Ypsilanti's W. Cross St. enhancements, Complete Streets ordinance bring walkers on par with drivers

The Ypsilanti city council's approval in June of a Complete Streets ordinance, together with the impending completion of the W. Cross Street non-motorized enhancement project, means a more balanced intersection between driving, walking, and other forms of non-motorized transport is on its way to the city's downtown.

The enhancement project underway is revamping the stretch of W. Cross Street from N. Washington to Summit Street and in Depot Town from River to Rice Street. By August 1 damaged curbs will be repaired and all intersections will be ADA-compliant and sport new stamped concrete bump-outs, says Tim Colbeck, Ypsilanti DDA director. "[The bump-outs] have the measure of slowing traffic down and making the street easier to cross by reducing the amount of distance a person has to walk across the street," he explains.

With the turning of the fall leaves will come 82 new trees of different varieties. And the bump-outs in the Depot Town section of Cross Street will get rain gardens landscaped with drought-resistant native grasses and flora such as black-eyed susans. The rain gardens will funnel runoff and improve the quality of water draining into the Huron River, Colbeck says.  

LED lighting fixtures will spark the stretch between Washington and Summit Streets and, in cooperation with Eastern Michigan University, be dark-sky compliant. The idea is to have light focusing downward onto the street rather than emitting upwards and adding to light pollution. The lightpoles will be the last item so they aren't damaged during the concrete work.

The project is costing in the range of $850,000 to $1 million, Colbeck says. The city of Ypsilanti is covering $170,000 of the cost, the DDA portion is $87,500, and the Michigan Department of Transportation is picking up the balance.

While the project, five years in the making, was on the city's agenda long before Complete Streets legislation, the gist of which is that streets need to be designed to accommodate cars plus all other non-motorized forms of transit, was formalized, "Everything that we're doing right now is to make it a safer and friendlier place for people to walk. In principle, [Complete Streets theory] already was implemented as part of this project," Colbeck says.

Source:  Tim Colbeck, Ypsilanti DDA director
Writer:  Tanya Muzumdar