http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...02079976/1069#
About the "golden triangle" proposal
• Total cost: $927 million [[$52 million planning, $875 million capital)
• Funding source: 80 percent federal, 20 percent state/local for capital costs; some type of local/regional tax and state appropriation for operating costs
• Timeline: 69-72 months
• Length: 67.3 miles in three segments:
Woodward Avenue corridor — Grand Boulevard to M-59 [[19.5 miles, $15 million in planning costs and $253.5 million in capital costs)
Gratiot Avenue corridor — Woodward to M-59 [[23.5 miles, $18 million, $305.5 million)
M-59 corridor — Gratiot to Woodward [[24.3 miles, $19 million, $315.9 million)
• A segment of Woodward from Gratiot to Grand Boulevard would be served by a separate light line service.
• Corridors would use reserved traffic lanes with signal priority.
• There would be passenger stations with tickets and route info. If the routes use dedicated lanes in the median, there would be 60 stations. Curbside lanes would need 120 stations.
• Backers said the corridors would create 20,000 new jobs with $900 million in payroll, 7,000 new housing units and $1.3 billion in new development value.
• Supporters also predict $160 million in new annual retail sales because of the lines and $60 million in new state and local tax revenue.
Source: Macomb County
PLEASE TELL ME WHY THERE IS SO MUCH EMPHASIS ON M-59?
What I keep thinking is that yet again, we have a few rich ass powerful elites that have no idea what they are doing. It's like they picked M-59 out of a hat or something. There are corridors that need to come first, most importantly light-rail on Jefferson Ave. Michigan Ave and Grand River Ave would also come first. And Fort Street.
The problem with M-59 is that it is completely suburban for the entire route, and currently some parts don't have buses at all, and the parts that do are extremely infrequent. 99.9 percent of trips are done in car. Contrast this with Jefferson Ave, where there is high-density housing, a 24 hour route that runs ever 20 minutes, that crosses many other routes, runs parallel to other routes, and also is served by SMART routes.
I am not against bus service improving for the far flung suburbs, but why does such a route as M-59 get so much priority when there are other corridors which already have way more daily riders, and would have a much greater impact. Service can still be improved on M-59, but is bus rapid transit necessary?
How many people are going to be willing to walk a miles from their McMansion and their subdivision to get to this transit route? I doubt many. I think a much better alternative is focusing money on inner-city rail for Detroit and some inner suburbs, and commuter/regional rail for the suburbs and exurbs and close by cities.
Why not run a commuter rail up to M-59 and have a station there, with regular 'ol local buses serving as feeders? Why do we need this "BRT" thing that no one is going to use??
I think a route that needs BRT wayyyyy more is Grand River Ave, which has a bus running every 10 minutes, sometimes 5 minutes during rush hour. A dedicated lane and traffic signal priority would help this route that THOUSANDS of people ride every day.... how many people ride from the M-59 area? A dozen total?
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