After Q Line

[Tig3rzhark]

The best thing Detroit can do to improve its public transportation system is improving buses. Make them frequent. Make them easy to use. Clear signs that tell you where buses go. Nice bus shelters. Smart cards for paying that also work on the streetcar and People Mover.



Commuter trains like the one proposed from Ann Arbor are cute, but comically antiquated and run at such low frequency that they don't offer much flexibility to riders. Light-rail would be the best possible option for connecting the suburbs to the city.

Not long ago, SMART decided to increase its regular fares up to $2.00 a ride. Should you decide to transfer to SMART from DDOT, the cost would be 50 cents with the transfer.

DDOT however, refused to increased their rates and as a result, most SMART routes have limited their Detroit coverage. Their transit center is located at the Bhul Building, across from the Guardian Building. The cost of a monthly regional card is still $49.50, but you still have to pay .50 when you use it. Hence the creation of a Regional Plus card that's $20.00 making the total to use both systems a month to be $69.50

Transferring from one transit mode to another must be easy, not hard like it is today. Bus shelters must be established at SMART and DDOT transfer points to make it convenient for those that ride the bus, streetcar and people mover.

It took years for this problem to accumulate into a regional issue. Depending on the choices that this region makes, it will determine whether this problem will be solved at all. I'm pretty sure that as most people with cars are dealing with the long 14 year construction on I-75, they will think wisely on how long they would rather stay in traffic.

SMART is established as an opt-out transit authority. Should certain cities wish to isolate themselves from public transit, why stop them? The RTA may have to consider leaving them behind when the next proposal is put to election again.

[Junjie]

A system map is in the works, if I can figure out how to use GIMP

Let me save you a ton of time and effort right now. Do NOT try to use a bitmap editing program like GIMP [[or Paint, or Photoshop) to do this kind of work. What you want is vector design software.

Free but rough: Inkscape
Cheap but awesome [[$50 to buy): Affinity Designer
Less cheap [[$500 retail/$100 academic), more full-featured: CorelDRAW
Industry standard if you are a student or have a bunch of money [[$20/month): Adobe Illustrator

Personally I think Affinity Designer is by far the best choice if you don't have cash for Illustrator. But in any case, don't waste your time with GIMP.

[ABetterDetroit]

Just as a example.

Statewide Proposal A:

Change the State constitution to allow for taxes on fuel, sales, rental cars, hotel rooms for regional public transportation in 4 counties or more combined.


Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw Propasal #1:

If proposal A passes fund a reginal transportation [[plan here) with a tax in these counties

10 cent gallon tax on all gasoline and diesel fuel sold

.05 cent sales tax

5 percent rental car tax

5 percent hotel tax

Or some combination of the obove that offers a majority and adequate funding.

Then have a properly funded regional public transportation system like a majority of the major metropolitan areas in the country SIMILAR in the ways that THEY SUCCESSFULLY fund them?

It seems like the way the pro transport people are fighting this fight is that it HAS to be funded exactly the way the majority have already voted against it or we can never have it ever and that this is not about public transport at all but in finally WINNING the tax vehicle that has always blocked funding on this issue. Jam it down their throats come hell or high water, so to speak.

Why bang your head against the wall exactly the same way? It makes no sense, pain is still pain and failure is still failure. Find another way. Learn instead of repeat. After a few more years of rapidly rising rents and maximum hikes in property taxes and a slew of property tax abatements for big projects on the horizon accept that losing the same way that has already recently lost is a real strong possibility.

[Junjie]

Just as a example.

Statewide Proposal A:

Change the State constitution to allow for taxes on fuel, sales, rental cars, hotel rooms for regional public transportation in 4 counties or more combined.


Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw Propasal #1:

If proposal A passes fund a reginal transportation [[plan here) with a tax in these counties

10 cent gallon tax on all gasoline and diesel fuel sold

.05 cent sales tax

5 percent rental car tax

5 percent hotel tax

Or some combination of the obove that offers a majority and adequate funding.

Then have a properly funded regional public transportation system like a majority of the major metropolitan areas in the country SIMILAR in the ways that THEY SUCCESSFULLY fund them?

