You can click on the intersection links for coordinated Google Street Views of those places.

Having rode the Smart system regularly in Livonia, before Livonia decided to pull out of the system, I can say that it was a complete waste.

I used to take it from the Rosedale neighborhood on Plymouth and Merriman Road. There was no place in the area to get information, I had to dig up information on line. Back then, the official transit sites were often not working right. I had to go to one site for a map to find my route, and a completely different site for schedules.

Even in Rosedale's density, it still took several; suburban blocks to get out to the main road, and another half block to the bus stop. I was lucky I lived so close compared to the rest of the neighborhood. The bus stop didn't actually exist in any form, except for a sign in the hugs patch of grass between the narrow sidewalk and busy Plymouth Road. The bus, for most, was not actually accessible to those in wheel chairs, but the bus did have a bike rack.

Now, the bus schedule was interesting, it didn't tell you when the bus was actually expected to arrive, just that they were 45 minutes apart. So, I just knew that the bus would be arriving sometime in the next 45 minutes [[the buses in the Smart system can be spaced further apart on other routes, making riders wait for a full hour in some cases). Making matters worse, I was taking it back to my new apartment Downtown, and this Smart route stopped at seven, it was just after six. I had read stories about buses not arriving, or cutting out early. What if I had missed the last bus?

So there I was, standing all alone, with no other pedestrians in sight, next to a sign pole on the patch of grass between an unused sidewalk and one of the regions busiest suburban feeder street, unsure that my bus was even coming. I felt so out of place too, like everyone who was driving by must think I had a DUI or something.

The bus finally did come, it was five minutes late. The buss made a few stops, one at the mall, where a senior got on, and then again at the Telegraph McDonalds, where the driver got out to grab something to eat [[we were allowed to "stretch our legs", but were instructed to be back in ten minutes), and again at Detroit Diesel, to pick up some employees trying to get home. The Plymouth Road SMART Line terminated at Grand River, a somewhat desolate corner in the late evening, but everyone on my bus happened to be waiting for the DDOT bus to Downtown, at the Grand River bus stop, just a couple blocks from where we got dropped off.

The DDOT line was great, only five minutes apart, or ten to fifteen at night or on weekends. The DDOT lines on the radials operate 24 hours. That DDOT Grand River line was busier though, stopping every couple blocks to let people on or off. I noticed that the bus tended to pass people who didn't frantically wave their arms, or stand in the middle of the lane we were in.

I made that trip regularly enough. Some days it would take over two hours to complete that commute, in a car it would take about twenty minutes, or maybe thirty at rush hour.

I was very careful about being on time for the buses, and taught my friends the system. Unfortunately, all of us were eventually marooned at the Grand River and Plymouth stop , or at the Detroit boarder, as it turns out some DDOT routes duplicate some SMART routes [[resource waste), usually because the Smart schedule had changed without notice, quit early, or because it was a holiday [[DDOT, SMART, and the People Mover change routes or close for almost all holidays, a problem if you want to be with family for the day, or have a job that doesn't acknowledge holidays like President's Day, 4th of July, or Memorial Day).

I never had any other problems with crime or strange encounters during those trips, but have been stuck walking from Telegraph to Merriman, or picking a marooned friend up from a West side urban prairie.