TRU's meeting last night

[French777]

Did anyone attend the meeting last night? They said they would give the latest updates on Woodward light rail and Wally and AA-Detroit.

[ASR89]

I didn't attend due to classes, but I am also curious. I imagine TRU will put what topics were discussed on their website. Other than that, I emailed Megan Owens. I'll post if there's any significant news.

[ASR89]

Her reply:
"No significant updates, unfortunately. One of the things we discussed at the meeting is the lack of progress and how we can push for more progress [[and more transparency in the process!) I'll certainly let you know as soon as any progress is known."

[Trainman]

Her reply:
"No significant updates, unfortunately. One of the things we discussed at the meeting is the lack of progress and how we can push for more progress [[and more transparency in the process!) I'll certainly let you know as soon as any progress is known."

Instead of discussing the lack of progress and how we can push for more progress, you should vote NO next August to defeat the SMART Property Tax Renewal which will only cap this tax. This will then by means of force change this project to help SMART and DDOT or stop the $400 Million that was extracted from the SMART operating budget since 1995 to be restored for public bus service instead of being siphoned off for the MDOT freeway expansions.

So, please tell me, why does the Transportation Riders United TRU not only do nothing to stop the $2 Billion freeway projects anymore to begin in 2011 but actually supports them by supporting the SMART millage next August without first protecting federal and state funds and getting more industry support. SMART officials rejected proven industry support in Livonia when they left in November 2006.

A vote of YES means we do want the cuts in funding from the Michigan Department of Transportation and do want more and larger roads, especially in Oakland County which recently rejected the efforts of the TRU for a countywide vote on the SMART millage. It’s Oakland County that primarily supports the $2 Billion freeways from money that should pay for a decent public bus and rail system for the city of Detroit but won’t because of no mass transit leadership in Lansing.

A vote of N0 will not hurt SMART in any way or mean the shut down of much needed community transit or any loss of funding.

Learn all the fact at Trainman’s save the… in DETROIT LINKS

[DetroitPlanner]

Trainman, Livonia voter's voted SMART OUT!

Here is MDOT's 5 year plan, I don't see them constructing any new freeways next year. There are major bridge projects going on, but these projects are needed to ensure we can fight some of the impacts that the closing of the border has had to trade locally. We don't need to lose anymore jobs in this area!
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/MD...o_143126_7.pdf

SMART is not part of any Rail Project that is currently on the books.

MDOT is however reconstructing Woodward in Wayne County with a thicker base so that it will hande whatever kind of rail is agreed to.

[Funaho]

Here is MDOT's 5 year plan, I don't see them constructing any new freeways next year. There are major bridge projects going on, but these projects are needed to ensure we can fight some of the impacts that the closing of the border has had to trade locally. We don't need to lose anymore jobs in this area!
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/MD...o_143126_7.pdf

He's talking about the still-rather-tentative plans to widen I-94 through Detroit and I-75 through Oakland County. Both are billion dollar projects; neither one has secured funding and thus they aren't even on any five year plans yet.

Personally, I think the I-94 one is badly needed; that stretch is 50+ years old and doesn't even have adequate shoulders. The I-75 one is a waste because of the way they're planning on doing it [[a single new directional lane). But don't expect either one to happen anytime soon.

[Trainman]

Trainman, Livonia voter's voted SMART OUT!

Here is MDOT's 5 year plan, I don't see them constructing any new freeways next year. There are major bridge projects going on, but these projects are needed to ensure we can fight some of the impacts that the closing of the border has had to trade locally. We don't need to lose anymore jobs in this area!
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/MD...o_143126_7.pdf

SMART is not part of any Rail Project that is currently on the books.

MDOT is however reconstructing Woodward in Wayne County with a thicker base so that it will hande whatever kind of rail is agreed to.

Livonia voted out DARTA and not SMART.

It is illegal to take away funds of any kind from a transit authority or community transit provider and give them to another transit authority unless first approved by a majority vote.

