Libertarians bash light rail

[iheartthed]

Please, at least come forward with some sort of real argument. You can make comparisons in this city on just about everything.

I look forward to him making the same argument when Ilitch approaches the city and state for funds to build that arena.

[Hermod]

So what you're saying is that the Michigan Department of Transportation has NEVER, NOT ONCE, ever engaged in any road construction or "improvement" endeavor based on "anticipated growth".

Not once?

Horseshit.

MDOT never ran a bypass around a town? Never built I-275? Never constructed the M-14 freeway? Didn't have anything to do with I-75 going up North? All the sprawl was there before a single God damned mile of pavement was laid, wasn't it?

Within Detroit, I-75 was built as the Chrysler Freeway to get cars from north of the city to the CBD [[prior to that, they used Brush and John R. which were alternating one way streets.). North of Detroit, I-75 was built to connect Detroit wit Mackinac. I-94 connects Detroit with Chicago, it is not a "road to nowhere" to spur development west of Detroit.

Bypasses like I-275 are designed to keep through traffic from cluttering the expressways within the city. Highways have purposes other than to support suburbia. I-75 runs down here in Florida as well. Is the purpose of I-75 in Florida to entice development away from Detroit?

Even though the "road to no where" I-75 goes through the northern lower peninsula, development is not booming up there north of Saginaw.

[lilpup]

The city folk should probably also be reminded that many a "road to nowhere" actually go out to the farms that feed their nature disconnected, cityfied faces.

[DetroitPlanner]

MDOT never ran a bypass around a town? Never built I-275? Never constructed the M-14 freeway? Didn't have anything to do with I-75 going up North? All the sprawl was there before a single God damned mile of pavement was laid, wasn't it?

Lets get somethings straight. These roads were part of the Eisenhower Plan for national defense. MDOT was not the main proponent of building the interstate system. In fact there was no MDOT prior to 1979. MDOT was formed by merging the Highway and Public Transit Departments.

Light rail is continually bashed by libratarians because it is expensive to both build and to operate. Yes it does have some benefits, but these are downplayed. If we had a purely libratarian form of government we would have no parks, sewers, health care programs and all roads would be heavilly tolled and privately owned.

[rb336]

If we had a purely libratarian form of government we would have no parks, sewers, health care programs and all roads would be heavilly tolled and privately owned.

and there are several examples of "privatized" roads out there -- a stretch of major highway near DC - privately funded - cost more and has higher tolls than the nearly identical publicly-run stretch. the privately run bus system in NYC absoluteky blows compared to the city and port authority busses - the private ones are shoddy, filthy and often run 30-40 minutes late.

[DetroitPole]

Okay, so we've established that the same people who will use light rail are the same people who use the Woodward bus lines. Therefore, it will have the same social stigma attached to it, which is the elephant in the room: black and poor. So just how will that entice Oakland County to extend it into their county?

[oladub]

Light rail is continually bashed by libratarians because it is expensive to both build and to operate. Yes it does have some benefits, but these are downplayed. If we had a purely libratarian form of government we would have no parks, sewers, health care programs and all roads would be heavilly tolled and privately owned.

Remember that the opposite of libertarian is authoritarian to make it clear where libertarian opposition comes from. I'm kind of libertarian and I think that light rail systems I've seen in Minneapolis and Taipei are great. No libertarians that I know of want to turn city streets into private toll roads and light rail is just an alternative form of municipal transportation.

The keys to the fantastic success of the Minneapolis light rail are a low crime rate to the point of old ladies are willing to walk to the light rail stops and very big stops along the line including the metro airport the largest shopping center in the country the U. of MN, Target Field, Target Center, and thriving downtown. This light rail comes withing 50 feet of Target Stadium for instance. Ridership was twice what was anticipated. There is ample safe parking at the suburban end of this line. If Detrot can match this arrangement, then the Woodward line wil also thrive. It should extend to Pontiac so at least there would be some safe parking lots along the way but figure on the cost of subsidizing either length line for the next twenty years because Detroit isn't Minneapolis. The same results should not be expected. I guess as long as it's someone else's money it doesn't make any difference but better line up some of their money for long term subsidies too.

