A great place for a hotel would be the current City Market site. I love the idea of a city market, but what we have now is a bar and a cheese shop which is really a waste of a important place in the center of our city.[plus I really hate that pole barn] Another really good site would be the Lake Trust block on S.Washington. My third site would be the Grand Ave parking ramp at Allegan, this is another wasted space on the banks of the Grand River downtown. We give our cars the all best views here.
Was just looking at the next council meeting agenda and noticed a few things:
Lansing is applying for the MDOT's Local Bridge Program in for FY 2020, and are submitting five projects ranked by priority. Of the full-on replacements, they are looking to replace the Aurelius Road Bridge over the CN tracks, which I'd imagine would also mean the full bridge since the same bridge spans the freeway. The other full replacement is the Elm Street Bridge over the Red Cedar at the eastern edge of Red Town. Then there are two rehab projects including Aurelius over something called Pawlowski Creek. I can only imagine this is the name of that little ditch which the street crosses just north of the Hope Soccer Complex way down on the southwest side. This is the top project in priority, apparently. The other rehab is the North Grand River Bridge at the northern end of Old Town. Finally, they want to be preventative maintenance on the Washington Avenue Bridge in REO Town.
It is interesting to me that they are going to replace the Aurelius Road bridge, I still think of it as "new" in that I remember when they built it. Before they built that road you really did not want to go back into those woods, which were full of speeding trains, swamps, and "hobos"as the homeless really were called, that or tramps. Not a place for kids! Back then it seemed like a bridge to no-where. I hope they include the whole road way leading to the bridge as it is really broken up.
I remember them doing some pretty significant work on the Clemens bridge over 496/CSX tracks within the past few years, it was closed for a whole summer. The bridge over the CN tracks is separate and does look to be in pretty rough shape. It's good to see some of these bridges get attention, the North Grand River Ave bridge looks particularly bad.
Oops, my bad. Yeah, the Clemens Avenue bridge span 496 and the CSX tracks, and then there are two bridges on the Aurelius portion: the CN crossing and the Red Cedar crossing. The entire thing is so overbuilt and elevated that I sometimes forget that it's different structures and that Clemens technically starts at the southern foot of the bridge.
Yeah, I remember them doing extensive work on the Clemens Avenue bridge some years back, but can't recall if it was structural repair or deck replacement/rehab, or a bit of both. Whatever they did, what I do remember is not being able to tell much of a difference in appearance or function once they got through with it.
That whole stretch of road between the freeway and Mount Hope has always felt so overbuilt to me as if they intended to make Aurelius a state highway or something. Do you know the history of it Hood? I kind of vaguely remember talking about this, but it might not have even been here.
I'm not at all familiar with the pre-496 configuration of Clemens/Aurelius, but I have wondered that myself.
Looking at Google Streetview it looks like the bridge over 496 did get some pretty extensive work, the whole topside of the bridge looks totally new. The bridge over the Grand River is also newer while that one over the CN tracks is looking rough.
There was no road there, Aurelius ended at Mt. Hope. It seems that some roads like this and Logan/MLK were over built, why a six lane divided highway right through a [my] neighborhood? They were built when GM and Oldsmobile were at their peck employment, so as everyone did back then,they thought that everything was going to just keep growing and we would need all that capacity. Over at Aurelius and Mt Hope one would have to turn left and go to Penn. Ave to cross the tracks and Red Cedar River, trucks had to go to Cedar Street on a four lane Mt Hope Ave.. It is surprising that they did not take out one side of Clemens to extend the highway to Michigan Ave. and I can not remember why they did not.
As for MLK/Logan, it's been part of the state highway since 1936 and that part of MLK was made a boulevard I assume for trucks, mostly to make it more easy to connect to 496 in 1970, which was also when the full 496 opened. Wikipedia says that part north of where it splits into two to cross the river (which was mostly to help truck traffic to and from the plant to 496) was completed in 1973 and the boulevard was completed by 1977.
Aurelius, on the other hand, I'm not sure was ever part of the state highway system.
@gbinlansing My dad's family lived on Clemens, at one point they were going to take out one side of the street to expand it but apparently the neighborhood fought hard against it. I believe it was their intention to expand Clemens and join it up with Wood street to make it a main thoroughfare.
