The popular Dequindre Cut Greenway could grow through Eastern Market.
All that has to happen is the Detroit City Council approving a resolution today that would allow the city to accept grants to buy more railroad property.
The proposal would extend the north end of the 1.3-mile greenway, a former Grand Trunk Railroad line, by about a half mile. That would take the greenway from its current terminus at Gratiot Avenue through Eastern Market to Mack Avenue.
The move is part of the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program (TIGER). The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded $10 million in TIGER funds in June for the Link Detroit project, which is slated to improve pedestrian and bicycle trails between Eastern Market, Midtown, downtown Detroit, the RiverWalk and Hamtramck.
The existing Dequindre Cut greenway runs below street level, along an old rail bed on which passenger and freight trains once steamed under Detroit's street grid.
It opened officially in May 2009. One of its features is colorful graffiti along the rocky sides of the trail.
