Plans To Overhaul Woodward May Bring Bike Lanes, Crosswalks

ROYAL OAK (WWJ/AP) – Plans to overhaul Woodward Avenue in the Detroit area could bring protected bike lanes, more crosswalks and other amenities.

The Woodward Avenue Action Association is hoping to completely change one of Michigan’s most notorious roadways with its Woodward Avenue Complete Streets plan.

The proposed changes would start from where the M-1 light rail project is being built in Detroit and stretch 27 miles to Pontiac. The association told the Detroit Free Press that an envisioned “Parisian boulevard” with lanes for buses, bikes and pedestrians would stretch through suburbs including Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, Huntington Woods, Berkley, Royal Oak and Birmingham.

Artist rendering of the Woodward Avenue Complete Streets plan. (Credit:

In Pontiac, a loop directing traffic around downtown would be converted to a two-way traffic configuration.

No cost estimate is provided. Plans call for work to be “significantly completed” by 2025.

The association says communities along Woodward Avenue will be asked to endorse the plan in the next several months while several pilot projects are underway.

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