“Road Diet” Concept Popular With Ann Arbor Planners Gets Support of Saline City Council Members

SALINE CITY COUNCIL member Linda TerHaar presented a resolution at the group’s last meeting to ask MDOT to present options for a road diet and other measures to address traffic flow into and out of the community of 8,800. In particular, Council member TerHaar  and her supporters on Council want to improve the walkability of downtown Saline. Michigan Avenue, a state trunkline, runs through the small town’s downtown.

Council members also hope a road diet (reducing Michigan Avenue to two lane with a turning lane running the length of the street through downtown) could make Michigan Avenue more pedestrian friendly, and cut down on the number of car accidents on the road.

The Council members who voted against the measure—including mayoral candidate Lee Bourgoin—scoffed at the idea that a road diet for Michigan Avenue could improve traffic flow.

Bourgoin, basing his comments and conclusions on a reading of the book Walkable City, by Jeff Speck, said Michigan Avenue was too wide and too busy to be made walkable.

Bourgoin also pointed out that Saline Council members Girbach and Rhoads own land on Michigan Avenue. Both, Bourgoin argued, could “financially gain” from motions on which they were voting.

Saline Mayor Brian Marl dismissed Bourgoin’s allegations as having been “conjured up in NeverNever land.”