Detroit Public Transportation: 2014 and beyond.

[corktownyuppie]

On the flip side, a mile of new pavement costs about $1,000,000.
If we're considering an expressway [[let's take I-75, because everyone is talking about that), that road gets 100,000 riders per day on average.
That's 730,000,000 rider-miles over the life of the project.
That's $0.0013 per rider mile.

Even if you factor in gas [[$0.10/mile), maintenance, etc., roads and cars are much cheaper, I'd think.

I've always said that public transport loses and loses badly on cost, compared to roads. The other arguments fare better, by default.

But at least you're looking at real data.

The problem with the comparison above [[while noting that I appreciate that we are moving toward actual analysis and not just shouting) is not equivalent. There's something missing in the roads analysis, and that is the cost of the car itself. Now reasonable people can debate and disagree about the costs and benefits of subsidizing roads vs. subsidizing a public transportation system, but one issue that will need to be addressed is that the roads by themselves don't provide transportation [[and the flipside is that the public transportation system cannot function without the roads).

Other things to consider:

Most analysis looks at cost per mile traveled...but that data is only useful if that is the true cost to the user. If a user-mile really costs only $0.0013 per mile, why the hell would someone walk 10 miles to work and back round trip every day? I'm 100% sure that person would rather give you the .03 cents per day for a transportation option rather than walk for 5 hours.

Another part of the cost/benefit analysis needs to consider both the social and economic cost of having a large labor force unable to get to jobs and unable to afford housing that is close to the jobs they're need at. Let us count the losses...businesses operating under capacity...unemployment which leads to crime, substance abuse, entitlement fraud, etc.

Then you need to consider whether there is an intrinsic value in your ability to attract talent...and if Detroiters weren't so poor, it wouldn't be so horrible to live next to Detroit, which certainly helps property values adjacent...all the other -- dare-I-say-it -- tickle-down dynamics that come along with a well-run transit system.

So I'm not saying that your analysis isn't good. In fact, I think it's the very type of analysis that we need. It just needs to be more comprehensive in scope, IMHO. Nor am I saying that enough has been done to justify the system from a dollar and cents point of view.

But I also intuitively know that rich people enjoy paying for services and they also enjoy not living adjacent to complete poverty. Some to most poor people would rather be working but can't afford to live near jobs. Younger people [[and smarter people) tend to gravitate toward walkable communities. And as people get older and older, a car-based transportation model is untenable.

If the average household needs to pay $8 per month to help cut these problems by 50%, I'd say it's a fair trade.

[Richard]

On the flip side, a mile of new pavement costs about $1,000,000.
If we're considering an expressway [[let's take I-75, because everyone is talking about that), that road gets 100,000 riders per day on average.
That's 730,000,000 rider-miles over the life of the project.
That's $0.0013 per rider mile.

Even if you factor in gas [[$0.10/mile), maintenance, etc., roads and cars are much cheaper, I'd think.

I've always said that public transport loses and loses badly on cost, compared to roads. The other arguments fare better, by default.

Query: in the advent of Uber and [[soon-to-be) self-driving cars, how does this comparison look?

But at least you're looking at real data.

A million per mile ? Here is some real data from completed projects including up to $110,000,000 for 2 miles,the currant proposal to add a lane and realignment of 3 miles of interstate surpassed 1.8 billion. But yet mass transit is expensive.

Keeping in mind this is Fla with cheap labor and most of the projects are just resurfacing,even that is in excess of a million a mile.

http://tbinterstates.com/projects/pr...D=158&RoadID=1

http://tbinterstates.com/projects/projects.asp?roadid=1

It is the same anywhere one goes to a public transport meeting 95% that oppose rate hikes are against public transportation [[burbs) but yet they also want everybody to pay for thier road expansions.

Real data shows road construction far surpasses mass transit in both implementation and future maintenance costs.

Once the tracks are laid they are there and do not have pot holes etc.

[mtburb]

Dunno if this fits here, but it looks like those 59 buses SMART promised after the last millage are finally here and have been for a few months now. Here's what one looks like.

[EL Jimbo]

On the flip side, a mile of new pavement costs about $1,000,000.
If we're considering an expressway [[let's take I-75, because everyone is talking about that), that road gets 100,000 riders per day on average.
That's 730,000,000 rider-miles over the life of the project.
That's $0.0013 per rider mile.