It seems like the way the pro transport people are fighting this fight is that it HAS to be funded exactly the way the majority have already voted against it or we can never have it ever and that this is not about public transport at all but in finally WINNING the tax vehicle that has always blocked funding on this issue. Jam it down their throats come hell or high water, so to speak.

Why bang your head against the wall exactly the same way? It makes no sense, pain is still pain and failure is still failure. Find another way. Learn instead of repeat. After a few more years of rapidly rising rents and maximum hikes in property taxes and a slew of property tax abatements for big projects on the horizon accept that losing the same way that has already recently lost is a real strong possibility.

I think the vast majority would agree that your proposal is superior to using property taxes. But the question is whether it's more realistic to change the MI constitution or to swing a second vote by 0.6% compared to 2016.

[Zacha341]

Yes, I agree. I work with these apps and using a raster-based [[bitmap) software is not the move. Inkscape or any app that allows vectors is the move. I've never been able to get with GIMP, but I get its following - considering the cost of the Adobe 'empire' of software......

Let me save you a ton of time and effort right now. Do NOT try to use a bitmap editing program like GIMP [[or Paint, or Photoshop) to do this kind of work. What you want is vector design software.

Free but rough: Inkscape
Cheap but awesome [[$50 to buy): Affinity Designer
Less cheap [[$500 retail/$100 academic), more full-featured: CorelDRAW
Industry standard if you are a student or have a bunch of money [[$20/month): Adobe Illustrator

Personally I think Affinity Designer is by far the best choice if you don't have cash for Illustrator. But in any case, don't waste your time with GIMP.

[ABetterDetroit]

I think the vast majority would agree that your proposal is superior to using property taxes. But the question is whether it's more realistic to change the MI constitution or to swing a second vote by 0.6% compared to 2016.

Winning the change in the other 79 mostly red counties should be easy, really easy.

Commercials go like this up north:

STOP sending YOUR tax money to bail out Detroit! Let them tax themselves more! And pay for it with their money instead of ours this time! Vote YES on proposal A!

Stick with that theme it will pass big, pass by 65% at least.

[schulzte]

Thinking about what might be next in transit for Detroit. Ride-sharing technology and mobile apps that will continue to advance rapidly in the next decade. Detroit could try to play catch up with rail and BRT routes over the next 20 years, or chart a completely new path in public transit. Ford and GM talk about becoming "mobility companies"; what a better way forward for them than to show what they can do in Detroit by creating fully integrated public transit utilizing ride-sharing technology. I'm thinking an enormous fleet of 15 passenger eco-friendly electric vans that could build dynamic routes based on customer demand. Lets face it, we have this huge road infrastructure and we don't really use it at its capacity. Sure, the roads look busy, but 70-80% of that capacity at any given time is empty seats. It would take a big investment, but 50 miles of true rapid-transit light rail in Metro Detroit would cost $4-6 billion dollars, and 50 miles isn't going to serve a high percentage of the region. A $5 billion investment could build an enormous fleet of ride-share electric shuttles that would be reasonable to operate other than the person driving it [[unless they become autonomous, but that's quite some time away). The company below has an interesting electric shuttle van, but a big fleet would need a GM or Ford to build them.
http://www.zenith-motors.com/

[Junjie]

Thinking about what might be next in transit for Detroit. Ride-sharing technology and mobile apps that will continue to advance rapidly in the next decade. Detroit could try to play catch up with rail and BRT routes over the next 20 years, or chart a completely new path in public transit. Ford and GM talk about becoming "mobility companies"; what a better way forward for them than to show what they can do in Detroit by creating fully integrated public transit utilizing ride-sharing technology. I'm thinking an enormous fleet of 15 passenger eco-friendly electric vans that could build dynamic routes based on customer demand. Lets face it, we have this huge road infrastructure and we don't really use it at its capacity. Sure, the roads look busy, but 70-80% of that capacity at any given time is empty seats. It would take a big investment, but 50 miles of true rapid-transit light rail in Metro Detroit would cost $4-6 billion dollars, and 50 miles isn't going to serve a high percentage of the region. A $5 billion investment could build an enormous fleet of ride-share electric shuttles that would be reasonable to operate other than the person driving it [[unless they become autonomous, but that's quite some time away). The company below has an interesting electric shuttle van, but a big fleet would need a GM or Ford to build them.
http://www.zenith-motors.com/

I don't mean this as a personal attack - but I think a lot of people are repeating this kind of thing without thinking through the implications.