The Multi Billion dollar freeways in my website are very real and approved by the Federal Transit Administration FTA as an existing need. And the exact same money does indeed come from shutting down public bus service all over Detroit and the suburbs.

Voting NO next August will not cost any job loss in Michigan including those at SMART because all funding including federal, state and local money is fully protected by existing laws. This was even explained by SMART officials when they came to Livonia.

The vast majority of Livonia residents wanted the SMART buses but we had no choice.
The vote was illegal because there were no alternatives provided to keep the large public buses. SMART would have shut down the large buses, no matter what the outcome of the vote. MDOT will not pay for them without a fight and Oakland County and all our city halls will not pay for large buses without a fight.

The average homeowner would have to pay at least $300 per year as opposed to the current $50 per year to get even a mediocre public bus system assuming we keep SMART and DDOT in their present shape. Of course, if we fight MDOT and increase bus rider ship with industry support, we can do better then this. Unfortunately, MDOT will not even match federal matching transit grants anymore, so cities such as Livonia can opt. back in. It will take a real fight and lots of work to get decent public bus and rail service in our area. Why do you think transit advocates are pushing for NEW Countywide sales taxes? I think you know why. If that is what you want, then you should fight the freeways with your vote of NO next August and pay less now by capping the tax.

Or, you can vote YES and this area will pay more in future years in more job losses. And more big box retail stores destroying our farmlands, forests and wetlands, so they can pay meager wages and import lots of Chinese goods costing our area even more jobs

[DetroitPlanner]

There never was a DARTA to vote out. It never became enabled law therefore it never existed. Doesn't FTA approve transit and FHWA approve highways? If the large majority of Livonia wanted the SMART buses, they would have funded the SMART buses. Your calculating your mills wrong or you think everyone in Livonia lives in houses that average several millions of dollars.

[Trainman]

There never was a DARTA to vote out. It never became enabled law therefore it never existed. Doesn't FTA approve transit and FHWA approve highways? If the large majority of Livonia wanted the SMART buses, they would have funded the SMART buses. Your calculating your mills wrong or you think everyone in Livonia lives in houses that average several millions of dollars.

My calculations are very accurate and are based on small homes and not mansions.

DARTA was very real and the writing that explicitly explains that SMART and DDOT would have become contractors without any protection of union rules or any meaningful preference was there at Livonia City Hall to be seen by all. It’s explained in my website to educate the public. See_Trainman’s_save_the..in_DETROIT_LINKS

The Freeway projects are indeed very real and the money is indeed there already to build them and the money does come from mass transit. The designation HOV and the wording of an existing need which is termed deficiency does mean they are using mass transit money and not road money as many believe.

Don’t be fooled by voting YES next August to save SMART because it wont’ work. This is most unfortunately the truth but it’s close to Christmas and maybe if we are all good boys and girls and let SEMCOG and MDOT get their way by supporting their big plans, Santa will get his elves to make lots of new buses for us, so we don’t have to fight the Michigan Department of Transportation for Federal Transit grants to buy buses anymore.

SMART has been denied federal transit grants and this was not the result of a public vote or the lack of local taxes.

[ghettopalmetto]

He's talking about the still-rather-tentative plans to widen I-94 through Detroit and I-75 through Oakland County. Both are billion dollar projects; neither one has secured funding and thus they aren't even on any five year plans yet.

Personally, I think the I-94 one is badly needed; that stretch is 50+ years old and doesn't even have adequate shoulders. The I-75 one is a waste because of the way they're planning on doing it [[a single new directional lane). But don't expect either one to happen anytime soon.

I-94 could use some resurfacing, for sure, but beyond that, it's just throwing bad money after bad. Even reworking the ramps for higher speeds is going to require some serious engineering of the embankments. And is it really necessary to have 18 lanes of roadway in that corridor, as proposed in the past?

For the kind of money that either the I-94 or I-75 widenings would cost, you could have a pretty decent state-wide passenger rail system.

