Walking Through Royal Oak with Complete Streets in Mind

Donning yellow caution vests and armed with cameras and notebooks, a group led by Walkable and Livable Communities Institute Executive Director Dan Burden, walked along Woodward, Coolidge and 13 Mile Road this week to inspect what works and what needs work to become a better place for pedestrians and motorists alike.

The walking audit was part of the Woodward Avenue Action Association's (WA3) efforts to collect public input for a Woodward Complete Streets master plan that aims to make the 27-mile stretch of the historic roadway from Detroit to Pontiac more safe, friendly and accessible for users of all modes and abilities.

Burden led the group for nearly an hour, pointing out details that most don't think about, from the size and angles of curb cuts to the placement of aesthetic landscaping, and from street structure to parking spaces sizes. 

"Good design forces the right behavior," Burden said. 

With 80,000 vehicles trying to get through Royal Oak on Woodward Avenue per day, revamping the one of the area's busiest commuter arteries to make it safer for  pedestrians  and cyclists is a challenge.

Removing a lane on Woodward is not a likely option, Burden said.

"But what about a slow lane?" he said. "It would have a different material, a different color. Motorists would use it to exit, enter. It could be used for transit and bicycling. So that's a consideration for still keeping the same number of lanes but purposefully not having the outer lane be at such a high speed. It would be safer for everybody."

A New Perspective

Everything needs to be on the table when considering a plan for Woodward that fosters mixed-use development, promotes walkability and allows people to drive less, he said.

"People want to live locally and not remotely," said Royal Oak City Engineer Matt Callahan, who participated in the walking audit. "People want to be close to their work places, the places where they shop and eat out. There's a whole generation of people that do not cook at home anymore and they don't want to drive through for fast food. They want to be able to walk to a nice restaurant."

Input from Callahan and other citizen participants were presented Wednesday night as Burden, WA3 officials and experts with Parsons Brinckerhoff Michigan Inc. consulting firm offered a vision for Woodward that included bus rapid transit, bike lanes and landscape buffering for pedestrians . 

Ideas for Royal Oak included:

• adding a  designated  "slow lane" and a bus rapid transit lane on Woodward
• adding a bike lane on Coolidge and on Woodward along Roseland Park Cemetery
• redeveloping Northwood Shopping Center into a walkable village 
• adding enhanced crosswalks to the Detroit Zoo for crossing Woodward and the Interstate 696 service drive

The information-gathering phase of the Complete Streets project will continue through June and a draft plan for the public to review will be released in the fall. It will include short-term, low-cost options; long-term, high-cost options; and methods to fund both. WA3 hopes to release a comprehensive Woodward Complete Streets master plan by early 2014.

For more information, visit the project's website.

Leslie Ellis and Art Aisner contributed to this article.

Would you support a "slow lane" on Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak? Tell us in the comments.