Bus Rapid Transit officials meeting and hoping to move forward

[professorscott]

Since Woodward is our beloved thoroughfare, that's where all of the dollars should go. Leaders in this region need to be more focused on the Woodward corridor.

The only difficulty with this is that we need Macomb County to be involved and invested, and if the entire focus is Woodward, why would Macomb County agree to participate?

Now, I can see BRT along Gratiot to Hall Road, but nothing on Hall Road. Who the hell is going to get on the thing on Hall Road?

I suspect, when the time comes to do the relevant studies in order to have a chance to capture Federal transit dollars, the studies will agree with what you said here, albeit less bluntly.

Better yet, all transit dollars and all human energy should be focused on building one subway line from Downtown Detroit to Pontiac along Woodward.

That would have been possible in the 1970s but it simply isn't possible anymore. Name one city that has got Federal money to build its very first subway line in the last, say, fifteen years. The Federal government is willing to help extend existing subway lines, and to help communities invest in new BRT, light rail, commuter rail and streetcars. But Uncle Sugar seems to have absolutely shut the door on any new subway service in cities that don't already have it. Not to mention, existing transit ridership on any major Detroit-area corridor is barely sufficient to justify any improvement at all, and nowhere near sufficient to justify a subway, even if the money was there, which it isn't.

Of course if you think it's possible to raise the billions of dollars you would need for a 20+ mile subway line locally, have at it.

BTW1, why in the hell can't we call the RTA, DARTA? The Detroit Area Rapid [[or Regional) Transit Authority sounds better than some non-descript crap. The term RTA says nothing about who we are.

I completely agree.

BTW2, why would BRT, according to the article, veer off on Cass or John R? If the route is a Woodward route, shouldn't it travel all of Woodward? I swear, I thought that was the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

I completely agree.

[royce]

Professor Scott, I have always appreciated the way you think and welcome your posts. They are always well thought out and informative.

[Dexlin]

The alignment that takes the BRT route off a Woodward through the inner-city either at Grand or Warren makes total sense. South of Grand, for the foreseeable future, you're going to have the road shared with DDOT and SMART buses, still, as well as the stretcar, now. So, traffic is already going to be effected. You run the BRT next to the center lane on both sides, and that's a complete clusterf%ck of coordination. Something would get slowed down in this scenario, whether it would be the regular buses and streetcars or the BRT. Woodward is a big wide street, but even Woodward couldn't handle two different regular bus routes, a streetcar, and a BRT on top of auto traffic, which would basically be given a one lane on both sides of the road with all those other modes present.

Quite frankly, this should have been median-running light rail, with the existing regular bus routes on the outside lanes. Or, they could have done the BRT all the way down Woodward and then stretched the side-running streetcar up into the suburbs to replace the existing bus services.

The problem with all of this is that you need at least one local bus route [[to go along with either BRT or LRT in the center, which will function as a limited or express service), or one local streetcar route, for movement along Woodward within the city. As it stands, the best we could do with the current proposed configuration of modes is to cut the SMART routes [[the BRT essentially replaces this service, anyway), so then you have the streetcar serving the inner-city, the DDOT routes serving within the city boundaries, and the BRT being a rapid commuter service that brings people in from the Woodward suburbs.

[Khorasaurus]

The question of what to do below Grand Blvd is really interesting to me.

Center-running down Woodward is logical, but could get awkward with the streetcar. Remember M-1 is going to run in the center from the railroad tracks up to Bethune, where it will turn to the right to loop around in that empty lot. So that interaction will be awkward. Plus through Midtown you'd have a streetcar on the sides and a dedicated bus lane down the middle. That would create some awkward situations as well. And Downtown is an even more awkward question - would the bus turn at Grand Circus and go to the Rose Parks Transit Center? And then there's the question of where the bus would stop - at the same intersections as the streetcar, for transfer purposes, or at different ones to provide service to different places? [[obviously the bus would stop less frequently than the streetcar, though, probably just at Grand, Warren, MLK, Grand Circus, and Campus Martius, or nearby each of those).

Running down Cass is intriguing, because you could have a stop right in the heart of New Center [[Grand and Cass), and then run directly from there through Midtown to the Rosa Parks Transit Center/Times Square People Mover Station. But Cass is likely not wide enough near Wayne State to accommodate both the BRT and the planned bike lanes. It might have to be closed to auto traffic to accommodate both. Also by running down Cass you're another block father from the DMC, although you're still serving many other Midtown destinations almost as well as Woodward.

I think John R is the worst option of the three, since it would mean turning away from New Center at Grand, it is currently a one way street in some areas, and dead ends into Comerica Park. It would better serve the museums and DMC than Cass, though.

I guess a fourth option is to do some sort of loop [[southbound down Cass/Clifford and northbound up John R), but again John R being one way and discontinuous comes into play. Plus I don't think people who work on the east side of Midtown will ride all the way downtown and back up John R. They will probably just get off and walk two blocks.

None of this is meant to be a criticism of the BRT idea, which I actually love. It's basically an upgrade of SMART's 450/460 service, which people already use. Give it a well-marked dedicated lane [[colored concrete maybe?) and signal priority, and it will be efficient.

