M-1 rail discussion

[Lowell]

I fail to see the point of Blight Rail. It's passing through the most vibrant and least blighted corridor in Detroit. So much so that the name I have heard more than once is the Hipster Mover.

[Bobl]

Why don't they call it a streetcar, cause it's a, you know, streetcar.

Nailed it. I withdraw my suggestion.

[emu steve]

Good call, I like Blight Rail!

Blight-remover Rail. Wherever it goes, blight will go away.

[SyGolden48236]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Hipster Hauler.

It is the modern day equivalent of the Mugger Mover.

[Honky Tonk]

Blight-remover Rail. Wherever it goes, blight will go away.

There will be no blight in Ilitch's coliseum parking lots.

[DeLemur]

Ha hilarious. Laughing turns to crying when you realize how much money is spent on People Mover 2.0 instead of an advanced bus system. Well at least it will be quiet when its blocking traffic.

[Gistok]

Ha hilarious. Laughing turns to crying when you realize how much money is spent on People Mover 2.0 instead of an advanced bus system. Well at least it will be quiet when its blocking traffic.

Why should you be either laughing or crying... since this is privately funded?

[SyGolden48236]

Why should you be either laughing or crying... since this is privately funded?

That is not true. There is public money involved in the project as well as private funding. $74.2M in government money to be exact.

http://m-1rail.com/complex-funding-p...l-right-track/

[dtowncitylover]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Hipster Hauler.

It is the modern day equivalent of the Mugger Mover.

Oh yes the Mugger Mover. Because professional thieves know that a jackpot is to be found on a 2 mile circulator people mover which 1% full on most days and crowded full of people/witnesses on its best days.

GTFOH with Hipster Hauler. This tram is going through the three most busiest, revitalized, densest neighborhoods in Detroit, teaming with businesses, students, visitors, sports goers, residents, etc, and all you can frickin' point out are stupid hipsters that are going to ride this? Really, you think everyone downtown/midtown/New Center are hipsters?

And who the hell cares if this is publically funded? GOOD. I wish MDOT was funding all of it, because maybe that means they've gotten out of 1955.

And sorry DeLemur, there's really no such thing as an "advanced bus system". There's well funded bus systems, which if DDOT and SMART were, would make the system a lot more, though still wanting, usable. Buses, rail, Para, bikes, and good road planning for cars, all are important to multi-modal transportation systems.

[Junjie]

Ha hilarious. Laughing turns to crying when you realize how much money is spent on People Mover 2.0 instead of an advanced bus system. Well at least it will be quiet when its blocking traffic.

Probably the 3rd time I've posted the same thing in this thread but comparing M1 to the People Mover is really facile and shows a serious lack of thought.

This time I summed up the point in this image that took my 5 minutes to create. See how one is a tiny loop around downtown, while the other is a useful line connecting numerous places of employment, commercial activity, and large bodies of students/visitors who are prime transit customers?

[dtowncitylover]

Sometimes I feel I need to talk at a 4th grade level just to make people understand things that should easily understandable at high school or college level. Thank you for the map.

[emu steve]

Sometimes I feel I need to talk at a 4th grade level just to make people understand things that should easily understandable at high school or college level. Thank you for the map.

Agree.

A key part of human intellect is to compare and contrast and make meaningful distinctions.

This is particularly true of things less obvious, like Detroit, and things related to it such as M-1 rail, given the failure of People Mover.

I've always maintained here that one needs to look at what M-1 attempts to do and see if it fits any transportation model, i.e., move thousands of people daily over a well defined, very busy commercial corridor both in 2017 and the intermediate future.

As the map shows, the area covered by M-1 really parallels a very substantial amount of commercial, educational, medical and sports and entertainment activities in Detroit. This seems very high density to me. I've been impressed how much there is on that map in terms of essentially what makes a big city great.

My question is: Will folks drive to say work downtown and then will they have need to move, during the day, or evening for commercial, educational or sporting events, to another location along the line? E.g., will a WSU business student need to go to and from WSU's main campus or maybe to the CBD for an internship activity? Will the new housing in Brush Park attract folks who work downtown, midtown, New Center, etc. and will their 'journey to work' [[as the Census Bureau refers to it) be via M-1, rather than by POV [[privately owned vehicle)?

It would be interesting to know the number of housing units now in the inventory [[i.e., counted by the Census Bureau or others) located along the route say bordered by Cass on the West and what Beaubien on the East and see what it looks like in say 10 years?.

Will say a thousand new housing units in Midtown/Brush Park lead to most of those residents to use M-1 to go to places which caused them to want to move to that area in the 1st place?

I consider M-1 a very interesting case study [[for the next 10 years) of how a light rail system can influence residential and commercial development.

[Bham1982]

Probably the 3rd time I've posted the same thing in this thread but comparing M1 to the People Mover is really facile and shows a serious lack of thought.

This time I summed up the point in this image that took my 5 minutes to create. See how one is a tiny loop around downtown, while the other is a useful line connecting numerous places of employment, commercial activity, and large bodies of students/visitors who are prime transit customers?

Your first statment has nothing to do with your second statement.

