FILE PATHEXPLORE DETROIT/TRANSPORTATION
DETROIT IN MOTION · ROADS RESHAPE THE CITY

EXPRESSWAYS & URBAN CHANGE.

High-speed road infrastructure altered travel patterns and also changed the neighborhoods through which it passed. This room treats expressways as both transportation systems and agents of urban transformation.

Traffic on Second Avenue in Detroit, July 1942
REAL DETROIT SOURCE · Traffic on Second Avenue in Detroit at 5:30 p.m., July 1942.
Source: Arthur S. Siegel / Library of Congress FSA/OWI · Public domain.PRE-EXPRESSWAY TRAFFIC CONTEXT — not the Lodge Freeway.
RESEARCH LENS

Reading the new road network

  • Changes in travel time and route choice
  • Neighborhood disruption and altered street connections
  • Commercial shifts around road infrastructure
  • Connections to redevelopment and population movement
  • Then/Now map overlays for comparison
CONNECT THE CITY

Road building changed more than travel.

Routes, construction, neighborhood effects, and travel changes stay tied to plans, maps, photographs, and dated records.

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