[Hermod]

It should extend to Pontiac so at least there would be some safe parking lots along the way but figure on the cost of subsidizing either length line for the next twenty years because Detroit isn't Minneapolis. The same results should not be expected. I guess as long as it's someone else's money it doesn't make any difference but better line up some of their money for long term subsidies too.

A key point! No public transit system in the US pays for itself out of the fare box. In addition to wages and salaries, there is a heavy annual charge for maintenance of cars, track, and overhead wire.

[R8RBOB]

Remember that the opposite of libertarian is authoritarian to make it clear where libertarian opposition comes from. I'm kind of libertarian and I think that light rail systems I've seen in Minneapolis and Taipei are great. No libertarians that I know of want to turn city streets into private toll roads and light rail is just an alternative form of municipal transportation.

The keys to the fantastic success of the Minneapolis light rail are a low crime rate to the point of old ladies are willing to walk to the light rail stops and very big stops along the line including the metro airport the largest shopping center in the country the U. of MN, Target Field, Target Center, and thriving downtown. This light rail comes withing 50 feet of Target Stadium for instance. Ridership was twice what was anticipated. There is ample safe parking at the suburban end of this line. If Detrot can match this arrangement, then the Woodward line wil also thrive. It should extend to Pontiac so at least there would be some safe parking lots along the way but figure on the cost of subsidizing either length line for the next twenty years because Detroit isn't Minneapolis. The same results should not be expected. I guess as long as it's someone else's money it doesn't make any difference but better line up some of their money for long term subsidies too.

I was in Minneapolis five years ago and I was impressed with their light rail. I took the rail from MPLS - St. Paul to downtown. I was staying at the Embassy Suites which is down the street from the Target Center and the restaurants and bars. I noticed how convenient it was to take the rail to MoA. As I used this form of transit, my disgust grew on how a city like Detroit could miss the "train" on transit. Detroit must evolve. Either the city move forward or it dies. It is as simple as that. Cities like San Jose and Minneapolis and Phoenix have left Detroit in the dust and using excuses to keep Detroit back does no one any good.

[Detroitnerd]

You made an assertion that there was a "road to nowhere" built into the suburbs that caused the growth of the suburbs.

Ummm ... no, Hermod.

For the benefit of those who missed it, I was talking about when they first built Grand Boulevard, saying that Detroiters were opposed for years to the idea of building a road encircling the city, calling it a "road out in the middle of nowhere." [[Detroiters finally approved construction of the road as part of a plan to develop Belle Isle into a park.) Construction of the boulevard was begun in 1891. Twelve years later, Packard opened its state of the art facility on Grand Boulevard. Within another eight years, ground was broken on the General Motors headquarters. By the end of the 1920s, the boulevard was surrounded by city, home to a "New Center" and not "out in the middle of nowhere."

Then, as an afterthought, I joked that "if we were all bemoaning building roads to nowhere in the 1950s, there'd have been no suburbs as we know them ..."

Let's compare the two thoughts: Grand Boulevard was a road beyond city limits that connected ... farmland. In the 1960s and 1970s, I-75 was built through ... farmland. Can you show me a map of Troy in the mid-1960s, as the freeway was being built, showing booming development, huge shopping centers, mile-road-to-mile-road residential suburban developments? No, you can't.

I responded that the suburbs grew based on the existing road net and that the roads were widened and improved as a response to population growth. In other words, the population came first, then the upgrading of the section line roads.

Oh, sure. There was some development along the mile roads and such. But the "road to nowhere" in this instance would be I-75. What reason was there for this road to corkscrew through beet fields in the early 1960s? What development was there south of Rochester? What? There were no huge office towers out there? No huge suburbs? No Somerset? No, there was none of that. And that, dear Hermod, is what we call THE SUBURBS AS WE KNOW THEM.

I worked for the City of Troy engineering department [[all four of us) in 1959. There were several subdivisions under construction or expansion at the time, but no "roads to nowhere".

