If Dallas Can Do It, Why Can't Detroit?

[begingri]

They said it would never happen in Dallas. They said it was a city that loved its cars too much, that its massive system of freeways obliterated the need for trains, and that Dallas' suburban sprawl was too entrenched for it to ever go the way of more densely populated cities and regions that were long accustomed to getting places by rail.

Sound familiar?

The same arguments - and then some - are raised again and again when it comes to bringing light rail to metro Detroit. And yet Dallas built it and we're still arguing.

So why The Big D, the not The D? Why can't metro Detroit, despite its love affair with cars, sprawl, and freeways [[the very first was built in Detroit) follow Dallas - or Cleveland, Phoenix, St. Louis, Portland, Denver, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Charlotte, etc - and make light rail a reality?

As a native Dallasite, and a Detroiter for the last 14 years, I remember all-too well the Big D naysayers. Blue lines, red lines, green lines were foreign, and sometimes hostile, territory in Cow Country. But now it's plain to see how misguided the fears and criticisms were.

You can see it on the trains headed to and from downtown Dallas, packed with commuters. You can see it in the popularity of light rail riders heading to Mavericks games, the theater or downtown museums, and places in between. You can see it in the 55 stations, 72 miles of track [[and growing!) and city's underground rail - the first subway in the Southwest . You can see it in the booming transit village that's grown up near downtown. You can see it in the studies that have documented the job growth and economic spin-offs in neighborhoods near DART stations.

As the naysayers in the Motor City and nearby suburbs fill the air with doubts and disagreements and predictions of doom, I can't help but think how similar they are to the Dallas naysayers, and how equally wrong. After all, once upon a time Detroit's streetcar system was an international model, duplicated by cities around the world.

Federal officials see the same promise for Detroit today, with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, saying on a visit here last summer that the public-private business-foundation financing model of Woodward Light Rail will play a crucial part in the "development of livable communities that new transit will foster."

The current plan, and one most likely to succeed, is the $528-million Woodward Avenue Light Rail, a line that would run from Campus Martius in downtown Detroit to 8 Mile Road at the city's border. The streetcar style trains would cover 9.3 miles and, if dollars and planners come together, eventually connect to the inner ring suburbs. There will be 19 stops, 10 in downtown on the Woodward line in Detroit.

"Dallas and Detroit is a good comparison," says Megan Owens, executive director of Transportation Riders United, an advocate for regional mass transit in metro Detroit. "Dallas is another big sprawling car-based city just like Detroit. It certainly has, or had, an industry focus that would not generally lean toward transit - whether it's auto or oil."

Continued at: http://www.metromodemedia.com/featur...trail0218.aspx

[Novine]

It would help if we had a regional transit authority, not the split between DDOT and SMART. DART also has the advantage of a dedicated revenue stream from sales tax. SMART relies on property taxes, which have been declining and isn't levied outside of the member communities. DDOT doesn't have a dedicated funding stream. Fixing those issues won't guarantee that a functional transit system in SE Michigan but you'll never have a high-quality working transit system until those problems are addressed.

[Hypestyles]

who are the people in dallas who can speak on how having a regional transit authority works?

[Bham1982]

The same arguments - and then some - are raised again and again when it comes to bringing light rail to metro Detroit. And yet Dallas built it and we're still arguing.

The Dallas light rail network has been a huge disappointment.

If Detroit's proposed rail network mimicks Dallas, then we might as well not even bother.

And I don't think you'll see too many "packed trains" in Dallas.

How about 7,000 weekday passengers on a multibillion dollar line? That's the Dallas experience. Some existing D-Dot bus lines already easily trump that passenger load.

Dallas is famous for building a large rail network while the regional population doubled, and yet ridership actually dropped from when they had a bus-only system. Oops.

'Most DART rail stations serve fewer people now than when they opened'

http://green.tmcnet.com/news/2011/06/27/5600545.htm

[bailey]

So why The Big D, the not The D? Why can't metro Detroit, despite its love affair with cars, sprawl, and freeways [[the very first was built in Detroit) follow Dallas - or Cleveland, Phoenix, St. Louis, Portland, Denver, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Charlotte, etc - and make light rail a reality?

