Out of State Plates in Metro Detroit (Lansing, Southfield: job market, living)

[canudigit]

Originally Posted by MS313

Btw, am I the only one who think New York State plates are ugly?

No, you aren't. I concur, they are hideous and practically glow in the dark. That's what makes them so noticeable on the roads.

[Geo-Aggie]

No, no,

I-94 is "The 94"
I-96 is "The 96"
I-696 is "Ugh"
I-275 is "The 275"
I-75 is "The 75"
I-375 is also "The 75"
M-39 is "Southfield"
M-10 is "The Lodge"
M-53 is "Van Dyke"

At least... that is the case in the world of Geo-Aggie. You may disagree, I wouldn't blame you. And yes, New York plates are especially hideous. I love the Green/Blue Michigan plates. I have those and they're my favorite. I also miss my old Utah "Arches" plate. Colorado has really pretty plates too.

[mgkeith]

About the NY state plates, this is the way they looked when I was a child. They had changed to a white background with blue during the mid-eighties(for aesthetic reasons, lol!) and looked similar to the Michigan plates. They returned to the gold and blue in 2010. Apparently many New Yorkers aren't happy about it. Those are the state colors. Ah, nothing like old times! Certainly distinctive.

[Fubarbundy]

Originally Posted by Geo-Aggie

No, no,

I-94 is "The 94"
I-96 is "The 96"
I-696 is "Ugh"
I-275 is "The 275"
I-75 is "The 75"
I-375 is also "The 75"
M-39 is "Southfield"
M-10 is "The Lodge"
M-53 is "Van Dyke"

At least... that is the case in the world of Geo-Aggie. You may disagree, I wouldn't blame you. And yes, New York plates are especially hideous. I love the Green/Blue Michigan plates. I have those and they're my favorite. I also miss my old Utah "Arches" plate. Colorado has really pretty plates too.

It's not about disagreeing (but maybe this phrase is irrelevant anymore)?

By the way, if any of "you all/you guys" see a GA plate, it might be me...

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by MS313

If I have this right
Ford fwy is I-94
Jefferies fwy is I-96
Chrysler fwy and Detroit-Toledo fwy is I-75
The davidson is a completely pointless freeway that turns into Davidson ave on the westside.

Btw, am I the only one who think New York State plates are ugly?

I actually like NY plates, lol. Clean and simple.

94 is also the Industrial Expressway from Wyoming Avenue to Willow Run.

I-75 is also named Fisher Freeway from like Southfield Road to 375 (where it meets Chrysler Freeway).

Davison isn't completely pointless. It's a good connector to the Lodge if you're coming north from 75 and vice versa. It would have been a better freeway if it connected to 696 via Groesbeck like it was originally intended to. It would have been basically parallel to 94 and probably take off some that bottleneck rush hour traffic you see in Midtown.

[MS313]

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

I actually like NY plates, lol. Clean and simple.

94 is also the Industrial Expressway from Wyoming Avenue to Willow Run.

I-75 is also named Fisher Freeway from like Southfield Road to 375 (where it meets Chrysler Freeway).

Davison isn't completely pointless. It's a good connector to the Lodge if you're coming north from 75 and vice versa. It would have been a better freeway if it connected to 696 via Groesbeck like it was originally intended to. It would have been basically parallel to 94 and probably take off some that bottleneck rush hour traffic you see in Midtown.

Good catch. I forgot about those names changes. And yea that's true I just think the Davidson should be a major street all the way across. Now if it connected to 696 that would be different but I think that it was built way before 696 but I could be wrong.

No, no,

I-94 is "The 94"
I-96 is "The 96"
I-696 is "Ugh"
I-275 is "The 275"
I-75 is "The 75"
I-375 is also "The 75"
M-39 is "Southfield"
M-10 is "The Lodge"
M-53 is "Van Dyke"

At least... that is the case in the world of Geo-Aggie. You may disagree, I wouldn't blame you. And yes, New York plates are especially hideous. I love the Green/Blue Michigan plates. I have those and they're my favorite. I also miss my old Utah "Arches" plate. Colorado has really pretty plates too.

Lol I actually kind of like it... but the stuff in the bolded throws me off... I hate it when a sign or something says the numbers instead of just saying "Southfield, Lodge, Van Dyke, Telegraph, ect. As embarrassing as it is, I still get thrown off sometimes by it lol, but when I first started driving I was much worse because I didn't hardly know anything (navigation wise) besides the eastside of Detroit and Kalamazoo. When I first started paying attention to signs around the westside of Detroit I was like "what the hell is M-39, M-85, M-10, US 24, ect? What made it more confusing is some of these are streets and some are freeways.

