Is this image of the People Mover fake?

[MrChrome]

I found the below image of the People Mover on their official Facebook page and it just doesn't look right to me. Millender is missing, and I don't believe the People Mover operated before it was completed? Also, the single train being so close to the double train doesn't seem like something they would have ever done.

What are your thoughts on this? Does anybody know for sure what year Millender opened and what year the People Mover started operating?

On a side note, this is the only picture I have ever found online that shows the Ren Cen with the old berms. Does anybody have any others?

[jonathanlivingstonseagull]

Interesting. Looks like the high tram that ran between the Hyatt in Dearborn to Fairlane.

[gvidas]

The PM officially opened in 1987, and the Millender was built in 1985.

However, here's a picture casually captioned "The first people mover train car is placed on its tracks. June 19, 1985." I haven't been able to come up with any real timeline on the Millender construction, so maybe that's a "groundbreaking" not "opening" date.




In staring obsessively at the original pic I also find it confusing that the tracks crossing over Jefferson that are closest to the photographer appear to cross at 90° to the street. In maps/aerial photos it's obvious that the tracks cross at about 45°.

[Lowell]

Nice find. It has to be an architectural rendering. The supports are rectangular instead of round as they are now. Perhaps Millender was not in the works at the time it was being pitched.

[Jason]

It looks like a rendering from before it was built. It doesn't show the 500 and 600 towers of the ren cen either.

Like gvidas said, the angle is different from how it is today. And also, I don't think there's enough curve for the track to make the corner to go onto Larned. So I think either the rendering is of an earlier route [[the route went through a lot of changes), or the artist was being too casual.

I love people mover history though.

[chicagoforlife]

Millender Center opened in 1985 and the People Mover started operating on July 31, 1987.

[Thruster315]

I say that's damn good… er, whatever sort of Photoshop they had back then. That rendering was probably done by retouching old school real silver prints then.

But yeah I agree it's not real because the People Mover snakes along the riverfront [[offering us wonderful views of Windsor), comes back by the Financial District and then angles off at the Millender Center before hitting the Ren Cen.

http://www.thepeoplemover.com/resour...stemMapweb.jpg

[Knightmessenger]

I found the below image of the People Mover on their official Facebook page and it just doesn't look right to me. Millender is missing, and I don't believe the People Mover operated before it was completed? Also, the single train being so close to the double train doesn't seem like something they would have ever done.

What are your thoughts on this? Does anybody know for sure what year Millender opened and what year the People Mover started operating?

On a side note, this is the only picture I have ever found online that shows the Ren Cen with the old berms. Does anybody have any others?

According to Wikipedia, Millender Center was completed in 1985. The People Mover officially opened on July 31, 1987.
So it can't be real. The track cuts across Jefferson at a curve, not a right angle. I suspect this was from some 1970's illustration showing what it would look like.

According to Ryan Felton's article about "how Detroit Ended Up with the Worst Mass Transit," the people mover loop was modified several times during the construction phase. He says the Joe Louis stop was originally for one of the feeder rail lines and the PM was routed around the arena when it was clear the rest of the system would not get built.
Maybe Millender Center was another thing added later in the game to build up support for the project. "Hey we got another retail/apartment/hotel complex to connect our train to, and it's slightly less fortressed than the RenCen."

Sidenote: Millender Center always seemed like such cool station as a kid but now that I realize most of the complex is one giant parking structure, it's kind of a letdown.

I've been trying to find older photos online of the Renaissance Center, Trappers Alley and any People Mover construction pics.
These are the only interior pre GM rencen pics I've found.
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/portman/rencen2.html

You can find a good pic of the Ren Cen with the berms in the Art in the Stations Book.

You can watch the Sue Marx documentary on the PM artwork here. Some footage of the old RenCen stop is included.
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title...n_the_stations

video from 1987, very first year of operation
http://youtu.be/MGv8bTQTnCI

1988 youtube video that begins in old rencen station.
http://youtu.be/V3FhJcqqGQM

Entire loop in 1 about 1 minute
http://youtu.be/G49vb0CzoAg

[mikeg19]

I remember riding around on the PM with my dad when I was a little boy, peering into the empty buildings and shuttered windows of the Hudsons, UA, the Statler, etc. Although the PM really is a failure at "mass transit", it gives one hell of a view of downtown. It's probably been 10 years since I've been on the thing. I might make it a point to take a ride on it the next time I'm downtown and check out the view.

[middetres]

The first photo that started this thread from MrChrome is definitely a rendering. The second photo from gvidas showing the first car being placed is definitely real.

In the second photo you can see the Millender Center off in the distance on the left. And the tracks do cross Jefferson at a right angle by Cobo Center. Most don't notice it because they are descending down onto the Lodge Freeway if they're going west, or ascending off the Lodge onto EB Jefferson coming the other way.

Those trucks parked assisting the placement of the first car are clearly on the part of Jefferson that leads to/from the Lodge Freeway.

[Khorasaurus]

You can watch the Sue Marx documentary on the PM artwork here. Some footage of the old RenCen stop is included.
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title...n_the_stations

video from 1987, very first year of operation
http://youtu.be/MGv8bTQTnCI

1988 youtube video that begins in old rencen station.
http://youtu.be/V3FhJcqqGQM

Entire loop in 1 about 1 minute
http://youtu.be/G49vb0CzoAg

Great videos! It's really interesting to see how parts of downtown haven't changed much at all and other parts are very different [[especially the Cadillac Center to Times Square stretch).