[Funaho]

I-94 could use some resurfacing, for sure, but beyond that, it's just throwing bad money after bad. Even reworking the ramps for higher speeds is going to require some serious engineering of the embankments. And is it really necessary to have 18 lanes of roadway in that corridor, as proposed in the past?

For the kind of money that either the I-94 or I-75 widenings would cost, you could have a pretty decent state-wide passenger rail system.

Are we talking about the same stretch of I-94? This would be roughly from the I-96 interchange to Conner. It's proposed to take it from six to eight lanes, plus shoulders. Where did the 18 lanes come from? I recall EVER seeing a proposal that proposed that many lanes...in fact the other main proposal was the eight lanes plus a wide median to accommodate light rail, and after public input that option was scrapped as it required too much demolition of existing buildings to make room.

And yes, it is a serious reengineering project. If it were to happen, it would include widening the freeway with retaining walls and rebuilding the interchanges with I-75, I-96 and M-10. All of those left entrances and exits would go away.

Anyway it's still at the planning stages. Nothing official is scheduled.

[DetroitPlanner]

Ya know trainman you should take this to another forum. Most of us live in the City and can't vote on SMART issues anyways.

[ghettopalmetto]

Funaho, at one point, about 10 years ago, the plan included the median area and 3 lanes of service drives on either side. I can't say that I find fault with MDOT's decision to eliminate the light rail component from the plan, although I suspect their reasons as to why it was a shitty idea are different than mine.

Even if the service drives are kept to two lanes in each direction, you still have 12 lanes of traffic. And for what?

[Detroitnerd]

I-94 could use some resurfacing, for sure, but beyond that, it's just throwing bad money after bad. Even reworking the ramps for higher speeds is going to require some serious engineering of the embankments. And is it really necessary to have 18 lanes of roadway in that corridor, as proposed in the past?

For the kind of money that either the I-94 or I-75 widenings would cost, you could have a pretty decent state-wide passenger rail system.

It's insane to try to do this, from a cost perspective. And, although it's a small point for most of us, the widening project would also mean the destruction of the quaint little hippie Fourth Street neighborhood, one of the last streets of its kind in the city.

[DetroitPlanner]

Funny how a discussion on improving transit can get so fixated on widening roads. What I know is that AA-DD and Woodward are a lot closer to reality than any interstate widening project.

[ASR89]

Indeed, DetroitPlanner. Although, there hasn't been any recent activity, as of October, Norfolk Southern & Conrail and Canadian National [[reluctantly) were completely on board for 4 round trips daily. Engineering work had been contracted, and the locomotives and railcars have been obtained. They will be delivered [[not sure whether Ann Arbor or Detroit) in the new year. If this plan gets federal stimulus railroad funds [[who gets those funds will be announced in January if I remember rightly), then they can start the work on the infrastruture that would allow more trains [[imrpoved singalling, double track and sidings in many places, etc). It's still an experimental 3-year project, but I think it will be a success. With thousands of people that work and go to school in the AA-Detroit corridor, it seems very possible to clear the 1,000 rider mark*.
*I forget if it was 1,000 individual riders or round trips [[500 people?), but either way I think it's doable.

[dtowncitylover]

Indeed, DetroitPlanner. Although, there hasn't been any recent activity, as of October, Norfolk Southern & Conrail and Canadian National [[reluctantly) were completely on board for 4 round trips daily. Engineering work had been contracted, and the locomotives and railcars have been obtained. They will be delivered [[not sure whether Ann Arbor or Detroit) in the new year. If this plan gets federal stimulus railroad funds [[who gets those funds will be announced in January if I remember rightly), then they can start the work on the infrastruture that would allow more trains [[imrpoved singalling, double track and sidings in many places, etc). It's still an experimental 3-year project, but I think it will be a success. With thousands of people that work and go to school in the AA-Detroit corridor, it seems very possible to clear the 1,000 rider mark*.
*I forget if it was 1,000 individual riders or round trips [[500 people?), but either way I think it's doable.

