Potholes, uneven pavement and a roadway design that officials say no longer quite works for anyone have put Coolidge Highway in downtown Berkley back on the table for a major rethink. The city is asking residents, business owners and daily commuters to help decide what comes next for the stretch between 11 Mile and 12 Mile roads, a corridor that carries drivers, cyclists and pedestrians through the heart of town.
Berkley has retained engineers to assist with the project and is gathering community feedback before any final plans take shape, according to WXYZ Detroit. Shawn Young, Berkley's deputy city manager, told the station the city wants to nail down the road's future design and already knows it needs to be redone. “This is kind of a rare opportunity for us to actually improve the community,” Young said, according to the same report.
City officials are weighing a wide range of options, including resurfacing, streetscape enhancements, pedestrian-friendly features, public gathering spaces and art installations, the station reported. Young said no possibilities for Coolidge are off the table at this stage.
Residents Describe a Road in Rough Shape
Berkley resident Lauren Connor told WXYZ that Coolidge has potholes and congestion and could use real improvement. Nick Forte, co-owner of the downtown gift shop June & December, said a complete resurfacing is needed after years of patchwork repairs, and that he's heard resurfacing is coming and expects it to benefit the community once finished.
Forte also pushed for more than just smoother pavement, telling the station he'd like to see more community engagement, pop-up parks and art installations woven into the corridor, along with transformed alleyways and other downtown spots to make the area more inviting. He said the project could end up strengthening Berkley's downtown district as a whole.
A Road That's Already Been Reworked Once
This isn't the corridor's first makeover. In 2019, Berkley introduced a road diet that cut Coolidge Highway from four travel lanes down to two, removing the two outermost lanes and adding a center left-turn lane, bike lanes and additional on-street parking, per C & G Newspapers. At the time, the city agreed to run the new configuration for one year and study the results, WXYZ reported, with the lane-repainting work estimated at roughly $120,000 and funded through the Downtown Development Authority. The Transportation Improvement Association said at the time that the change would likely improve safety in the area, while then-City Manager Matthew Baumgarten noted that models and case studies backed the approach even though nothing like it had been tried in Berkley before.
That one-year study didn't go as planned. The COVID-19 pandemic cut traffic volumes so sharply that the city couldn't properly collect the data it needed, delaying a full evaluation, the outlet's report on the matter explains. It eventually fell to a Coolidge Oversight Taskforce, which finalized its recommendations in November 2022, according to Oakland County Times. The taskforce recommended keeping the road diet with minor modifications rather than returning Coolidge to four lanes, suggesting the city retain the continuous turn lane, add perpendicular striping and parking-lane bump-outs, redesign the 12 Mile intersection, and consider long-term bike lanes integrated with pedestrian areas.
Council Signed Off, Citing Travel-Time Data
Berkley's City Council unanimously approved those taskforce recommendations, the same C & G Newspapers report notes. The decision leaned on measured corridor travel times that differed by less than a minute between the old four-lane setup and the single-lane-plus-turn-lane configuration, while the pilot layout was estimated to have created about 40 additional on-street parking spaces. The council's approved plan called for keeping that on-street parking in place while adding perpendicular striping and curb extensions at intersections.
No Budget or Timeline Set Yet
For now, Berkley is still securing funding for the broader redesign and has no ideal budget set, WXYZ reported. A start date for construction will be determined only after plans are finalized, and city officials expect that finalization process to take about a year. The city plans to begin collecting public input later this year and will post meeting information and feedback opportunities on its website and social media accounts as that process unfolds.
