Freshwater Transit has a new perspective to move Detroit

[begingri]

Our transit system is broken. But how do we fix it? There have been a lot of different ideas over the years, but what I attended the other night came from the grassroots level.

I found myself in the Elizabeth Theater, which is upstairs in the Park Bar, for CONNECTION put on by Freshwater Transit. The goal was to have a conversation about our current transit situation in metro Detroit, and how Freshwater Transit wants to move the discussion about transportation past policy and into implementation.

“We want to have a conversation about transit that is actually about transit, connectivity and connecting people from A to B. We want to address it at the operational level, we want to form an entity that can vision the transit properly, engage the community in a productive way and actually operate the service,” said Neil Greenberg of Freshwater Transit who led the meeting.

This idea started two years ago with the creation of Freshwater Railways, a website that shows an alternative transit system for metro Detroit. One where we actually had a rail and bus system throughout Southeast Michigan connecting Detroit to Ann Arbor, Flint, Pontiac and Port Huron. The site, when you follow the link, is so real they got inquiries from some people wondering where the stations are when they went to the locations lined out.

http://blog.thedetroithub.com/2012/1...-move-detroit/

Go to the link above and check out the map they have created. Not exactly realistic, but cool nonetheless.

[Hermod]

From the title, it looked like the thread was another "commuter cruise boat" thread. instead it is a revival of the Detroit united Railways interurban system that Mayor Couzens, the city of Detroit, the Detroit newspapers, and the state highway department did their best to kill [[and did).

[DetroitPlanner]

Greenberg is good at criticizing, but there is nothing there that describes how to fund this. Mentioned in the article are the large service cut backs. The agencies are being starved right now. One way to get better would be to create an umbrella authority similar to what exists in most other large metropolitan areas to coordinate service, provide a reduction in maintenance costs, and to the ability to transfer capital from one system to the other if needed.

Much of the money used to operate transit comes from the State and Federal Gas Taxes. Michigan is still considered a donor state at the federal level, meaning we send millions more to the feds than we get back. We have not increased the State gas tax devoted to transit since the 1980s. With this level of investment its no wonder why we don't have a better transit system.

Much of the money that Michigan donates to other states ends up funding small cities with huge transit systems such as what are found in places like Salt Lake, Portland, or Boston. Other money is used on the interstate system in places like North Dakota, where the population would never be able to fund the level of service provided. Both highway and transit donations happen for the same reason and are starving our local region to feed areas that have created artificial demands.

The state gas tax does not leave the state but is also donated to dozens of smaller transit agencies located throughout the state. Rural areas have severe transit needs and are being starved even worse than Detroit has been. It has a lot to do with it being much more harder to run transit in less dense areas. The last time the gas tax was raised was in the mid to late 1990's. At this time it was only brought up to the middle of the road of state gas taxes. Written into that increase was no guarantee that transit would receive any more funding and in nearly every year since it was increased this has been true.

Add to this the increase in gas prices and the federal mandate to increase fuel economy. These two factors mean people drive less and get more miles out of a gallon of gasoline. Since the gas tax is based on a cents per gallon and not a percentage like a sales tax, the sales of gasoline is down. At the same time inflation has probably doubled prices since the last gas tax increase that positively impacted transit.

How we fund transit has been broken for a long time. Look to see this trend continue unless the revenues are increased locally because the feds and the states won't do it. Michigan law sharply hampers the taxation power at the local level. Basically the only tax a local government can get are income or property taxes. This has led to the opt in and opt out patchwork that SMART needs to deal with in scheduling who gets service. Its not based on need, its based on who can pay and politics.

The region needs an authority and needs the ability to raise its own funding. Contact your state representatives and tell them this.