1973 transit city-by-city

[Hermod]

As some of you are aware, I am a volunteer worker with the South Florida Railway Museum [[all volunteers). Tonight i was working on our archival holdings trying to put things in order and catalog the important pieces. I ran across an article clipped from the May 1973 issue of Modern Railroads [[not sure they are still in publication). The article looked at all of the metro areas of the US and Canada and gave the status of existing and proposed rail transit in those areas.

Here is what it cataloged for Detroit:

Penn-Central, 37.3 route miles, Detroit-Ann Arbor. Service was one round trip train a day using a Budd RDC car [[Beeliner) with total passengers averaging 100 each day.

Grand Truck Western, 26.1 route miles, Detroit-Pontiac. Service was six round trip trains a day with an inventory of 17 coaches. Total daily passengers was 1750. Grand Trunk was seeking to have SEMTA take responsibility for the route.

SEMTA: Proposed 81.0 route miles of rapid rail transit using 400 rapid transit cars by 1990. Also proposed was 12.0 route miles of "personalized rapid transit" using 100 cars [[I guess PRT was a type of people mover).

System funding to be from a half-cent gas tax share annually providing $10 mill for operating costs and $10 mill for capital costs.

Forty years later................

[DetroitPlanner]

SEMTA: Proposed 81.0 route miles of rapid rail transit using 400 rapid transit cars by 1990. Also proposed was 12.0 route miles of "personalized rapid transit" using 100 cars [[I guess PRT was a type of people mover).

One PRT was built in West Virginia.
http://www.governing.com/topics/tran...-virginia.html

It was the streetcar of the 1970's; everyone wanted one. It had a lot of good features, but it is complex.

[Lowell]

Was the SEMTA proposal part of a concept that had subway and/or el lines running along the great radial Avenues [Jefferson, Gratiot, Woodward, Grand River, Michigan] of which the People Mover would be the end point? The People Mover got built, then the plug was pulled on the rest.

[Hermod]

Was the SEMTA proposal part of a concept that had subway and/or el lines running along the great radial Avenues [Jefferson, Gratiot, Woodward, Grand River, Michigan] of which the People Mover would be the end point? The People Mover got built, then the plug was pulled on the rest.

Not sure, Lowell, the data were in tabular form with just the 81 and 12 miles. No explanations.

[DetroitPlanner]

Was the SEMTA proposal part of a concept that had subway and/or el lines running along the great radial Avenues [Jefferson, Gratiot, Woodward, Grand River, Michigan] of which the People Mover would be the end point? The People Mover got built, then the plug was pulled on the rest.

Pretty much. Its a little more uglier than that. For example, the DPM was never going to be 'Coleman's Train' but SEMTA's. SEMTA had so many cost over-runs that the City took it over when it was 3/4th built.

If you look at the Joe Louis Garage, it was built for being the West Connector for a train line that would be extended from Michigan Central. Woodward was very controversial as the type of mode pitted Cities against Cities and Oakland against Wayne County. Much of that divisiveness is still there. The cheap fix would have been just to improve the commuter train that used to run along the Woodward Corridor.

[Hermod]

The cheap fix would have been just to improve the commuter train that used to run along the Woodward Corridor.

The metro area had several rail lines which were never used for commuters rail, but could easily have been double tracked in the 1970s and seen frequent service.:

1. The Grand Trunk line out Gratiot to Port Huron

2. The Michigan Central/New York Central/Penn Central line out Van Dyke to Utica, Rochester, and Oxford.

3. The Grand Trunk line out Woodward to Pontiac which did have some commuter use.

4. The Pere Marquette/C&O line to Plymouth branching there to South Lyon and Novi.

5. The Michigan Central/New York Central/Penn Central line out Michigan to Ann Arbor [[the AMTRAK line).

6. The Wabash/Norfolk Southern line to Romulus and Belleville.

7. Any of several lines to Trenton and Monroe.

Might have kept some businesses in downtown if their employees could commute.