issues. You can always talk about them outside of meetings. Also, if there is a tree in the right of way that's causing a visual issue, we can reach out to our partners in general services and get that tree as far as if people are parking too close to the corner, I want to say the limits 20 feet we can try to work the local police, precinct,

enforcement Guy and everything is going through the mailbox.

Parking doesn't Park in our musical parking. They don't do that. Yeah,

it's the police person, because if it's not New York, number one, number two, if it's not city, we wouldn't be able to enforce

it. But we do have ways to work through some issues, and let's definitely talk more after the meeting. So and then with m dot, there's issues too, that we can have them, put some signage up,

we can work with them. And then

Council, so there is the study that cost was talking about coming up on fourth with the state of Michigan. So these are some of the things that we can raise with the state of Michigan as well. Going forward, there is a lot of sight distance issues that we will have to address to going forward. And we do deal with trees, we do deal with things on our roads, but we do take those things into consideration.

Or if we we don't, we do well in the department that does so we can help you, even though you don't have the black thumb yet, but when you get the black

thumb, we'll still with that. And that

is one of the advantages of the perfect sense of the intersections too, is that many people can't park right up to the point exactly. Helps with that.

One of the other treatments that was definitely asked for way finding signs. And we're looking to put way finding signs to South Beacon Street for highway Beatrice Street, Miami, electric street, Miami, South Fork, Michigan, and our driving beaters. So to make sure that people have a way to find their way to some of the points of interest around the neighborhood, and these are some of our Phase Two fixes that we are looking at, looking forward to,

and with that, love me with questions, it's kind of nice,

but it's a small meeting, because we can talk about some of these other problems

exactly like I said it. We wanted to keep it very informal. And again, if you guys wanted to question me. You have all of our information now. Definitely can reach out to us. I do have things that I will forward to whoever is responsible for those, and then we'll keep trying to move forward.

Appreciate you all. We appreciate

you. That's why we do it.

You're going to get the first low street signs in the city. So that's make sure we get them right. Help us get them right. So obviously the Pew walk Park coming direct center. If you have other ideas, we don't want to feature private businesses. We want to keep it community based assets, so it makes sense. Everyone is an asset. And

these are some of the things that you guys have talked about in the past as well. That's what I want to highlight.

Those so Can y'all talk to any of these people about putting growth in store in this paper? Who do you talk

to we work through the GC and private sector things like that as well. We work with John, got to know somebody well. That doesn't mean that they will actually, it's a lot of heavy lifting that goes with that. I used to work in the planning department, and that's one of the things that we would try to work on with the Department of Economic Corporation. We would try to make sure that we can work with some developers. And a lot of what they look at is population. Usually, when you give your zip code at stores, they take those down for retail. You're serving to them. And there are other communities that have put grocery stores in it. Food columns has popped up, and a lot of other grocery stores have come in as well. But these are things that are impossible, but they're not something that usually DPW affects, but they are something that we can bring to some of our cohorts and speak about and these are some things you could raise as well.

Just say on that note, when this whole process sort of began, and I just saw Wanda Walker, she was a part of some

initial conversations

that the council member had with some folks to kind of test the waters as we launched this project. And out of those conversations, there was one that was had with the roller cape, right? Yes, and I don't know what maybe you might know. I don't know what the status is at the moment, but he was trying to apply forcing dollars to activate the space right next to the roller cape, to turn it into not a grocery store, but kind of like a smaller grab and go with some clean air meals. And so and some essential I don't again, I don't know what the status is. I know we will come into some applications with green growth program, I believe, with DDT and overseeing link over so again, we're trying to make those connections too. We don't control those programs. Who gets up, who gets the money, but trying to connect them to have those conversations together, strong proposal, don't forget that. So I don't know. Do you

