master plan for major streets and highways, meridian charter township

The Mile Road System extended easterly into Detroit, but is interrupted, because much of Detroit's early settlements and farms were based on early French land grants that were aligned northwest-to-southeast with frontage along the Detroit River and on later development along roads running into downtown Detroit in a star pattern, such as Woodward, Jefferson, Grand River, Gratiot, and Michigan Avenues, developed by Augustus Woodward in imitation of Washington, D.C.'s system. When Woodward presented his proposal, Detroit had fewer than 1,000 residents. As the city grew these would spread in all directions from the banks of the Detroit River. Wide avenues, alternatively 200 feet (61 m) and 120 feet (37 m), would emanate from large circular plazas like spokes from the hub of a wheel. The Woodward plan proposed a system of hexagonal street blocks, with the Grand Circus at its center. Detroit's monumental avenues and traffic circles fan out in a baroque-styled radial fashion from Grand Circus Park in the heart of the city's theater district, which facilitates traffic patterns along the city's tree-lined boulevards and parks. Woodward devised a plan similar to Pierre Charles L'Enfant's design for Washington, D.C. History Augustus Woodward's plan following the 1805 fire for Detroit's baroque styled radial avenues and Grand Circus Park.įollowing a historic fire in 1805, Judge Augustus B. Most major roads in the city and suburbs follow this grid, though streets in some areas (particularly within Detroit, and near Lake St. Intersecting this grid are five diagonal spokes, major arterial roads which travel from downtown to the suburbs. Many of the grid's east-west roads are known by numbers, such as 8 Mile Road, the system's baseline and Detroit's northern border. These are supplemented by the Mile Road System, a series of local roads spaced one mile apart on a perpendicular grid. Three primary Interstate Highways pass through the region, along with three auxiliary Interstates, and multiple state and U.S. The Detroit metropolitan area in southeast Michigan is served by a comprehensive network of roads and highways. Michigan State Trunkline Highway System.

Master plan for major streets and highways, meridian charter township