Infusion of federal money into a project to replace I-375 through Detroit, Mich., with a street-level boulevard will reconnect the area's communities, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg reported.
The proposal for a walkable, leafy concourse integrated with the community and lined with shops, restaurants and homes on the eastern of edge of downtown Detroit is receiving a $104.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, according to a Sept. 15 Detroit News report. The plan has been in the works since 2013.
"We are investing over $104M in Detroit to reconnect the neighborhoods that were divided by I-375 - making it easier to get to work, school, shopping and loved ones," Buttigieg said in a Nov. 9 Twitter post.
According to Michigan Department of Transportation spokesman Jeff Cranson, the addition of the federal funding for the $300 million project will allow construction to begin as soon as 2025, speeding up the timeline by two years, according to Detroit News.
The project's estimated $270 million total cost, in addition to $30 million for engineering, is not yet fully funded, Detroit News reported. Cranson reported they will "continue to work with the legislature and local partners on additional funding opportunities."
"Creating the kind of streetscape that this community envisions is going to be a great future for how the streets and roads of the city ought to look," Buttigieg said, according to Detroit News. "And it's important because it addresses the damage done to a mainly Black community through the gash that was created in it that was I-375. That didn't have to be built that way."
Detroit News reported the construction of I-375 and Lafayette Park displaced more than 130,000 people in Black Bottom, as well as hundreds of drug stores, barbershops, restaurants, churches, banks and other businesses. The freeway, intended "for the ease of surburban commuters" opened in 1964.
"We don't talk about these harms for the purpose of wallowing," Buttigieg said, according to Detroit News. "We talk about them because we see a way to fix them. There is an original generation of people who were displaced or cut off that may never fully be made whole. But to me, that's all the more reason for us to get to work quickly."
"The project will improve safety, thanks to the construction of wider sidewalks and bike lanes and the installation of traffic (calming measures), smart technologies," White House Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu said in the Detroit News report. "And it will contribute to new economic development, the building of generational wealth, jobs and new businesses."