have any update on

smaller next to the roller Kyle Black was trying to apply to

that? Well, he said that there's things still in the opera,

but we were trying to attract grocery stores

out here, but we know that that takes a certain kind of effort, that that is not in your control, that is not we were hoping that the City Planning Department will somehow some kind of moments that reflect, like, I know, you guys get applications where people look into where could they put a grocery store? Sometimes they already have an area in mind, so, but for those people who are saying, you know, we want to open an old grocery store in Detroit. Me, and I know there's people that is buying for grocery stores, because Detroit is a food desert, really. We were just hoping that our board and shape and Business Association, we're looking at launching some kind of some type of campaign that would probably just throw something out there too, some potential maybe big box stores, because we do have land vacancy out here that would accommodate a grocery store. But we're hoping city planning with assistance with something like that, saying, hey, well, we have some people that's looking for an area, so we could let them know that this is an area that is really there isn't a market, because we're surrounded by 8/4, down river communities, Gateway tip 40, how we've got access to three ways out here. We're close to the airport, so there are some amenities that and we're great neighborhood, so there are things to attract them here. We're close to the river, we're within minutes from downtown. I

apologize,

but all that to say, we know too, we hear you, and that was part of we were trying to help make that connection PDD and City Planning and Development make that sales right.

I Yes, okay, but I have to walk down the sidewalk lately. But when some houses were torn down, they kind of

messed up the sidewalk and for years, you know, the sidewalks, you know, pretty much gone, but I

haven't walked out lately

to see if it's been prepared or not. But it's the

first block of that sort between Miami, yeah. So we did do again, looking at a couple of days, we did do the stretch of Beatrice Molly drive out to Sheffield. We did the stretch of Miami and Deacon as well. So we wanted to make sure that we spent the dollars where they were required to be spent in just because if we went outside of that, then we will be but there are, again, still city efforts that are ongoing every year in order to try to fix sidewalks. So usually we try to make sure if a developer comes in and messes up, they pay for it. If there's a situation as to where utility comes in, they fix it up, and we get all them about it, but it's going through and trying to fix the many, many, many miles of cycle so, but yeah, so these are where we have worked on and then we have a lot of work yet still too. Yeah, yeah, that's true. And as you heard Councilwoman say, she sees that the need is greater for greater dollar amount, and she's going to work even harder to get more money for some of the spaces

look nice. The city's got a office for grants. So yeah,

many day, I don't know, yeah, they're they're literally working to, yeah, pull grants all the time. We were just on probably what four grand calls today, yup. So we're looking to pull as many dollars as we can, believe you, but we tell you, it's we're over time trying to pull dollars to fix everything. We're over time trying to pull up dollars.

And this is why it's also important to all invokes that in the past, what kind of grant money to get into the

state exactly?

I was late, and I know I apologize, but I wanted to know I noticed that Miami Street had kind of been done, so I was just, I guess if you could just speak to if you haven't already, I apologize where we are in terms of spending down the monies that have been allocated for this community, yes,

so we are approximately about, want to say, 45% step down right now, right on the dollars, $1.45 million to do so. We started with the Phase One projects, which were the. Sidewalks in the neighborhood. That's something that you guys voted on unanimously to start that first. We started that in 2024 and finished it up in 2024 with the phase one. We made sure that we get every bad flag. Those are those squares either four feet or six feet long, every bad one that we came across was in the footprint where we were allotted to spend those dollars. And we came through and did those, and we were talking about phase two, coming forward, spitting down the rest of the money, with some of these slow street fixes, as well as some of the ADA wraps and tactile domes, where you see we cross that in order for visually impaired and people to know that this is a crossing and that they need to wait for crossing

in light of the high senior population in this community. Yes, we were looking at trying to get seating along the fort and Schaefer business corridors, we are having some challenges. I guess you already know about the bus shelter. Yes, we're working with the dot and dot, hopefully they can put the shelters in a different location along the route, but just in terms of seating, is there is that something that's in the budget? Unfortunately,

we'll lean it up against, Yeah, unfortunately, because those are outside of the footprint. But the ARPA dollars, they're so astringent, we have to stick to the routes that they were assigned. So we have to fill out every month, a itinerary sheet of what was done, where was done, and why it was done, if it falls out of that purview or the project area that we get deemed, unfortunately, we won't be able to spend those dollars there. But there are other avenues for Fort Schaefer that we can exercise, working with MDOT and working with

you can let me know. I mean, I could, I could raise the money for the season. I just look, I feel really bad. I see seniors with oxygen tanks just leaning up against their minds. Warren

is one of the streetscape projects that was for Warren, where they placed in season with some of the money they had for that streetscape. So there are possible for some of the destruct city roads that we do, but we're looking to make sure that we can work with our partners, whether it be the county, whether it be the state, to work on some of those as well, and then within our own city, with the Department of Transportation.

