The parks built on top of a freeway in Oak Park

Drive I-696 through Oak Park and the freeway disappears beneath broad landscaped decks three times. The U.S. Department of Transportation describes them as three large bridge decks that reconnect the community above the sunken highway. From the road they feel like short tunnels; from the neighborhood they work as park and walking space.

The connection is not decorative. The federal grant record says I-696 bisects Oak Park’s Orthodox Jewish community and that the decks link people to businesses, schools, places of worship, and other daily destinations. Walking access matters especially in a community where many residents do not drive on the Sabbath and other holy days.

One of those links needed major work. A 2022 Reconnecting Communities award gave the Michigan Department of Transportation about $21.7 million toward replacing the Church Street deck, also known as the Victoria Park plaza bridge. The federal fact sheet put the whole project at about $43.4 million and described the old deck as leaking and nearing the end of its useful life.

MDOT says the Church Street plaza bridge is being rebuilt as part of the current I-696 work, with a walkway detour while construction is active. The practical point is the same one that won the grant: this is transportation infrastructure for the people above the freeway, not only for the drivers below it.