If it can work in Salt Lake City, it will definitely work here.

[Trainman]

The cities of Detroit and Livonia should go against the Michigan Department of Transportation and SEMCOG plans to widen both I-75 and I-94 and all the road widening projects.

There should not be another mile or even an inch of road widened until we get a decent regional three county of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb public bus and rail mass transit system in first.

In January 2010, I want the Detroit City Council members to come to our city hall and go against the SMART Property Tax Renewal together to make sure this tax fails in all three counties by protesting to our governor about the massive cuts in CTF funds and the total lack of cooperation between city and suburban bus systems that caused the opt out.

It makes no difference how we vote but what does make a difference is to demand the respect and dignity that Michigan’s taxpayers deserve to keep to protect all mass transit funding and to use them to attract good paying jobs and tourism and ensure a quality of life for all and that means NO New Freeways without first bringing back SMART to Livonia and no more NEW subdivisions and shopping centers all over our state without making developers pay first for Detroit’s school system and our environment first. Only then can we seriously look at attracting new industries. Why would any employer seriously consider coming to Michigan knowing about the SEMCOG plans that are not smart but instead stupid.

Bus Pass

By Mr. Kenneth M. Braun | 12/1/2009 11:30 AM

According to a Detroit News article, a countywide proposal to raise taxes for bus service will not appear before Oakland County voters anytime soon because there isn't sufficient support from the Oakland County Board of Commissioners to place it on the ballot. The News also notes that 38 of 61 communities within Oakland County have already opted out of getting bus service from [[and thus paying taxes to) the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation.
Having already defected from SMART and much of its taxing authority, it is perhaps no surprise that those 38 communities would be reluctant to submit to giving voters in the other 23 communities a chance to impose a new bus tax on them. Indicative of this reluctance is the county commissioner representing Commerce Township and Milford, who told The News that a countywide tax vote could lead to $1.5 million in new taxes being imposed on her district even though no new services would be provided.
But having non-riders pay the fares of public bus riders is something of a Michigan tradition. Consider 2009 House Bill 4185 from State Rep. Dave Agema, R-Grandville. This proposal would require every state tax subsidized transit agency in Michigan to get at least 20 percent of its operating revenue from fares paid by actual riders. Unfortunately, while this may seem to be an absurdly low standard, it isn't. Few - if any - of Michigan's bus agencies meet it. I wrote about a nearly identical version of this bill when Agema introduced it two years ago:

As of 2005, the latest year that reports are available from the Federal Transit Administration for Michigan’s largest urban bus systems, not one of them raised as much as 20 percent of their operating expenses from fare revenues. The largest systems, those responsible for carrying the majority of Michigan’s public bus passengers, fell well short.
For example, fares as a share of operating expenses for SMART, the system for the Detroit suburbs, and DDOT, the city of Detroit’s system, were less than 12 percent. The figure for the Lansing area’s Capital Area Transportation Authority was less than 15 percent. "The Rapid," serving Grand Rapids, was less than 15 percent; the Flint Mass Transportation Authority was less than 16 percent; and the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority was less than 14 percent.

Where does the other 80-plus percent of the funding come from?

About one-third of these total public bus operating expenses came from the state’s Comprehensive Transportation Fund — a mass transit subsidy carved out of the state’s annual road budget. Like the rest of this budget, nearly all CTF funding comes from federal and state motor fuel taxes and state vehicle registration fees. The money for the CTF that’s taken from this pool of transportation dollars is a redistribution of wealth from the state’s car and truck drivers to its transit agencies. Vehicle owners and drivers pay substantially more for rides they may never take on public buses than do the riders themselves.

So, while the taxpayers of Commerce Township, Milford and those other 36 "opt out" communities may have dodged a vote that could cost them even more for bus service that they do not use, they are still - like the rest of us - paying a lot for trips they don't take.

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