I was talking about the areas at ground level [city street level on the leftsides] along M.X. and St Joe. There are some trees there now, I think it would be a good place for a linear forest that could really change the landscape helped to reduce pollution. I course I would not expect them to be planting trees in the center medians! I was kind of brainstorming about what could be done with the highway landscape but I have no expectations that they will do anything new or different in that regard.
Ha! Sorry about the misunderstanding. Yeah, there is a lot they could to spruce it up. It's funny, because the last time they reconstructed the freeway, they add a single flourish: the Snow Road bridge. It has "V" shaped supports and is painted a deep blue, and that's literally the only bit of art they put into the entire reconstruction. lol
There are actually quite a bit of trees along the embankments of the urban portion of the freeway, but they aren't plannted in such a way that it's noticeable unless you're from outside the region. Though, west of MLK there are A LOT more trees on the embankment to hide the freeway from the residential neighborhood, which is fairly noticeable and nice.
A lot of western cities do a lot of interesting designs on their freeway embankments with colored sand and stone.
When 496 was first built that bridge was about the only cool feature then, at the time after all those years of destruction and construction, our fabulous road to the future looked just like any other interstate highway which was a let down to me. I was young I believed the hype I guess! It would be nice if they made the road as look nice as they did in Detroit, we are the Capital City.
I was wondering when the downtown street directions are going to be changed back to two-way streets? I saw a new traffic light [I can't recall which corner] and some orange barrels downtown the other day.
LANSING – Plans to convert six one-way downtown Lansing streets to two-way have been delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Previously, city officials said they planned tentatively to switch sections of Grand, Capitol, Walnut, Pine, Allegan and Ottawa in summer 2020. Now, Lansing hopes to convert some of those streets by this fall. Other streets could be changed in 2021, city spokeswoman Valerie Marchand said.
Officials will release a more detailed timeline in August, she said.
Before converting the streets, Lansing had planned to get feedback from residents and downtown business owners and to advertise the new traffic patterns. The coronavirus outbreak disrupted that process.
It seems like this would be a good time to make these changes, as people slowly come back to work they could get used to the new configurations without a lot of traffic and the city could make the changes without as much disruption. They never ask me about these things.
Rode my bike on Forest Rd today. The section between Harrison and College roads looks to be finished. It's striped, but it's still barricaded on both ends. They are still working on the section between Stoneleigh and Collins. The first layer of asphalt was down, and they were pouring the concrete around the new manholes. Looks like after that it's asphalt and striping and then hopefully finished.
Cliff, do you know if they are going to keep the same configuration (i.e. two lanes with paved shoulder)? I've always been kind of annoyed this area of town doesn't have a lot of curbs-and-gutters.
Has anyone looked at the plans for the River Trail extension on Moores River Drive? I took a look over there yesterday and all the construction is for one of the gates of the dam that is being repaired, seems like they just finished this project, and it already needs repair. There is no shoulder on the north side of Moores River Drive all the way from the park to MLK. I am wondering where they are going to put the trail, maybe at the bank level, or reconfiguring the street, it is quite wide there? I hope they are not planning to take out a lot of trees, in the season they really block the view of the old cooling towers across the river. This year the canopy of leaves is really dense and pretty. When I was a kid we used to follow the "Indian Trails" along the river bank there to get over to the pool.
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There are actually quite a bit of trees along the embankments of the urban portion of the freeway, but they aren't plannted in such a way that it's noticeable unless you're from outside the region. Though, west of MLK there are A LOT more trees on the embankment to hide the freeway from the residential neighborhood, which is fairly noticeable and nice.
A lot of western cities do a lot of interesting designs on their freeway embankments with colored sand and stone.
I was wondering when the downtown street directions are going to be changed back to two-way streets? I saw a new traffic light [I can't recall which corner] and some orange barrels downtown the other day.
Two-way street conversion still happening in downtown Lansing but not this summer