Maybe it's a poor choice of words: I-75 was a road THROUGH nowhere.

The only "through roads" in the city at the time were the section line roads, some of which were paved and some of which were gravel.

I am familiar with the development of Troy. After they finally opened the freeway, then you saw development and investment in Troy really take off. Troy suddenly had to upgrade all roads and signals along the freeway because cars were pouring off the freeway onto barely improved roads. And every time they caught up, Troy's hungry developers would build another 5 or 6 million square feet of office space.

Oh, but I suppose that was always there, since I-75 was not a road to nowhere. All them office towers musta been there in 1960.

[Detroitnerd]

A key point! No public transit system in the US pays for itself out of the fare box. In addition to wages and salaries, there is a heavy annual charge for maintenance of cars, track, and overhead wire.

Then again, no transportation system PERIOD pays for itself.

[bailey]

Okay, so we've established that the same people who will use light rail are the same people who use the Woodward bus lines. Therefore, it will have the same social stigma attached to it, which is the elephant in the room: black and poor. So just how will that entice Oakland County to extend it into their county?

ok.. i agree with you that it's people mover 2.0, but it would be nice if everyone would just say fuck oakland county. Let's all just accept reality and understand that there is a devoted opposition to EVER funding this north of 8 mile. Ok...so fuck them. how about focusing on serving ALL of detroit and wayne county? The line serves ..as someone posted... 60k of detroits 800k. It serves one main line already choked with buses and then connects to...more busses to get anywhere else. There is no proposal on the table that puts rails anywhere else until 2025....maybe. fucking retarded.

[JBMcB]

Then again, no transportation system PERIOD pays for itself.

Correction - no government run transportation system pays for itself. There are plenty of privately run bus systems, taxi cabs, ferries, airlines and toll roads that are self-sustaining.

[Hermod]

Let's compare the two thoughts: Grand Boulevard was a road beyond city limits that connected ... farmland. In the 1960s and 1970s, I-75 was built through ... farmland. Can you show me a map of Troy in the mid-1960s, as the freeway was being built, showing booming development, huge shopping centers, mile-road-to-mile-road residential suburban developments? No, you can't.

There were massive numbers of residential subdivisions and strip shopping centers being planned. Royal Oak and Clawson were already nibbling "tax positive" chunks of Troy Township. Troy incorporated as a city to be immune to such "raids". One of the first things we had to do were to bring city water and sewer to the burgeoning subdivisions of the new city. I was head of the survey crew staking out the lot lines for city water and sewer. Since the final I-75 alignment was not cast in stone, every time I set up my transit, I would be set upon by a horde of housewives saying that we couldn't run the expressway through their brand new homes. The arrival of our survey crew in a new subdivision would light up the switchboard at city hall.

Oh, sure. There was some development along the mile roads and such. But the "road to nowhere" in this instance would be I-75. What reason was there for this road to corkscrew through beet fields in the early 1960s? What development was there south of Rochester? What? There were no huge office towers out there? No huge suburbs? No Somerset? No, there was none of that. And that, dear Hermod, is what we call THE SUBURBS AS WE KNOW THEM.

I-75 should have run up the M-39 Southfield Expressway and out to Pontiac and Flint on its way to Mackinac. There would have been an I-175 spur into downtown Detroit. Detroit wanted the interstate money for the Fisher and the Chrysler and prevailed on the federal government to use the Fisher-Chrysler route through Detroit as I-75. This brought the Chrysler out of town parallel to the Stephenson Highway industrial corridor. Then they had to figure out a way to get the alignment back to the Pontiac-Flint-Mackinac route with the cheapest right-of-way acquisition costs. That is the reason for I-75 "snaking its way" though Troy.

Maybe it's a poor choice of words: I-75 was a road THROUGH nowhere.

If you connect any points A and B with an interstate, you go through a lot of "nowhere". There are desolate stretches of I-95 between Washington and Richmond. There are also long stretches of nothing on I-95 in the Carolinas.

