M-1 to break ground this summer

[chicagoforlife]

If you read this thread, you'll understand why that is. Southeast Michigan is chock full of people who pass the buck, make excuses, expect "Someone Else" to fix problems, and don't want to do anything about anything, yet somehow seem to know Every Damn Thing There Is To Know.

I'd like to think those kind of people are just a small, incredibly vocal, minority. But they've been sufficient to hold-up progress for decades. Want to start a shitstorm in Michigan? Threaten to divert the gravy train of subsidies from someone's suburban utopia.

I've noticed that and ask the question why? I can't believe they want to enjoy Detroit yet don't want to improve the way to get there, instead they want to drive everywhere and park downtown and so on. It disgusts me that downtown is full of these stupid surface parking lots, being from Chicago maybe I expect it to look more like Chicago I dunno. But I do know that Chicago can thank the L system as one of the reason's there is such a dense urban fabric here, transit like this connects neighborhoods to other parts of the city and that is something Detroit is desperately in need of, fixing the neighborhoods and reconnecting them, all 139 square miles of the city not just the 3-4 square miles of Downtown, Midtown and New Center. Other parts of the city should be feeding off of the activity taking place in these three parts of town and a light rail system would do wonders to do that.

[chicagoforlife]

Extend it to 8 Mile, make one down Gratiot? Lol. Are guys in Palmer Woods going to trade in their leased Cadillacs for a trolley pass to head to work? You guys are clueless. This is a private seeded, public draining pet project. Boondoggle through and through.

I wasn't at all saying there should be a trolley to be the fleet. The fleet would consist of real light rail cars like the one's seen in Houston, Dallas and other cities that are thriving. Detroit is one of the largest cities in the United States and probably has the poorest public transportation of any city larger than Detroit.

[believe14]

The make up of Detroit is unlike any of the booming cities you guys continue to compare Detroit to. And I can assure you the most magnificent public transportation system in the world wouldn't help Detroit. There are far more pressing concerns that make Detroit unattractive, most notably: crime, corruption and illiteracy.

[dtowncitylover]

The make up of Detroit is unlike any of the booming cities you guys continue to compare Detroit to. And I can assure you the most magnificent public transportation system in the world wouldn't help Detroit. There are far more pressing concerns that make Detroit unattractive, most notably: crime, corruption and illiteracy.

How can you assure us? Please, oh all knower of transit systems, please tell us how you can assure us that the best transit systems can't help us. Education and crime are definitely problems we have here. NO DOUBT. But we aren't talking about those issues. We are talking about our transit problem, which is just as serious as our education and crime problems. If we had a system like any other major Western city catered to our geography, it wouldn't be a problem.

If Detroit had built a transit system that President Ford offered us in the 1970s, Detroit would be a totally different city today. But no, we had people like believe14, Bham, and Hermod running the [[shit) show.

[Bham1982]

If Detroit had built a transit system that President Ford offered us in the 1970s, Detroit would be a totally different city today. But no, we had people like believe14, Bham, and Hermod running the [[shit) show.

There is no such city in the U.S. that ever became transit oriented and centralized due to introduction of rail transit following regional maturation. So good luck with that fantasy. If people wanted transit they would be riding the buses locally. Buses dominate U.S. transit ridership, and if you can't get people on buses, you won't get them on rail, as shown in every other U.S. city.

[ghettopalmetto]

I don't know, Chicagoforlife. I think a lot of the paradigm has to do with Detroiters' perception of the function of the city. There seem to be a significant percentage who view the City of Detroit as a theme park, intended for little more than entertainment of suburbanites and tourists. The idea that people actually *live* and *work* in Detroit seems to escape them. It's a provincial worldview, to say the least, and leads to an eternal pissing match where small, wealthy, self-segregating enclaves like Birmingham are perceived to compete against the Big Bad City of Detroit, vis-a-vis the World Beyond the Pleasant Peninsulas [[which apparently, exists only in fairy tales, trips to Cedar Point, and weekend excursions to Chicago).

The excuses of "crime", "education", and "unemployment" are always trotted out. But no one ever concludes that, with better transit options, Detroit residents just *might* have an easier time getting to a job.

There is no such city in the U.S. that ever became transit oriented and centralized due to introduction of rail transit following regional maturation. So good luck with that fantasy. If people wanted transit they would be riding the buses locally. Buses dominate U.S. transit ridership, and if you can't get people on buses, you won't get them on rail, as shown in every other U.S. city.

So Arlington, Virginia [[among others cities) is a mirage? You present a false choice, in that DETROIT DOES NOT HAVE FUNCTIONAL TRANSIT. You might as well state that Detroiters prefer driving to rocket ships.