You claim that it's thoughtless to compare the People Mover to the Trolley, and then your "evidence" is a map with random labels. Huh?

I'm guessing you're trying to say something like "the trolley serves more potential transit customers than the people mover" but that sounds absurd.

Downtown is clearly a much more viable transit market than the Cass Corridor, and the People Mover doesn't replace existing service like the trolley. The trolley is just replacing bus service; the People Mover is an entirely new service. And the workplace density downtown is vastly greater than in midtown.

[emu steve]

The 2020 census is still 4 1/3 years off, but it should be interested to get block statistics [[data at very small geographical areas). It has been a long time since I worked at Census, but they have data from the decennial censuses concerning population and housing unit counts.

E.g., how many housing units were counted in [[April 1) 2010 between say Mack / Fisher, Woodward and say Beaubien [[or the entire Brush Park area)? How many will be counted April 1, 2020?

That, to me, would be a metric of the success of development activities in that area.

If there are say 500 new housing units [[or maybe 750) that would be impressive for a city like Detroit which has had difficulties with new construction.

[dtowncitylover]

Downtown is clearly a much more viable transit market than the Cass Corridor, and the People Mover doesn't replace existing service like the trolley. The trolley is just replacing bus service; the People Mover is an entirely new service. And the workplace density downtown is vastly greater than in midtown.

But viable transit markets need to be inter-connected not intra-connected. Cass Corridor, despite its past, is a viable transit market because of the increase in gentrification and investment and an arena being built. But the Corridor is one part of midtown which includes a huge medical complex, a university, and fine cultural [[tourist) institutions.

We want more density? We bring fixed route rail transit. Buses are great for some things, but high density building and greater investment isn't one of them.

[Junjie]

Your first statment has nothing to do with your second statement.

You claim that it's thoughtless to compare the People Mover to the Trolley, and then your "evidence" is a map with random labels. Huh?

I'm guessing you're trying to say something like "the trolley serves more potential transit customers than the people mover" but that sounds absurd.

Downtown is clearly a much more viable transit market than the Cass Corridor, and the People Mover doesn't replace existing service like the trolley. The trolley is just replacing bus service; the People Mover is an entirely new service. And the workplace density downtown is vastly greater than in midtown.

"I'm guessing you're trying to say something like "the trolley serves more potential transit customers than the people mover" but that sounds absurd."

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. See, the People Mover only serves people who want to get from downtown to downtown. Or, to put it less sarcastically, people who want to move a distance within downtown that can easily be walked on foot in 5-10 mins. That is not a very large market.

The M-1 streetcar will serve people who want to get from downtown to the DIA. Or from Wayne State to a Tigers game. Or from Amtrak to a meeting in the CBD. Or from any of the new housing in Brush Park once that opens to a job in New Center. Of course, since it serves downtown, its coverage area is a superset of the People Mover's. But since it connects multiple points of interest that are not close enough together to be easily walked, the network effects of having multiple sources of ridership and destinations for riders means that it will carry additional people who never would have found the People Mover useful. Since it will be useful not only to people going from downtown to downtown, but also to people going from downtown to WSU/DMC/New Center/Arena, or from any of those points to any of the others, it will serve a much larger market.

If you think that it's "absurd" that I would argue that M-1 will serve more potential transit customers than the PM, then I guess you think M-1 will serve the same or fewer customers as the PM serves today. I don't even know what to say to that because it's so self-evidently wrong, but I tried to politely explain above.

If you genuinely don't understand how transit works and aren't just trying to stir things up for your own amusement, then I would suggest reading a book like Human Transit. It's a short and excellent primer on how transit works.

[The argument about bus service is really tangential and unrelated, but the fact of the matter is that there are two good reasons to expect M-1 to draw people who never rode the bus. One is that, fairly or not, bus stigma is a real thing. There are people who drive downtown for a Tigers game who would consider getting on M-1 to go up to a bar in midtown but would never consider boarding a DDOT bus. The second will simply come down to service and remains to be seen, but if M-1 runs with greater frequency than the bus, then some people who didn't bother with the bus before may decide to ride the M-1.]

[emu steve]

I wish we had access to the original research data [[survey questionnaires) to assess whether or not folks who work downtown, Midtown, New Center would utilize M-1 and where the EXPECT those trips to go.

I still maintain the big kicker will be new development.

New development just doesn't happen. It is very expensive to build new construction. Someone believes that housing at THAT location is of strategic importance to renters or owners, i.e., they are willing to pay more because of the convenience or amenities offered by that housing unit.

It is up to builders, M-1 rail planners, etc. to understand the dynamic taking place.

Will a 'mini-city' within say Midtown/Brush Park develop? Say 1,000 housing units and 2,000 people? Will 10% of those 2K residents take say 400 trips per day on M-1?

As I've mentioned before, I'd like to see a big parking garage built somewhere accessible to a freeway where folks driving from 'afar' wanting to get to work or attend a sporting event, can park for a few bucks and M-1 to their destination. Essentially off-load some of the traffic and parking from downtown and the sports facilities. Nothing worse than trying to get 5 - 10K cars within a few blocks of a sports venue.

