The project will include new sidewalks, traffic signals and bike paths, Cross said. ![]() Now, the bulk of construction will take place in 2024-25, allowing time for a simultaneous reconstruction of M-59 through Pontiac, MDOT spokeswoman Diane Cross said. MDOT announced in mid-December that the project would go forward a year later than first scheduled. Likewise in Pontiac, decades of concern about the Woodward Loop recently solidified into a similar commitment by the Michigan Department of Transportation. Now, in an era when walking and cycling are seen as no less important than moving traffic, and when the nation favors redressing historic wrongs done to minority neighborhoods sliced by high-speed roads, highway builders plan to undo both of these concrete mistakes.Įarlier this year, state highway engineers announced they’d turn Detroit's I-375 spur into a street-level boulevard over the next several years. The Loop opened in the same year that the Beatles topped the charts with “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and the same year as the I-375 freeway spur in downtown Detroit. The high-capacity roadway played into the dreams of midcentury designers, on a binge they called urban renewal. ![]() Its swaths of one-way pavement unsnarled bottlenecks and shunted GM workers as well as parts-laden tractor-trailers through Pontiac’s downtown and to half a dozen bustling factories. When it opened in 1964, the design of Pontiac’s Woodward Avenue Loop - formerly called Wide Track Drive - was hailed as a triumph.
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