[believe14]

Nobody that rides public transit for work or school in NYC, DC or Chicago enjoys the experience. It's miserable and gross. Services like Uber have made it extremely easy to avoid mass transit. Detroit is a more miserable, dangerous and unemployed city than those three, and you somehow expect the mass transit experience to be sexier? Until you fix the crime and illiteracy problems, it will just be a really expensive vessel unemployed people ride around the city.

[Hypestyles]

so where can people apply for jobs in construction?

[masterblaster]

There is no such city in the U.S. that ever became transit oriented and centralized due to introduction of rail transit following regional maturation. So good luck with that fantasy. If people wanted transit they would be riding the buses locally. Buses dominate U.S. transit ridership, and if you can't get people on buses, you won't get them on rail, as shown in every other U.S. city.

The Washington, D.C. subway opened in 1976. I would contend that it has significantly enhanced and impacted the redevelopment of the city and the development in that metro area.

Mr. Ford's pledge of $600 million for a rapid transit system was in 1976. If we had built a comprehensive rapid system in 10 years like D.C., the city would not have emptied out like it did, and it would have been attractive to urban pioneers that flocked to cities like Chicago, D.C., and Philadelphia.

And please don't say Washington DC was a lot denser city than Detroit, because in 1970, they had similar population densities.
D.C. 756,000/68 sq. miles = 11111/sq. mile.
Detroit 1,569,000/139 sq. miles = 10,972/sq. mile

D.C and Detroit also had similar racial makeup and crime reputation. Detroit's last streetcar ran in 1957, D.C. in 1962, so they had similar rail transit histories.

[believe14]

D.C. = Fed money, the highest educated, most affluent region in the US.
Detroit = Bankrupt flyover that's 60 years removed from relevancy.

D.C. is a top tier major US city, right there with NYC, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. Detroit is a a lower tier major city, that has more in common with Cleveland, Buffalo and Stockton [[CA).

[Hermod]

The Washington, D.C. subway opened in 1976. I would contend that it has significantly enhanced and impacted the redevelopment of the city and the development in that metro area.

Parts of the DC subway opened in 1976. The system has struggled to completion at great expense. The system works. The DC kleptocracy known as the district government couldn't have funded it. Congress paid for it to allow them to get around. If you go out into the suburbs of VA and MD, there is a veritable armada of buses under several different liveries running around. Some do routes connecting to metro stations while other run routes totally unconnected to metro. Within DC itself, there is a large number of bus routes. The DC metro is no where near as pervasive, frequent, or as convenient as the Paris Metro. It takes a small army of transit police to keep DC metro safe. The stations tend to be huge Taj Mahal's constructed at great expense and which tore down a lot of infrastructure to get the hole in the ground big enough to construct the station.

[masterblaster]

D.C. = Fed money, the highest educated, most affluent region in the US.
Detroit = Bankrupt flyover that's 60 years removed from relevancy.

D.C. is a top tier major US city, right there with NYC, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. Detroit is a a lower tier major city, that has more in common with Cleveland, Buffalo and Stockton [[CA).

The Detroit Metro Area has more people [[4,292,060) than the Cleveland [[2,068,283), Buffalo[[ 1,134,210), and Stockton [[685,306) Metro Areas combined. [[Source: Wikipedia/Census 2010 - comparing MSAs).

I would contend that Detroit is on the same tier as with Atlanta and Houston and Boston.

[Bham1982]

So Arlington, Virginia [[among others cities) is a mirage? You present a false choice, in that DETROIT DOES NOT HAVE FUNCTIONAL TRANSIT. You might as well state that Detroiters prefer driving to rocket ships.

No, Arlington is exactly what I'm talking about.

Arlington is the DC area, which was very centralized in the core, with very high transit [[bus) ridership prior to the introduction of rail.

And DC is like the least comparable U.S. city out there. I'm pretty sure the federal govt. isn't moving to Detroit and bringing a 120-mile Taj Mahal of a subway system along for the ride.

[WPitonya]

Nobody that rides public transit for work or school in NYC, DC or Chicago enjoys the experience. It's miserable and gross. Services like Uber have made it extremely easy to avoid mass transit. Detroit is a more miserable, dangerous and unemployed city than those three, and you somehow expect the mass transit experience to be sexier? Until you fix the crime and illiteracy problems, it will just be a really expensive vessel unemployed people ride around the city.

Wow way to make a general statement; NOBODY likes the mass transit in NYC? Well I'm from Rochester Hills but now live in Brooklyn and I LOVE the mass transit...it's part of the reason I have lived here for 7 years and have no plans on leaving. Not owning a car is very important to me. I know Detroit couldn't get to the point of most people not owning a car, but using it less would be very important and "sexy" to some people, along the lines of Atlanta, Charlotte, etc. where people supplement their car with their mass transit.

[ghettopalmetto]

D.C. = Fed money, the highest educated, most affluent region in the US.
Detroit = Bankrupt flyover that's 60 years removed from relevancy.

