Safety and Traffic Jams Top Public Concerns About Rouge River Bridge Closure
Residents voice concerns at MDOT meeting.
A common concern about the upcoming closure of southbound I-75 over the Rouge River is the impact it will have on people who work in Detroit and live downriver. They’ll have to use local roads such as Fort Street to get home. Barb Higgins of Woodhaven says that could make people late for dinner or for their children’s after-school activities. She also says it may discourage people from attending events downtown.
“People go to (Red) Wings games, they go to Lions games, there’s a lot of things that happen over the summer in downtown Detroit. People might think twice about going because it’s an inconvenience to come home. That 20-minute ride for most of us downriver to come home from the event is going to take us 45 minutes to an hour. So it may deter people from going and they might not participate in those activities.” — Barb Higgins.
Higgins was one of about 200 people who attended a public meeting on the Rouge River bridge project in Woodhaven Thursday. Many said the closure will lead to more traffic jams on Fort Street, especially if trucks avoid the detour recommended by the Michigan Department of Transportation. According to MDOT, trucks are supposed to take westbound I-96 to I-275 southbound, where they would reconnect to I-75 north of Monroe.
Richard Kirk of Brownstown Township drives a limousine. He says if more trucks use Fort Street, could cause problems for other drivers and pedestrians, especially south of Outer Drive on the border of Detroit and Lincoln Park.
“The lanes on Fort Street are pretty narrow, and there’s (sic) a lot of curves and elbows all the way down to Sibley (Road), basically. And I’m worried that the size of the trucks, the width of the trucks when they’re side-by-side, is going to cause some accidents.” — Richard Kirk
Trains are another concern. There are many railroad crossings downriver, and residents say extra traffic could worsen delays caused by moving freight trains. Trenton Mayor Kyle Stack says trains crossing Fort Street near Van Horn Rd. can prevent emergency vehicles from reaching the city’s only hospital, Beaumont.
“That’s the heartline to the hospital, and so if we have all those trucks coming down here, we’re going to have issues with those trucks lined up.” — Kyle Stack, Mayor of Trenton.
MDOT officials say they can’t do much about train traffic, which has right-of-way. They also have no control over ships on the Rouge River. Residents at Thursday’s meeting in Woodhaven say they’d like to have advance notice whenever ship traffic causes the Fort Street and Jefferson Avenue drawbridges over the river to open.
The closure of southbound I-75 over the Rouge River is scheduled for the weekend of Feb. 4, 2017.
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Countdown is On for I-75 Closure in Southwest Detroit