One more question, no problem, how much money would be needed to maybe put in maybe six benches, three on three along before along Fourth Street, and then I should say eight. So four, I mean shaker. How much money would we need

for that is where my knowledge stops, because it has to do to a certain standard, and it would have to be with TJ.

I don't know, I wouldn't be with us. The only thing I would say, because I know this is something we've been trying to provide, is the last meeting we had with DDOT and

MDOT was they were no longer being just benches. It's going to be a shelter and bench combination. But as you just mentioned earlier, there's still issues with the placement because of the speed, and so the council member shared it earlier. And I think, I

think this year we're supposed to be inviting

great but MDOT did say they were going to be doing everything in the study but starting in the spring, some sort of analysis figure out what sort of intervention might be possible to

be to address the type of concerns. But again, and that, so we're just trying to prevail them, to do those studies on the extent we can, because the city

can never. So if you have any

other feel

free to bring me into those. I wish I had different. I know that's okay. This week you will Yes,

and then long term, we can see where things happen, political and try to pull resources. So let's, let's use as many

attributes as we can try to make some action. Okay, you know, the green way is going to start in shape, and go down through Jefferson, go through ecourse. So maybe

it might be a feature grant you can apply for foundation or marathons and keeping

the match. Have your God already said they they go.

So let's keep it. In trouble. And the last thing is, they do, I believe, when we ask, you got the cost per shelter, which would also include, eventually, $50,000 Okay, so not

cheap, yeah. And, you know, it's this unfortunate. Lauren, no, it wasn't through the destruction of anyone, yes, vehicles, yeah, yeah. And

that's one of the problems that they deal with, constantly replacing the ones that they get knocked down. So that's something that they're dealing with all the time. Even when we were rolling past the newer streetscape on Warren yesterday, there were benches that were hit. He's praying, wow. So it's, it's something that's going to continue to be a problem, and we're just trying to do the best we can to slow cars down and to get people more responsible as they drive through neighborhoods,

you know. And I feel that because I am from a legal world where I had to deal with people and the schematics and the way that they put things on main corridor. So I do understand the challenge, but it just seems like it's a quick fix if they just put it at another stop. You know what? I mean? They don't have to have it at Ford and Schaefer. They don't have to have it at Fort another drive. There are stops along along the route.

We have a nd that director, okay? And then we can get the deputy

director also at the end, yeah. So these are just things that we continually just walk up with. And one of the things too, with d dot, with some of the stops, once they go through and do their level of service, and do the studies they have to do another one in order to move stops and to do things like that. So that's something to

keep in mind. But it might be better, you know, Fourth Street is here than shape is here. It might be better because, you know, more than once has been knocked down on the Fourth Street, but maybe near the gas station. It's a little area that's further away from the street. It might be best for it to be over in that area for port and shape, because, you know, you kind of still see what street if you haven't scheduled anything, know when it's coming. But we might be better than having a side with the back from the street. And

d dot does do certain meetings where they do work on their level of service, and they invite people out, and then they'll vet the public on what works and what doesn't work at times too. So those are some things that we can probably inform you about. Them because those are things that they do when they do work on levels of service.

