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Article: Planning a transportation system for metropolitan Detroit in the age of the automobile: the triumph of the expressway.
- Article from:
- Michigan Historical Review
- Article date:
- March 22, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Clarke Historical Library. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Although Detroit had no rapid-transit system in place in the early 1920s, the Motor City seemed poised in 1923 to build the most modern and innovative transportation system in the United States. The Detroit Rapid Transit Commission (RTC), led by former automobile executive Sidney D. Waldon, proposed a comprehensive and pathbreaking transportation system that included high-speed rail lines routed through subways in the downtown area, but then extended well beyond the city limits on elevated "super-highways" that also carried motor vehicles, with express lanes for through traffic and other lanes for local traffic. Waldon was unable to gain public approval for this system ...