I am familiar with the development of Troy. After they finally opened the freeway, then you saw development and investment in Troy really take off. Troy suddenly had to upgrade all roads and signals along the freeway because cars were pouring off the freeway onto barely improved roads. And every time they caught up, Troy's hungry developers would build another 5 or 6 million square feet of office space.

Oh, but I suppose that was always there, since I-75 was not a road to nowhere. All them office towers musta been there in 1960.

Office towers do not suburbia make. Sprawling subdivisions and strip shopping centers do make suburbia. They would have come without I-75. Look at Rochester, it is a long way from any interstate and it developed before Troy.

[JBMcB]

Seriously, this is like transportation 101. Transportation builds the city. It's been proven by almost a century worth of development as a result of urban transportation.

You're putting the cart before the horse [[LOL transportation humor!)

NYC didn't build the subway to expand the city. The subways were built because, at the time, NYC's population was growing at a near-exponential rate [[due to immigration and people moving there for manufacturing and financial industry jobs) and private concerns saw an opportunity to make transportation easier for the citizens while turning a profit. They didn't run rails out to the middle of nowhere, they built incrementally as the city expanded.

In other words, jobs weren't being created and the population of the city wasn't booming because of the subway, the subway was built because of the job creation and population boom.

Now back to Detroit. Detroit is loosing roughly 23,000 jobs per year. It would be fantastic to reverse that trend, but it's has been moving in that direction for a few years now. Do we need this light rail system to service a net decreasing labor market? Is transportation really the number one concern of any company considering moving to, or starting up in, Detroit?

As the video said, Detroit can't manage to provide basic city services. The correct aid package would be to help the city to provide these services, not adding services that don't make economic sense at this time.

[Detroitnerd]

There were massive numbers of residential subdivisions and strip shopping centers being planned.

There is simply no way you can say in good conscience that I-75 was not -- for many of its ten-plus miles in Troy, not running through the middle of nowhere. It was almost all beet fields in 1955, when it incorporated.

They built a freeway through beet fields, and that's when development really took off. That's when they built wall-to-wall subdivisions. That's when they upgraded mile roads to handle traffic pouring off the freeway. That's when it became TROY AS WE KNOW IT TODAY.

Office towers do not suburbia make. Sprawling subdivisions and strip shopping centers do make suburbia. They would have come without I-75. Look at Rochester, it is a long way from any interstate and it developed before Troy.

Hermod, you are being completely disingenuous. Sure, Rochester was developed before I-75, because it had the ingredients that make a 19th century village. Do realize that Troy never had any village of any consequence because it:

a) was not along a main thoroughfare of the time [[entirely off Woodward)
b) had no running streams large enough for water power
c) was primarily a farming community with limited local institutions
d) had very limited railroad access
e) had extremely limited interurban access with no real stops

Rochester had it all:

a) located along early Clinton River hike that bypassed Woodward
b) running water [[surrounded by three waterways) for early power and industry
c) a village where the surrounding farm community could come to market
d) located at intersection of two railroad lines
e) a stop on the interurban

Anyway, what you say makes no sense. Two contradictory points.

* I-75 wasn't a road through nowhere because Troy was already developed

* There were tremendous plans to develop Troy while I-75 was being built.

[MCP-001]

No, it can't. Your point is moot. The money may only be used in the way the two financiers paying for this project say it can be used. Those two financiers are the private investors and the fed. If they want to build a rail line it doesn't matter how anyone else thinks the money should be spent. There's no point even debating it. All the negative news reporting in the world isn't going to redirect the money towards other things. It will only stir up more "Not In My Backyard!" nonsense from people who are too blind to notice that their state is circling the drain.

Re-read your post.

If the feds are kicking in the money, I'd rather see it go towards something more beneficial to Detroit; buying more ambulances, hiring more EMT's, hiring more cops, hiring more fire fighters.

Unless you're trying to tell me that those are less important than restarting a failed idea?

