Keith Crain’s latest anti-bike screed illustrates Detroit’s growing culture war

Photo via Detroit Greenways Coalition’s Facebook page

Supporters of efforts to wean Detroit off its crippling addiction to the automobile got a fresh reminder of the forces of opposition when Keith Crain published yet another anti-bike-lane screed in Crain’s.

The op-ed was published under the completely ridiculous, nothing-to-see-here headline “Time to get ready for winter” (I argued on the pod the other day that it appears an editor may well have been trolling his own boss with that milquetoast headline, but that’s another story). In it, Crain, the chairman of Crain Communications, Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame member and an avowed car enthusiast, grouses that with the coming of winter, the bike lanes that have repeatedly drawn his ire will see even less use than they already are and will further snarl traffic for motorists like himself, who are forced to navigate the fewer lanes that are left exclusively to vehicle traffic.

“I believe more will question the wisdom of spending millions of dollars to accommodate a handful of bikers, notwithstanding the new scooter renters, as winter sets in,” he writes, adding that “perhaps a new set of politicians” will realize the error and reverse their proliferation.

His column has set off a flurry of discussion around town, with Crain’s reporter Chad Livengood entering the fray to make the point that “A lot of people agree with him” based on the web traffic and letters, though he later walked back those comments somewhat.

Here’s the thing about Keith Crain’s commentary on the growing number of bike lanes and shrinking number of vehicle lanes in Detroit: A lot of people agree with him.
We’ve got the web traffic and letters to prove it.https://t.co/bd1Hj4gHq3 https://t.co/KcsTBQ8HqU

— Chad Livengood (@ChadLivengood) October 1, 2018

But his point is well taken. People — many of them older, but I’m sure there are plenty of young people — take it as a personal affront whenever their ability to operate their motor vehicle as they see fit is in any way impeded by a pedestrian or bicyclist. Never mind that streets are technically — and according to the law — fair game for both modes of transportation.

It’s a distinctly pronounced phenomenon in the Motor City and especially its suburbs, where motor oil runs through people’s veins and aversions to public transit is widespread. And it’s probably only grown in Detroit as wide thoroughfares like East Jefferson, Grand River and Michigan Avenue that were built for a much bigger population offer far more traffic capacity than needed today, leading to the sense of entitlement for uninhibited driving, especially in areas of the city deemed unsafe.

Detroit has roads that have a ton of capacity. What people are mad about is needing to now pay attention to other users outside their windshield. Detroit’s downfall led to the perceived entitlement of quick, uninhibited driving. You can’t just zip through most successful places.

— Christopher Andrews (@chrisandrewsCDA) October 1, 2018

But do these same people make this complaint about roads that see little actual vehicular traffic? Or do they complain about, say, traffic jams? Seems like a lot of people see widening roads or freeways as the answer to the latter, even though evidence shows that only fuels more traffic jams.

Crain’s editorial acted as a sequel to his June piece, “Say goodbye to the Motor City,” and it represents a local phenomenon I have long observed: a nostalgic unwillingness to let go of the Detroit of old and a fierce resistance to change anything.

Which is patently absurd, because — Earth to Keith Crain and his Cadillac-driving chums — the Detroit they hold so dear failed, spectacularly. Perhaps you noticed. Turns out building a sprawling, 139-square-mile city with no reliable, comprehensive public transportation system to get people to and from jobs isn’t a great recipe for a thriving, urban metropolis. Particularly in a city where a quarter of households don’t own a car.

A rendering of protected bike lanes proposed for downtown Detroit. | Downtown Detroit Partnership

Mayor Mike Duggan has been explicit about his belief that residents need options for how to get around town. And you’d have to wear blinders not to notice the remarkable rise in bicycling and bike culture in the city over the past decade-plus.

Bike lanes mean more people living and breathing and interacting with the city and its neighborhoods and businesses, rather than being hermetically sealed inside their cars, speeding past everything in a rush to get home. East Jefferson, where protected bike lanes have reduced a formerly eight-lane roadway down to four, is seeing a new Meijer open up shop. Ferndale put Nine Mile on a road diet through its downtown in the 1990s, way before it was fashionable, as a way to calm traffic and increase pedestrian activity, to obvious success. Royal Oak just installed a bunch of painted bike lanes on Washington Street leading from Woodward Avenue into downtown.

Placemaking, auto insurance rates and talent attraction are all things Crain’s has covered. The publication is rooting for the city’s success. To me, that’s why this editorial seems so out of step. (5/5) https://t.co/x9NbzSzNKk

— Emily Lawler (@emilyjanelawler) October 1, 2018

If you want thriving urban environments where people want to live, work, play and open businesses, then build bike lanes and innovative public spaces that encourage people to get out of their cars. If you want sterile, economically struggling 8-lane thoroughfares with nary a bicyclist to spoil your perfect drive, well, there are still plenty of those to be found around here, last I checked.