U-D Mercy Prof Calls Detroit Transit "3rd World"

[Detroitnerd]

Argue with the Census if you don't like the facts. Obviously the elderly, blind, and others are included in decennial Census data.

I am not arguing. I am amusing myself by paraphrasing one of my favorite comedies. You're just bone-dry, aren't ya, Bham?

I think we should all pitch in and get you a gold-plated signed copy of Joel Garreau's "Edge City: Life on the New Frontier."

[ghettopalmetto]

There is no form of fixed public transit in existence that would get you faster from downtown Detroit to a house in Waterford. You could build a vast high speed suburban rail network, and you would still probably have a longer commute time.

There are many advantages to public transit, but, in an relatively non-congested area, speed wouldn't be one of them.

But who the hell wants to live in Waterford?

[Bham1982]

Your definition of mobility means that you're mobile so long as you're of driving age, legally able to drive, affluent enough to own a motor vehicle, and do not have any health conditions that would preclude you from operating a motor vehicle. Then if you satisfy that you must love to drive because you will be doing a lot of it to have any respectable quality of life.

That's all true, but that definition apparently applies to a vast majority of households in the region.

A car might be part of the discussion but it cannot be the only mode available or you will always leave a huge segment of the population immobile.

Your debate is with the Census, not me. The Census reports the vast majority of households with at least one vehicle. Those without a vehicle aren't a "huge" segment of the population, either locally or nationwide.

And yeah, obviously there are always limitations, exceptions and inadequacies, even if had Switzerland-style transit coverage.

If we built a subway under every major surface road in the metro area, we would still have millions of folks not within easy walking distance of a stop. We would still have the handicapped who couldn't make it to the subway stop. There would still be bored suburban kids relying on Mom to give them cash and a ride to the subway stop.

[Bham1982]

But who the hell wants to live in Waterford?

I agree wholeheartedly, but that was the scenario presented.

Most folks live in the "Waterfords" of the region, which is to say they're not living directly on major corridors, and so fixed transit isn't convenient, and they would probably have to drive to and from a transit stop.

[ghettopalmetto]

That's all true, but that definition apparently applies to a vast majority of households in the region.


Your debate is with the Census, not me. The Census reports the vast majority of households with at least one vehicle. Those without a vehicle aren't a "huge" segment of the population, either locally or nationwide.

And yeah, obviously there are always limitations, exceptions and inadequacies, even if had Switzerland-style transit coverage.

See, here's the problem, which I'm not even sure if you recognize or not. You might very well be pleased with "a vast majority" of people being able to get around Southeastern Michigan. You might even be willing to accept the two-thirds of Detroiters that have access to a car.

The rub is, the regions with which Detroit competes, EVERYONE is able to get around. Not just "a vast majority", but EVERYONE. There are other cities where one-third of the people are not excluded from the economy just because they are poor. There are cities where people are not excluded from the economy because they are old, or blind, or young, or disabled.

Right off the bat, you limit the economic productivity of the City of Detroit to 67% of its potential. By any measuring stick, that's SHITTY. And you're okay with that. It's precisely that willingness to settle for mediocrity that keeps Detroit the economic laughingstock of the nation.

[Parkguy]

Highway construction & repair-- federal subsidies [[60% from user fees and taxes)-- 1.9 trillion dollars between 1971 and 2002. That's just federal money, and it is over 60 times the amount Amtrak got. Highway subsidies are invisible to the end user, so we hear complaints that all transit systems lose money and have to be subsidized. But, without the highway subsidies, you wouldn't be able to use your car. I don't hear the Troy mayor turning down federal bucks for her roads. Don't get me wrong-- I have two cars and use both of them. The bus system is useless for me, because it is a terrible system, but I'd LIKE to be able to use it. I'd like some balance in the way things are funded.

[Zaiko]

Bham 1982

In a way I admire your ability to maintain an opposing argument. Birmingham is a real town with a sense of community. When Chris Leinberger wrote the Next Slum for the Atlantic in 2007, he said Birmingham would be one of the few places in Michigan that would avoid the ravages of the pattern of build and abandon.

But I grew up there too. It's still a small, snobby, parochial place of white people who are uncomfortable around blacks, poorer whites, and most foreigners. The people there are not worldly. Most of them can not appreciate the value of being around people that are not like them. They are not interested in being within breathing or underarm smelling distance of the other. Birmingham lawyer Lex Kuhne says metro Detroit's main problem is the absence of common experiences. Kuhne would prefer being able to risk the odors and be closer to others on a train.

A growing percentage of Birmingham and other suburban kids grow up and never come back. Every one from L. Brooks' crowd now has a son or daughter in New York City. By the 1990's, even those kids realized that the 1950's automobile based lifestyles should not be preserved at all costs.

