Students Reimagine One of Grand Rapids' Busiest Roads

ALLENDALE, Mich. — A group of Grand Valley State University students is working on a bold plan to replace a section of US-131 in downtown Grand Rapids with a low-speed boulevard and street grid.

Professor Chad Frederick's Sustainable Urban and Regional Planning class took on the challenge as their capstone project. The six students studied the feasibility of converting part of Michigan's busiest expressway outside of Metro Detroit into something more neighborhood-friendly.

"Our goal is to inspire communities and to realize what life could be like without the highway," said Meredith Stemm, a junior environmental and sustainability studies major.

The project comes as the Michigan Department of Transportation considers redesigning a segment of the aging downtown corridor. MDOT said the highway is in urgent need of repairs that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The stretch between Cherry and 28th Streets handles an average of 140,000 vehicles a day.

"The road is Michigan's busiest expressway outside of Metro Detroit," said an MDOT spokesperson.

The department said last December the aging corridor was due for major repairs and upgrades to the tune of $500 million.

"They're going to tear it down and build it bigger," said retired urban designer Warren Rempel, who works with ImagineGR. "And if they're going to tear it down, my thinking was, well, why not consider other ways of solving the problems that we face?"

Rempel believes that simply reconstructing the highway wouldn't address many of the problems it causes.

"They get all the noise, all the pollution, all the traffic jams, and their property values are decreased," Rempel said. "Then, you get a pedestrian who's got to walk under the highway, or a cyclist, they get all the noise and pollution, and they get a really close look at the crumbling infrastructure."

He believes it's important to study alternative options before plans are set in motion to reconstruct the highway.

"We're paying constantly for this to exist, and it doesn't contribute to the city," Rempel said. "A lot of the traffic is through traffic not interested in Grand Rapids. Forty percent of the traffic on 131 going through the city is not local."

The student group has studied other freeway conversion projects in cities like Milwaukee, Seattle, and San Francisco. They found case studies from around the country that show such conversions can be done successfully.

"There's a lot of assumptions that it can't be done," said Frederick. "That's untrue. We've got case studies from around the country and around the world."

The students plan to present their findings to their clients, the non-profit organizations Strong Towns and ImagineGR, after collecting feedback from residents at a community engagement session.

"What we want to see is people from those communities affected around the highway coming to the meeting so we can hear from them what they want to see in their communities," said senior Alana LaTour, a sustainable urban planning and communications double major.

LaTour, a native of Grand Rapids, admitted she was shocked when she first heard about the idea of removing the highway.

"I've lived with it my entire life, and I can't even imagine the infrastructure without it," LaTour said. "I drive on 131 almost every day. So, when I heard that they were interested in taking out the highway, that was, like many other people, very shocking to me."

Attendees at a public forum shared their frustrations with US-131's current design.

"I AVOID IT LIKE THE PLAGUE (especially in Winter)," one attendee wrote.

Another called it "loud" and "stinky."

"It is the fastest way for me to get to work but I choose to take Kalamazoo the whole way instead," wrote another attendee.

Greg Hice, who moved to the city a year ago, said he can imagine how great Grand Rapids would be if US-131 was gone.

"It takes up so much space that could be just something else," said Christopher Browne, who wants to see improvements in Grand Rapids. "And really, it isn't serving as many of the people that actually live here, as it probably should."

Browne expressed excitement about the idea of converting the highway to a street-level boulevard.

"You look at those pictures, you see what other cities have done, who have tried this, and you just feel all the hope of what you could improve here," Browne said. "I think just the idea of being able to convert it to a street level Boulevard is really exciting."

The students hope to collect enough feedback to present MDOT an alternate plan for the freeway's future.

"I think it's a challenge, it's an uphill battle, but I think there are so many people who are coming around to the idea of what else a city could look like if it wasn't just a highway," Browne said.

"It's a good example of what GR could be," Hice added.

The project aims to address safety concerns with US-131's current design and divert non-local traffic on the highway, turning the downtown corridor into a slower, greener, more people-friendly route.

Sources:

• https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/gvsu-students-studying-street-grid-alternative-us-131/69-5fc224ac-416c-4416-9ad0-d9ecda0f3f38
• https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/gvsu-students-present-radical-us-131-redesign-to-public/69-6ef674df-c06c-420d-942a-24512156ad2e