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