"Golden Triangle" a golden joke?

[Goose]

The workers who took the streetcar to work at the Rouge Plant could have used your voice of reason.

hi, its 2010.... these same people riding the rail weren't carrying technology in the form of a cell phone that is superior to anything seen at that time... people also rode horses and buggies to their jobs at one time, maybe this is an alternative transportation idea.....

[ghettopalmetto]

lets just say "break even" then...... most people i would guess in the SE michigan region are probably unwilling to subject themselves to more government confiscation of their earnings to finance a losing mass transit proposition, because, as i said, the people with the money have cars, and they aren't going to be giving them up any time soon...

Someone better tell those loser cities on the East Coast with all their jobs and convenience and high real estate values to get with the program.

[ghettopalmetto]

hi, its 2010.... these same people riding the rail weren't carrying technology in the form of a cell phone that is superior to anything seen at that time...

What kind of cell phone do you have that transports you to work? Shit, I need to get me one of those!

[p1acebo]

For those who have never had the "pleasure" of driving along M-59 [[especially the areas around the Partridge Creek and Lakeside Malls).... it's almost like driving downtown on Jefferson Ave. between where the Lodge and Chrysler Fwy's empty onto it... except it's much worse!!

I completely agree with this, it is stressful. I think people would give another form of transportation a chance, I know I would.

[Goose]

Someone better tell those loser cities on the East Coast with all their jobs and convenience and high real estate values to get with the program.

cause other than the public transportation systems the areas are identical...... both in logistics and social ideolology.....

[Goose]

What kind of cell phone do you have that transports you to work? Shit, I need to get me one of those!

thats funny.....

what blacksmith do you use to shoe your horses???

[EastsideAl]

For the 200 zillionth time, mass transit systems are not profit making entities, and no one should expect them to be. Everywhere in the U.S., and indeed everywhere in the world, mass transit systems are subsidized as a public good. In the same way that, say, roads and bridges and freeways and pretty much the entire infrastructure that make an auto-centric way of life possible are. Except mass transit systems create a more tangible public good by moving large numbers of people efficiently using less energy than individual vehicles, and by raising people traffic, new construction, commercial rents, and property values along the corridors in which they've been built, without creating additional auto traffic.

I have no idea where this naive and odd idea you hear all the time around here that public transit must be profitable to be worth building came from. At the same time that pretty much all of the most prosperous cities in this country [[which definitely doesn't include Detroit) have either had public transit systems that have aided their growth and prosperity, or are building them with an eye towards a more sustainably prosperous future. This is yet another area where we're desperately behind, and mired in thinking straight out of the 1950s.

[Russix]

"Profitable" isn't really the goal here. The idea is to improve mobility in metro Detroit, not to make someone a bunch of money.

"Profitable" is a goal. A city/metro that provides an efficient and desirable transit system wins. Are we even playing in the same league anymore economically as other large metro areas that have invested in themselves? Do you think newspapers in Chicago print front page headlines every time a business relocates there and brings a couple hundred jobs? Our freeways and roads are important pillars of our economy, unfortunately we're missing the other half of the backbone to make a truly successful metro.

[Hermod]

Which begs the question--why not just save money by building park-and-ride lots at the terminal stations of the Woodward and Gratiot lines?

No one who lives near M-59 is going to walk to a bus stop on that automotive sewer.

Because, unlike New York, everybody doesn't work downtown.

If your goal is to reduce congestion, you look to where the traffic is going.

Radial routes work fine when everyone is going downtown. How many office workers work downtown? How many office workers work in the Northland area?
Along Big Beaver? Near I-275 and I-96? Where are the factories that wemploy large numbers of people?.

[Hermod]

"Profitable" isn't really the goal here. The idea is to improve mobility in metro Detroit, not to make someone a bunch of money.

Profitable better not be the goal because you aren't going to make money on any passenger transit system. Commuter rail and bus operations do not pay for themselves out of the fare box.

Read Hilton and Due "The Electric Interurban Railroad in America" which has rather detailed analysis of the economics of rail passenger economics.

[ghettopalmetto]

Because, unlike New York, everybody doesn't work downtown.

If your goal is to reduce congestion, you look to where the traffic is going.

Radial routes work fine when everyone is going downtown. How many office workers work downtown? How many office workers work in the Northland area?
Along Big Beaver? Near I-275 and I-96? Where are the factories that wemploy large numbers of people?.

Reduction of traffic congestion is a red herring as pertains to transit. Driving is considered a "free" good, in that consumers don't pay the full cost of driving. Therefore, whenever there is roadway capacity, drivers will fill that roadway.

Look at I-270 in Maryland. You have the very well-patronized Red Line running roughly parallel to that roadway. But in the 1980s, the State of Maryland decided, in its infinite wisdom, that I-270 needed to be widened from six lanes to twelve to "accommodate growth". Well, the "growth" happened as a result of the freeway widening, and now they have twelve lanes of congestion every rush hour instead of six. The difference between there and Detroit, though, is that people have reliable transit options if they don't wish to sit in the parking lot.

It's time Detroit and Michigan start thinking about moving *people* vis-a-vis moving *cars*.

[bailey]

Someone better tell those loser cities on the East Coast with all their jobs and convenience and high real estate values to get with the program.

Yeah, because the ONLY difference between Boston-Ny-DC region and Detroit metro is a lack of public transportation.

[Hermod]

Reduction of traffic congestion is a red herring as pertains to transit. Driving is considered a "free" good, in that consumers don't pay the full cost of driving. Therefore, whenever there is roadway capacity, drivers will fill that roadway.

