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OAKLAND COUNTY — The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments recently announced it was awarding more than $10 million in Transportation Alternatives Program grants.
SEMCOG awarded $10,707,004 to cover 10 projects in southeast Michigan, including one in the city of Southfield.
Southfield will receive $1,094,801 for its project which, according to a press release, is a SEMCOG-identified regional bicycle and pedestrian corridor almost a mile in length on Nine Mile Road.
“SEMCOG’s Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) — one of our most impactful programs — enables us to provide direct funding into communities to improve safety for all road users, connect our regional trails and greenways, and improve access to key destinations like schools, parks, and jobs,” SEMCOG Executive Director Amy O’Leary said in a prepared statement. “These ten projects show both the need our region has for high-quality, well-maintained walking and biking infrastructure as well as the commitment our communities have to ensuring quality of life for residents and visitors.”
Southfield Mayor Kenson Siver said the city is committing to doing urban trails and getting more people walking in the city.
“Many times when you think of going hiking, you get in the car and you go to the woods someplace or a trail along a river, and instead we want people to walk in their own community,” he said.
According to Siver, Southfield received funding to do the trail from Evergreen Road to Greenfield Road, which will be done in 2026.
He also said there is focus to layer amenities all along the trail. This includes benches, trash receptacles, bike repair stations, dog respite stations, public art, birdhouses, mile markers and way-finding signage.
“These are not sidewalks,” Siver said of the trails. “These are 8-to-10-foot-wide pathways that are suitable for biking, rollerblading, certainly walking, jogging, and one of the reasons SEMCOG is doing this is they want people to get outside, to not always get in a car. … By fall of ’26, we will have 5 of our 6 miles across Nine Mile with a trail.”
In the press release, Siver stated that Southfield will be partnering with the neighboring communities of Farmington, Farmington Hills, Oak Park, Ferndale and Hazel Park for its Nine Mile Road Greenway Corridor project.
Ferndale Mayor Pro Tem Laura Mikulski said Nine Mile has evolved from more than just a road and is now a connector of communities.
“It is serving as a multimodal way for people to get from point A to point B and really enjoy the corridor,” she said. “Ferndale has always been a kind of a hub, like, around our Nine Mile area because we have a downtown there, but the effort to make it multimodal and expanding out across multiple cities, it’s really a regional effort to revitalize the entire corridor.”
The most important improvement Mikulski said that they as communities can make is to improve walkability.
“We see it in Ferndale and making the sidewalks safer for people. That extending out in Oak Park has been absolutely phenomenal with a greenway where people can walk and have pocket parks and things to do along the way,” she said. “I really think that was one of those transformational things, because it makes it nicer to go through to the different restaurants and retail stores along the Nine Mile corridor.”
Siver said that this is all about economic development and investing in Nine Mile.
“If you were to drive down Nine Mile from Evergreen over to Telegraph or beyond, you’d see the pathway and then you’d see — we’re not done — but we’ve been putting out benches, trash cans and way-finding signage,” he said. “Eventually, as money becomes available, we keep layering on things.”
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