Woodward/M1 Rail -- DDOT reach accord on light rail

[jsmyers]

[URL]Can anybody with a transit background interpret this for me?

1. What does RTP stand for?
2. Is this saying that funding has been approved for the ENTIRE Woodward Light Rail project?
3. Does this mean that federal funding is being used for a study on a study for light rail in Oakland County between 8 and 11 Mile Roads?

TRP = Regional Transportation Plan. This is the long range blueprint for infrastructure planning. In many regions, it functions like a wish list. Its counterpart is the TIP = Transportation Improvement Plan. By federal law, the TIP can only have things on it that have identified funding sources.

There is not enough money on that page to pay for the whole thing. It just means that they have designated project boundaries and they are planning on spending money from the identified programs on it.

[Russix]

I have a question about the light rail as it heads through Royal Oak [[hoping it eventually does). Does it really make since to keep it down Woodward or should it head up Main Street after stoping at the Zoo? Woodward is not the main stretch in RO, creating a missed oppertunity for potential riders of the light rail.

A pipe dream would be to have the line split at the Zoo in to a Roal Oak/Troy line [[following Main to Livernois ending at Big Beaver) and a Woodward line to Pontiac.

Thoughts??

Keep it on Woodward and in the right of way. Feeder systems can cover the last mile or two while the main line should be as regionally utilitarian as possible. The Detroit Zoo would make an excellent Park and Ride station. I hope some transit engineer on here can dream up a way to put a station under the 696 overpass and connect it to the parking facilities at the Detroit Zoo and street level on the Woodward overpass.

[esp1986]

Keep it on Woodward and in the right of way. Feeder systems can cover the last mile or two while the main line should be as regionally utilitarian as possible. The Detroit Zoo would make an excellent Park and Ride station. I hope some transit engineer on here can dream up a way to put a station under the 696 overpass and connect it to the parking facilities at the Detroit Zoo and street level on the Woodward overpass.

Even if the station has to be a bit north of the zoo, it is not all that far... look at it this way, there are a lot of landmarks along they way for this route, and even though the line is supposed to have an absorbitant amount of stops, not every landmark will have it's own... at least it can put you in the general vacinity of the zoo. And no, don't dead end it into Royal Oak... that's what the bus routes are for... I wouldn't be opposed to a detour a couple blocks off of Woodward to put the line a little closer to the Downtown Royal Oak area though.

[Gistok]

too deep at that point for stairs. remember woodward is under the freeway, and that is depressed there! ADA would have issues and there is little space to put in a functioning accessible station.

I would run the train at street level. We have signal pre-emption technology now that should mitigate the time issues.

I agree... way too deep. From what I remembered... there's actually a [[sealed?) tunnel between north and southbound Woodward for future transit to go under the freeway. It may have been a good idea at the time... but it was likely ill conceived as a potential 10 Mile Rd. mass transit stop.

[tallboy66]

Somewhere in mid 2013 this quote will be the cause of the delay that has been in place since oh... the mid '70's
"However, the city’s plan relies on federal funding that hasn’t been applied for because Detroit doesn’t have the required matching money — leading to speculation about the project’s viability."

When they build it I will come, in more than one way.

[Russix]

Even if the station has to be a bit north of the zoo, it is not all that far... look at it this way, there are a lot of landmarks along they way for this route, and even though the line is supposed to have an absorbitant amount of stops, not every landmark will have it's own... at least it can put you in the general vacinity of the zoo. And no, don't dead end it into Royal Oak... that's what the bus routes are for... I wouldn't be opposed to a detour a couple blocks off of Woodward to put the line a little closer to the Downtown Royal Oak area though.

If you wanna attract a large base of park and riders, placing it very close to parking at the Detroit Zoo and then making it as accessible as possible is good way to go. You literally would have plugged in all of lower Oakland County via I-696 to the Woodward Line. I’m really not that concerned about general vicinity for purposes of serving the zoo, I just see a massive parking lot and a parking garage that generally sit heavily underutilized during the day while kids are at school and parents are at work right next to a major freeway and a future transit line. Plus most of the people in Royal Oak have cars, so now they have a place to drive them to and hop the train instead of detouring it up to their front door.

