Community Impact Assessment


Aerial view of the two landscaped platforms ove I-696, Oak Park, MI.

Community Cohesion: Oak Park, Michigan


Introduction

The I-696 project was slated to go through the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Oak Park, MI. The critical concern of the community was that the I-696 project would physically divide the community and prevent worshippers from walking to synagogue for worship on Saturdays, the Sabbath. Orthodox Jewish custom prohibits driving on the Sabbath and other Jewish holy days. The unique needs of this community were, at first, not fully recognized by transportation planning officials. However, from 1979 to 1981, the Orthodox Jewish Community made its needs know and intervened effectively in the project-planning process to ensure the implementation of a significant, community-impact mitigation plan. In the end, the Rabbi-led group that had vigorously petitioned to protect their community against the impacts of this major project ended up proud of the outcome. Clearly, something has gone right.

After highway engineers had designed and built nearly 20 miles of I-696 from the late 1950s to 1979, they were faced with a unique problem--mitigating impacts of the highway on a highly pedestrian community. The completion of I-696 through Oakland County, MI, in 1989 came after two decades of controversy, arbitration, litigation, and negotiation affecting numerous municipalities. However, the most extensive mitigation of the project, which involved the Orthodox Jewish community, was designed only at the very end of the project-planning process.

The highway alignment traversed the heart of a large Jewish community that extended from Southfield to Oak Park, which are both Oakland County suburbs of Detroit, MI. The impacts of the highway would have been greatest n the tightly knit, cohesive Orthodox Jewish community of Oak Park.

The Players

Key Agencies and Groups Involved in the Oak Park, MI Section of I-696:

  • Federal Highway Administration, Region 5
  • Michigan Department of Transportation
  • The city of Oak Park, MI
  • The city of Southfield, MI
  • U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
  • Orthodox Coalition
The core of the Jewish community was concentrated in a 4-square-mile area and was the most vulnerable to transportation-project impacts because of its residents' needs for pedestrian access to community facilities. The area's community facilities, which serve both Orthodox and secular Jews, include 19 synagogues, over 20 retain businesses catering to Jewish clientele, and 9 religious schools. Religious leaders of the Orthodox Jewish community feared the possible social disintegration of the neighborhood. Pedestrian access to synagogues is critical to the Orthodox Jewish community, and the preliminary design of the depressed highway would have separated residential areas from local synagogues.

In 1979, threatening litigation, the Orthodox Jewish community organized and petitioned Federal and State decisionmakers to relocate the last segment of I-696 north of their neighborhood. When realignment of the roadway appeared futile, the community revised their strategy and pressed for mitigation to preserve pedestrian circulation and aesthetics within their neighborhood. Their efforts were successful. In 1981, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) approved the last segment of I-696, contingent on the implementation of specific pedestrian-sensitive mitigation measures. The final roadway (a depressed, limited-access, divided highway) included a network of continuous sidewalks, noise walls, pedestrian bridges, and two decks over I-696 in Oak Park to facilitate pedestrian access across the freeway as well as to provide a noise buffer from the highway. To help the decks better fit into the community, they were, landscaped for active and passive recreation. These deck parks, as they are called in the community, were however, principally mitigation to maintain pedestrian access.


Introduction
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