Was Cobo expanded or renovated or something in the 80s? It looked like the train passed through a construction site.

[Khorasaurus]

Like gvidas said, the angle is different from how it is today. And also, I don't think there's enough curve for the track to make the corner to go onto Larned. So I think either the rendering is of an earlier route [[the route went through a lot of changes), or the artist was being too casual.

Is there a good source for the various routes discussed before it was built? Or the design of the unbuilt larger system?

That would be really interesting.

[mtburb]

Was Cobo expanded or renovated or something in the 80s? It looked like the train passed through a construction site.

Yes. This also explains why there were only twelve stops in the beginning.

[Knightmessenger]

Is there a good source for the various routes discussed before it was built? Or the design of the unbuilt larger system?

That would be really interesting.

I've been wondering the same thing myself.

This is the article I mentioned earlier.
http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/ho...nt?oid=2143889

1985 LA times article that has been linked here before.
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-12-...t-people-mover
Interestingly, LA does now have major subway lines. I wonder how they pulled that off in the 90's and 2000's after the feds were much more restrictive in how much they would fund urban rail projects.

2006 Detroit Yes discussion about the history.
http://www.atdetroit.net/forum/messa...tml?1153508264

Apparently, the feds penalized DDoT because of the cost overruns and delays for the People Mover. Older photo that would have the berms if it wasn't so tightly cropped.
http://www.detroittransithistory.inf...tos1980sA.html

Someone here also mentioned that the Crowley department store was torn down so a mall could take its place. Instead the site stood empty for years until the Compuware building and parking garage were built there. Which is why the stop is called Cadillac Center, something that never got built.
http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...Mover-Proposal

According to this site, the main reason why projected rider estimates were so wildly over what has happened was because they were based on the feeder lines being built and the downtown employment going up 60%.
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/detroit.htm
An estimate without those assumptions predicted 15,900 which is a lot closer to what we got but still over.

[EastsideAl]

That shot of the first car being lifted onto the People Mover tracks brings back some memories. The location is on the piece of Jefferson that runs south of the Lodge Fwy. entrance between Woodward and Washington Blvd., where the People Mover tracks vault over the Lodge entrance and snake between the Veterans Memorial Bldg. and Cobo Arena.

I remember it because the date it was put up there was the Friday practice day for the 1985 Formula One Detroit Grand Prix [[the race itself would be on Sunday). I was one of the circuit marshals for that race weekend, and I well remember my surprise at seeing that PM car coming down Jefferson on a flatbed truck during our Thursday evening walk-through of the circuit.

The People Mover tracks were not even complete yet, and the project was running behind schedule, but this "demonstration" car was put there so that to the world watching on TV it would look like Detroit had some kind of transit system, and so skeptical Detroiters and suburbanites could see that progress was indeed being made.

You can see that sample PM car sitting there, and a post being built at Beaubien and Congress for a not-yet completed section of the track, in this Italian video of the first lap of the 1985 Detroit Grand Prix:



By the time of the 1986 race, the PM track was pretty much entirely in place, as can be seen in this British video of the first few laps. In fact, the Millender Center was basically built around the PM track, which was one of several delays in actually getting the thing running.

[Onthe405]

Interestingly, LA does now have major subway lines. I wonder how they pulled that off in the 90's and 2000's after the feds were much more restrictive in how much they would fund urban rail projects.

The funds for the initial phases of the Blue, Green, Red, Gold, and Orange light rail, subway, and busway lines were committed before a tightening of fed funds for public transit. In an effort to continue the momentum, Los Angeles County voters passed Measure R in 2008 by a margin of 67.2% [[66%+ majority is required for props involving tax increases).

R imposes a .5% surcharge to the existing Sales Tax in order to fund a 30-year plan involving broad expansion of various transit projects including light rail, subway, busway, bus, and freeway diamond lane improvements. In 2012, LA County voters went back to the polls for Prop J, which would have extended the tax & transit projects for another 30 years beyond 2039--to 2069. It failed by 2% [[64% voted in favor).

[EastsideAl]

On a side note, this is the only picture I have ever found online that shows the Ren Cen with the old berms. Does anybody have any others?

It is odd that there are so few pictures of them. There seem to be pictures of the complex in its earlier years from pretty much every other angle. But I guess those damn "berm" things were so ugly [[and never were covered with greenery, as originally billed) that no one wanted a picture with them in the foreground.

Here is a picture of one of them under construction though, from a 2007 thread on this site:

[gvidas]

DetNews has a set of 30 or so pictures of the construction. Here's one with the berms.

Why were they built? To prevent car bombs or something?

http://detroitnews.mycapture.com/myc...tegoryID=71179

[Knightmessenger]

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/23/us...r-project.html

Another article. It mentions 5 stations were changed somehow but doesn't say what other than the expanded part of Cobo [[current Cobo stop) was originally going to be used for the storage facility that is at Times Square.

There were 2 books with color photographs by Dale Fisher of Detroit. [[Detroit: visions of the Eagle) One from the 80's and another from the 90's. All the downtown photos will have the rencen exterior before the wintergarden and with the berms.