- Biking in Detroit has never been easier, with hundreds of miles of bike paths around the city, popular cycling groups and cross-border cycling becoming an option later this year
- Amid those milestones, however, fatal and severe injurious crashes involving bikes and pedestrians have increased
- The city received $12.5 million to lower speed limits and install pedestrian safety measures on one of its most dangerous roads
DETROIT — Standing outside a bike shop on Cass Avenue on a recent Wednesday evening, Azizi Jasper admired the cycling community around him.
A group of about 30 people, diverse in age, race and experience level, had assembled outside the entrance to Back Alley Bikes. Some, like Jasper, were longtime riders familiar with navigating the city’s network of bike lanes, trails and streets. A handful were on their first-ever group ride.
“Cycling is one of those strange cross-cultural activities that literally brings all types of people together that otherwise may not be sitting at a table together,” Jasper said. “… I think that’s the beauty of it.”
The popularity of groups like Wednesday Night Ride, Black Girls Do Bike and Soul Roll is an indicator that Detroit, long known for its ties to the auto industry, is making strides in becoming a cycling destination.
The city is connected by 164 miles of bike lanes (counting lanes on opposite sides of streets separately) 84 miles of shared lanes and roughly 29 miles of trails, according to the cycling advocacy group Detroit Greenways Coalition.
The city has spent about $15 million installing bike lanes since 2011, Detroit Department of Public Works Director Ron Brundidge wrote in an email to Bridge Michigan.
“The public right of way should be available for all to utilize,” he wrote. “… Creating separated bike paths and bike lanes’ greatest benefit is that it provides an added layer of safety for all the bicyclists in Detroit.”
Cyclists will be able to ride into Canada and back when the Gordie Howe International Bridge opens later this year. The potential for cycle tourism across the border is one positive “social, environmental and economic” benefit for both countries, said Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority spokesperson Manny Paiva.
High fatality rates a concern
The push to make biking more accessible seems ideal for a city where 34% of residents don’t have access to a car, according to a 2017 University of Michigan study.
But amid those milestones, Detroit streets remain unsafe for cyclists and pedestrians compared to other cities.
In 2023, Detroit had the 14th highest cyclist fatality rate among cities with populations greater than 500,000, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Its fatality rate of 0.47 per 100,000 residents was greater than the national average of 0.35, but lower than hotspots like Tucson, Arizona, and Sacramento, California.
Statewide, there were 1,480 bike-involved crashes in 2023, up from 1,340 in 2022, according to the most recent Michigan State Police data. Crashes involving pedestrians increased 11% in the same period.
In response to the high number of crashes across the state, Michigan lawmakers are considering upping the penalty for drivers who hit cyclists and pedestrians.
Bipartisan legislation approved by the Michigan Senate in June and now before the state House would allow judges to sentence drivers who violate traffic laws and fatally hit a pedestrian or cyclist to a maximum of 15 years in prison. Currently, judges can only deliver that sentence if the traffic violation has a criminal penalty.
“(I) don’t think it will solve every problem or stop every accident, but it puts that tool in the toolbox so that we can achieve justice in certain cases,” said bill sponsor state Sen. Sean McCann, a Democrat from Kalamazoo, where five cyclists were killed and four others injured in 2016 when a person driving a truck struck them.
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Several Detroit cyclists told Bridge Michigan that the city needs to do a better job of removing glass and other debris that accumulates in bike lanes and street curbs. During a recent 20-mile ride from Cass Avenue to Hamtramck and back, cyclists repeatedly warned each other of upcoming glass, bumpy roads and tire-swallowing potholes.
“That defeats the purpose sometimes, because people will veer right out of the bike lane,” said cyclist John Ewald.
Detroit’s bikeability ranks 18th nationally among cities with populations greater than 300,000, according to the pro-cycling nonprofit PeopleForBikes. The group rates Mackinac Island — which is absent of cars, except for some emergency vehicles — as the most bikeable city in the country. Rogers City in Presque Isle County and Marquette ranked second and third in the state.
While Detroit is higher ranked than other comparably sized Michigan cities, it lags behind Brooklyn, Minneapolis and Seattle.
“We need to step up our maintenance in the bike lanes,” said Todd Scott, executive director of the Detroit Greenways Coalition, though he noted that “we’re doing a better job than we have been in years past.”
Brundidge, the director of public works, wrote that the city sweeps protected bike lanes about once a week and sweeps unprotected lanes around once a month.
The Motor City rides again
Detroit’s wide arterial streets were built for days when the city was home to nearly triple its current population. Without the associated heavy traffic, those wide streets became speedways that were expensive to maintain and dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, Detroit officials wrote in the city’s 2022 transportation master plan.
However, the city’s population decline provided an unexpected opportunity for city planners. Without the demand for more lanes from drivers, they had more liberty to carve out space for wider sidewalks, greenspaces and separated bike lanes.
“In a population-decline city, there’s absolutely a ripe opportunity to convert some roads into more bike lanes,” said Robert McHaney, who chairs the American Planning Association’s transportation division.
In cities with stable or growing populations, McHaney said, city planners simultaneously took advantage of less traffic during the pandemic and funding opportunities from the Biden administration to install more bike lanes.
Roughly 84 miles of Detroit’s bike routes don’t have a dedicated lane for cyclists, instead asking that drivers and cyclists share the road on streets where speed limits can reach up to 30 miles per hour.
The National Association of City Transportation Officials recommends that any bikeway on a road with speeds greater than 26 miles per hour should be protected with a raised curb or flexible bollards.
In Detroit, however, designated bike lanes are only required on roads where speeds exceed 30 miles per hour, according to the city’s 2006 non-motorized transportation master plan.
Some transportation experts favor eliminating shared lanes regardless of speed.
“If I was king for a day, I would remove every single one of these across the entire United States,” McHaney said.
Since 2022, the city has received over $74 million in federal and state grants to implement “road diets” that limit car lanes in favor of street parking or bike lanes and installing more protections for cyclists like bollards or raised curbs, among other safety improvements.
Dearborn also received $24.8 million for similar modifications to Warren Avenue, while 13 other organizations and communities received a collective $15 million for planning future projects.
The awards include plans to alter the Detroit portion of Gratiot Avenue — considered one of the city’s most dangerous roadways — with more pedestrian crossings and slower speed limits.
Although the US Department of Transportation reportedly ordered a review in March of grants awarded through Safe Streets and Roads for All — which include the Gratiot project — Brundidge told Bridge that Detroit has “no reason to believe that previously awarded federal grants are in jeopardy.”
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