- Why is it good to have "dynamic routes"? Don't people pretty much live and work in the same places every day? And isn't it better to be able to know where the vehicle is going to be than to hope one happens to be directed to your part of town that day? If you don't know that the van will come to you today, you're just going to drive every day.

- How does this solve the density problem? Vehicles like buses, streetcars, and light rail or subway trains hold a lot of people in a small amount of space which enables a lot of people to travel to very dense urban districts that would be impossible to serve with cars. The farther you get toward private cars on the the spectrum of subway <--> private car, the worse traffic gets.

- We know that high quality transit drives location choices by people and businesses, which in combination with good planning/zoning policies can result in nodes of transit oriented development. Transportation shapes regions; it's not merely a response to what already exists. How would a wandering fleet of vans incentivize people and businesses to locate compared to 50 miles of fixed light rails? Is that what we want for Detroit and the region?

- By the way, note that 50 miles of light rail would be a LOT. You could have a really solid starter network. Purely to illustrate: Woodward downtown to Berkley, Michigan downtown to Inkster Rd., Gratiot downtown to Roseville, and a line on the riverfront [[Jefferson/Fort) from Van Dyke to Outer Drive would all fit within a 50 mile budget. So that's the opportunity cost you're giving up.

- Most importantly, Detroit already spent the last 70 years being "different." It's the only city in the US that crossed 1 million+ people to rely entirely on personal vehicles [[and a residual bus network) to move people, with no rapid transit. We've seen how well that's worked out. When you've got all the other problems Detroit has, why not just do what's already been shown to work rather than betting on an untested techno-promise?

[Junjie]

Winning the change in the other 79 mostly red counties should be easy, really easy.

Commercials go like this up north:

STOP sending YOUR tax money to bail out Detroit! Let them tax themselves more! And pay for it with their money instead of ours this time! Vote YES on proposal A!

Stick with that theme it will pass big, pass by 65% at least.

I'm not familiar with the constitutional amendment procedure. Is a popular vote all that's needed? If so, I agree it would play well elsewhere and might have a shot.

[MicrosoftFan]

I will be making more transit maps in the next few days-

1. more realistic 50-60 mile LRT
2. PeopleMover system similar to Vancouver SkyTrain
3. Heavy Rail line to airport
4. BRT
5. Commuter Rail
6. A concept RTA Metro Area Bus Map?

Stay tuned!

[O3H]

Just can't get excited about the Q in Detroit.

[emu steve]

Just can't get excited about the Q in Detroit.

Why?

It is a relatively short streetcar line which serves the downtown area, the burgeoning Midtown area, and hopefully revitalizing New Center.

It is not a panacea nor it is designed to move 50, 100, 250, 500, or even 750K people per day like subways in other cities.

It is a 'targeted' transportation system serving primarily the most dense commercial area of Detroit, downtown CBD, sports and entertainment area, and Midtown and will probably be very successful at meeting its objectives [[it was never design to transport folks from Oakland, Western Wayne County, etc. to downtown).

It was built with minimal government monies by visionaries who saw great value for improving transportation in a downtown/Midtown area.

That said, it is probably 'irrelevant' to someone who say lives in OC and drives to downtown once a month for some sporting or entertainment event [[or something similar, e.g., fireworks, Thanksgiving parade, etc.).

Nor does it solve the transportation problems into and out of downtown/Midtown by those living 10, 15 or more miles from downtown. That is a regional transportation problem.

[Tig3rzhark]

One month until July.

That's the month that the Q-Line will start to charge fares. The cost will be no different from DDOT's regular fare, except the difference of paying $3 for a daily pass.

The line itself has shown the potential of what could be, should any additions be planned well enough into the future.

It helps also that there's bike-sharing for those that don't really like waiting for the bus on a nice day. It would also encourage them to get bikes of their own to use along with current public transportation, which could help a lot.

Let's not forget, that more must be done. I will mention it again to those that will be in traffic for a long time during the times of road construction.
Public transportation would make a great alternative, to staying in traffic all day.