[Hypestyles]

I want light rail along Grand River. Too many GR route buses are late and/or already full of people when they arrive.

[emu steve]

I want light rail along Grand River. Too many GR route buses are late and/or already full of people when they arrive.

Will, I would assume so, Woodward buses start/stop at New Center [[where the terminus for M-1 rail is)?

I assume it will take half the resources to provide the same level of service not having to continue beyond New Center as I assume the buses travel faster the further one gets from New Center and slower the closer one gets to downtown).

If so, will that free some resources for say the GR bus line?

[emu steve]

"I'm guessing you're trying to say something like "the trolley serves more potential transit customers than the people mover" but that sounds absurd."

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. See, the People Mover only serves people who want to get from downtown to downtown. Or, to put it less sarcastically, people who want to move a distance within downtown that can easily be walked on foot in 5-10 mins. That is not a very large market.

The M-1 streetcar will serve people who want to get from downtown to the DIA. Or from Wayne State to a Tigers game. Or from Amtrak to a meeting in the CBD. Or from any of the new housing in Brush Park once that opens to a job in New Center. Of course, since it serves downtown, its coverage area is a superset of the People Mover's. But since it connects multiple points of interest that are not close enough together to be easily walked, the network effects of having multiple sources of ridership and destinations for riders means that it will carry additional people who never would have found the People Mover useful. Since it will be useful not only to people going from downtown to downtown, but also to people going from downtown to WSU/DMC/New Center/Arena, or from any of those points to any of the others, it will serve a much larger market.

If you think that it's "absurd" that I would argue that M-1 will serve more potential transit customers than the PM, then I guess you think M-1 will serve the same or fewer customers as the PM serves today. I don't even know what to say to that because it's so self-evidently wrong, but I tried to politely explain above.

If you genuinely don't understand how transit works and aren't just trying to stir things up for your own amusement, then I would suggest reading a book like Human Transit. It's a short and excellent primer on how transit works.

[The argument about bus service is really tangential and unrelated, but the fact of the matter is that there are two good reasons to expect M-1 to draw people who never rode the bus. One is that, fairly or not, bus stigma is a real thing. There are people who drive downtown for a Tigers game who would consider getting on M-1 to go up to a bar in midtown but would never consider boarding a DDOT bus. The second will simply come down to service and remains to be seen, but if M-1 runs with greater frequency than the bus, then some people who didn't bother with the bus before may decide to ride the M-1.]

Although not directly M-1 related, here is a report on transformation of downtown Detroit.

One paragraph mentions the plans by various employers to give subsides to their employees who live in the area. Those employees are prime candidate to utilize M-1 rail for the journey to work.

http://modeldmedia.com/features/unif...15-110315.aspx

[ndavies]

Hopefully M1 rail does better than other projects around the country.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/ar...imulus-largess

[Honky Tonk]

Probably the 3rd time I've posted the same thing in this thread but comparing M1 to the People Mover is really facile and shows a serious lack of thought.

This time I summed up the point in this image that took my 5 minutes to create. See how one is a tiny loop around downtown, while the other is a useful line connecting numerous places of employment, commercial activity, and large bodies of students/visitors who are prime transit customers?

If you wrote with an even larger font, more areas would be able to take advantage of the Blight Rail.

[professorscott]

Will, I would assume so, Woodward buses start/stop at New Center [[where the terminus for M-1 rail is)?

No. Neither bus system is going to drop off passengers and force them to make an extra transfer in order to get all the way to downtown.

There are a good many things that could be done to reconfigure bus service on Woodward once M1 is up and running. Just for one example, SMART buses might choose to make less frequent stops, allowing M1 to serve local traffic between stops. I'm not saying SMART is going to do that, just that they could. DDOT could short-turn selected trips at New Center, but there is still a huge need for their passengers to continue to downtown, so that [[IMVHO) is less likely.

So there will likely be some shifting of resources, but very modest.

[emu steve]

No. Neither bus system is going to drop off passengers and force them to make an extra transfer in order to get all the way to downtown.

There are a good many things that could be done to reconfigure bus service on Woodward once M1 is up and running. Just for one example, SMART buses might choose to make less frequent stops, allowing M1 to serve local traffic between stops. I'm not saying SMART is going to do that, just that they could. DDOT could short-turn selected trips at New Center, but there is still a huge need for their passengers to continue to downtown, so that [[IMVHO) is less likely.

So there will likely be some shifting of resources, but very modest.

I'm remembering this conversation from before.

I wonder if someday there will be rush hour express buses from 8 mile to the New Center terminus [[and vice versa)?

[professorscott]

• I'm remembering this conversation from before.

I wonder if someday there will be rush hour express buses from 8 mile to the New Center terminus [[and vice versa)?

What I think is more likely is that any BRT type of facility will run from the 'burbs to New Center, with stops every 1/2 to 1 mile, and then run downtown with only one or two intermediate stops, and allow M1 to handle the local traffic in that part of Woodward. DDOT is not likely to make significant changes and hasn't run any express buses at all now for a couple years, and nobody else is going to support buses that only run south of 8 Mile.

Of course, this supposes that the RTA is able to get funding for any new service at all, so we'll see.