...dunno... top of mind?

we're lacking several billion dollars in local and regional taxpayer buy- in? None of those places are home to the largest poorest city in the country? none of those places have deeply entrenched fears and animosity regarding race? none of those cities are the most segregated racially and socioeconomically in the country? None of those cities had their core city completely emptied of population, capital, and tax base?

[Bham1982]

I think the bigger issue is "What do we want"?

Better transit, or a fancy system? Mobility or economic development?

We need better transit. That doesn't mean we need rail, though it doesn't discount the possibility of rail.

The problem seems to be that we conflate building rail with improving transit. Often, we could have just saved the money, and improved the bus network.

If you look at the experiences of cities like Deroit [[polycentric and auto-oriented) the case for light rail is a weak one. Look at the rail ridership in Dallas, Houston, San Diego, Charlotte and Phoenix.

What you will find is that light rail did not grow transit ridership. It just shifted bus riders onto rail.

In some cases, light rail did stimulate economic development. So this could be an argument in favor of rail.

But the case for improving regional mobility of sprawling cities through light rail investment is a weak one.

[Bham1982]

Just checking the details of the Dallas network, they have:

54 stations
72 miles
33,000 weekday passengers

What's the ridership on the Woodward bus? I wouldn't be surprised if the Woodward bus alone beats the entire 72-mile DART rail network.

[j to the jeremy]

Just checking the details of the Dallas network, they have:

54 stations
72 miles
33,000 weekday passengers

What's the ridership on the Woodward bus? I wouldn't be surprised if the Woodward bus alone beats the entire 72-mile DART rail network.

So you're in favor of Detroit Light rail, then?

[Packman41]

Just maybe it has something to do with the cost. And forget about any other reasons.

The following was in the Detroit Free Press over the weekend:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011107310516

The Detroit People Mover started operation 24 years ago today, on July 31, 1987.

At 1 p.m., eager passengers jammed inside to be among the first to take a ride around the 2.9-mile elevated track downtown.

The looped mass-transit system, built for $200.3 million, was plagued by construction woes that put its completion two years behind schedule and $63 million over budget. [[Note: that is 31.5% OVER budget).

For its first week of operation, rides were free on the newest public transportation in the city that guided the nation into car ownership. The People Mover attracted 193,000 passengers before it began charging on Aug. 8.

Mayor Coleman Young said at the opening: "Detroit is a great city ... but we will not retain that greatness unless we come into the 20th Century" with a mass-transit system.

"I consider this People Mover the first step in that direction," he said. Alas, as a practical matter, it also has been the last.

Ridership was projected at 16,500 passengers a day; it's closer to 7,500 today. [[Note: actual usage is just 45% of what was projected over 24 years ago)

The People Mover was all or partly out of commission for a 13-month period in 1998-99 because of damage from the demolition of the old Hudson's.

Today, the train runs 6:30 a.m.-midnight weekdays, except for Friday, when it operates until 2 a.m. On Saturdays, you can catch it from 9 a.m.-2 a.m. and noon-midnight on Sundays. A trip around the loop takes about 15 minutes and offers spectacular views of the DetroitRiver and downtown.

The fare has remained at 50 cents. End of Article

So it cost $263 million in 1987 – that would be equal to $498 million in today’s dollars

So let’s do the math.

• Ridership is 7500 people per day X 365 days per year = 2,737,500 riders per year
• 2,737,500 riders X $0.50 per rider = $1,368,750 revenue per year

Well, we all know that it costs a lot more than $1.4 million per year to run the People Mover. In fact, during the latest budget wrangling with between Mayor Bing and the City Council the mayor asked to increase the budget by $7.0 million to keep the People Mover running.

To summarize, the quarter of a billion dollars spent building the People Mover will never be repaid. It costs $7.0 million more per year to operate in than it takes in revenue. This is not a sustainable business model.

Just do the math. No other reasons are necessary.

[Detroitnerd]

To summarize, the quarter of a billion dollars spent building the People Mover will never be repaid. It costs $7.0 million more per year to operate in than it takes in revenue. This is not a sustainable business model.

Just do the math. No other reasons are necessary.

Of course, conveniently leaving out the fact that it was supposed to be the hub for a serious light rail system reaching out of downtown and out Michigan, Gratiot, Woodward, etc.