D.C. is a top tier major US city, right there with NYC, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. Detroit is a a lower tier major city, that has more in common with Cleveland, Buffalo and Stockton [[CA).

Are waaahmbulances still a thing?

There's nothing more attractive than a person who spends all day feeling sorry for himself.

[ghettopalmetto]

No, Arlington is exactly what I'm talking about.

Arlington is the DC area, which was very centralized in the core, with very high transit [[bus) ridership prior to the introduction of rail.

And DC is like the least comparable U.S. city out there. I'm pretty sure the federal govt. isn't moving to Detroit and bringing a 120-mile Taj Mahal of a subway system along for the ride.

Arlington was a county chock full of pawn shops and used car lots until the 1990s. Detroit qualifies for the same federal money that Virginia received to build its segments of the Metro...if they bothered to establish a dedicated local source of operational funding. The remainder of the construction money came from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Just remember that when your state tells you they have $1 billion for an I-75 widening, and another $1 billion for an I-94 widening, but no money to build transit.

[chicagoforlife]

I don't know, Chicagoforlife. I think a lot of the paradigm has to do with Detroiters' perception of the function of the city. There seem to be a significant percentage who view the City of Detroit as a theme park, intended for little more than entertainment of suburbanites and tourists. The idea that people actually *live* and *work* in Detroit seems to escape them. It's a provincial worldview, to say the least, and leads to an eternal pissing match where small, wealthy, self-segregating enclaves like Birmingham are perceived to compete against the Big Bad City of Detroit, vis-a-vis the World Beyond the Pleasant Peninsulas [[which apparently, exists only in fairy tales, trips to Cedar Point, and weekend excursions to Chicago).

The excuses of "crime", "education", and "unemployment" are always trotted out. But no one ever concludes that, with better transit options, Detroit residents just *might* have an easier time getting to a job.



So Arlington, Virginia [[among others cities) is a mirage? You present a false choice, in that DETROIT DOES NOT HAVE FUNCTIONAL TRANSIT. You might as well state that Detroiters prefer driving to rocket ships.

It's really sad that there are people that want to see Detroit do well and become this great city again but there are enough people to bring it down and crush it. Detroit is one of the older cities in the U.S. and has been a large city for quite awhile, it surprises the hell outta me why public transportation continues to be a problem in a city the size of Detroit. But you made good points there.

[chicagoforlife]

Nobody that rides public transit for work or school in NYC, DC or Chicago enjoys the experience. It's miserable and gross. Services like Uber have made it extremely easy to avoid mass transit. Detroit is a more miserable, dangerous and unemployed city than those three, and you somehow expect the mass transit experience to be sexier? Until you fix the crime and illiteracy problems, it will just be a really expensive vessel unemployed people ride around the city.

I don't mind riding public transportation in Chicago, it beats driving everywhere and paying to park. The only part of it that may seem gross is inside the subways, otherwise it's a pretty efficent system.

[masterblaster]

Parts of the DC subway opened in 1976. The system has struggled to completion at great expense. The system works. The DC kleptocracy known as the district government couldn't have funded it. Congress paid for it to allow them to get around

A system could have worked in Detroit too. G. Ford had pledged $600 million in '76. All the Detroit Area needed to do was develop an RTA, and come up with another $600 million through taxation. The plan was to build heavy rail on Woodward - it would be a subway from downtown to 6 Mile, and at-grade through the median from 6 Mile Road to Royal Oak Transit Center. Then light rail along the spoke roads - Michigan Ave, Grand River Ave, and Gratiot. We missed a grand opportunity.

It would have required cooperation between city and suburbs, which was at its worst in the '70's and '80s. It never came to fruition because of the conflict between the two parties

[Bham1982]

Arlington was a county chock full of pawn shops and used car
lots until the 1990s.

Totally irrelevant. Metro was built in the 1970's, and Arlington was plenty urban and transit-oriented prior to Metro.

And your comparison is so absurd as to not warrant a response. Why not compare Detroit to NYC, London, Paris and Tokyo while you're at it? Detroit isn't getting 1 million govt. and contractor jobs, all of which receive huge subsidies to take the train to work, as in DC.

Just remember that when your state tells you they have $1 billion for an I-75 widening, and another $1 billion for an I-94 widening, but no money to build transit.

Because those improvements are extremely important for mobility for almost everyone in SE Michigan, as well as the critically important shipping/logistics industry. I would spend $10 billion on roads in Michigan before spending one cent on the Gilbertville Trolley.

[masterblaster]

No, Arlington is exactly what I'm talking about.

Arlington is the DC area, which was very centralized in the core, with very high transit [[bus) ridership prior to the introduction of rail.