[MCP-001]

Oh look, it's the Master Control Program.... MCP, your comments sure come off robotic. You believe that since it failed before, it will fail again. If the US had that attitude man would have never made it to the moon. And you surely don't understand the way money is doled out. If 500,000,000 is marked for transportation then the money has to be used for that purpose. You can't use the money for let's say emergency services. The money is either going to used by Detroit or another city would be happy to take it. Now the money by the Ilitches, Penske well that's a different story but it takes money to get money.

I see that you avoiding answering all of my points.

You are also generous with other people's money! Even when it comes from the biggest Sugar Daddy of them all: Uncle Sam!

I, on the other hand, am not.

I've already pointed out that Detroit can use money in more important areas like Police, Fire and Ambulance Service.

I'll toss the same question to you, why do you feel that public safety is unimportant compared to thie train to nowhere?

[MCP-001]

Actually, it didn't fail before. It was discontinued in favor of a more expensive and less efficient system that is still currently in use today.

Since it is no longer around, I would call that a failure regardless of the circumstances behind it.

[MCP-001]

Yep, MCP

The reason it might not be worth the effort is that the city is so disintegrated that the value of installing light rail in Detroit proper is debatable. There is certainly good reason to extend suburban rail to the suburbs but Detroit should retain the central pivot from which lines start. Subway tunnels are too expensive a proposition for the region. As for freeway use favored over rail, well if you look at the way Detroit continues to encourage building parking as opposed to park and ride as it exists in all major metros, it is simply because there is no mass transit to speak of. People will use it because it is a hell of a lot cheaper to commute in public transit than in a car. And chances are it will get a lot cheaper with energy scarcity.

One, I don;t subscribe to the Peak-Oil hysteria.

Two, that position pre-supposes that there will be nothing available in the future to meet our energy needs.

I'm not that pessimistic.

[jt1]

Re-read your post.

If the feds are kicking in the money, I'd rather see it go towards something more beneficial to Detroit; buying more ambulances, hiring more EMT's, hiring more cops, hiring more fire fighters.

Unless you're trying to tell me that those are less important than restarting a failed idea?

It isn't feederal money to be used by Detroit at its discretion. It is federal money marked for this. Our options, with respect to these federal dollars are [[a) use them or [[b) don't use them and have them go to another region's transit plans.

The whole idea/argument that it is a bucket of money for use where the city chooses is completely incorrect.

[MCP-001]

If we had a purely libratarian form of government we would have no parks, sewers, health care programs and all roads would be heavilly tolled and privately owned.

Or, it would give those clamoring for most of those things the most to get off of the complacency and make it happen themselves.

Does that scare you, people doing something without the involvement of the government?

[MCP-001]

It isn't feederal money to be used by Detroit at its discretion. It is federal money marked for this. Our options, with respect to these federal dollars are [[a) use them or [[b) don't use them and have them go to another region's transit plans.

The whole idea/argument that it is a bucket of money for use where the city chooses is completely incorrect.

The federal gov't doles out money all the time for various programs and projects.

The backers behind this project specifically sought out money to be used for this program, instead of seeking money that would be more beneficial to Detroit [[i.e. public safety).

I haven't even gone into the money that will be picked from our pockets to maintain this system if it is ever built.

[jt1]

The federal gov't doles out money all the time for various programs and projects.

The backers behind this project specifically sought out money to be used for this program, instead of seeking money that would be more beneficial to Detroit [[i.e. public safety).

I haven't even gone into the money that will be picked from our pockets to maintain this system if it is ever built.

Pretty disingenious response. The backers of this project did seek transit dollars. The dollars received may go to this project or go to transit projects elsewhere.

There is nothing stopping the powers that be from requesting federal dollars for seeking money that would be beneficial to Detroit. I recommend you start a thread asking why they aren't seeking more federal money for that as opposed to making wild claims that this money could be used for those services.

When you go "into the money that will be picked from our pockets to maintain this system" I would hope that you also address the money that is picked from our pockets to maintain roads and other non-revenue infrastructure.

[1KielsonDrive]

Inform the Libertarians that they can smoke dope and get laid in the back of the railcars and they'll jump right on board.