Is livonia attacking again!?

[iheartthed]

But the question asking why in a metro region of 4.5 million people the central city only experiences gridlock a handful of times a year isn't addressed.

Supposing the most expansive of mass transit options on the table today were implemented tomorrow... would it be used as anything other than a parking shuttle for suburbanites on special event days? I mean, I'm sure the people mover was jammed last night. But does a handful of days operating at or near capacity justify it's existence?

The prevailing logic on this board is that if we get light rail up woodward or to the airport, suddenly the suburbs will empty and there will be this mass migration back to detroit.

The answer is that you will never have gridlock downtown on more than a handful of days per year until you figure out a way to move people in and out in an efficient matter [[i.e. build a mass transit system). So you can sit and play with your navel worrying about will anyone use it until you are blue in the face, but the fact remains that if you don't build it then no one will ever use it. Now if you think Detroit, and by extension Metro Detroit, is DOA, and thus will never experience any sort of rebound, then that's an entirely different discussion.

What you seem to be advocating is akin to waiting to see how many people show up at a field intending to catch a flight before you decide to build an airport.

[bailey]

The answer is that you will never have gridlock downtown on more than a handful of days per year until you figure out a way to move people in and out in an efficient matter [[i.e. build a mass transit system). So you can sit and play with your navel worrying about will anyone use it until you are blue in the face, but the fact remains that if you don't build it then no one will ever use it. ...

Well, the fact also remains that if you don't build what is needed, no one will ever use it. We don;t need a street level people mover/parking shuttle. we need coherent mass transit. We need to get people from where they are to where they want to go. Is Light rail from new center to hart plaza or new center to the airport going to stop the gridlock on double booked game days or fireworks nights?

What you seem to be advocating is akin to waiting to see how many people show up at a field intending to catch a flight before you decide to build an airport.

But what you're advocating [[well, maybe not you per se..but the various and numerous threads on light/heavy/elevated/maglev trains) is building McNamara Terminal to service a handful of flights a year, when what we really need is to fix up city airport.

[iheartthed]

Well, the fact also remains that if you don't build what is needed, no one will ever use it. We don;t need a street level people mover/parking shuttle. we need coherent mass transit. We need to get people from where they are to where they want to go. Is Light rail from new center to hart plaza or new center to the airport going to stop the gridlock on double booked game days or fireworks nights?

But what you're advocating [[well, maybe not you per se..but the various and numerous threads on light/heavy/elevated/maglev trains) is building McNamara Terminal to service a handful of flights a year, when what we really need is to fix up city airport.

No, what most people are advocating is building the airport, which doesn't yet exist in Detroit.

[bailey]

we don't have buses?

[iheartthed]

we don't have buses?

One bus moves roughly 60 people at max. By contrast, one NYC subway train moves roughly 2,000 people at max capacity. So to answer your question, yes Detroit has buses. But Detroit doesn't have a mass transit system.

[DetroitDad]

Well, the fact also remains that if you don't build what is needed, no one will ever use it. We don;t need a street level people mover/parking shuttle. we need coherent mass transit. We need to get people from where they are to where they want to go. Is Light rail from new center to hart plaza or new center to the airport going to stop the gridlock on double booked game days or fireworks nights?

But what you're advocating [[well, maybe not you per se..but the various and numerous threads on light/heavy/elevated/maglev trains) is building McNamara Terminal to service a handful of flights a year, when what we really need is to fix up city airport.

Isn't that exactly what they are doing? What was originally proposed and what was tried in the past was an elevated system, a subterranean system, and a proposed light rail system on all the radials. Instead they are building new transit centers for existing buses, adding new signs and bus tracking systems, adding a few new hybrid buses for rapid transit, and building a single light rail line to test out on a line with enough riders, and to gain attention for the system.