Also, I have similar thoughts on the question of how to serve downtown Royal Oak and the zoo, but that's probably a different post.

[professorscott]

The question of what to do below Grand Blvd is really interesting to me.

Me too.

One thing to bear in mind is that the BRT is going to stop only at a few places in the area served by M1 Rail. For the sake of argument, let's say it only makes three stops: Grand Boulevard, Wayne State [[say, at Warren) and downtown [[say, Congress).

People who want to go to any of the nine other M1 stops will need to transfer. If the bus isn't on Woodward, and people have to walk any distance at all to transfer, that's very frustrating. [[While you're walking toward the streetcar stop, you see it go by, for instance. Or it's raining, or it's cold and windy. Just for instance.)

So I think in order for the BRT to really serve its maximum purpose, it has to stay on Woodward. Now, if we were in a big city where the streetcar was running every 2 minutes and the BRT every 5, we would have a real interaction problem, as you and others have described. But neither service is going to run that frequently and there are ways of managing the interaction to reduce the impacts.

Also, the question of the Rosa Parks Transit Center has come up. The plans I've seen show the bus coming from Oakland County through midtown, then to RPTC, then downtown. This is inane. Almost nobody coming from Oakland County needs to get to RPTC. If the planners really feel it's necessary to serve that facility, it would make much more sense to have the bus go downtown first, then the side trip to RPTC after that.

I have nothing against RPTC; it's a necessary facility, though too far from downtown to be as useful as it could be. But most of the Oakland County bus commuters aren't traveling far to the west of Woodward, and anyone going east can pick up the connecting buses behind the City-County building.

[Khorasaurus]

Me too.

One thing to bear in mind is that the BRT is going to stop only at a few places in the area served by M1 Rail. For the sake of argument, let's say it only makes three stops: Grand Boulevard, Wayne State [[say, at Warren) and downtown [[say, Congress).

You really think it will stop that infrequently? I guess that makes sense, because people will then transfer to M-1, but I would be shocked if there isn't a station near the stadiums/arena [[because games will drive ridership) and probably the MLK/Mack area as well.

As for downtown, I think it's crucial that there's a stop near a People Mover station, because the People Mover can take people anywhere they want to go downtown so the bus doesn't have to. That could be RPTC/Times Square or it could be something else [[Grand Circus?). But you're right that the bus can't just go straight to RPTC, which isn't near most of the jobs downtown. It should at least stop in Campus Martius first.

[professorscott]

You really think it will stop that infrequently?

I would say either three or four stops. Hard to imagine any more than that. If M1 Rail wasn't going to be there it'd be different.

As for downtown, I think it's crucial that there's a stop near a People Mover station, because the People Mover can take people anywhere they want to go downtown so the bus doesn't have to.

Very good point, and the logical place to me would be where the DPM crosses Woodward at the south end of Grand Circus Park. You're right; it would be idiotic not to tie in any new transit to DPM. M1 Rail explicitly noted that one of their stations is the transfer point to DPM. It might finally start to realize its potential.

[Dexlin]

Guys, there is actually a website for this project. The Woodward Avenue Rapid Transit Alternative Analysis. It has maps and everything, so we don't have to do any guess work where the stops are being considered.

The alternative that takes the line all the way down Woodward to downtown has seven stops [[including Grand) for the line between New Center and I-75. The stops include Grand, Amtrak, Ferry, Warren, MLK/Mack, and Sibley. This actually seems to duplicate the streetcar stops, which is dumb. In my mind, the streetcar is primarily being built for spin-off development [[not speed), whereas the BRT should be much more limited in the number of stops as it's primary purpose is actual faster transit.

The three other alternatives for the line between New Center and Downtown have far fewer stops [[since they either branch off of Woodward at Grand or Warren to run the parallel side streets). If they do decide a straight-down-Woodward alignment, I'd like to see many fewer stops along the section that it shares with the streetcar, or it defeats the "rapid" purpose of this rapid transit line.

BTW, the News had an article out today saying that this would be the longest and most heavily-ridden line in the country. It really makes you wonder, then, why they don't just do it right the first time and extend a light rail from the northern end of the streetcar line if they are predicting that heavy [[35,000 daily) ridership. It cost more, but then you don't have to wonder about coordinating nightmare that is three different bus services on Woodward [[SMART, DDOT, and BRT).

[downtownguy]

^^ For those curious to see the website Dexlin refers to above, it's here:

http://www.woodwardanalysis.com/

[Khorasaurus]

The alternative that takes the line all the way down Woodward to downtown has seven stops [[including Grand) for the line between New Center and I-75. The stops include Grand, Amtrak, Ferry, Warren, MLK/Mack, and Sibley. This actually seems to duplicate the streetcar stops, which is dumb. In my mind, the streetcar is primarily being built for spin-off development [[not speed), whereas the BRT should be much more limited in the number of stops as it's primary purpose is actual faster transit.