[Polymorphist]

Originally Posted by canudigit

I'm curious as to why these people are considering Detroit instead of somewhere less expensive in the Sunbelt like so many others. Is it because they want to avoid the extreme heat and congestion? Is it because they see Detroit as the next boom town Cinderella story?

Good question - a lot of people can't afford to live in Seattle any longer. This is particularly true of artists and young people. Also, there is a massive housing shortage due to our tech explosion, so there are multiple bids on housing with ridiculous escalators. People are going into bars in neighborhoods in which they want to live and asking bartenders to please keep an ear out for any customers whom merely mention that they are considering selling their home. This has affected the rental market, too, because those whom keep losing bids have to find a place to rent. It's become somewhat of a crisis situation out here.

But I also do hear people talk about investing in property in Detroit because they think that at some point it will come back pretty well. To me, Detroit has all the makings of being a tech start-up city - major universities throughout the region which will provide future employees, low-cost and plentiful housing and improvements to transit services. A boomtown...that remains to be seen, but it will eventually rise-up.

Originally Posted by canudigit

I honestly dread it if this area becomes a destination for people from other parts of the country. COL will go up and our way of life will be altered forever. Hopefully I am just making a mountain out of a molehill, but if Detroit were to become like Atlanta or Charlotte, it would affect even those of us living in the extreme outreaches of the area and it would be so depressing.

As noted above, i'm seeing this happen in Seattle right now. Areas near downtown in which nobody wanted to live previously are now ridiculously competitive. Sleepy northend suburbs are now crowding. While I admit that it's nice living in a boomtown with a great economy (i'm an IT person so I benefit greatly from the crazy plentiful jobs at interesting companies), it's affecting everything from the housing market to really bad traffic congestion. At some point i'll flee Seattle, I already know it will happen. We are currently in the midst of constructing a badly-needed, massive light rail project and I bought a house last year one block from an incoming light rail station. I'm already getting developers knocking on my door because they can put four townhouses on my lot. High-density urban development around light rail is the plan, at some point they'll offer me too much money to hold-out and then it won't do me any good to try and buy another property in the Seattle metro area. So i'm starting to think about my move. Detroit is on that list along with Salt Lake City and Phoenix.

I rather like Salt Lake City - good light rail transit already set-up and running, clean city, cheap housing, low traffic density, great access to hang gliding sites immediately outside of the city limits (I have to drive a long way out to the middle of the mountains to do that here in Washington). My only drawback with Salt Lake is the wacky laws which are based on religion. I need to visit a few more times to see if I can really do it. If not, I'm already familiar with Michigan and the weather there so Detroit isn't looking so bad to me.

[MI-Roger]

What about all the Florida plates? On cars not driven by obvious "Snow Birds", and seen here all year long?

i suspect some people buy a car in Florida, using their parent's or grandparent's address, just to avoid the 6% sales tax here in Michigan. The sales tax on a $35k new car is over $2K, and if they are going South to visit family anyway.................

Well, you see where my suspicions are headed.

[MI-Roger]

Originally Posted by Geo-Aggie

No, no,

I-94 is "The 94"
I-96 is "The 96"
I-696 is "Ugh"
I-275 is "The 275"
I-75 is "The 75"
I-375 is also "The 75"
M-39 is "Southfield"
M-10 is "The Lodge"
M-53 is "Van Dyke"

At least... that is the case in the world of Geo-Aggie. You may disagree, I wouldn't blame you. And yes, New York plates are especially hideous. I love the Green/Blue Michigan plates. I have those and they're my favorite. I also miss my old Utah "Arches" plate. Colorado has really pretty plates too.

I-94 is the Ford Expressway
I-75 is the Chrysler Expressway
I-96 is the Jeffries Expressway

And then there is the Davison, the expressway to no where and the first in the country. I don't even know what it's numerical designation is. Too bad the Davison was never extended far enough West to connect with the Jeffries, or far enough East to connect to the Ford. These extensions would have made it a usable detour around the snarl caused by the Lodge, Jeffries, Ford, Chrysler, and Grand Rive Ave all intersecting in less than a 5 mile stretch.

[beachmouse]

Originally Posted by MI-Roger

i suspect some people buy a car in Florida, using their parent's or grandparent's address, just to avoid the 6% sales tax here in Michigan. The sales tax on a $35k new car is over $2K, and if they are going South to visit family anyway.................

You also pay 6% (or slightly more depending on local option) sales tax on cars in Florida and then it's another $500 or so in initial registration fees the first time you need to get a Florida license plate down here. Since FL has no state income tax, we're all about hitting you with assorted 'user fees'.

As for Seattle, we were in NW Washington last year for vacation, and thought parts of it felt an awful lot like northern Michigan, but with better mountains. And hey, after a few years there, Michigan winters, even in the lake effect snow belt, seem sunny in comparison.