DETROIT (WXYZ) — When you drive into Corktown, it's the brick road that reminds you that you're in Detroit's oldest neighborhood.
VIDEO EXTRA: Take a ride on the brick pavers in Corktown
"You know you're home," said former Detroit City Councilperson Sheila Cockrel, who now sits on the board of the Corktown Business Association.
Cockrel and others are concerned that plans by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) to rebuild a 1.6-mile section of Michigan Avenue will ruin Corktown's nostalgic vibe.
"I'd be kind of disappointed to lose the cobblestone brick over here," said Eric Curl who lives in Corktown.
Joseph Hudec said the historic bricks in the road are synonymous with Corktown.
"It's telling of our past," he said. "It's something that you don't want to get rid of."
MDOT Senior Project Manager Mohammed Alghurabi said, depending on the integrity of the old bricks, some could be reused in a small area on Michigan Avenue where drivers enter Corktown as well as in decorative sidewalk areas.
"The infrastructure is very, very old. It goes back to the 60s and 50s, and it's time to do a total reconstruction that includes drainage and everything involved with it," Alghurabi told 7 News Detroit.
Bob Roberts, president of the Corktown Business Association, who owns McShane's Irish Pub on Michigan Avenue and Trumbull, is part of a "Save the Bricks" campaign to lessen the impact of MDOT's project on residents and businesses.
"We very much look forward to any type of information that they can give us that's going to convince me that it's not going to put people out of business," said Roberts, adding that Corktown's small business community is fragile right now after a rough recovery after COVID.
Roberts said he isn't opposed to rebuilding Michigan Avenue and other parts of the infrastructure, but he's concerned that MDOT's current plan to reduce traffic lanes to one lane in each direction in order to make room for two lanes for transit and autonomous vehicles, is short-sighted.
"There is no other corridor, no other area in the city where they're planning on doing the same thing. So, in my opinion, it's literally a one-off experiment to turn Michigan Avenue into a transit proving ground in the center two lanes," said Roberts. "And it's going to be at the detriment of many businesses. And, I think, make the everyday lives of our residential neighbors much different than what it is today."
Cockrel added that having what amounts to an "experiment" with autonomous vehicles in Detroit's oldest neighborhood just doesn't make sense.
"Who's doing the monitoring of the people who get in the autonomous lane who are not in an autonomous vehicle?" she asked.
Alghurabi is adamant that they are still gathering input on how to go about rebuilding Michigan Avenue and that they will welcome public input at a meeting in mid-September. He said the plan is to start the project in 2025.
Ford’s autonomous vehicle operations are in the newly opened Michigan Central in Corktown. A spokesperson for Michigan Central declined to comment about MDOT's plans.