Are there any thoughts about some of the images you guys saw, like the Chicana idea, forcing people to slow down because they have to kind of zigzag and look at

them assertive teeth want

to the curb extensions, the slow to shorten the width of the crossing. Any questions about any of those

things? And I don't know if you already talked about it, sure there is right at 40 release. And I'm wondering if we can have some kind of crosswalk put there because people are trying to cross there. For some reason, it's and at one point there were trucks parking there, and I think they had those move. But I was just wondering, could you do something? Is this on fourth? Yes, oh, that's right,

you're in the Yeah, that would be in that, and that would be something that they would have to address, but most likely, because it is a higher rate of speed on that road mid blocks aren't traditionally put out. So that will be something that they can talk to, or they can talk to their

Cox signal, or any kind of pro signal you're talking a couple $100,000

even with just the white strips.

The putting the strips in the concern is sometimes you put it up false sense of security. Oh, also, need to re educate ourselves that we should be stopping for pedestrians that are crossing those crosswalks. But not everybody remembers that the driver's ed, so we try not to put those unless we can put some medicine. Yeah, that makes

sense. One of them is they put stoplights and crosswalks up years ago.

It never came back to put the white lines down where Fourth Street and what is it where he was

parking? He was

parking that thing the truck. No, yeah, that's

Gleason. Those trucks were parking there, and actually impact came up and somebody gave tickets to the truckers, because they just took it upon themselves. March. Right, right, and, and, I don't know, somebody called in because it became a traffic concern.

It was already a light, that part. Lisa, it was not a light, no,

but that's also a blind It was a blind spot because the truckers were parking from the corner all the way up to the church. That I forget this, I think Francis, yeah, they were parking all the way up there, and it was so normal for them to do it, until it increased more and more trucks will come.

So the other thing we have is we need, is it weekly with DPD? Yes, DPW meets weekly with DPD, and we'll have all a lot of the liaisons will be on those calls. So if Calvin knows in advance about some of these issues, he can flag them and see if that's the kind of enforcement DPD can do while they're out and monitor because that would be, again, TV, not in this Kentucky. No. Municipal parking so, but it's again that improved Detroit act, if you see even stuff like that, report it because the mayor tracks our departments. Yep, I could show you on my phone later on the meeting,

got a flyer with how to download.

We had a utility company coming in, cut my screen open, didn't put it back right. We reported it. It got taken. Same with stop light, a stop sign back yet, and as soon as we get that reported as a city, we get someone out with a new stop sign. So resolve it,

and you'll get a faster reaction from that than even emailing to us, because it goes to the right department right away, where sometimes we're having to figure out the direction, and that

is tracked, because that is basically that is

basically, and I think once a month on how

we're responding to those

issues. What about the way finding sides? I we talked about those

as well. Okay, so I know you have a few that you're looking at, other than what we're dealing with with these way fighting signs. So as you see, we talked about those for South Beach Street and Schaefer, Beatrice Street in Miami. What street in Miami? Fourth Street at Pittsburgh and

Beatrice, so we stay right there at that will be Omaha, a little blocks over from p1 unimaginable. Okay, so it would help me have one there, because if it's

all it's

in the crosswalk, it will be at Omaha. It will be at Omaha, at Omaha,

and what? Yeah, the challenge he's gotta do regular reports on the ARPA dollars, on how we

are. It's like that

little block over that doesn't necessarily mean that. Again, once you make it known as an issue council monkeys, these are things that we start to work on and try to make sure that we can

and what would be really helpful, and that too. So again, you're getting the first slow street signs implemented in the city. The more people call it and say they want to see stuff like this, the easier you make. Calvin and I's job to actually make this

happen, because

I we need we need to hear what you want, but we need you to contact, you know, leadership and people, and you do a great job with TJ and others being here, but yeah, help make our job easier. So

I guess we're at that point in our life where we want to help somebody, not so much ourselves, but if we help somebody else, we are helping ourselves.

