ESP said


"The region, instead, needs to focus it's efforts on transit in the city, and grow demand for it over a generation or two. By investing in transit in the denser corridors in the city, i.e. Woodward, Michigan, E. Jefferson, Gratiot and Grand River; you connect the job centers to the neighborhoods, and make it easier for people to get around. That is what is keeping the areas surrounding Downtown from their revival… there's no way to get there! This is why demand for residential in Downtown, Midtown and Corktown is so high, but nowhere else. With parking becoming more scarce Downtown, driving is not the answer [[as is the case in any city). So naturally you look to the neighborhoods, but with no reliable way to get to them, they sit and wait."

This is so true, albeit two generations too late. Can you imagine a reliable line that ran Warren or Mack or Jefferson, [[or even pre-Chrysler plant debacle, Vernor, Charlevoix or Kercheval) to Grosse Pointe? Stops along the way, Lafayette Park, MLK High, West Village, Indian Village, and all those neighborhoods to East English Village or the Canals that no longer exist?

How about a Grand River Line where the only destinations are no longer Grandmont and Rosedale Park, but all the neighborhoods that were somewhat intact as late as 2000?

As a frequent visitor to the DC area over the last 30 years, I've watched a small three line, 15 stop subway system, morph into a 5 line 60 stop "why the hell do I need a car here?" clean, reliable, mobility authority, that has created destinations. I doesn't always happen overnight, but once that stop winds up in your neighborhood, it's only a matter of time before investment shows up, street-scapes get redone, and instead of being "your stop", it becomes a place where other people want [[or need) to go, and hell, even live there.

Detroit missed it, and it's no more brilliantly evidenced than right now. If you have to ride a bus 25 minutes from downtown to Grandmont, and all you see along the way is burned, torn down, overgrown fields, closed up police and fire stations, and the pittance of commercial businesses that remain, why the hell would you want to live there, yet alone make that a destination?