Friday, April 20, 2007

huron river drive carfree for 3 hours

From GetDowntown, among others announcing this unique opportunity:

Have you ever wondered what it be like if Huron River Drive were closed
to cars? Well, tomorrow is your chance to check it out and voice your
comments to the City. The City of Ann Arbor is closing Huron River
Drive from Bird Rd. to Main to motorized traffic from 9-12 on Saturday,
April 21st.
Whether or not the road should be closed permanently to motorized traffic, we should definitely take the opportunity for a bike ride or walk along the river when the opportunity presents itself. The road is closed while the city removes low-hanging branches, not specifically for bikes and pedestrians.

5 comments:

Edward Vielmetti said...

so, was the pedestrian and bicycle friendly huron river drive well travelled?

Unknown said...

E.V. asked: "so, was the pedestrian and bicycle friendly huron river drive well travelled?"

Morning of the event, the runnning 'club' that I occasionally join on their Saturday jaunts, decided to veer over to HRD to check things out. We were there a good 45 minutes before the scheduled close-down and said hello to the folks setting things up.

Consensus amongst our group was, I think it's fair to say, that conversion to a non-motorized path excluding cars offered little in the way of benefit to runners that would counterbalance the loss of a route for cars.

It's interesting to me that visitors to Ann Arbor from places far away apparently have a drive along HRD on their radar as a pleasant activity that will while away some extra minutes.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Hello, in my totally biased opinion, we should create a separate bike lane and a separate pedestrian path as well adjacent to the road. I know they would have to to a huge amount of work to widen this road to accommodate, but this is the best solution. The Huron River is such a tremendous asset that it would be worth the investment. Even if we had to close several other parks to come up with the money. This are is one of Ann Arbor's greatest natural assets and it is very difficult to access it now.

Anonymous said...

Great blog.....


___________________

Vince

UR choice movie at your place