(The following story by Matt Helms appeared on the Detroit Free Press website on August 4, 2010.)
DETROIT — Even the feds know how crucial Woodward is to Detroit’s heritage, with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood touting the route as “sacred ground” soon after a visit to the city in which he threw support behind an effort to run light-rail up the avenue.
“You know, for any Secretary of Transportation, Woodward Avenue is sacred ground,” LaHood wrote in his Fast Lane Blog, which appears on the Transportation Department’s Web site. “A century ago, Woodward was the first street paved with concrete anywhere in the world. Its traffic was among the first to be managed by modern stop lights (invented by a Detroit police officer). And Woodward was once the backbone of a model streetcar network and transit system replicated in cities across the United States.”
LaHood was in town Monday and appeared at a news conference with Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, supporting a $425-million plan to run light rail from Hart Plaza to 8 Mile along Woodward, the first leg of what organizers hope will be a regional mass transit system that includes rail, high-speed buses and commuter trains.
LaHood praised the “forward-thinking public-private partnership that is making the Woodward Avenue line possible.”