A formal study. The same process our neighbors received.
NE A2 Barriers has a specific, near-term goal: inclusion in a formal MDOT noise abatement study for the residential corridor along US-23 and M-14 between Pontiac Trail and Earhart Road, and effective sound mitigation within the next decade.
In November 2025, MDOT revised the US-23 Improvement Study boundary, moving the southern limit north to the Earhart Road overpass. Six noise barriers were approved for communities that remained inside that boundary. The communities removed from the study got nothing, and no explanation. The ask is inclusion in a formal study. The same process neighboring communities received.
We are not asking MDOT to build barriers. We are asking for inclusion in a noise abatement study. Every number cited on this page is context for why that process matters, and why people working on housing, transit, and equity in Ann Arbor should care whether it happens.
Inclusion in a study is a decision made by MDOT and the Washtenaw Area Transportation Study (WATS), the regional body that votes projects onto the federally funded Transportation Improvement Program. See how that funding actually works for the full breakdown of why a petition alone doesn't move that decision, and what does.
A corridor that is predominantly multifamily and rental.
The communities in this corridor represent more than 3,500 households across fifteen communities between Pontiac Trail and Earhart Road. Some were removed from the US-23 Improvement Study when MDOT revised its boundary in November 2025. Others, including North Oaks, Owl Creek, and Foxfire, were never within the scope of either the US-23 study or the M-14 Noise Study. All of them fall in the gap between both active MDOT studies, with no process underway to evaluate their noise exposure.
The corridor is more renter-heavy and more economically diverse than the single-family neighborhoods that stayed in the study and received noise barrier consideration. Renters and multifamily residents are less likely to have the organizational infrastructure to demand a noise study, attend MDOT open houses, or sustain a petition campaign. The result is a pattern where highway noise mitigation flows toward communities that can organize, and away from those that cannot.
Affordable housing and highway noise are the same problem.
The same market forces that make highway-adjacent land affordable to develop also make it the worst place to live from a noise and air quality standpoint. This is already visible elsewhere in Ann Arbor. The Bryant Elementary neighborhood along I-94 on the south side of the city has a significant concentration of affordable and lower-income housing and no sound barriers. Residents there absorb highway noise and emissions around the clock with no mitigation, for the same reason the NE A2 corridor does: the political and organizational capacity to demand a study was never there.
As Ann Arbor's developable land shrinks, future affordable housing will increasingly be built in the highest-noise, highest-emissions locations in the city.
The city's Comprehensive Plan acknowledges that infill development is increasingly the only option as Ann Arbor reaches its physical boundaries. Land along the I-94, US-23, and M-14 corridors is among the most viable for multifamily and affordable development precisely because highway proximity has suppressed its value.
Affordable housing advocates who do not also push for sound abatement are accepting that low-income residents will bear environmental costs that wealthier neighborhoods have successfully avoided. Sound abatement is not a luxury amenity. It is a health and equity issue that belongs in every affordable housing conversation in this city.
U-M workforce housing and the Concordia campus.
The University of Michigan recently acquired the former Concordia University campus, located directly on the US-23/M-14 corridor in northeast Ann Arbor. U-M's November 2025 salary report shows that 52,523 faculty and staff work on the Ann Arbor campus.
U-M Ann Arbor employees earn at or below 80% of Washtenaw County's Area Median Income, the standard eligibility threshold for workforce housing programs. Nearly one in three U-M employees cannot comfortably afford Ann Arbor's market-rate rents, which run $1,800 to $2,400 per month for a one-bedroom.
The university is spending $631 million on 2,300 new student beds on the former Elbel Field site. No comparable investment exists for its workforce. Concordia is the most realistic near-term site to change that.
If workforce housing is built at Concordia, adjacent to the US-23/M-14 merge, sound abatement for that corridor stops being a neighborhood petition and becomes a condition of responsible development.
Workers priced out of the city drive in on the same corridors.
Ann Arbor's Comprehensive Plan projects that more than 120,000 workers will commute into the city by 2050, up from roughly 80,000 today. Workers priced out of Ann Arbor drive in from Ypsilanti, Saline, Canton, Dexter, Chelsea, Brighton, and communities throughout Washtenaw and Livingston Counties, adding traffic and emissions to the same corridors that already impose the heaviest noise burden on nearby residents.
Workforce housing near North Campus and the medical complex would put thousands of lower- and moderate-income U-M employees within biking or transit distance of their jobs, reducing car trips on the corridor. Transit investment and noise abatement address different symptoms of the same underlying problem: a highway system built through residential areas that has never been managed with those residents' health and quality of life as a priority.
The people least able to move away from the highway are the ones absorbing the most of it. Addressing that requires coordinated action on noise, housing, and transit, not three separate conversations.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does this connect to affordable housing and workforce development?
Highway-adjacent land is often the most affordable for new multifamily and workforce housing. Without noise mitigation, we are building future affordable units in the noisiest locations. Sound barriers make these developments healthier and more equitable.
Why focus on this corridor specifically?
This is the only major residential corridor in northeast Ann Arbor that was removed from active MDOT studies. Neighboring communities received studies and barriers; this gap was created by a boundary revision that was never clearly communicated to residents.
Will this affect traffic or highway capacity?
No. Noise barriers are built alongside the existing highway footprint and do not impact lanes, speed, or capacity. They are a standard environmental mitigation tool used across Michigan and the U.S.
Add Your Name
The ask is simple: a formal noise abatement study for our corridor, the same process communities to our north received. Petition signatures help build the record. Institutional backing from the city, townships, and county is what actually moves MDOT and WATS.
Sign the Petition on Change.org → Return to Overview