And DC is like the least comparable U.S. city out there. I'm pretty sure the federal govt. isn't moving to Detroit and bringing a 120-mile Taj Mahal of a subway system along for the ride.

I don't know Mr. Birmingham. Riding the bus was the way of life back when my parents and grandparents lived/grew up in Detroit from 1940's to 1970's. I can't imagine why the transit ridership in D.C. would be any more than in Detroit. As I have already shown, they had similar population densities in the 1970's. Detroit city may not have been centralized as D.C. but a ton of bus and streetcar routes were created in the early and mid 1900's to transport residents to the numerous large auto plants that were located throughout the city.

[bailey]

I don't know, Chicagoforlife. I think a lot of the paradigm has to do with Detroiters' perception of the function of the city. There seem to be a significant percentage who view the City of Detroit as a theme park, intended for little more than entertainment of suburbanites and tourists. The idea that people actually *live* and *work* in Detroit seems to escape them. It's a provincial worldview, to say the least, and leads to an eternal pissing match where small, wealthy, self-segregating enclaves like Birmingham are perceived to compete against the Big Bad City of Detroit, vis-a-vis the World Beyond the Pleasant Peninsulas [[which apparently, exists only in fairy tales, trips to Cedar Point, and weekend excursions to Chicago).

My god man, you say that completely oblivious to the staggering irony?

here seem to be a significant percentage who view the City of Detroit as a theme park, intended for little more than entertainment of suburbanites and tourists.

Apparently YOU are standing at the front of that line as you continually defend M1... which will be used primarily to shepherd suburbanites from office to parking lot, or parking lot to game or bar and back to parking lot.

The idea that people actually *live* and *work* in Detroit seems to escape them

No, it escapes YOU. Those that live ,work and use the city for something other than simcity fantasy or as an entertainment destination would like to see ACTUAL transit not a trolley for sorostitutes to have an easier time on bar crawls. WE want the guy in Delray to NOT have to wait four hours for bus. WE want to get from our office to the airport ..or home..or anywhere else besides midtown and downtown without dealing with a car. WE would like there to be an actual plan for this to go regional in the next half century.

It's a provincial worldview, to say the least, and leads to an eternal pissing match where small, wealthy, self-segregating enclaves...

yes, exactly... CBD & Woodward vs the other 100 square miles of Detroit and the rest of the 4,000,000 who live in the tri county area.

Gilbertville wins the pissing match. The Green Zone, the tiny enclave with the highest concentration of wealth and education and jobs in the City, will be well served by its own stand alone, self contained transit system...meanwhile, that woman waiting on the bus in Brightmoore is left to wonder if her job will still be there when she actually gets to work. Yippee!

[Bham1982]

I can't imagine why the transit ridership in D.C. would be any more than in Detroit.

If you can't understand why a rich, highly centralized Northeast Corridor city that happens to be capital of the most powerful nation in human history, and has a 120-mile Taj Mahal of a subway system, which federal employees are basically forced to ride, has higher ridership than Detroit, then I don't know what to say. Visit DC and report back all the alleged similarities with Detroit.

[dtowncitylover]

Nobody that rides public transit for work or school in NYC, DC or Chicago enjoys the experience. It's miserable and gross. Services like Uber have made it extremely easy to avoid mass transit. Detroit is a more miserable, dangerous and unemployed city than those three, and you somehow expect the mass transit experience to be sexier? Until you fix the crime and illiteracy problems, it will just be a really expensive vessel unemployed people ride around the city.

What?! This makes no sense. I don't enjoy driving a car, but I have to in order to get places around this town. I find driving to be miserable and frustrating at times especially when I go to an area I'm unfamiliar with. Transit isn't supposed to be the Disney Monorail, it's supposed to be convienant and connected. And I've never been on a transit system that I find to be too gross. Yes, the cliche of dank subway stairs is sometimes true, but for the most part those are minor problems.

So unemployed people have to be regulated to what? Walking from the east side to the west side? I really don't think you know first hand what it's like to be poor and/or unemployed or even not have a car. It's not fun. It's expensive. It's degrading [[especially without a car, waiting for a SMART bus, I would get so many weird looks where in other cities waiting for the bus shouldn't be so taboo). The unemployed and poor also need transit options just the same as the working and economically-abled, so to speak.

Crime and illiteracy, crime and illiteracy!, I hear you yell, but again we aren't talking about those issues. They are valid issues that also must be addressed. But again, so is transit.

[believe14]

I don't mind riding public transportation in Chicago, it beats driving everywhere and paying to park. The only part of it that may seem gross is inside the subways, otherwise it's a pretty efficent system.

I never questioned it's efficiency. But it's not exactly fun to ride the el twice a day. Popping down from the northern burbs to catch a cubs game? Sure. But everybody I know buys a car when they make some scratch and 86 the daily el usage. And Uber made taking the el for nightlife a thing of the past.