Even if you factor in gas [[$0.10/mile), maintenance, etc., roads and cars are much cheaper, I'd think.

I've always said that public transport loses and loses badly on cost, compared to roads. The other arguments fare better, by default.

Query: in the advent of Uber and [[soon-to-be) self-driving cars, how does this comparison look?

But at least you're looking at real data.

Your $1,000,000 per route mile number isn't even close. Not even by a long shot.

A typical concrete reconstruction is closer to $2,000,000 per LANE mile, not mile. The typical cross section of I-75 in Wayne and Oakland County is 3 lanes in each direction for a total of 6 lanes. That means that for a typical route mile of I-75 in Metro Detroit consists of 6 lane miles. At $2,000,000 per lane mile, the cost of a concrete reconstruction is actually $12,000,000 per lane mile.

However, even that number may be a lowball estimate. Urbanized areas present a whole host of challenges and expenses when doing roadwork. Drainage, pump stations, etc all need to be addressed as well. In addition, these are aging systems that are likely out of date with current FHWA design standards which would need to be met with the new construction. This could affect lane and shoulder widths which would require widening the cross section [[a HUGE expense if it is required on a depressed freeway). Also, any changes in the cross section could require new bridge construction on each overpass to accommodate the updates on the freeway below.

For example, some portions of the new projects to modernize I-94 and I-75 are projected to cost upwards of $8,000,000 to $10,000,000 per lane mile [[$48,000,000 to $60,000,000 per route mile), not including bridge work, due to the additional improvements required beyond the reconstructing of the lanes of traffic.

Lastly, it should be noted that these figures represent costs to maintain existing capacity. Costs go up if additional lanes to expand capacity are involved in the discussion. That's not a real apples to apples comparison with construction costs for building a new transit system that would expand capacity for travelers.

[Bham1982]

Another part of the cost/benefit analysis needs to consider both the social and economic cost of having a large labor force unable to get to jobs and unable to afford housing that is close to the jobs they're need at. Let us count the losses...businesses operating under capacity...unemployment which leads to crime, substance abuse, entitlement fraud, etc.

I think this is mostly quite a stretch. Well over 90% of households in Metro Detroit own/use vehicles. The existing roadway network serves the vast majority of households quite well, and any improvements in this network are beneficial to almost everyone.

There is no public policy need to "afford housing that is close to jobs". For one, people tend to switch jobs with regularity in the modern economy; lifetime jobs no longer exist. There is no possible way of triangulating all your future employment prospects to ensure the ideal residential location.

And Metro Detroit doesn't have an affordability crisis; if anything it has a housing valuation crisis. Outside of the top school districts, housing is cheap. Outside of a few parts of Birmingham, Bloomfield and a couple others, there is almost no barrier to someone renting/buying in a Metro Detroit community.

Linking auto-centricity to "crime, substance abuse, entitlement fraud" seems to be quite a stretch. There are centralized, transit-oriented metros with high crime and substance abuse, there are sprawling, car-oriented metros with low crime and substance abuse.

I'm not anti-transit, but major transit investments simply don't make much sense in a region designed like ours. I have no problem with spending megabillions on subways in NYC, but this region is built around the auto, and the auto generally serves the region well, at least in terms of mobility.

[Bham1982]

People need to know how illogical you are.

Suburban Wayne County includes such venerable communities as Redford, Wayne, Garden City, Inkster, Taylor, Melvindale, River Rouge, Ecorse, Lincoln Park, and Romulus. Do you really think Oakland County would welcome those communities with open arms?

Why did you exclude Berkley, Pleasant Ridge, Huntington Woods, Beverly Hills, Franklin, Bingham Farms, Clawson, and Royal Oak from the list of cities that would join Wayne County?? Just weird.

The discussion was around "giving" Wayne County the declining working class communities of SW Oakland County, presumably as they have differing priorities than the county at large. The communities you list wouldn't qualify. They aren't adjacent to Detroit and are generally much healthier. Most you list are politically very aligned with Oakland County as a whole.

And obviously I mentioned Northville because it presents an analogous situation within Wayne. It's more like an Oakland County suburb demographically/politically, and would likely welcome the opportunity to join Oakland [[for tax reasons alone). River Rouge, Garden City and the like have no resemblance to the Northvilles of the world, and are pretty aligned with Wayne County as a whole.

