Another building’s days are numbered in the name of highway expansion. Once planned for renovation and reuse by the property’s previous owner, 6060 Rivard on Detroit’s east side is currently slated for demolition for the sake of expanding the I94 and I75 freeways. since MDOT took ownership of the property.

Constructed around 1925, the main building is a five-story concrete reinforced structure with an Art Deco entrance. It abutted to an adjoining two-story brick and wood structure built in the 1890s. 6060 Rivard has been home to several manufacturing businesses over the years, like the Square D Company that made electrical breakers like the one pictured here.

Furthermore, it comes at a time of other MDOT development projects aimed at reconnecting Detroit neighborhoods and removing freeways for their decades of adverse effects on the community. These initiatives are aimed at repairing a longer pattern of neighborhood destruction for the sake of “urban renewal” since the 1950s and 1960s.

Freeway expansion has been conclusively shown time and again not to resolve traffic issues. As the New York Times reports, these types of improvements to transportation infrastructure only cause a temporary fix. Widening highways fail to solve traffic congestion because after only a few years the traffic rebounds through a phenomenon called “induced demand.” The improved transportation encourages more commuters until max capacity is reached - eventually overwhelming the system all over again.

The loss of the building represents a missed opportunity for introducing alternative transportation improvement options. According to Bloomberg, “rather than pouring money into a freeway expansion, the state[s] could have accommodated growth by investing in transit and transit-accessible housing, and improving urban mobility alternatives like bike lanes.” It's terribly ironic that outdated and long-discredited transportation planning is the wrecking ball that will make 6060 Rivard the latest in a long line of historic buildings to lose its ties to Detroit’s rich architectural history.