In May, a delegation of southeast Grand Rapids advocates and trail partners hopped on a bus for a two-day visit to the east side of the state to learn firsthand from our peers in Detroit. With the Southside Creekways study in mind, a project that aims to connect southeast Grand Rapids neighborhoods to the Grand River corridor, we were eager to experience the 29-mile Joe Louis Greenway loop that connects Detroiters with their river.
Exploring Detroit
The GR team consisted of the Community Leadership Team (southeast side residents partnering in the Southside Creekways project), staff from the City of Grand Rapids Parks; Planning; and Economic Development departments and Grand River Network representatives.
Much like Grand Rapids’ ambitions for southside greenway connections, the Joe Louis Greenway is routed through several different neighborhoods and land uses. We saw first-hand how trail infrastructure can operate through residential, industrial, commercial, open space and roadway contexts. We biked the Dequindre Cut to the Freight Yard and Eastern Market, shared a meal (and tested the big slide) at the new Warren Gateway playground, and explored what connectivity can look like through curbless commercial corridors in Mexicantown, alleyways in Hamtramck, or across 20 lanes of the I-75 highway.
Momentum Across Cities
Our trip was not just cross-state collaboration, but cross-national – the GR team was joined by peers from Great Rivers Greenway in St. Louis, MO, the Baltimore Greenway Trails Network out of Maryland and Gary ELevated in Gary, IN, who are all working in their own communities. Our tours were guided by amazing and experienced partners at the City of Detroit, Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, Joe Louis Greenway Partnership, SmithGroup, and Sidewalk Detroit.
The collaboration across people, places, expertise and experiences was rich ground for conversation and ideation/inspiration about the many ways that investments in urban trail networks – and the people around them – can sustain equity and quality of life.
We heard from Detroit’s residents and project partners about their current (and impressive!) citywide greenway momentum. It didn’t happen overnight – it builds on a strong foundation of years of intentional planning and community engagement that has produced a shared vision and playbook. That growing energy is also thanks to the Joe Louis Greenway, which has raised over $200M in public funding to date from a wide variety of sources.
This combination of a thorough plan and focused civic attention means they are able to jump on every opportunity for implementation.
Embodied Learning
Moving through the various segments of the Joe Louis Greenway as they were meant to be experienced – by wheel and/or by foot – was a fully embodied learning experience, effectively shaking us out of our everyday contexts to explore and be inspired by new places. Traveling as a team, the collaborative foreground of our trip sparked new possibilities and prompted conversations on what is similar or different from our own communities, helping us to see across different perspectives, all while deepening the relationships between outdoor spaces and one another that make our work possible.
We’ve come back to Grand Rapids energized and with a better understanding of the specific elements, support, and partnerships that it takes to turn big ideas – like the Southside Creekways vision – into manageable action for our community.
Many thanks to our partners in Detroit and the team at SmithGroup for facilitating conversations on the honest lessons learned for project implementation through an inspirational, relationship-forward tour!