[Bham1982]

You have good reasons for your concen. There will be a lot of Tea Party and Trump supporters voting in Macomb county, not likely to support a tax for transit. Most have no passports, many have not been to cities that have joined the 21st century. I will be interested in seeing how promotion of the RTA is handled.

It has zero to do with "Tea Party" and "Trump". Informed voters will likely not be favorable towards a major additional tax for a duplicative system of more empty buses, on corridors entirely oriented around the automobile, for no apparent purpose.

If you REALLY want to build transit ridership in a metro, there's only one way to do it- make it hard to drive. Transit investments don't drive transit growth; it's difficulty in driving that grows transit growth. So if "we" really want the metro area to become train/bus oriented, "we" have to make it hard to use a car in daily existence. That's the only way to do it. You can spend a trillion dollars and build subways down every mile road, the region will still be car-oriented as long as driving a car to work is a breeze.

NYC has high transit ridership because it's the only U.S. region truly built around transit. It's a huge pain in the ass to use private autos for commuting and many daily tasks, so the region's core is firmly transit-oriented. If you make it even slightly convenient to own cars [[say like in Chicago) then auto usage soars. That's, in part, why the NYC subway carries like 15 times as many riders as the Chicago L, and why farebox recovery ratio in NYC is like twice that of Chicago.

[downtownguy]

The problem with the comparison above [[while noting that I appreciate that we are moving toward actual analysis and not just shouting) is not equivalent. There's something missing in the roads analysis, and that is the cost of the car itself. Now reasonable people can debate and disagree about the costs and benefits of subsidizing roads vs. subsidizing a public transportation system, but one issue that will need to be addressed is that the roads by themselves don't provide transportation [[and the flipside is that the public transportation system cannot function without the roads).

Other things to consider:

Most analysis looks at cost per mile traveled...but that data is only useful if that is the true cost to the user. If a user-mile really costs only $0.0013 per mile, why the hell would someone walk 10 miles to work and back round trip every day? I'm 100% sure that person would rather give you the .03 cents per day for a transportation option rather than walk for 5 hours.

Another part of the cost/benefit analysis needs to consider both the social and economic cost of having a large labor force unable to get to jobs and unable to afford housing that is close to the jobs they're need at. Let us count the losses...businesses operating under capacity...unemployment which leads to crime, substance abuse, entitlement fraud, etc.

Then you need to consider whether there is an intrinsic value in your ability to attract talent...and if Detroiters weren't so poor, it wouldn't be so horrible to live next to Detroit, which certainly helps property values adjacent...all the other -- dare-I-say-it -- tickle-down dynamics that come along with a well-run transit system.

So I'm not saying that your analysis isn't good. In fact, I think it's the very type of analysis that we need. It just needs to be more comprehensive in scope, IMHO. Nor am I saying that enough has been done to justify the system from a dollar and cents point of view.

But I also intuitively know that rich people enjoy paying for services and they also enjoy not living adjacent to complete poverty. Some to most poor people would rather be working but can't afford to live near jobs. Younger people [[and smarter people) tend to gravitate toward walkable communities. And as people get older and older, a car-based transportation model is untenable.

If the average household needs to pay $8 per month to help cut these problems by 50%, I'd say it's a fair trade.

Excellent points, corktownyuppie. And with many points that are rarely considered when making fiscal decisions around public transportation.

[EL Jimbo]

I think this is mostly quite a stretch. Well over 90% of households in Metro Detroit own/use vehicles. The existing roadway network serves the vast majority of households quite well, and any improvements in this network are beneficial to almost everyone.

There is no public policy need to "afford housing that is close to jobs". For one, people tend to switch jobs with regularity in the modern economy; lifetime jobs no longer exist. There is no possible way of triangulating all your future employment prospects to ensure the ideal residential location.

And Metro Detroit doesn't have an affordability crisis; if anything it has a housing valuation crisis. Outside of the top school districts, housing is cheap. Outside of a few parts of Birmingham, Bloomfield and a couple others, there is almost no barrier to someone renting/buying in a Metro Detroit community.

