There's been talk about rapid transit on Woodward for years. But what about Gratiot?

[professorscott]

That's part of the plan too!
Details at http://www.rtamichigan.org/best-proj...chigan-avenue/

They're studying Woodward, Gratiot and Michigan for initial rapid transit lines.

There will be public meetings about Michigan Ave / DTW transit next week:
http://www.rtamichigan.org/fall-public-meetings/

As we like to say in academia, this is simple but it ain't easy. The first and most difficult part of the work is that Mr. Ford and various colleagues need to convince the public that they have a plan whose implementation is worth paying for. Some of the skepticism has already appeared in this thread, such as the claim that many parts of Gratiot within Detroit are so desolate as to render enhanced transit unnecessary and superfluous, but that's simply incorrect. The DDOT Gratiot route is its second or third busiest route, and the SMART 560/565 is its BUSIEST route. When this was studied earlier for inclusion in the 2008 regional plan, there was no doubt it would be competitive for BRT under Federal Transit Administration guidelines.

Those who have seen the plan I mentioned have scoffed at the inclusion of M-59 as a transit route. My guess is that was thrown in to gain the support of certain exurban interests and is unlikely to be taken seriously, although some east-west transit through the north suburbs, with decent speed and frequency, would plug a big hole in the existing system.

Another thing that I haven't seen discussed much is what regional BRT would do for the existing local transit services. Put briefly, they could reduce [[though only somewhat) service on the local routes servicing the corridors with BRT, and as those are their very busiest routes, this frees up a lot of local-transit infrastructure for use elsewhere - for instance, as neighborhood "feeders" to the BRT and M-1 corridors.

On another related thread, posters have advocated for even more rapid [[or rapid-ish, if you're cynical about BRT) transit than what the 2008 plan calls for. The best hope for those plans is east Jefferson, and the best way to accomplish that would be to bring together a group of power players similar to those convened in 2007-08 who are now building the Woodward streetcar line. M-1 can be replicated; just do it the way we did M-1.