I saw a Mad Max movie once that was supposed to be futuristic. Driving around Detroit at high speed, using our precious dollars so a single person be protected in 3,000 pounds of metal, glimpsing a few human faces but being in position only to suspect them of something, makes me think of that movie. I makes me think of Charleton Heston's[[from St. Helen, Mi) 1973 movie Omega Man. It makes me think of Thomas Hobbes' book, The Leviathan. We will kill each other to protect our rights to private property and our rights to drive around. I wonder sometimes, with all our anger, fear, failure and lack of ability to keep acquiring material things, why Woodward, 275, 16 Mile or 38 Mile don't descend into public demolition derbies.

Brooks, as many people have pointed out on this forum better than I, has invested metro Detroit's future in the 1950's. He has done the bidding for a demographic of perhaps 1-2 million white men and women who live in fear of blacks coming up over 8 mile road.

Governor Snyder's director of strategy and brain trust of the administration, Bill Rustem, asked publicly before he worked for Snyder, when Brooks & Co will stop campaigning against Detroit in order to get elected in Oakland County. Brooks and or that mentality is holding us hostage. We are all poorer because of it.

Your writing here makes you appear to be an apologist for sprawl and perhaps racism. I hate to think that of anybody. Both ideologies are sad.

The answers and solutions for Michigan won't come from the suburbs. The seeds of self-destruction still grow there.

I presume you have a series of arguments to refute Sugrue's Origins of the Urban Crisis.

[stromberg2]

^^^
Wow, damn impressive!

Stromberg2

[Novine]

This report from Brookings highlights what we all know is a serious problem in Detroit. Our dysfunctional transit system disconnects those households without a car from job opportunity. Compare Detroit to San Jose, which Bham1982 has used in the past as an example of successful suburban sprawl. In the San Jose metro area, 98% of households without vehicles live in locations that have access to transit. That helps give the metro area a "job access" rate of 64%, 4th highest in the country. In Detroit, 85% of households without vehicles have access to transit. But the Detroit metro area has a "job access" rate of 26%. The job access rate is based on reaching a job within 90 minutes of travel time via transit. Those numbers highlight how poorly transit functions in Detroit and why places like San Jose can tap into a much larger work force by providing transit to people who need it and taking them to the places where there are jobs.

[Dexlin]

To put things into perspective, chaotic, diffused/multi-nodular, dirt-ass poor Lagos, Nigeria is currently constructing two light rail lines and constructed a BRT line back in 2008. Metropolitan Lagos is about twice as populous as Southeast Michigan, but the latter has a gross metropolitan product over 7 times that of Metropolitan Lagos.

So, yeah, this is definitely about political will.

[Zaiko]

In 1999 and 2000, I had a Honda 900 that i had bought in Bay City. I rode it in several places including Lagos. My pregnant wife and I were pulled from a taxi there and robbed in the daylight.

In 1994, various military authorities detained me for 9 days in offices and an army base in Lagos.

When I'm feeling really pessimistic about Detroit, the comparisons to Lagos, Nigeria and Kinshasa, Congo come back to me.

Our problems mainly come from racism and lack of political will.

[iheartthed]

Your debate is with the Census, not me. The Census reports the vast majority of households with at least one vehicle. Those without a vehicle aren't a "huge" segment of the population, either locally or nationwide.

I'm not saying the stats are incorrect. I'm saying that the metric doesn't properly represent mobility.

Even knowing that a household owns a car doesn't suggest 100% mobility for that household. What if there is only one car at the disposal of a household with multiple adults? Two adults depending on a single car with no other transit alternative means that at least one adult in the household goes a significant amount of time with limited mobility. That same household doesn't have the same problem if they live in New York, all other things being equal.

If we built a subway under every major surface road in the metro area, we would still have millions of folks not within easy walking distance of a stop. We would still have the handicapped who couldn't make it to the subway stop. There would still be bored suburban kids relying on Mom to give them cash and a ride to the subway stop.

However, that is no reason not to have a system at all. We're talking about the difference between 50% of the people not living in proximity to transit, which might be their own preference, versus 100% of the people not having access to transit because of a failure of the local leadership to provide a basic service of modern civilization.

[casscorridor]

I remember growing up in Detroit's suburbs thinking that Detroit was the third world. The common saying was "demolish it and start over." Which, interestingly, is sort of happening.

As far as Detroit's infrastructure and built environment, I would say the main problem is lack of density coupled with lack non-bus [[rail) transit. These two factors work hand and hand, lack of transit leads to lower density which leads to cuts in transit and so on in a downward spiral.