Linking auto-centricity to "crime, substance abuse, entitlement fraud" seems to be quite a stretch. There are centralized, transit-oriented metros with high crime and substance abuse, there are sprawling, car-oriented metros with low crime and substance abuse.

I'm not anti-transit, but major transit investments simply don't make much sense in a region designed like ours. I have no problem with spending megabillions on subways in NYC, but this region is built around the auto, and the auto generally serves the region well, at least in terms of mobility.

I think your "well over 90%" number is VERY inaccurate.

According to a study released in 2014 by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, 9.2% of US households did not own a vehicle. This was up from 8.7% in 2007. The study also noted that 26% of households in the city of Detroit did not own a car.

According to the US census, there are currently 254,197 households in Detroit. 26% of that is 66,091 households in Detroit without a car. By itself, that represents 4.6% of the 1,442,537 households in the Detroit Urbanized Area.

By subtracting the number of households in Detroit from the total households in the urbanized area, we know that there are 1,188,340 households in the Detroit Urbanized Area that are outside of the city limits of Detroit. If we assume the national average of 9.2% applies to those households, that means there are 109,327 households in the urban area outside of Detroit that do not own a car.

That puts the total number of households without a car in the urbanized area at 175,418, which is 12.2% of the urban area. Therefore, your "well over 90%" suggestion is much more likely to be around 87-88%.

While that settles the details of numbers, it doesn't tell the whole story. Sure, the vast majority are well served by the automobile, but what about those that aren't? 12% of households in a region as populous as Metro Detroit is still a significant number of people.

What about those that cannot drive due to old age or disability? How do they get to their medical appointments, the grocery store, etc in an autocentric region without reliable transit?

What about those living in concentrated areas of poverty? Economic activity, investment, and jobs tend to follow where the money is. People living in areas of poverty are isolated from those investment centers where jobs concentrate. If a large percentage of them don't own a car [[like the 26% of Detroit households), how are they supposed to travel to the job centers where they can find employment to get themselves out of poverty without reliable transit?

You can't tell people to pick themselves up "by their bootstraps" when you put the bootstraps north of 8 mile and give them no reliable means of getting there.

I agree, we don't necessarily need policy that brings affordable housing close to jobs. However, if you don't do that, you need to provide adequate transit services to get those people who require affordable housing to the job centers that would employ them.

Failure to do so essentially creates a de facto policy where groups of people are isolated in a perpetual state of multi-generational poverty.

[BankruptcyGuy]

A million per mile ? Here is some real data from completed projects including up to $110,000,000 for 2 miles,the currant proposal to add a lane and realignment of 3 miles of interstate surpassed 1.8 billion. But yet mass transit is expensive.

I-275 is a 88 lane-mile project, with a cost of $70MM.

Locally in my city, for roads that we maintain, it's $1MM per mile.

I guess it depends on what you're doing, but it's not $55 million per mile.

[BankruptcyGuy]

Lastly, it should be noted that these figures represent costs to maintain existing capacity. Costs go up if additional lanes to expand capacity are involved in the discussion. That's not a real apples to apples comparison with construction costs for building a new transit system that would expand capacity for travelers.

You have to look apples-to-apples. The Chicago Transit Authority runs, as indicated, at fares earning about 30% of necessary revenue. That's WITH the infrastructure already built. Yes, if you wanted to compare mass transit to roads, you'd have to look at the cost of building the transit line versus the road from the ground up. The M1 rail project is $60MM a mile. Does anyone think roads cost that much?

A more fair comparison is assuming that the world is the way it is, not the way we wish it would be. There are roads already built. The question is whether to expand them or spend the money on other transit options. We can't assume away the fact that the roads are already there.

[BankruptcyGuy]

El Jimbo, one quibble and one corroboration:

Your math is off on the households without cars. If the national average is 9.2%, that includes high-percentage areas like Detroit, and low-percentage areas elsewhere. Applying the Detroit percentage gives you the correct number for Detroit, but employing the national average for the rest overstates the issue.

That being said, I think you have the strongest argument for some sort of transit--I will call it the "economic justice" argument. If you assume that it would be a good thing economically in the region to provide some level of transportation [[there are arguments for and against, but it's the best argument), what form would that take?

[EL Jimbo]

I-275 is a 88 lane-mile project, with a cost of $70MM.

