22 | DECEMBER 9 • 2021 

OUR COMMUNITY

L

ooking east from Church 
Street north of 10 Mile 
Road, you can see a 
gleaming playground. Around 
the playground is a wide 
grass-covered field with curved 
paved walkways shaded by 
low trees. You could enjoy this 
bucolic scenery without sus-
pecting that a major highway 
runs right beneath your feet. 
You are standing on an excep-
tionally wide bridge, an over-
pass of the I-696 freeway, but it 
feels like standing in a park. 
That feeling is no accident; it 
is a feat of civil and social engi-
neering. 
Fifty years ago, the planned 
route for the new freeway would 
rip through the heart of the 

Jewish neighborhood centered 
in Oak Park. In 1979, activists 
challenged the government to 
accommodate the needs of its 
Orthodox Jewish community. 
They needed connectivity. 
Observant Jews from either side 
of the highway needed to get 
to the other side easily, on foot, 
every festival and Shabbat. The 
highway threatened to destroy 
one or both sides of the neigh-
borhood.
The wide overpass, opened in 
1988, solved that social problem 
beautifully and continues to do 
so. The Jewish community has 
not abandoned this neighbor-
hood. On any Shabbat, families 
stroll from one side to the other 
of Victoria Park. Parents sit on 

benches around the playground 
and watch their children at play. 
The civil engineering solu-
tion has not lasted as well. The 
unusual and innovative wide 
bridge covered in soil, has had 
persistent drainage problems. 
An extensive remodel of the 
bridge covering, undertaken 
in 2016, did not end the prob-
lem. In the winter, icicles hang 
down from the underside of the 
bridge, threatening to fall onto 
the traffic below. 
At a virtual public meeting 
on Thursday, Nov. 18, pre-
senter Matt Chynoweth, chief 
bridge engineer at the Michigan 
Department of Transportation 
(MDOT), explained that the 
bridge “is not dangerous, but 

that it is reaching the end of its 
useful life.
” 
Chynoweth explained that 
the process of demolishing and 
rebuilding will take place in 
segments so pedestrians and 
motorists will still be able to get 
from one side to the other even 

MDOT

MDOT experts seek community input into 1-696 bridge renovation.
Replacing the I-696 Plaza

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Icicles hang down from the bridge 
over the highway, presenting a 
danger to traffic.

A view from above 
of Victoria Park and 
Church Street.