Everybody dreams about what Metro Detroit can become, but the visions of what mass transit in the Motor City can look like seem like they could easily become reality.
The winners of Transportation Riders United, a Metro Detroit non-profit mass transit advocacy group, mass transit-oriented design contest range from light rail stops to Amtrak stations. The competition, entitled "Detroit in Transit: Visions of a Region on the Move", challenged local designers to create drawings and designs of what Detroit’s future transit and transit-oriented neighborhoods would look like with convenient, high-quality rapid transit in 2025.
A team led by Royal Oak architect Frank Arvan won with its designs for "Royal Oak Transit Square", which designs a vibrant urban neighborhood around Royal Oak's mass transit station. That section of downtown, which is mostly made up of surface parking lots, would become a densely packed corridor, featuring mixed-use buildings and green spaces.
Other plans honored include what Washington Boulevard in downtown Detroit would look like with mass transit, designs for a new Amtrak station in Detroit and what a light rail interchange in Metro Detroit could look like.
Source: Transportation Riders United
Writer: Jon Zemke
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