If you built a freeway interchange and connected it with ... no freeways at all ... that would be a good parallel. But would you then say that freeway interchanges are failures? Think about it.

[Bham1982]

So you're in favor of Detroit Light rail, then?

I think I'm in favor of light rail along Woodward, though it depends on the details.

I don't think it will do much of anything to change how this region functions, however. It may do something for economic development, and it may attract a handful of folks who otherwise wouldn't live or work along the corridor.

[iheartthed]

Just maybe it has something to do with the cost. And forget about any other reasons.

The following was in the Detroit Free Press over the weekend:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011107310516

The Detroit People Mover started operation 24 years ago today, on July 31, 1987.

At 1 p.m., eager passengers jammed inside to be among the first to take a ride around the 2.9-mile elevated track downtown.

The looped mass-transit system, built for $200.3 million, was plagued by construction woes that put its completion two years behind schedule and $63 million over budget. [[Note: that is 31.5% OVER budget).

For its first week of operation, rides were free on the newest public transportation in the city that guided the nation into car ownership. The People Mover attracted 193,000 passengers before it began charging on Aug. 8.

Mayor Coleman Young said at the opening: "Detroit is a great city ... but we will not retain that greatness unless we come into the 20th Century" with a mass-transit system.

"I consider this People Mover the first step in that direction," he said. Alas, as a practical matter, it also has been the last.

Ridership was projected at 16,500 passengers a day; it's closer to 7,500 today. [[Note: actual usage is just 45% of what was projected over 24 years ago)

The People Mover was all or partly out of commission for a 13-month period in 1998-99 because of damage from the demolition of the old Hudson's.

Today, the train runs 6:30 a.m.-midnight weekdays, except for Friday, when it operates until 2 a.m. On Saturdays, you can catch it from 9 a.m.-2 a.m. and noon-midnight on Sundays. A trip around the loop takes about 15 minutes and offers spectacular views of the DetroitRiver and downtown.

The fare has remained at 50 cents. End of Article

So it cost $263 million in 1987 – that would be equal to $498 million in today’s dollars

So let’s do the math.

• Ridership is 7500 people per day X 365 days per year = 2,737,500 riders per year
• 2,737,500 riders X $0.50 per rider = $1,368,750 revenue per year

Well, we all know that it costs a lot more than $1.4 million per year to run the People Mover. In fact, during the latest budget wrangling with between Mayor Bing and the City Council the mayor asked to increase the budget by $7.0 million to keep the People Mover running.

To summarize, the quarter of a billion dollars spent building the People Mover will never be repaid. It costs $7.0 million more per year to operate in than it takes in revenue. This is not a sustainable business model.

Just do the math. No other reasons are necessary.

I don't think a single road in Michigan has ever generated one cent of revenue from a fare/toll box, yet Michigan continues to build them.

[Bham1982]

Transit will never come close to making money in the U.S. I think that's a non-argument.

But that doesn't mean we don't look at a cost-benefit ratio.

Is the Dallas DART light rail network a good investment? Over $4 billion for basically replacing buses with light rail along major corridors, with no improvement in ridership.

Possible economic benefits, but tough to figure. Dallas is a booming region. Would the economic growth have occured if the rail wasn't built? I'm thinking probably yes.

I think reasonable folks can disagree on this.

[Detroitnerd]

I don't think a single road in Michigan has ever generated one cent of revenue from a fare/toll box, yet Michigan continues to build them.

Shhh. Call it a motorist's blind spot.

[BrushStart]

The real purpose of building light rail is to reign in sprawl. Permanent mass transit provides an incentive to develop already inhabited land as opposed to rural land.

The cost of sprawl, over time, far outweighs the billions Dallas spent on light rail.

As a region expands through sprawl, the infrastructure must be stretched further and further for fewer and fewer people. At the same time, you must continue to maintain and service what you built 10 years prior, and 20 years before that, and so on.

Rural land will always be cheaper to develop, so in order to slow rural development, you have to provide an incentive for developing areas already established. Fixed mass transit is that incentive.

Without building some type of transit, sprawl will continue unabated until it hits a geographic barrier, like a body of water, a mountain range, or another city. The interest of developers is completely served by continuing to drag the outer boundaries of the region away from the center, building new "rings" every few years. Light rail helps to anchor development and stem outward growth.

