U-D Mercy Prof Calls Detroit Transit "3rd World"

[Novine]

"So the fine citizens of Waterford and the other suburbs have paid twice, for the initial build-out of Detroit's infrastructure and the suburbs' infrastructure, and they continue to pay twice, for the maintenance of Detroit's infrastructure and the suburbs' infrastructure."

I'm sure that many in the suburbs believe this to be true. Please clarify for us what infrastructure the fine residents of Waterford are paying for in their community and in Detroit.

[Hermod]

"So the fine citizens of Waterford and the other suburbs have paid twice, for the initial build-out of Detroit's infrastructure and the suburbs' infrastructure, and they continue to pay twice, for the maintenance of Detroit's infrastructure and the suburbs' infrastructure."

I'm sure that many in the suburbs believe this to be true. Please clarify for us what infrastructure the fine residents of Waterford are paying for in their community and in Detroit.

The same type of things that the members of this board are always saying that Detroit is paying for the suburbs. Both Waterford and Detroit pay into the common [[state and federal) pots. I would submit that Detroit gets more back from those pots than does Waterford.

[canuck]

Bham 1982

In a way I admire your ability to maintain an opposing argument. Birmingham is a real town with a sense of community. When Chris Leinberger wrote the Next Slum for the Atlantic in 2007, he said Birmingham would be one of the few places in Michigan that would avoid the ravages of the pattern of build and abandon.

But I grew up there too. It's still a small, snobby, parochial place of white people who are uncomfortable around blacks, poorer whites, and most foreigners. The people there are not worldly. Most of them can not appreciate the value of being around people that are not like them. They are not interested in being within breathing or underarm smelling distance of the other. Birmingham lawyer Lex Kuhne says metro Detroit's main problem is the absence of common experiences. Kuhne would prefer being able to risk the odors and be closer to others on a train.

A growing percentage of Birmingham and other suburban kids grow up and never come back. Every one from L. Brooks' crowd now has a son or daughter in New York City. By the 1990's, even those kids realized that the 1950's automobile based lifestyles should not be preserved at all costs.

I saw a Mad Max movie once that was supposed to be futuristic. Driving around Detroit at high speed, using our precious dollars so a single person be protected in 3,000 pounds of metal, glimpsing a few human faces but being in position only to suspect them of something, makes me think of that movie. I makes me think of Charleton Heston's[[from St. Helen, Mi) 1973 movie Omega Man. It makes me think of Thomas Hobbes' book, The Leviathan. We will kill each other to protect our rights to private property and our rights to drive around. I wonder sometimes, with all our anger, fear, failure and lack of ability to keep acquiring material things, why Woodward, 275, 16 Mile or 38 Mile don't descend into public demolition derbies.

Brooks, as many people have pointed out on this forum better than I, has invested metro Detroit's future in the 1950's. He has done the bidding for a demographic of perhaps 1-2 million white men and women who live in fear of blacks coming up over 8 mile road.

Governor Snyder's director of strategy and brain trust of the administration, Bill Rustem, asked publicly before he worked for Snyder, when Brooks & Co will stop campaigning against Detroit in order to get elected in Oakland County. Brooks and or that mentality is holding us hostage. We are all poorer because of it.

Your writing here makes you appear to be an apologist for sprawl and perhaps racism. I hate to think that of anybody. Both ideologies are sad.

The answers and solutions for Michigan won't come from the suburbs. The seeds of self-destruction still grow there.

I presume you have a series of arguments to refute Sugrue's Origins of the Urban Crisis.

Well said Zaiko. I also think that the avoidance of human proximity further complicates the problems of Detroit.

I think that the sprawl of the metro and the lack of interracial, and general human interaction that transit tends to promote has had an effect in tearing the social fabric of Detroit. All the stuff that is debated on Dyes over crime, education, suspicion, isolation or ghettoization, and continued lack of concensus building is rooted in the me, me, me reflex.

Heck, even Bloomberg the mayor of NYC takes the subway to work on occasion. In Detroit, you have a guy like Ficano chauffered in a luxury by-product of the auto-centric urb. Ficano's chauffeur equals one less bus driver on the streets of Detroit. This movie at theatres near you in glorious Sickorama.

[Novine]

Nice dodge Hermod. But it doesn't answer the question. Waterford is a township. It doesn't maintain its own roads. Those are maintained by the Road Commission. It has its own water system so its residents aren't paying for Detroit's and Detroit's not paying for it. Why is it that people run around making these claims but then can't back up their claims with some facts?