Locally in my city, for roads that we maintain, it's $1MM per mile.

I guess it depends on what you're doing, but it's not $55 million per mile.

The I-275 job is also not a reconstruction project. It's a concrete inlay. There is a big difference. You must keep in mind that road agencies have a vast toolbox of maintenance and rehabilitation fixes beyond full reconstructions that they use to extend pavement life in a cost effective way that are much cheaper than full depth reconstruction.

Also, comparing a local road to an interstate is a bit silly. the design standards required for the two are vastly different. a local road typically only carries a couple thousand cars a day and maybe a couple hundred commercial vehicles. An interstate in Michigan can carry upwards of 200,000+ cars a day including tens of thousands of commercial vehicle weighing up to 82 tons a piece [[assuming they obey truck weight limits). This requires concrete over HMA asphalt in most cases [[concrete is more expensive), significant use of rebar steel, and a whole host of other expenses that drive up the cost. This is especially true when the work is done in a densely populated, urbanized area like Metro Detroit.

[EL Jimbo]

You have to look apples-to-apples. The Chicago Transit Authority runs, as indicated, at fares earning about 30% of necessary revenue. That's WITH the infrastructure already built. Yes, if you wanted to compare mass transit to roads, you'd have to look at the cost of building the transit line versus the road from the ground up. The M1 rail project is $60MM a mile. Does anyone think roads cost that much?

A more fair comparison is assuming that the world is the way it is, not the way we wish it would be. There are roads already built. The question is whether to expand them or spend the money on other transit options. We can't assume away the fact that the roads are already there.

And you are disregarding the immense cost of building additional capacity on existing roads. MDOT is going to spend $3 billion over the next 15 years to MAYBE widen just two stretches of I-75 and I-94. The material costs, the design upgrades to meet current standards, the cost to purchase private property to expand the right of way, and the numerous bridge replacements are not cheap. I've noted the actual costs of what portions of those projects have already come in at. If you choose not to believe them, that's up to you.

As for $60M a mile for the M-1 line. It's true, light rail is expensive. However, it isn't the only option for transit. One of the reasons BRT has proven to be such an attractive alternative is because it is MUCH cheaper per mile to implement because it does not require the upfront purchase and installation of mile after mile of track.

[EL Jimbo]

El Jimbo, one quibble and one corroboration:

Your math is off on the households without cars. If the national average is 9.2%, that includes high-percentage areas like Detroit, and low-percentage areas elsewhere. Applying the Detroit percentage gives you the correct number for Detroit, but employing the national average for the rest overstates the issue.

That being said, I think you have the strongest argument for some sort of transit--I will call it the "economic justice" argument. If you assume that it would be a good thing economically in the region to provide some level of transportation [[there are arguments for and against, but it's the best argument), what form would that take?

We don't know if it overstates the issue or understates the issue. You cannot say with any certainty and neither can I. However, with 50% of the US population living in surburban areas, it is a relatively safe assumption to say that it is likely that suburban Detroit vehicle ownership rates are at or close to national averages.

I was never shooting for providing an exact number as the data wasn't there. My goal was simply to show that Bham's claims of "well over 90%" were simply not accurate at all.

[ndavies]

Oh look, Car ownership rates by city:
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/ca...-city-map.html

Livonia has 9.8 cars per 10 adults. that's 98 percent St. Clair shores 9.4, Warren 8.4, Sterling Heights 8.8, Detroit 5.6.

[Hypestyles]

The revised, veto-prone setup seems like it’s going to be more problematic than not in the long term. And it will be virtually impossible to change the structure if the public vote goes Yes.
At least it’s going to the public vote. Patterson and Hackel both being “hands off” now is very disingenuous, since they’ve proven to be very nitpicky in these past couple of weeks. Oh well.

[EL Jimbo]

Oh look, Car ownership rates by city:
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/ca...-city-map.html

Livonia has 9.8 cars per 10 adults. that's 98 percent St. Clair shores 9.4, Warren 8.4, Sterling Heights 8.8, Detroit 5.6.

You are quoting cars per adult. Some homes have multiple vehicles in the home. One for each parent. Plus, cars used by teenage drivers that aren't adults count as an additional car for their parents.

% of households with cars [[or without) is a telling stat.

