Detroit gets 26 million for 50 new buses

[SpartanDawg]

http://deadlinedetroit.com/articles/...r_50_new_buses

i know there was a discussion about the service getting worse on here today... but nice to see some investment in some new buses.. hopefully this is a step in the right direction for the system as a whole

[professorscott]

http://deadlinedetroit.com/articles/...r_50_new_buses

i know there was a discussion about the service getting worse on here today... but nice to see some investment in some new buses.. hopefully this is a step in the right direction for the system as a whole

It's a good start. DDOT needs several things to come together in order for the service to improve.

1. They need enough buses to be in working order in order to perform the daily pull-out [[put enough buses on the street to run the schedule that's published). This will help, but also, the City needs to decide that the parts required to keep buses running are critical and must be paid for on an ongoing basis. They also need to get rid of the buses which are beyond repair, since the FTA counts those as "spare" [[and only allows you to have a certain number of spares in the fleet) whether it's reasonable to or not.

2. They need enough drivers and mechanics to show up each day, again in order to make sure enough buses are on the street. Hiring new drivers will help with that, but they also need to rein in the unchecked absenteeism that has been chronically part of the problem in the past.

3. They need to rebuild the corps of line supervisors and dispatchers to have enough people to make sure, on any given day, the buses are deployed in a fair and sensible manner and are kept spaced properly.

There's more to it than that, but that'll help, and it's good to see progress being made on #1 [[as mentioned in the above post) and #2 [[which I saw in one of the papers today - article about hiring drivers).

[mtburb]

And in addition, there's this: https://www.smartbus.org/About/News/...Purchase-Buses

[dtowncitylover]

Awesome news!

[Hypestyles]

I'll believe the change when I see it.

[Danny]

YAY Duggan!

[That Great Guy]

YAY Duggan!

I think a 5 cent 5 county Sales Tax for Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw and Macomb would work to pay for operating costs. This would make this tax 11 percent which is still low compared to other areas.

For every dollar we spend on transit, we get back more in economic benefits according transit advocates. So much for so little and only pennies on the dollar.