Very drastic cuts indeed. My fellow transit advocates were able to convince City Council not to allow any sort of fare increase a couple of months ago, and now that is coming home to roost.

The fact of the matter is the City is broke. It is a shame that cuts of this magnitude are necessary, but the City is broke, and if it can't get more money into the bus system by raising fares, you get what you see here.

You can't have it both ways. Either fares have to go up, or service has to be cut, or, quite frankly, both. Detroit should raise its fare, privatize collections [[to reduce theft among other things), and make more modest service adjustments. But it won't.