Is an underground subway more appropriate for Woodward than an aboveground rail.

[Hermod]

With respect to comingling above ground rail transportation with cars, trucks, etc. Zurich has a rail trolley system that runs down the center of streets just like the old pictures of Woodward show from the early 1900's. also, while not widespread, how about the San Fransisco Cablecar system? Seems to work well with little/no problem.

The Zurich trolley doesn't move with much speed. Neither do the cable cars.

[professorscott]

Light rail is typically $40 to $50 million per mile; to construct a subway nowadays runs about $2 billion per mile. That's why nobody is talking about it. You could run light rail to Flint for what it would cost to run a couple miles of subway downtown.

I love subways, don't get me wrong, but money is extremely finite around here. Detroit is going through the wringer just to come up with a couple hundred million to buile a single light rail line almost entirely inside the city [[it goes through Highland Park as well); what do you think the odds are that anybody would be willing to fund something 40 to 50 times as expensive? My guess would be, zero.

[leady106]

I agree that if the Woodward line ran underground from Grand Circus to Jefferson it would best maintain traffic flow downtown since Woodward narrows after GCP [[consider the effect on the Parade route). You could have a stop above ground near the stadiums then go underground until Jefferson. The underground stop[[s) could connect to existing buildings and prehaps to a Graitot or Michigan Ave or Grand River line. The Woodward line should go to the RenCen with an above ground stop in the Median on Jefferson place between the Millender and RenCen people mover stations. This will reinforce the intended use of the people mover and provide a begining for a possible LRT on East Jefferson.

[ghettopalmetto]

Light rail is typically $40 to $50 million per mile; to construct a subway nowadays runs about $2 billion per mile. That's why nobody is talking about it. You could run light rail to Flint for what it would cost to run a couple miles of subway downtown.

Of course, it all depends on your soil conditions. The SAS and 7 Extension in New York are only that expensive because they have to blast through bedrock for every cubic inch the subways will occupy. Other soils are a bit easier to excavate, and can use different methods. The cost would still be a good $250 million / mile, though.

[mtburb]

You shall have a subway between Mount Clemens and the Pinnacle Race Course with a branch to Grosse Ile.

[Newdetroit]

Actually, I didn't mean for an underground subway for the entire city, by rather from downtown to the New Center. Why can't we then use all of our existing rail lines that exist. The entire region would be connected. There is a line that goes from novi down to northville, plymouth, and crosses the ann arbor-detroit line and goes down close to metro airport. This would be a great commuter line for 2 reasons. First people on the detroit-ann arbor line could connect to this line and go directly to the airport terminal. As of now, I believe the envisione airport stop on the detroit-ann arbor line will be outside the airport and will require a transfer buse. The second reason why this line would be good is that u can connect the westside to both detroit and ann arbor. I am unsure if a commuter metro system could share all of these lines with amtrak. If so, We would only need to create the woodward line from downtown to new center. Gratiot is a good idea but there is already a line up grossbeck