In mass transportation, opting out should not be an option

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BY MARIE DONIGAN

DETROIT FREE PRESS GUEST WRITER

People in metro Detroit need jobs, and job providers need employees. Job fairs are one way to connect the two. During the last several years, job fairs have been held at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. One fair touted 3,000 jobs! Unfortunately, if you were among those who don’t have cars but need a job, you couldn’t get there on public transportation.

Novi is one of 53 communities in Wayne and Oakland Counties that do not participate in metro Detroit’s suburban transit system, SMART. This situation is enabled by state law and years of bad public policy. This might have made political sense when jobs were concentrated in urban centers and municipalities like Novi and Canton Township were bedroom communities. Today, however, these communities are full partners in the region’s economy, offering affordable housing, hospitals and health care facilities, employment centers, public and taxpayer supported services, conventions centers and public and private schools.

Recently, the Brookings Institution issued a report entitled “Missed Opportunity: Transit and Jobs in Metropolitan America.” Data was collected in 100 of the country’s top metro regions, including metro Detroit. They found that nearly half the jobs in the region are located more than 10 miles outside of downtowns, that during the 2000s, poverty in suburbs grew five times faster than in cities, that 39% of work trips are entirely suburban and that the suburbs contain more than two-thirds of working-age residents. In metro Detroit, only 22% of jobs are accessible by public transportation within 90 minutes, if you can get to them at all.

http://www.freep.com/article/20110614/OPINION05/110613065/Online-commentary-mass-transportation-opting-out-should-not-an-option?odyssey=nav|head

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SMART service area: Interactive map

http://www.freep.com/article/20110608/NEWS05/110607054

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What riders have to say about bus service

http://www.freep.com/article/20110608/NEWS05/106080440

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Tuesday Talk replay: Mass transit in Detroit

What are the latest hurdles for transit in metro Detroit? Read a web chat about about the progress and challenges ahead as southeast Michigan tries to move forward with new mass transportation projects while trying to maintain services amid budget cuts.

We talked to Megan Owens executive director of Transportation Riders United, former state Rep. Marie Donigan and Sean Mann, a program coordinator with the Michigan Municipal League.

http://www.freep.com/article/2011061...ON05/110613029