Similarly, Detroit's economics works the same way -- shrinking tax base leads to cuts in services which leads to an even more shrinking tax base which leads to even more cuts and so on. We see it with transit, schools, libraries, basic services such as lighting.

Detroit is literally shutting down and slated for demolition outside the "green zone" of Greater Downtown/Midtown. This is America.

[cpanagio]

So, yeah, this is definitely about political will.

If you merge all of the areas various transit authorities into one large conglomerate, you just made a lot of high profile and high paying jobs within those authorities redundant.

[Hermod]

But who the hell wants to live in Waterford?

Yet you want the folks in Waterford to pay for a system which will not come near them.

[Detroitnerd]

Yet you want the folks in Waterford to pay for a system which will not come near them.

Yet the infrastructure in Waterford are subsidized by the people who don't live in Waterford.

[Hermod]

Yet the infrastructure in Waterford are subsidized by the people who don't live in Waterford.

Was Dixie highway built to serve Waterford or was it built as a major north-south route through the state? You can't take a tank town along the Union Pacific Railroad and claim that the railroad was built for the tank town and that the cost of building the railroad was an investment in the tank town.

[Detroitnerd]

Was Dixie highway built to serve Waterford or was it built as a major north-south route through the state? You can't take a tank town along the Union Pacific Railroad and claim that the railroad was built for the tank town and that the cost of building the railroad was an investment in the tank town.

You're trying to change the terms of the debate. The fact is that the good people of Waterford have their infrastructure subsidized by people who don't live there. They chose to live out there and withhold their resources from the central city, and people in the central city foot the bill for their lifestyle.

But I bet that's fair because roads are free and no transit system can run out of a farebox. I know, Hermod, I know. I've heard it all before!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[corktownyuppie]

I remember growing up in Detroit's suburbs thinking that Detroit was the third world. The common saying was "demolish it and start over." Which, interestingly, is sort of happening.

As far as Detroit's infrastructure and built environment, I would say the main problem is lack of density coupled with lack non-bus [[rail) transit. These two factors work hand and hand, lack of transit leads to lower density which leads to cuts in transit and so on in a downward spiral.

Similarly, Detroit's economics works the same way -- shrinking tax base leads to cuts in services which leads to an even more shrinking tax base which leads to even more cuts and so on. We see it with transit, schools, libraries, basic services such as lighting.

Detroit is literally shutting down and slated for demolition outside the "green zone" of Greater Downtown/Midtown. This is America.

Unfortunately, it always has been America. This is just Detroit's turn to go through the re-structuring. In the 19th Century, New Orleans was the wealthiest city in the whole country. Now it's the murder capital of the USA. In the 20th Century, Las Vegas was a barren desert. Then they were the entertainment capital of the US. Now they're the over-building capital of the US.

The problem Detroit is facing is that never since the industrialization period of the 20th century have we ever worked out an effective model for a city to de-densify and to shrink. And God knows the process is painful as hell. Then it doesn't help that Detroit also adds in horrible race relations, a one-track economic model that is disappearing/changing, then corruption.

We will get through this. It will take 10-20 years. Midtown/Downtown will be solid. The surrounding neighborhoods [[Corktown, Woodbridge, Boston/Edison, and others) will become the new "suburbs-of-Downtown-Detroit", and much [[though not all) of the rest of the city will densify in healthy pockets surrounded by vacant land.

Helping the process along will be the retirement [[and then death) of some of the really old guard which fantasizes about the 1950s, along with the bankruptcy of municipalities which will result in more efficient consolidation of power and a more efficient use of scarce resources. Yes, there will be losers through the process, but it's like a train that won't stop.

[antongast]

If you merge all of the areas various transit authorities into one large conglomerate, you just made a lot of high profile and high paying jobs within those authorities redundant.

Who do you know who's gotten rich and famous working as a DDOT schedule analyst or SMART road supervisor?

[hortonz]

Public transit isn't much better over here in Windsor. Blame it on the auto industry or suburbanites who worry about muggers and thieves invading their neighborhood from downtown. Either way, it's not gonna get solved anytime soon.

[Det_ard]

You're trying to change the terms of the debate. The fact is that the good people of Waterford have their infrastructure subsidized by people who don't live there. They chose to live out there and withhold their resources from the central city, and people in the central city foot the bill for their lifestyle.

That's one narrative.

Another is that the people of Detroit built their infrastructure. Then some moved out to Waterford, and they paid for some of the infrastructure, as did others still in Detroit who hadn't move out to Waterford [[yet). Then those folks moved to Waterford and continued to pay for Waterford's infrastructure [[and for Detroit's infrastructure due to their greater tax contribution per capita).