So you're a district manager. Say, Hey, I love this little street idea. Hey, Antonio, hey, Eva, can we get one of these? Then they're going to email my department and say, Hey, how do we make this happen? The next thing you know, maybe sign shop at the city's printing but he needs to. Seniors demand so, but you got my card. I do

okay. And what about the art that? Because Miami Street is made really after the Native Americans that was here, I've really been researching the history out here. It's amazing. So that is one of the native tribes name, as well as I didn't realize Ben Carson Rosa Parks. He's just amazing. Uncle Ray's potato chips. He grew up out here. I didn't know that he's the seat style, but it's just so much information. So I just want to know with the artwork

be placed. So that was one of the things that we were hopefully going to have Bethany come and talk about today, because she heads up that effort. She ended up having an issue that she was able to make it unfortunately, but we're still on track to make sure that we can move forward with that. We want to make sure that we can get a few members from the community to share that so we can better artists to come out and do the artwork with within the footprint of the project. So so yeah, so we're still moving forward that we want to try to we were talking about maybe doing one more meeting, just surrounding louder art. And then from there we can pick the team from whoever you guys want in this community, few members to sit with us and work out how to pick an artist, picking some of their desire, moving

forward with you. Okay, this is my Bible. No, okay, well, y'all got me for another

five for you. For in 1950

there was a fisher national war housing unit, 542 units that was built on Miami and then stretched, probably to Schaefer. And then there was a fisher school, and that school was built for the Morehouse children, adult children. So anyway, just want to know, in your way finding signage, is there some kind of way you can do some historical signs with it? I know we got a few dollars, but I'm just curious, is that something that your department gets into? I just want to see if, because there's a lot of our history that's lost, yeah, and I'm

trying to So is this something that is currently visitable, or is it something that I'm not familiar

with. It's torn down, of course, so that was not a DPS school that

would be the issue. It'll be more of a factor than in wait five That's

right. But there's some great grant programs, and there's some great funders in the neighborhood. So previous to me taking this role, I worked on the journalist Greenway, and we applied to the Ralph C Wilson legacy funds, and we did a similar storytelling program in the Midwest neighborhood not too far from so if you go out on the Greenway at West Warren retirement, you'll see those may finding signs that project was about 50,000 it also included having four residents get a stipend for collecting increment stories. So we could always share that grant with the community. And then you could also work with our grants department to see if we could try to find some funding to implement something, and obviously with council members office, so you can share that

information torn down because of their racial discrimination, you know, so because blacks weren't allowed there. But it was right in the right across the street. I was amazed at all the history. And

it was roughly, I think it did 10 signs in the end, for that amount of you wouldn't have to do all those bells and whistles for Midwest. It was really important that those storytellers were compensated for their time, and that those stories are going to be reported at the Detroit historic library. So there's all different ways we can take that. If there are community members interested in doing that, we can share that information. And

we're working with Denise Chapman to capture the history out here. So that would I was just wondering if there was some opportunity for signage,

not through this record. We can always find another

way. I'm glad that you're connected with her. So I was going to say, to chat with her, is it to the extent that she can get things officially recognized that further makes the case or designation markers, etc,

and a reminder for everyone on this project, these funds have to be spent, majority spent by June 30 next year. So sorry, this year it's already 2020. Yeah, so it's a it's a tight timeline, but it doesn't mean there can't be more projects. So

we'll be hanging with you guys. Yes, if they habitat for a manatee or building homes, are you

that I would not be able to answer to? But we can't talk to our partners at HRD and planning and development. Just talk and see about what could happen.

You said building or rehabbing building. Oh, because Brianna Lockhart at Marathon, they have a partnership with Habitat for Humanity, and they are doing work in 40 217,

there we go.

Alright,

black heart, she's the community liaison for Maryland.

If we exhausted questions, we do have road plots, and we do have boards up.

Okay, Joe's going to kind of explain the idea behind the road plots, and then we'll stand at the boards and the road plots in case you have any questions or anything that you would like to talk to us about. And this is my information right here if you need to put in contact with me, I'm available on that 24/7

but I'll be applicable, and

you will be able to give me a call or email if anything pops up or you have any questions or concerns about this project, and if something else pops up that's out of my purview, and it's with the C and I can help you with it. I'll do my darndest to get it to

the correct verse. And we appreciate you, Calvin, because you are a man of your word. Well,

I thank you, Liz, I thank you much for that.