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Community Cohesion: Oak Park, Michigan |
What Happened
Planning began in 1956 for a 28-mile, east-west, limited-access highway connecting I-96 to I-94 in suburban Detroit. The purpose and need for the highway resulted from the suburbanization of Detroit and the resulting change in traffic flow. Originally designed for a rural population, the basic roadway network consisted of a grid system of north-south and east-west roads spaced 1 mile apart. This grid connected the north-south arterial roadways to downtown Detroit.
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The planning for the last 8 miles of I-696 was bitterly contested. The proposed
right-of-way traversed numerous communities, including Oak Park. At the time, State law
required that before construction could commence, the Michigan Department of Transportation
(MIDOT) must receive local approval for each of the communities through which a proposed
highway would traverse. The local municipalities contested the highway alignment and delayed
the final completion of I-696 from Lasher Road to Interstate 75, leaving an 8-mile gap in the
roadway. To overcome the impasse, the Michigan Legislature passed the Highway Route Arbitration
Act in 1969, which mandates arbitration in highway projects when agreements with local
communities cannot be reached. The law was written purposely to facilitate completion of I-696
and has not been invoked since the completion of that highway. So, in 1968, a three-member
arbitration board was appointed by the State Legislature to select the final alignment after
hearing testimony on I-696. The arbitrated alignment passed through the middle of the Orthodox
Jewish community in Oak Park. By 1979, the final 8-mile portion of I-696 remained unfinished. The Orthodox Jewish community did not organize to oppose the highway until 1979. Residents opposed the idea of the entire community having to move from Oak Park before I-696 could be completed. But when the cost of moving became prohibitive (interest rates were at an all-time high), the community began to actively oppose the project, organizing to block it on community-impact grounds under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. Community activists invited State and Federal highway officials to a meeting at a local synagogue to discuss the impacts of I-696 on the Orthodox Jewish community, although they doubted any would attend. Much to their surprise, however, both highway officials and politicians attended. The Orthodox Coalition, as the community group became known, consisted of over 20 rabbis representing families within their synagogues. MIDOT appointed a staff ombudsman to work solely on this project. The ombudsman worked closely with a coalition-selected, MIDOT-paid liaison, who, in turn, worked closely with the community. To document their cohesiveness and uniqueness, the Orthodox Jewish community requested that MIDOT conduct a sociological study of the community. MIDOT agreed, and the study proved to be the community's most critical asset. A sociologist at Michigan State University was retained by MIDOT and spent several days in the community attending religious and social functions, walking from one venue to another with community members. The resulting report, I-696 Social Impact Study: Orthodox Jewish Community, stated that the Orthodox Jews are like most other suburbanites during the week. But on Sabbath, from sundown Friday until nightfall Saturday, and on 11 Jewish holy days, they are pedestrians--Sabbath walkers--who travel to various synagogues, community events, and private homes my foot. The depressed highway would greatly increase the distances members had to walk and would, thus, decrease the number of community visitations during the Sabbath.
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Orthodox Jews in the community typically belong to more than one synagogue and, as devout members, may attend the closest synagogue to their workplace during the day and a synagogue closer to home on the weekend. This practice added to the complexity of creating a mitigation plan for pedestrians access. The report concluded that access to all of the area's five Orthodox Jewish synagogues would be impacted. In 1980, about 700 families were found to be Sabbath walkers.
The social-impact report also explained Jewish religious law as it pertained to the proposed depressed highway. Jewish religious law defines the space within which worshippers can carry their possessions on the Sabbath as a domain surrounded by a partition or a trench. This concept is important, as carrying objects outside of such a space would be considered a form of work, which is forbidden on the Sabbath. There was a question among the community's religious scholars as to whether or not the highway would act as a trench and symbolically divide the residents into two Orthodox Jewish communities. The report indicated that some meticulous observers might take it upon themselves no to cross the highway via a pedestrian bridge, regardless of rabbinical opinion. Residents also feared that construction noise and traffic on the highway would impact the serenity of the religious community and diminish the quality of worship at the various synagogues.
The study had documented a tightly knit, religious community at risk of social disintegration if disturbances to their pedestrian lifestyle were not mitigated. The report recommended that a tunneling approach we used in project construction to minimize community impact and address the trench issue. The report proved to be a critical document in re-evaluating the initial design of the project and was widely circulated--along with the project's environmental documents--among highway official.
When it appeared to the Orthodox Coalition that the likelihood of permanently blocking the project was slim, they immediately approach MIDOT and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) officials with a request for mitigation measures to eliminate or reduce the pedestrian and vehicular access impacts, and noise impacts of the project. The ombudsman and community liaison worked closely with the community and MIDOT project officials to ensure the community's concerns were part of the project decisionmaking. Citing the importance of preserving strong neighborhoods and the importance of the Orthodox Jewish community, with its numerous schools of Jewish religious study, to the Jewish community nationally, the Orthodox Coalition also called for help from national Jewish groups in a letter-writing campaign to the White House. Petitioning others to write on behalf of the Orthodox Jewish community paid off. In 1981, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation approached the I-696 project, provided that the highway design incorporate various mitigation measures oriented toward pedestrian access, including the creation of two platform decks across the highway in Oak Park.