It isn't an incomplete list [[they only show cities with more than 50,000 residents), but it is more accurate data to extrapolate from

Dearborn- 7.8% of households without a car
Dearborn Heights-5.6%
Taylor- 9%
Westland- 8.7%
Livonia- 4%
Novi- 3.9%
Farmington Hills- 6.6%
Southfield- 11%
Royal Oak- 5.4%
Warren- 9.8%
St. Clair Shores- 6.3%
Sterling Heights- 5.3%
Troy- 4.2%
Rochester Hills- 4.2%
Pontiac- 18.7%

Combining that information with the census data, the average % of households wihout a car for those cities is 7.3%

Swapping out the 9.1% from my earlier analysis with this new 7.3% number brings the % of households in the Detroit Urban Area without a car to 10.6%. Again, this number seems to indicate that Bham's assumption that "well over 90%" of the Metro Detroit area owns a car is false.

[BankruptcyGuy]

We don't know if it overstates the issue or understates the issue. You cannot say with any certainty and neither can I. However, with 50% of the US population living in surburban areas, it is a relatively safe assumption to say that it is likely that suburban Detroit vehicle ownership rates are at or close to national averages.

I was never shooting for providing an exact number as the data wasn't there. My goal was simply to show that Bham's claims of "well over 90%" were simply not accurate at all.

Duly noted; thank you.

So if the analysis below is correct, let's say it's 10% households with a car. How many of those households live within reasonable walking distance of one of the proposed transit lines? Again, this is the strongest argument, but I think it would help to show that the concentration of residents who would actually use the services is there.

The "build it and they will come" argument won't fly, in my opinion; at least not in this area.

[maverick1]

The revised, veto-prone setup seems like it’s going to be more problematic than not in the long term. And it will be virtually impossible to change the structure if the public vote goes Yes.
At least it’s going to the public vote. Patterson and Hackel both being “hands off” now is very disingenuous, since they’ve proven to be very nitpicky in these past couple of weeks. Oh well.

I'm worried about this happening too. My fear is that Oakland and Macomb will finagle things in a way that makes the transit system impotent. The northern areas of the region will be connected and the southern half will be left out.

[EL Jimbo]

Duly noted; thank you.

So if the analysis below is correct, let's say it's 10% households with a car. How many of those households live within reasonable walking distance of one of the proposed transit lines? Again, this is the strongest argument, but I think it would help to show that the concentration of residents who would actually use the services is there.

The "build it and they will come" argument won't fly, in my opinion; at least not in this area.

Well, according to the language of the RTA plan, they claim their plan can serve 1.2 million people and provide reasonable access to over 900,000 jobs in Metro Detroit.

[professorscott]

Well, according to the language of the RTA plan, they claim their plan can serve 1.2 million people and provide reasonable access to over 900,000 jobs in Metro Detroit.

One of the important features of any improved public transportation is making sure people can reach it and use it. There are a great many ways to accomplish this, most of which are done at the community level. First, allow denser land use near improved transit; in general this is called transit-oriented development. Second, make sure the local buses provide access to the improved transit, be it light rail, commuter rail, BRT or whatever. Third, make sure there are drop-off and pick-up locations for taxis and Uber/Lyft/whatever. Fourth, where transit is near job centers, make sure the job centers are nearby and walkable. It goes on and on.

So the moral of the story is: it's not "build it and they will come". It's "build it and do several other things and they will come". Some communities will excel at this, and they will benefit more than other communities.

[BankruptcyGuy]

One of the important features of any improved public transportation is making sure people can reach it and use it. There are a great many ways to accomplish this, most of which are done at the community level. First, allow denser land use near improved transit; in general this is called transit-oriented development. Second, make sure the local buses provide access to the improved transit, be it light rail, commuter rail, BRT or whatever. Third, make sure there are drop-off and pick-up locations for taxis and Uber/Lyft/whatever. Fourth, where transit is near job centers, make sure the job centers are nearby and walkable. It goes on and on.

So the moral of the story is: it's not "build it and they will come". It's "build it and do several other things and they will come". Some communities will excel at this, and they will benefit more than other communities.

Yes, of course, if you accomplish all of those policy changes, you'll have development that is transit-oriented.

Two questions: a) is transit-oriented development normatively or positively superior? b) is there buy-in, from the local government and business community, for such changes?