It's time Detroit and Michigan start thinking about moving *people* vis-a-vis moving *cars*.

*cars* move *people* and where cars are going is where people need/want to go. If you want people to give up using their cars, you need to have attractive and convenient public transit which makes the choice of forgoing the car trip a logical step. Most of the folks in the metro area do not need or want to go to the CBD. They most often need/want to go somewhere outside the city limits of Detroit.

[DetroitPlanner]

Reduction of traffic congestion is a red herring as pertains to transit. Driving is considered a "free" good, in that consumers don't pay the full cost of driving. Therefore, whenever there is roadway capacity, drivers will fill that roadway.

Demand and capacity are not the same thing. All you need to see is how congested the roads are at 4 am or drive down 2nd Street between Cass Tech and WSU to know this.

[ghettopalmetto]

Demand and capacity are not the same thing. All you need to see is how congested the roads are at 4 am or drive down 2nd Street between Cass Tech and WSU to know this.

That's a bit of a disingenuous example, wouldn't you say? That's like saying people don't like fast food, since nobody is at McDonald's at 4 AM.

I will agree with you, though--demand and capacity are NOT the same thing. As driving is a free good, demand is infinite. Therefore, wherever there is capacity, it will fill with vehicles. There is no place anywhere that addition of roadway capacity has ever eased demand for roadway space.

I'm sure as a planner, you're well aware of Atlanta's "successful" Freeing the Freeways program.

As long as we continue building environments conducive only to travel by automobile, we will have congestion.

[Fury13]

Most of the folks in the metro area do not need or want to go to the CBD. They most often need/want to go somewhere outside the city limits of Detroit.

Exactly right. But because many of the folks on this forum wish that downtown was the primary destination for people in transit, they choose to ignore this fact.

[ghettopalmetto]

*cars* move *people* and where cars are going is where people need/want to go. If you want people to give up using their cars, you need to have attractive and convenient public transit which makes the choice of forgoing the car trip a logical step. Most of the folks in the metro area do not need or want to go to the CBD. They most often need/want to go somewhere outside the city limits of Detroit.

That doesn't make it cost-effective to run a $300 million bus line along a major highway that isn't conducive to pedestrian traffic.

[bailey]

That doesn't make it cost-effective to run a $300 million bus line along a major highway that isn't conducive to pedestrian traffic.

By the same token it doesn't make sense to run a $300 million dollar bus line along a major radial road that doesn't serve the needs of commuters.

[ghettopalmetto]

Yeah, because the ONLY difference between Boston-Ny-DC region and Detroit metro is a lack of public transportation.

Excellent point, bailey. Perhaps you'd like to elaborate on those differences a bit further. Surely, you're not arguing that Detroit is succeeding wildly by embracing the status quo.

[ghettopalmetto]

By the same token it doesn't make sense to run a $300 million dollar bus line along a major radial road that doesn't serve the needs of commuters.

So run the bus line along a major radial road that DOES serve the needs of commuters.

[Detroitnerd]

Sometimes I suspect they just want to saddle us with expensive boutique systems that won't work to help drive home the popular wisdom that transit won't work here. I swear, instead of trying something that obviously works -- light rail -- we have all these outdated, marginal or retro-futuristic schemes, such as Bus Rapid Transit, MagLev technology, monorails, elevated rail and the like.

From top to bottom, there is a lack of awareness about what these different modes do, or why they're desirable. Seriously, spending billions to build a bus system? Doesn't anybody understand mass transit? Or are they just in the pay of the road lobbies? Either way, if this Golden Triangle gets built, the benefits of it will rain down on the people paying for it. Call it a "golden shower," if you will.

[iheartthed]

Yeah, because the ONLY difference between Boston-Ny-DC region and Detroit metro is a lack of public transportation.

It's a pretty fucking big difference.

[bailey]

Excellent point, bailey. Perhaps you'd like to elaborate on those differences a bit further. Surely, you're not arguing that Detroit is succeeding wildly by embracing the status quo.

No I am not advocating such. I am saying that slapping a transit system together based on the fallacy that everyone needs to get downtown on the old radial layout without taking into account that 50 years of sprawl and changing work patterns have pretty much permanently altered the travel patterns to a east west/avoidance of downtown entirely except for special occasions is pretty stupid.

[bailey]

It's a pretty fucking big difference.

If we implemented every wet dream that every transit activist has put forth in the last 10 years or so, Detroit would still have 30%+ unemployment and the state would still be looking at 15% overall. Why? because michigan and detroit are run by dullards who think that at some point the factories will start hiring again and everything will be alright so there is no need to change how Michigan does business. The state is wedded to one industry and to jobs that are NOT COMING BACK. The only 'new' industry we've managed to attract here only came with a 45% tax credit....and as soon as that is nixed, which is apparently going to be soon, we can all say goodbye to those snazzy new studios in Allen Park.

[iheartthed]

If we implemented every wet dream that every transit activist has put forth in the last 10 years or so, Detroit would still have 30%+ unemployment and the state would still be looking at 15% overall. Why? because michigan and detroit are run by dullards who think that at some point the factories will start hiring again and everything will be alright so there is no need to change how Michigan does business. The state is wedded to one industry and to jobs that are NOT COMING BACK. The only 'new' industry we've managed to attract here only came with a 45% tax credit....and as soon as that is nixed, which is apparently going to be soon, we can all say goodbye to those snazzy new studios in Allen Park.

Okay. So how does this negate the position that Detroit needs a transit system to be competitive?