I agree... way too deep. From what I remembered... there's actually a [[sealed?) tunnel between north and southbound Woodward for future transit to go under the freeway. It may have been a good idea at the time... but it was likely ill conceived as a potential 10 Mile Rd. mass transit stop.

Is this tunnel under the deep “THRU“ portion of Woodward?

[esp1986]

Somewhere in mid 2013 this quote will be the cause of the delay that has been in place since oh... the mid '70's
"However, the city’s plan relies on federal funding that hasn’t been applied for because Detroit doesn’t have the required matching money — leading to speculation about the project’s viability."

When they build it I will come, in more than one way.

At that point, it won't be the city that is the hold up... the line will be out of the city, and the problem is Oakland County. OC has continually said they won't help fund construction, which is the big hurdle for the part in their county. It will be interesting to see what happens...

[innercitydoc]

Went to the early session at the Detroit Library. Open comments were mostly pro-light rail. Most of the concerns revolved around preference for median alignment, safety and congestion issues with co-mingled traffic, and how low-income individuals and businesses will be affected. The mayor of Highland Park was present and threw his full support behind the project especially the potential for one of storage and maintenance facilities to be located there.

[professorscott]

Went to the early session at the Detroit Library. Open comments were mostly pro-light rail. Most of the concerns revolved around preference for median alignment, safety and congestion issues with co-mingled traffic, and how low-income individuals and businesses will be affected. The mayor of Highland Park was present and threw his full support behind the project especially the potential for one of storage and maintenance facilities to be located there.

I was also there, and spoke. Of the people who spoke, 80% to 85% expressed support for the project [[sometimes with reservations about specific details), but there were some who just thought it was a bad idea. A few of those wished openly for a subway or elevated train.

Of those who went into the specifics of the alignment options, 3/4 were in favor of the median alignment and 1/4 thought the curbside alignment was better. There was no clear consensus as to the downtown alignment options.

There were also a few people who talked about local hiring preference during the work - that is, making sure Detroiters get a percentage of the jobs. But federal transportation projects, which this now is, don't work that way.

Overall I thought it was a good meeting, no new information for the people who have chosen to be in the loop, but the information was new to some of the people there.

[dtowncitylover]

I was also there at the 11:30 meeting. Didn't spend too much time for the public comments, but glad I have the info booklet.

[mam2009]

Thanks, jsmyers! So is it fair to say that there are no firm commitments from the feds on funding this yet?

[Warrenite84]

I was also at the 11:30 meeting. I thought there was a lot of good suggestions presented.

One person spoke about the importance of exposed track to facilitate easier access for repair. Median based LRT with protected right-of-way would work there. Another mentioned the imporance of connections to the Detroit People Mover through the Washington Boulevard alignments. Another mentioned retaining the light at Ferry st? for the Midtown Loop Pedestrian Walkway. Annother mentioned for median-based, to keep the track straight and have the pedestrian stations on the outside of the track. A lot seemed to dislike the curbside option because it was deemed more likely to get bogged down in stop-and-go traffic.

I felt the median alignments would be fine but would rather the LRT run alongside the median in the inside lanes and preserve the turn-arounds in the median. The areas of concern for this would be Washington Blvd. & where Woodward widens above McNichols,[[6 mile).

Another preference of mine was for the median based option A1, since it provided greater access to larger portions of the CBD and opened up larger portions of the CBD to transit related development.

I also believe wether median based or curbside, the extra stops should be added to the stretch between Grand Blvd. and G.C.P. to provide for increased linear densities of development along Woodward in addition to increased development in the CBD.

[Richard]

Right now the average rail car delivery time is 3 years.

As I am no engineer but I am wondering if the old system run up woodward before,and granted they probably removed the rails but are not the original foundations still in place?

