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The
U.S. Transportation Department has awarded $104.7 million to
replace the one-mile I-375 freeway.
Its construction in the 1950s and 1960s paved through two
prosperous Black neighborhoods, displacing people, small
businesses and churches. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has
put the number of people displaced at 130,000.
The funding, aimed at spurring economic development, will go
towards realigning the ramps near I-375, installing calming
traffic measures and wider sidewalks as well as reconnecting
neighborhood streets to the boulevard.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said other impacted
communities could use government funding to address the harms of
highways.
"Creating the kind of streetscape that this community envisions
is going to be a great future for how the streets and roads of
this city ought to look and it's important because it addresses
the damage done to a mainly Black community through the gash
that was created that was I-375," he added.
The United States planned more than 40,000 miles of interstate
highways in the 1950s. Many like I-375 were routed through
historically Black and poor neighborhoods.
The Transportation Department said on Thursday it would be
awarding $1.5 billion for the 26 projects including I-375.
These include $150 million for a new toll road and port of entry
facility in Mesa, California along the Mexican border, $110
million to redevelop one of the largest food distribution
centers in the country in New York and $70 million to
rehabilitate a more than 100-year-old railroad track in Chicago.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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