I wonder if they idea of that alternative is to share stations with M-1. That could have some positives, but I can also see all kinds of problems with that [[confusion over ticketing, needing to coordinate the systems very tightly schedule-wise, making people wonder exactly what the point of installing the rails was, etc).

I agree that the BRT needs less Midtown stops than M-1.

Cass is sounding better and better to me....

[stasu1213]

BRT should run non-stop from Jefferson to Grand Blvd then. M1 DDOT could carry passengers to that point

[casscorridor]

BRT should run non-stop from Jefferson to Grand Blvd then. M1 DDOT could carry passengers to that point

That causes the problem of unnecessarily having to transfer just to get to one of the major Midtown destinations such as WSU and the DMC.

Of course, it would be a non-issue if we just did the sensible thing to begin with and built the LRT all the way to 8 Mile and beyond. Would it be under construction or completed by now had it not been canceled by the Bing/Snyder pact?

[Khorasaurus]

Of course, it would be a non-issue if we just did the sensible thing to begin with and built the LRT all the way to 8 Mile and beyond. Would it be under construction or completed by now had it not been canceled by the Bing/Snyder pact?

Probably still waiting for someone to commit to paying for it.

I'd like to see light rail to Royal Oak or so as well, but there wasn't money for it. There's money for M-1, and we have an RTA in place that, if we fund it, will have money for BRT to Pontiac, Mt. Clemens, the Airport, and maybe other destinations [[over time). And maybe they can even implement more rail eventually. We just need them to get off the ground.

Rail is better than BRT, but more people served by transit is better than less people served.

[professorscott]

Of course, it would be a non-issue if we just did the sensible thing to begin with and built the LRT all the way to 8 Mile and beyond. Would it be under construction or completed by now had it not been canceled by the Bing/Snyder pact?

This is a very silly conspiracy theory. If only you knew how much weight Gov. Snyder - much more than Mayor Bing - threw into the creation of the RTA, against much opposition.

The fact of the matter is that LRT to Eight Mile was a completely idiotic idea; the City could not hope to pay for their portion of it, and since it was stopping short of the City limit, nobody else was interested in helping out. LRT to Royal Oak might have had a fighting chance. The City's insistence on keeping it a City-controlled project was what killed it, all by itself; it needed no help from Dr. Kevorkian or anyone else.

As I've said, I expect M1 Rail to grow northward and eastward, slowly and organically [[i.e. as infill development creates demand for it). BRT, meantime, will help people get into the M1 service area and take advantage of all the existing, and yet to be seen, cultural and educational facilities.

[Dexlin]

To be very clear, up until the very last meeting of Bing and Snyder's with Ray LaHood, the plan was still for the light rail line. They literally came out of that meeting having unilaterally killing the plan, even after the city council had already put in down-payments toward the line to match M-1 Rails fund. It was only by the grace of M-1 Rail that we're getting any rail, at all. Bing and Snyder would have been entirely content with having no rail, at all. That's a fact discerned from their actions.

BTW, just so everyone knows, the way the legislature wrote the RTA bill actually discriminates against rail as a mode, regardless of whether a study for a corridor finds that mode is the most appropriate. Funding ballots for rail require a unanimous vote by the board, whereas any bus route requires a simple majority. What this does is to essentially make it so that unless the legislation is changed, the highest/heaviest transit mode this metro is going to see from the RTA is BRT, again, regardless of whether or not a heavier mode may be more appropriate for a particular corridor.

Even when the powers-that-be do a good thing, they f%ck it up. The mode of transit for a corridor should be determined by the desire of the board and region and/or what the study finds to be most appropriate. You shouldn't have written into the bylaws some arbitrary bull meant to disincentivize a mode because you have some ideological aversion to it, and that's what happened with this bill.

[Novine]

You can bet those were intentional choices. Many in Lansing have no interest in quality transit and they load up the legislation with these kinds of poison pills to ensure that the process as is difficult and suboptimal as possible.

[casscorridor]

As said many times before, the "BRT" is part of "BRT creep" meaning that our leaders [[or should I say bosses, because they lack leadership) have already decided to go the cheap route, so they will continue to do so considering the heavy price for real BRT. So what we will get on Woodward is exactly what people have been saying all along on this forum. A sexybus / rebranding / new paint job and some incremental improvements that, while definitely are needed, can not be in any way called Rapid.

Re: DTOGS being idiotic. How is it idiotic while M1 isn't? It should be the other way around. The light-rail would have been proper rapid transit because it had limited stops and high speeds and spaned the entire length of the city. M1 has stops every few blocks and moves at a snails pace and only goes 3 miles. It is essentially a shuttle for Midtown and Downtown visitors and residents while the dtogs plan was a starter line for a REAL regional system.

What is done is done though so let's hope M1 can be built and expanded north, east and west and the expansions follow a more traditional light-rail plan with limited stops and high speeds.

[casscorridor]

Another issue I keep thinking about is whether M1 will have the foresight to build long platforms for future expansion. I highly doubt it. Just look at the people mover as a reminder of shortsightedness. The PM could have had less than half as many stops and platforms three time the size and been able to expand outward. Now it would be nearly impossible to expand it without basically a total rebuild.