Original People Mover Proposal

[Knightmessenger]

i know that the Cadillac Center station was planned to be a part of the Farbman Mall downtown that would've connected Hudson's and Crowley's, and instigated the demolition of the Kern's block. Obviously, by the time of construction, the entire plan fell through, but the name and location of the station remained.

Two other neat clips in the video are the Hudson's sign on the tower, which was not removed until Hudson's completely vacated the building in 1990, and the Landsdowne ferry restaurant moored by Cobo.

Thanks for the share; this is more the Detroit of my childhood.

Tell me more about the Farbman Mall complex. I never heard about this but I do remember hearing something about the Kern block demolition. I have the Free Press saved the day after Hudson's was imploded and I remember someone was quoted as being skeptical that the demolition would allow the city to proceed forward with a new development. Something like "when the Kern Block was demolished, something spectacular was supposed to go up but nothing ever happened."
I've always wondered why that stop on the people mover is called Cadillac Center. There's no street by that name and Cadillac Place is blocks away. And yeah, I did notice the Hudson's sign in the 1987 video was still there. I'm old enough to remember the building vacant but not with the sign.

In the 1987 video, you can't really see but what would have been at the site of the Crowley building/compuware parking garage at that time?

DetroitPlanner, do you know the name of the red book you were referring to?

[Dexlin]

Answering someone else's question about M1 Rail: it absolutely is planned to have a stop convenient to one of the people mover stations.

Not just one of the PM stations, in general, but obviously the Grand Circus Park PM, specifically, because that's where the two lines cross.

I was looking at M-1 Rails RFP that they formally put out the other day [[it's on their website). Not only do they plan a station - two, really, one for each side of the line - but they assume a Woodward BRT [[bus rapid transit line) that will act as an express service. Three or four of the streetcar stations will also double as a station for the BRT, and one of those stations is the Grand Circus Park [[West) streetcar station. It's looking to be that the Grand Circus Park area will be one of the major nodes in the system, and I wouldn't be surprised it to also work as a PM station. It's always been the plan to rebuild the Whitney station as part of the streetcar. You'll have a single station served by three different modes of transit, an honest-to-goodness multi-modal station. It's going to be interested to see exactly how it turns out.

[Rocko]

This picture was posted on Pure Detroit's facebook page last week of the first of 12 cars being raised onto the automated guideway system, 1985:

[Honky Tonk]

This picture was posted on Pure Detroit's facebook page last week of the first of 12 cars being raised onto the automated guideway system, 1985:

COOL photo!

[Knightmessenger]

Apparently, some of the trains in Vancouvers skytrain system are the same cars as the People Mover has. If you youtube skytrain, you'll find some of the trains look very similar and make the same distinct sound when leaving the station.

And this video from 2003 reminds me of something else. Why'd they change the "next station is" announcer? The male voice heard in the video was the original announcer and I think it's by far the best, the female one was very short lived and actually pronounced Millender wrong. The current announcer is different from either of those two.
http://youtu.be/S8mIAMViIek

Oh and I found the Art in the Stations documentary.
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title...n_the_stations

[Jason]

There are tons of people movers all over. Vancouver's system is a people mover although they've been adding to it since it was built and they also have newer people mover cars.

Some of Toronto's lines are also people movers except because of the labor unions they actually modified the trains so that they could have a driver.

Washington DC's subway is a people mover.


Vancouver's system imo shows how good the people movers are. You have quick and extremely frequent service almost 24/7 [[there's a short period in the middle of the night when service stops). Things like schedules and peak hours are meaningless because of how frequent the service is. And operating costs are so low that advertising covers it, plus some. The system is self sustaining except for capital costs.


I think it's much better than light rail and imo light rail is getting built all over because it's trendy [[and has lower initial costs) and not because it's better.

[EastsideAl]

In the 1987 video, you can't really see but what would have been at the site of the Crowley building/compuware parking garage at that time?

The Crowley's site was a vacant lot, mostly used for parking, from the time the store buildings were torn down in 1978-1980 until the Compuware garage was begun in 2000.

The Crowley's buildings were so well-built that they took over 2 years to tear down, culminating in a big fire in the ruins of the eastern building in 1980 caused by a torch used to cut the metal superstructure. This lengthy and troubled demolition was one of the reasons given for simply blowing Hudson's up [[which also destroyed a chunk of the People Mover, turning it into a slow two-way non-loop for about a year).