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Phase: Explore Discussion Areas: Inspire innovation

Connections to downtown/midtown

Quick connection from Corktown to Downtown and Midtown as alternative to walking, bikeshare and e-scooter.

Photo of Mark Poll
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As an office resident of the Factory at Corktown, I have traveled after work to dinners and events around Detroit. A quick connection is needed between Corktown and Downtown/Midtown when Ford's campus is established.  I have used scooters and walked, but most commonly used ridehailing or driven and parked in these neighborhoods.  Future employees may want to live in Detroit and utilize a quick connection, whether fixed-route AV shuttles, Q Line public transit extension or other mobility solution.

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Photo of Alina J Johnson

Paid parking downtown is already a problem. This will also need to be addressed but like you, I use whatever method available from walking, driving partway, to using the PeopleMover, and (slow) QLine. Hey, whatever works....but I need it to be quick! The PM/QL aren't here in Hubbard-Richard (or Corktown)...

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Photo of Peter Dudley

There are several options for parking near Ford's Michigan Central Station (MCS).
During Ford's four-day MCS Open House (June 2018), the former - (long-trackless) MCS Coach Yard became a temporary parking lot for thousands of visitors. If this area becomes a permanent parking lot, an old tunnel running across West Vernor Highway could be adaptively-reused to connect the lot with the former - MCS Boiler Room, located under the station's Carriage Entrance (aka Cab Stand). The tunnel might provide a safer alternative for crossing busy West Vernor, especially during winter months.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2064439073814388&set=gm.828428860689001&type=3&theater&ifg=1
I believe the long-vacant MCS Mail Room, located under MCS Tracks 1 through 10 (southeast of the Passenger Subway pedestrian corridor), provided parking for station employees after Railway Mail Service / Railway Post Office (RPO) operations ended in 1967. All of the space under the 1914 MCS Viaduct is currently-controlled by Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), I believe.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1445811509010484&set=a.1378464909078478&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Another parking possibility: The Albert Kahn - designed 1933 Roosevelt Park Railway Mail Service Annex, more-notoriously-known today as the former - Detroit Public Schools Roosevelt Warehouse, was included in Ford's $90 million MCS purchase. This view (included in the attached link below) looks southeast from MCS's East Entrance.
Ford has cleaned-up the interior of this structure, which was gutted during a 1987 fire. The building's outer walls are intact -- I hope they will eventually house a new enclosed parking structure.
The bridge (foreground) connects MCS's East Entrance to the station's former - (inadequate) parking lot, where DEPOT LOOP streetcars arrived and departed until 1938 (there's an idea for M-1 RAIL!)
The bridge crosses a depressed-descending driveway leading to the station's former - Mail Room, located under ten of the station's parallel passenger platform tracks (out-of-frame, right).
Just inside the East Entrance, the Elevator Lobby features six elevators leading to the office floors above. The Arcade (a vaulted corridor lined with long-empty storefronts) connects the Elevator Lobby with the station's centrally-located Ticket Lobby.
Conveyor belts, running through tunnels crossing under 15th Street, once connected the MCS Mail Room to the Annex (moving sidewalks, anyone?)
https://www.nailhed.com/2014/02/fahrenheit-313.html?fbclid=IwAR2WcRkRiCD1ySbJEmgCtK4aPA6mH0oh1tcxVmthL8ki1ufvNDMDVt7loQg

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