DETROIT (WXYZ) — Inside an event space in Eastern Market, the Michigan Department of Transportation held its seventh community meeting on the project to remove I-375 and put in place a street-level road with traffic lights from Gratiot Avenue to Atwater Street.
The project likely wouldn't be completed for a few years, but it's been in the works for a long time. However, there's still a lot MDOT is working to figure out.
“We're committed to building the boulevard and we're committed to the project," MDOT spokesperson Rob Morosi said. "But in terms of final design, were not close. In terms of how the property will be developed, we're not there. We're not close yet.”
Beverly Kindle-Walker went to the meeting to giver her input. She lives near I-375 and says she relies on the freeway, which is a major route into downtown Detroit.
"It's going to be a major inconvenience for years to come, and it's not necessary,” Kindle-Walker said of the project. "This is the Motor City, right? So to change that into a boulevard — for whose benefit? It's not ours.”
Hear what people had to say ahead of the meeting in the video player below:
Yanni Dionisopoulos is a business owner in Greektown who also attended the meeting with concerns about the project.
"The majority of people coming to downtown and Greektown use that Lafayette exit off of 375,” Dionisopoulos said. "We're all about development, we're all about moving forward, but I don't see the moving forward as a small business right now no matter what MDOT or anyone else says.”
“There's some people that are concerned about this project, but we're working with them," Morosi said. "We continue to meet with people who have expressed concerns and we feel that we're making progress and that they have a better understanding of what we want to achieve.”
MDOT says the boulevard will help connect downtown neighborhoods, making them more accessible. It also would clear roughly 30 acres of land. During the meeting, MDOT wanted to hear from residents about what they want to see in the space.
"That's a big swath of land in a downtown area and that's what removing the freeway and replacing it with a street-level boulevard will do,” Morosi said.
Jazlyn Anderson is with Black Bottom Archives, which shares the history of the once-thriving majority Black neighborhood destroyed in the 1960s to build the freeway.
“I hope to see thriving Black businesses, a way that people can work and live in their city," Anderson said. "Instead of people just working downtown or having to go to the outskirts of downtown and vice versa, I want to see a thriving community.”
Another goal of the project is to incorporate the history of neighborhoods like Black Bottom that were destroyed to build the freeway.
Kindle-Walker says she herself grew up in Black Bottom. She feels instead of incorporating the history, the project is repeating history.
"There is no reconnection. This is a pipe dream, and it’s going to disenfranchise a lot of people today,” Kindle-Walker said. "You're going to affect the people who live there right now and then they'll go through the same sorrow that my family went through when we had to leave in 1960s.”
MDOT says public comments can still be submitted via an online comment form, email or by phone at 855-375-MDOT (6368).