There are arguments for and against, but it's tough to believe that [[b) is supported presently.

[dtowncitylover]

It has zero to do with "Tea Party" and "Trump". Informed voters will likely not be favorable towards a major additional tax for a duplicative system of more empty buses, on corridors entirely oriented around the automobile, for no apparent purpose.

If you REALLY want to build transit ridership in a metro, there's only one way to do it- make it hard to drive. Transit investments don't drive transit growth; it's difficulty in driving that grows transit growth. So if "we" really want the metro area to become train/bus oriented, "we" have to make it hard to use a car in daily existence. That's the only way to do it. You can spend a trillion dollars and build subways down every mile road, the region will still be car-oriented as long as driving a car to work is a breeze.

NYC has high transit ridership because it's the only U.S. region truly built around transit. It's a huge pain in the ass to use private autos for commuting and many daily tasks, so the region's core is firmly transit-oriented. If you make it even slightly convenient to own cars [[say like in Chicago) then auto usage soars. That's, in part, why the NYC subway carries like 15 times as many riders as the Chicago L, and why farebox recovery ratio in NYC is like twice that of Chicago.

Of all the reasons why we shouldn't have transit this is by far the shallowest.

We are not building a major transit system for only the people in Independence, Washington, or Lyon Townships. We are building a transit system for people across the region and to help rebuild an inner core that has been decimated by the pro-auto growth that sprawl is. And look what that has created. Miles of ugly sprawl in a region that continues to loose people.

We are also not building a subway system nor is the RTA claiming that we are going to get NYC ridership levels. True, this region is very auto-centric but nobody forced a law saying we had to be that way. If we want to survive as a region we need ideas that will help us attract people and businesses, and one of those is diverse transportation options. A balance between cards and roads and rails and buses. This is a no-brainer. We have failed as a region because we put all our eggs in one basket [[cars).

Whether or not we need transit can't simply be an argument. We need better transit and that's not up for debate. The transit we have now is not working that's not up for debate. We need to build on what we currently have, that's not up for debate. We can't continue to buy into Boss Patterson's love affair with sprawl and build transit firstly for them because urban transit does not belong there [[I'm all for regional rail being extended to Holly or Port Huron), that's not up for debate.

How are we going to make it harder? Reduce lanes on major thoroughfares in favor or BRT lanes and stops. Make downtown/midtown/New Center more transit, pedestrian, and bicycle friendly by adopting zoning laws to make it harder for parking lots to appear and for developers to develop current ones. This will make suburbanites realize that downtown Detroit is like any other big city downtown. It's not fun to drive in Midtown Manhattan or Chicago's Loop or Boston. Students at Wayne or CCS can leave the car at home or not have one at all.

Transit is not new. We aren't inventing the wheel.

[professorscott]

Yes, of course, if you accomplish all of those policy changes, you'll have development that is transit-oriented.

Two questions: a) is transit-oriented development normatively or positively superior? b) is there buy-in, from the local government and business community, for such changes?

There are arguments for and against, but it's tough to believe that [[b) is supported presently.

As to [[a), that's easy: no, it's just a different way of developing, and attracts a different kind of customer. Detroit will always be a wonderful place to live if you are the type of person who wants to live in a cul-de-sac suburb and drive to everything, and nothing we do is likely to ever change that. Detroit [[I mean, here, the region) is not currently a good choice for the type of person who likes to live in an urban setting and go car-light or car-free. Transit-oriented development and improved transit make the region a better option for such people.

As for [[b), that is exactly the point of my last sentence from my earlier post. Communities like Ferndale and Royal Oak are, IMVHO, likely to buy into this and embrace it, and such communities will reap all possible benefits. Whereas if you look at communities like Troy or Livonia, even if they do have a transit line running to or through them, are less likely [[based on my limited knowledge of the politics) to be embracing of it, and will remain car-focused communities that incidentally have a little better transit.

By the way, I'm not picking on cities; I'm just taking examples based on what I know. I'm hoping Livoniaphiles don't start flaming me here.

It will be very interesting to see how the City of Detroit handles this opportunity, if it comes. The revitalization of Woodward along the QLine is encouraging, and I hope that kind of thing follows improved transit to some extent wherever it goes. But we'll see.