[Wesley Mouch]

The same type of things that the members of this board are always saying that Detroit is paying for the suburbs. Both Waterford and Detroit pay into the common [[state and federal) pots. I would submit that Detroit gets more back from those pots than does Waterford.

The logic is that the capital cost of building the roads, water systems, utility distribution networks, and the like were borne by all rate payers of the system, back in the day when the system was mostly Detroit.

So in, say, 1965, there were few Waterford or Chesterfield residents. Roads were put in place, sewers installed, and utility lines ran -- with the monies coming from city residents.

So the utility rates of Detroit residents were raised to fund bonds to build out the system, and the tax rates and gas taxes were used to build out M-59 -- so therefore these costs were 'paid for' by the 'city'.

There's some logic to this. Perhaps not quite as much as urbanists think -- but some. In truth, most capital costs are carried by bondholders -- based on future revenues. Since those revenues did eventually materialize -- Chesterfield does not pay gas tax and water bills -- you could argue that the costs were borne in the end by the rate payers of those sprawl towns.

If you're a developer, you don't see unfairness. If you're an urbanist, this seems like a subsidy.

[stasu1213]

Detroit's transit system is 3rd world compared to other big cities. This is a car town and as long as the label still stick Detroit, due to the bough and paid for politicians, will continue to have a 3rd world transit system.

[Hermod]

Nice dodge Hermod. But it doesn't answer the question. Waterford is a township. It doesn't maintain its own roads. Those are maintained by the Road Commission. It has its own water system so its residents aren't paying for Detroit's and Detroit's not paying for it. Why is it that people run around making these claims but then can't back up their claims with some facts?

Waterford pays for the road commission through their county taxes. The township taxes are a tiny bite of property taxes and are dwarfed by the taxes of Oakland County and the regional school district.

I would think that the median household in Waterford has a greater input to state fuel and income taxes and federal fuel and income taxes than does the median household in Detroit. These are the taxes that are shared.

[Novine]

"Waterford pays for the road commission through their county taxes."

Not they don't. The Road Commission is funded by gas taxes. That includes gas taxes from communities that fund their own road system. In effect, those won't don't maintain their own roads are subsidized by those who do.

"I would think that the median household in Waterford has a greater input to state fuel and income taxes and federal fuel and income taxes than does the median household in Detroit. These are the taxes that are shared."

Except that taxes paid by Waterford or Detroit or any other community aren't based on median household. It includes all of the taxes paid by businesses, industries, etc. That's why Detroit share of property taxes, even in its depressed state, is larger by a factor of at least 2 than any other community in the state.

But that's not really the point. The subsidy really kicks in when a community out in the boonies gets a new interchange at the cost of $40 - 50 million when there's no way that community ever contributed that amount towards those costs and likely never will. In those cases, Waterford and Detroit are the losers because those dollars are leaving established communities to subsidize sprawl out in the boonies. These days, Waterford has more in common with Detroit than it does with the sprawl neighbors to its north and west.

[mam2009]

Detroit's transit system is 3rd world compared to other big cities. This is a car town and as long as the label still stick Detroit, due to the bough and paid for politicians, will continue to have a 3rd world transit system.

Uh...what?

[Hermod]

But that's not really the point. The subsidy really kicks in when a community out in the boonies gets a new interchange at the cost of $40 - 50 million when there's no way that community ever contributed that amount towards those costs and likely never will. In those cases, Waterford and Detroit are the losers because those dollars are leaving established communities to subsidize sprawl out in the boonies. These days, Waterford has more in common with Detroit than it does with the sprawl neighbors to its north and west.

How many "new interchanges" have been added to I-75 since it was built. Most of the interstates that i have driven on have periodic interchanges built into them as well as more frequent interchanges around an urban area.

[Novine]

I can't speak for I-75. I can tell you that the interchanges at Beck and Wixom Roads were completely rebuilt at a cost of $35 - 45 million each. There was a new interchange added at Franklin Road in Southfield at $20 million. The M-5 extension north of I-96 cost at least $60 million. Redoing the interchange at Adams Road and M-59 was $18 million. I believe M-59 was widened out in Livingston County at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. MDOT is planning on spending $40 million on a new interchange at I-96 and Latson Road, out between Howell and Brighton. Who's paying for all that? The people out in Brighton and Howell?

[astongraham]

those buses are more cheap garbage like the rest of the fleet[[get on one and see for yourself). Chicago has first class buses, even their little SMART equivalent offers flat panel televisions when you get bored and wanna watch commercials. These new DDot buses will be run to the ground and non-operational within months, the one I was on yesterday was already filling up with graffiti and garbage from the previous day because I caught the bus very early in the morning.