Because light rail can only be effective if extended so far, it places a limit on how far new development is willing to go. Go too far, and you find yourself disconnected. People will want to stay where they are connected and developers will want to build where there is new infrastructure.

Sprawl is an endless cycle of build, and expand, build, and expand, and so on. It never contracts. Eventually, you end up with an ever-expanding mess of roads and infrastructure with no real sense of place. Entire neighborhoods become sort-of 'disposable' as people migrate to the next wave of planned developments further out. However, just because a new area is created, does not mean the government is relieved of its obligation to continue to service the old one. The costs compound.

After a while, you get what has become Metro Detroit. You have an enormous sprawl area with infrastructure stretched to its limits. You have a core area that has significant abandonment, but that cannot be easily decommissioned. You have developers, like Pulte, now losing money, but chomping at the bit to develop rural outskirts.

I don't know if sprawl is "unsustainable" in terms of peak oil or whatever, but it is certainly inefficient, expensive, and ugly as hell.

You must have fixed mass transit if you ever want to maintain a somewhat permanent and predictable city. Otherwise, in another 100 years or so, expect sprawl to slowly have eroded all rural land around it and for older cities and townships to be blighted.

I don't care what LBP says in his blog, in the end, if sprawl is not controlled, it is a bad policy.

[lilpup]

Fixed mass transit is not an incentive. It will do *nothing* to deter sprawl.

If you want to deter sprawl you have to do it by actively restricting development in the rural areas.

[Bham1982]

The real purpose of building light rail is to reign in sprawl. Permanent mass transit provides an incentive to develop already inhabited land as opposed to rural land.

How does Dallas light rail inhibit sprawl?

There are no land use restrictions that accompanied creation of the DART network.

And the rail ridership is no higher than the bus ridership that preceded it.

In fact, Dallas has lower transit ridership than Austin and San Antonio, two bus-only cities.

Yes, there was economic development along the various lines, and I suppose one could argue the light rail stimulated this development, but I don't know how this could be proven.

Dallas has had a ton of development in recent decades, both along rail corridors and non-rail corridors. It's really a fuzzy game trying to determine cause and effect. And the sprawl in Dallas is legendary and continues unabated.

[canuck]

How does Dallas light rail inhibit sprawl?

There are no land use restrictions that accompanied creation of the DART network.

And the rail ridership is no higher than the bus ridership that preceded it.

In fact, Dallas has lower transit ridership than Austin and San Antonio, two bus-only cities.

Yes, there was economic development along the various lines, and I suppose one could argue the light rail stimulated this development, but I don't know how this could be proven.

Dallas has had a ton of development in recent decades, both along rail corridors and non-rail corridors. It's really a fuzzy game trying to determine cause and effect. And the sprawl in Dallas is legendary and continues unabated.

Well, maybe the lack of policy about sprawl abatement is the problem. When a city that is already stretched out like Dallas tries to abate by building a transit web but does nothing to favor density over sprawl; what gives? Dallas metro's size is 2 and a half times that of Detroit's.

But you also have to look at cultural factors that make or break the mold.

Sydney Australia is spread out à la king size; but it has always invested in transit massively and its rail ridership is a million daily.

http://www.cityrail.info/about/facts

[Hypestyles]

.. what are canadian cities with vast rail connectivity?

[Hamtragedy]

Keep in mind that Texas receives a sizable chunk of the nearly 700 billion dollar annual US defense budget. Don't forget to add to that the 500,000 retired service personnel who receive benefits at the behest of taxpayers, [[half of who live in SanAntonio, which is an interesting study in runaway urban sprawl). Add to that record oil company profits, and if the Dallas/Ft.Worth metroplex wants to experiment with mass transit, then more power to them.

[BrushStart]

How does Dallas light rail inhibit sprawl?

There are no land use restrictions that accompanied creation of the DART network.

And the rail ridership is no higher than the bus ridership that preceded it.

In fact, Dallas has lower transit ridership than Austin and San Antonio, two bus-only cities.

Yes, there was economic development along the various lines, and I suppose one could argue the light rail stimulated this development, but I don't know how this could be proven.

Dallas has had a ton of development in recent decades, both along rail corridors and non-rail corridors. It's really a fuzzy game trying to determine cause and effect. And the sprawl in Dallas is legendary and continues unabated.