So the fine citizens of Waterford and the other suburbs have paid twice, for the initial build-out of Detroit's infrastructure and the suburbs' infrastructure, and they continue to pay twice, for the maintenance of Detroit's infrastructure and the suburbs' infrastructure.

You're welcome?

[Detroitnerd]

That's one narrative.

Another is that the people of Detroit built their infrastructure. Then some moved out to Waterford, and they paid for some of the infrastructure, as did others still in Detroit who hadn't move out to Waterford [[yet). Then those folks moved to Waterford and continued to pay for Waterford's infrastructure [[and for Detroit's infrastructure due to their greater tax contribution per capita).

So the fine citizens of Waterford and the other suburbs have paid twice, for the initial build-out of Detroit's infrastructure and the suburbs' infrastructure, and they continue to pay twice, for the maintenance of Detroit's infrastructure and the suburbs' infrastructure.

You're welcome?

I don't really think that the suburbs are "net donors" to the city. I find it much easier to believe that people who live in a more compact living arrangement that doesn't require as much driving or as much transportation are footing the bill for the sprawlburbs. No, they have withdrawn their support from the central city, but the central city has to pay the taxes that are politically directed by the likes of Patterson and DeRoche to building up the infrastructure of places like Waterford.

Actually, it's more like Waterford residents pay a little bit and get a lot of services, whereas city residents pay through the nose and get little in return in way of services.

Remember, everybody pays the taxes, but then De Roche demands that road funding go to the exurbs. City residents watch their roads decay or get asphalted at best, while De Roche demands hearings all over the exurbs and outstate one how to spend road funds.

“We need to build roads where people live, work and pay their taxes,” LaRoche said in a press release. “Fixing roads where people used to live, or where we want them to live will only delay projects which will contribute to economic growth and an improved quality of life for Michigan residents.”

In other words, screw Detroit and the older suburbs surrounding it. And that's just what they do: Take the money, expand Hall Road, and never implement anything that would benefit the city as much as, say, light rail.

But go ahead. Believe that the good people of Waterford aren't subsidized at all. Or that they subsidize those poor old welfare addicts down in Detroit. Yeah, that's good and productive: Let's stick to the narrative that we've believed about hardworking suburbanites and shiftless city residents. We've done so well by that mythology for generations now.

[j to the jeremy]

“We need to build roads where people live, work and pay their taxes,” LaRoche said in a press release. “Fixing roads where people used to live, or where we want them to live will only delay projects which will contribute to economic growth and an improved quality of life for Michigan residents.”

In other words, screw Detroit and the older suburbs surrounding it. And that's just what they do: Take the money, expand Hall Road, and never implement anything that would benefit the city as much as, say, light rail.

That's also codespeak by LaRoche. He knows that 800000 people live in Detroit, but including "work" and "pay taxes" fits into the welfare narrative on the right- that people in cities are somehow the opposite of the backbone of the American economy. And "where we want them to live" is a particularly ironic portion of that sentence. Does he think that building exurbs during a time of net population loss was purely a market decision?

[casscorridor]

The problem Detroit is facing is that never since the industrialization period of the 20th century have we ever worked out an effective model for a city to de-densify and to shrink.

First, who is "we"? It is certianly not the workers of Detroit [[the ones who built the city and keep it going), much less "the people." Second, Detroit never had to de-densify, Metro Detroit as a whole has not lost population, but rather remained pretty much the same. Suburbanization, not some sort of de-industrialization, led to de-densification.

We will get through this. It will take 10-20 years. Midtown/Downtown will be solid. The surrounding neighborhoods [[Corktown, Woodbridge, Boston/Edison, and others) will become the new "suburbs-of-Downtown-Detroit", and much [[though not all) of the rest of the city will densify in healthy pockets surrounded by vacant land.

Like I said, the Green Zone. But, I don't share your optimism about the rest of the city. We had the chance to turn things around 20 years ago, and 20 years before that and nothing has changed besides a few yuppies trying to reclaim the city. Overall, I think the city will continue its downward spiral so long as we live in the era of neoliberalism and austerity economics.

Helping the process along will be the retirement [[and then death) of some of the really old guard which fantasizes about the 1950s, along with the bankruptcy of municipalities which will result in more efficient consolidation of power and a more efficient use of scarce resources. Yes, there will be losers through the process, but it's like a train that won't stop.

I don't think any sort of consolidation will actually be a progressive thing, it will likely mean less services overall [[i.e. consolidation of two schools = closing of one, increasing class size in the other). And I think it would be mistaken to think that regionalization would take a Toronto form. If anything, Detroit will loose more power regionally [[i.e. loosing control of water, transit) while suburbs will likely gain more power, as they have over the last few decades and therefor make more cuts to the inner city, further hampering its chances of a revival outside greater Downtown.