You are correct Hood. The protests led to the formation of the East Side Neighborhood Association. On a similar note, the one-way street albatross in downtown Lansing was to afford quick dispersal from the Capitol area in the event of a bombing. Glad that they've reversed that plan on some streets - still makes navigation a headache for out-of-towners.
Comments
A great place for a hotel would be the current City Market site. I love the idea of a city market, but what we have now is a bar and a cheese shop which is really a waste of a important place in the center of our city.[plus I really hate that pole barn] Another really good site would be the Lake Trust block on S.Washington. My third site would be the Grand Ave parking ramp at Allegan, this is another wasted space on the banks of the Grand River downtown. We give our cars the all best views here.
Was just looking at the next council meeting agenda and noticed a few things:
It is interesting to me that they are going to replace the Aurelius Road bridge, I still think of it as "new" in that I remember when they built it. Before they built that road you really did not want to go back into those woods, which were full of speeding trains, swamps, and "hobos"as the homeless really were called, that or tramps. Not a place for kids! Back then it seemed like a bridge to no-where. I hope they include the whole road way leading to the bridge as it is really broken up.
I remember them doing some pretty significant work on the Clemens bridge over 496/CSX tracks within the past few years, it was closed for a whole summer. The bridge over the CN tracks is separate and does look to be in pretty rough shape. It's good to see some of these bridges get attention, the North Grand River Ave bridge looks particularly bad.
Oops, my bad. Yeah, the Clemens Avenue bridge span 496 and the CSX tracks, and then there are two bridges on the Aurelius portion: the CN crossing and the Red Cedar crossing. The entire thing is so overbuilt and elevated that I sometimes forget that it's different structures and that Clemens technically starts at the southern foot of the bridge.
Yeah, I remember them doing extensive work on the Clemens Avenue bridge some years back, but can't recall if it was structural repair or deck replacement/rehab, or a bit of both. Whatever they did, what I do remember is not being able to tell much of a difference in appearance or function once they got through with it.
That whole stretch of road between the freeway and Mount Hope has always felt so overbuilt to me as if they intended to make Aurelius a state highway or something. Do you know the history of it Hood? I kind of vaguely remember talking about this, but it might not have even been here.
I'm not at all familiar with the pre-496 configuration of Clemens/Aurelius, but I have wondered that myself.
Looking at Google Streetview it looks like the bridge over 496 did get some pretty extensive work, the whole topside of the bridge looks totally new. The bridge over the Grand River is also newer while that one over the CN tracks is looking rough.
There was no road there, Aurelius ended at Mt. Hope. It seems that some roads like this and Logan/MLK were over built, why a six lane divided highway right through a [my] neighborhood? They were built when GM and Oldsmobile were at their peck employment, so as everyone did back then,they thought that everything was going to just keep growing and we would need all that capacity. Over at Aurelius and Mt Hope one would have to turn left and go to Penn. Ave to cross the tracks and Red Cedar River, trucks had to go to Cedar Street on a four lane Mt Hope Ave.. It is surprising that they did not take out one side of Clemens to extend the highway to Michigan Ave. and I can not remember why they did not.
As for MLK/Logan, it's been part of the state highway since 1936 and that part of MLK was made a boulevard I assume for trucks, mostly to make it more easy to connect to 496 in 1970, which was also when the full 496 opened. Wikipedia says that part north of where it splits into two to cross the river (which was mostly to help truck traffic to and from the plant to 496) was completed in 1973 and the boulevard was completed by 1977.
Aurelius, on the other hand, I'm not sure was ever part of the state highway system.
@gbinlansing My dad's family lived on Clemens, at one point they were going to take out one side of the street to expand it but apparently the neighborhood fought hard against it. I believe it was their intention to expand Clemens and join it up with Wood street to make it a main thoroughfare.
You are correct Hood. The protests led to the formation of the East Side Neighborhood Association. On a similar note, the one-way street albatross in downtown Lansing was to afford quick dispersal from the Capitol area in the event of a bombing. Glad that they've reversed that plan on some streets - still makes navigation a headache for out-of-towners.