I-94 expansion letter.

I sent this letter to the Detroit Free Press on March 11, 2011, in response to an editorial urging the completion of repairs and 2 lane expansion through the heart of Detroit of I-94, the Edsel Ford Freeway.

Dear editor:

The State and SEMCOG should cancel the two lane expansion of I-94. This is an absolute waste of taxpayer funds that diverts precious dollars from the maintenance and repair of existing roadways. It's a disgrace the way MDOT hasn't maintained roadways, bridges and overpasses. Better to take that $1.5 billion plus and use part of it to add bridges and pedestrian overpasses over the freeway. Reconnect the neighborhoods that this freeway, and others, destroyed. As your editorial states, this project was planned over 20 years ago. Times have changed. Twenty years ago we didn't have $4 a gallon gas. Expanding freeways in the heart of the City of Detroit will do nothing, and will hurt, the nascent urban renaissance. Kill it now.

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The following was printed in the March 15, 2011 Detroit Free Press:
Don't expand I-94

The state and SEMCOG should cancel the two-lane expansion of I-94. This is a waste of taxpayer funds that diverts precious dollars from the maintenance and repair of existing roadways.

It's a disgrace the way Michigan Department of Transportation hasn't maintained roadways, bridges and overpasses. Better to take that $1.5 billion-plus and use part of it to add bridges and pedestrian overpasses over the freeway. Reconnect the neighborhoods that this freeway, and others, destroyed.

This project was planned more than 20 years ago. Times have changed. Twenty years ago, we didn't have $4-a-gallon gas. Expanding freeways in the heart of the city will do nothing and will hurt the nascent urban renaissance.

Thomas E. Page

Detroit