I'm not saying that light rail or any mass transit is a complete solution to the negative effects of sprawl. Make no mistake, though, that sprawl is a destructive beast that costs taxpayers billions year-after-year.

As a development policy, sprawl is as wasteful as government spending gets. Taxpayers spend hundreds of millions just to service the project of a single developer. It might as well be a form of super-welfare for housing and strip mall developers. I'm not judging it, just pointing out the obvious.

When you're talking about retrofitting a sprawled out region with transit, initial ridership numbers mean nothing. Of course ridership is low, the development hasn't caught up with the infrastructure.

For ridership to increase, denser developments must be built around the transit line. This takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. You cannot expect people to walk 3 miles from their sprawling subdivision to the rail stop. They must have an opportunity to move near it.

The true utilization of light rail infrastructure may take am entire generation to realize. You are effectively requiring people change their entire lifestyle. The two biggest things people purchase in life is their home and their vehicle. Switching transit modes requires them to alter both.

If your goal is to reduce sprawl, the only way is to build fixed transit infrastructure that connects major destinations, like employment centers. You can create laws that limit sprawl development, but some people would call that communist.

Effecting change slowly through infrastructure is the most natural way of causing change. People will eventually gravitate towards it, but it won't happen immediately. Dallas spent its money wisely. Would the amount Dallas spent on light rail been better spent on new roads to sprawl developments expanding out into the desert?

[oladub]

Minneapolis, like Dallas and Detroit, also is characterized by sprawl. A 12.3 mile light rail line was put in connecting downtown, the Target center, Target Field, the Metrodome, with the U of MN, the airport, and the Mall of America. It is very successful with 33,000 passengers a day.

Detroit has downtown and the New Center/Wayne State on the Woodward route. To be successful, a light rail has to go to places a pot of people want to go. Large, free and safe parking garages and commuter bus connections at the Eight Mile end would help.

[R8RBOB]

Minneapolis, like Dallas and Detroit, also is characterized by sprawl. A 12.3 mile light rail line was put in connecting downtown, the Target center, Target Field, the Metrodome, with the U of MN, the airport, and the Mall of America. It is very successful with 33,000 passengers a day.

Detroit has downtown and the New Center/Wayne State on the Woodward route. To be successful, a light rail has to go to places a pot of people want to go. Large, free and safe parking garages and commuter bus connections at the Eight Mile end would help.

I went to Minneapolis six years ago for training. I liked the fact that I was able to take the light-rail from MPLS/St. Paul airport to Downtown Minneapolis and I liked how I was able to take the light-rail to MOA. When I see cities like Minneapolis and Chicago and San Diego and the Bay Area have a light-rail to transport people I have to ask why not Detroit?

[canuck]

hypestyles.. what are canadian cities with vast rail connectivity?

I can only give you these links to Montreal's AMT and Toronto's GoTrain networks;
http://www.amt.qc.ca/en/train/deux-montagnes.aspx
http://www.gotransit.com/publicroot/...es/sysmap.aspx

BrushStart/Effecting change slowly through infrastructure is the most natural way of causing change. People will eventually gravitate towards it, but it won't happen immediately. Dallas spent its money wisely. Would the amount Dallas spent on light rail been better spent on new roads to sprawl developments expanding out into the desert?

Yes, and if you make laws that give priority to mass transit over individual locomotion infrastructure, your chance of success in implementing fixed circuits is increased. Apart from tech glitches and derailments, suburban rail can run on time and is a lot more relaxing than car use.

[Bham1982]

Minneapolis, like Dallas and Detroit, also is characterized by sprawl. A 12.3 mile light rail line was put in connecting downtown, the Target center, Target Field, the Metrodome, with the U of MN, the airport, and the Mall of America. It is very successful with 33,000 passengers a day.

The Twin Cities are far more centralized than Metro Detroit. Downtown Minneapolis is a larger regional jobs hub. Downtown also has the University of Minnesota [[basically as big as Michigan State) and considerable retail activity.

And the light rail hits the Mall of America [[biggest tourist attraction in U.S.) and the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. So it packs a bunch of stuff along the corridor.

And, even so, ridership is below that of major bus line corridors throughout the U.S.