Cities spec the car weight requirements out to the builders,they would know the specs on the original foundations and the newer cars are 30% lighter on the average when compared to a PCC.

Millions of dollars saved would be beneficial.

[BrushStart]

When are we going to get a decision on what plan has been chosen, and when are they going to start construction? I really cannot imagine that there are any more make-work, paper hurdles that we have to jump through.

[innercitydoc]

According to the timeline the FTA should sign off on the plan in July. Construction of the line would start sometime in the fall if everything goes according to plan. The encouraging thing that was said at the meeting was that a year and a half worth of work has been completed in about 7 months.

I think the talk about Detroiters being employed to construct the vehicles in retrofitted auto factories from existing buses is off based. More than likely the vehicles would come from German based Siemens as have the vast majority of the new lines in the U.S.

The best comment came from the gentleman who said that there is no perfect system and we should just build it and modify it later if needed.

[detmsp]

I just hope that they truly integrate the m1/ddot plans into one system. I think it's going to be ridiculous if you have to switch trains to get from 8 mile to downtown.

[MSUguy]

I just hope that they truly integrate the m1/ddot plans into one system. I think it's going to be ridiculous if you have to switch trains to get from 8 mile to downtown.

This has been a single project for more than a year.

[detmsp]

This has been a single project for more than a year.

Well the plans show it switching from median running to curb running at new center. To me that indicates to separate lines because I can't think of how the train would cross over all the lanes of traffic to get from the median to the curb

[dtowncitylover]

No, I'm pretty sure they have to choose between curbside or median for the entire thing.

[innercitydoc]

No, I'm pretty sure they have to choose between curbside or median for the entire thing.

Everyone I've talked to has stated that the alignment will transition from median to curbside at New Center. As a matter of fact the website indicates this will happen at Bethune St.

[Hypestyles]

why wouldn't local residents get any kind of hiring priority?..

[3rdDegreeBurns]

There will be no decision until the final environmental impact statement is complete [[Saturday meetings were to allow public comment on the draft). Part of this process is selecting a final alignment.

All plans call for median-running from State Fairgrounds to Grand Blvd.

From there to downtown there are two options under consideration: median-running with stops every mile or so and curb-running with stops every half-mile or so. If curb-running is chosen, the track will cross traffic lanes and transition to the curb.

Three options being considered for downtown. All are presumably mixed with traffic at some points [[not enough room for separate right-of-way on all streets). Two of the alignments are very similar and involve diverting down Washington Blvd., past Rosa Parks Transit Center, down to Larned, Larned to Randolph, then coming back to Washington Blvd. via Congress. The other option goes straight down Woodward, around Campus Martius, terminating at Hart Plaza.

I attended the meeting and was really impressed by the level of support for the project. I too am in favor of the median-running option because of speed, reliability, and safety concerns with curb-side. Imagine all the conflicts that will occur where there is a driveway. What about all the buses that run on woodward? Do we want our rapid transit line stuck behind an old DDOT bus, or someone who double-parked to run into the store? Let's keep the train in the fast lane as far as possible. That said, I too would support a few more stops between Grand Blvd and downtown. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be on the table. Anything not studied in the EIS is a no-go for federal funding. Who knows though, they might determine that median-running with more stops couldn't possible create more of an impact than the curbside...

[Hypestyles]

...someone brought upt that woodward is narrower in sections of highland park, how much of an impediment is that?

[dtowncitylover]

...someone brought upt that woodward is narrower in sections of highland park, how much of an impediment is that?

I think some of these narrow points have parking lanes which might be turned into driving lanes, therefore there should at least 2 lanes of driving each direction on Woodward.

[Russix]

...
As I am no engineer but I am wondering if the old system run up woodward before,and granted they probably removed the rails but are not the original foundations still in place?
...

They probably were until MDOT rebuilt Woodward north of Grand Blvd. Rumor has it that railbed foundation requirements were incorporated into the construction.