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SPECIAL REPORT TRANSPORTATIONPROJECT: CLOSE UP

FRAMEWORK FOR SPRAWL

Source: Corridor Analysis Report for Michigan Department of Transportation, Grand Traverse County Road Commission

© Michigan Land Use Institute

South Airport Road, crossing the Boardman River at Logan's Landing. Traverse City is in the midst of a typical urban sprawl pattern. In the 1970s the Grand Traverse County Road Commission set a fateful course when it built South Airport Road as a bypass south of the city. Within a decade it had emerged as the region's new Main Street, but accessibleonly by car.

Courtesy of Traverse City Downtown Development Authority Front Street and downtown Traverse City, post World War II. In 1950 this was the compact com- mercial center for 17,000 city residents. It also served nearly 50,000 residents of the five-county Grand Traverse region who came for goods and services they could not obtain in their small towns. People living in the city could walk, bike, or take a bus from their homes to schools, stores, and offices, which limited the need to drive.

Left and above, courtesy of Anderson Aerials

Site of the proposed new four-lane Boardman River bridge and Hartman-Hammond connector roads. Now the Road Commission wants to build another bypass one mile south of the South Airport bypass. Numerous studies, as well as actual experience from the nation's sprawled cities, show that it would actually increase congestion as people shuttle among new and farther-flung destinations. The Traverse City Bypass proposal has prompteda growing movement among residents, working for a project called Smart Roads: Grand Traverse Region, to renovate existing roads and bridges and stop the wasteful cycleof sprawl.