That fact about my city's lost bike lanes hit me hard

I was digging through old city council minutes from 1995 online and found out Detroit planned 40 miles of protected bike lanes that got scrapped for parking. It makes me wonder if any other cities have hidden transit plans that just got shelved.

3 comments

3 Comments

milessmith6d ago

Oh come on, bike lanes in the 90s would've been ahead of their time, that's exactly what makes it a loss.

ivan_mason6d ago

Hold up, is this really a big deal? Bike lanes from 30 years ago that never happened sounds more like a typical city council pipe dream than some hidden gem of urban planning. Detroit had way bigger problems in 1995, like the auto industry was still struggling and the population was still dropping. I bet they punted on 40 miles of bike lanes because nobody was even thinking about cycling back then, it was all about parking for the few people still left downtown. Feels like a cool story but probably not a conspiracy or some grand lost opportunity.

faith_carter6d ago

Nah I get what you're saying Ivan, but I think @milessmith has a point about it being a missed chance even if it wasn't feasible back then. Sometimes the stuff that got shelved shows where we could've been if priorities were different.