An Audience Opinion on the Development of Mass Transit

[DetroitPlanner]

Transportation's biggest issue is that we manage land use poorly around here. Too many people are making decisions based upon not is what is good for public transportation, but what is good for an individual communities tax rolls.

We also need to be careful about what service improvements we roll out to transit. It wouldbe a huge disservice if we roll out an expensive option along one corridoor and have to cut service along a lot of others to pay to operate it. This is what SMART had to do with the Woodward Train in the 1980's to pay for the People Mover. Ultimately SMART [[SEMTA back then) gave up on it and handed it over to the City to finish.

[3rdDegreeBurns]

It is significantly less expensive to operate light rail transit service than bus service. Trains run faster than buses and carry more passengers. That reduces the number of operators [[drivers) needed to operate the system and labor costs are by far the largest expense. Once the capital has been invested [[up to 80% from federal sources), LRT is potentially a $ saver when the ridership is there to support it. LRT runs on electricity which is historically less subject to price fluctuation than diesel, providing another advantage.Woodward is first or second in bus ridership currently and well above the min. needed to support LRT.

Biggest challenge is coming up with the needed local match for federal funding and the combination of private dollars from M1, and other federal sources have already taken care of most of that. The rest will come from DDOT's capital improvement fund.

What's stopping this train from going into Ferndale and Royal Oak are two things:

1. No regional transit authority:
-DDOT has to stop at Detroit borders because suburbs don't pay to support the system
-RTA needed to raise funds for local portion of capital for system expansion

2. Tri-level intersections at Woodward/8-mile and Woodward/696.
-Not impossible to overcome, but raise costs by an order of magnitude! It will cost more to bring this train from State Fair to 11-mile than from Hart Plaza to State Fair.

[JBMcB]

The difference is that, if it's built by DDOT and doesn't leave the city limits, it doesn't really matter what people in the suburbs think about it.

Yes it does, since it's going to have to be subsidized by them, and the rest of the state, like pretty much every other city rail system in the US. If it becomes another people mover scenario, it's going to be hard to justify the subsidy for the half of Michigan's population who lives nowhere near Detroit and will probably never use the train.

[jt1]

As usual, in this wonderful city, we do everything ass-backwards. Build mass transit where there are no people versus building it where there are people. If it HAS to be built [[I am not in favor of spending one taxpayer dime on it) it should start in the suburbs first and end at the city line.

The current plan really is a choo choo train to nowhere and will probably end up just like the people mover--a joke.

Funny that the city with the highest population density in the region [[except, believe, RO Township) has 'nobody' in it. Of course logic is never your strong suit.

I'm guessing [[based upon the body of your work here) that you mean black people when you say 'nobody'

[Gistok]

I was wondering how long it would take either Lincoln8740 or DC48080 to use the less than mature term "Choo-Choo" on any serious discussions about mass transit issures...

Predictably... it didn't take long....

[jt1]

I was wondering how long it would take either Lincoln8740 or DC48080 to use the less than mature term "Choo-Choo" on any serious discussions about mass transit issues....

Predictably.... it didn't take long....

Just don't call either of them a tea-bagger. They get all indignant and ignore that it is a political reference.

I'm looking forward to Lincoln's claim that 'nobody' lives where the choo choo will run. I'm also looking forward to DC St.Clair Shores to rant about how if we want a train then we should pay for it [[while ignoring the subsidies of roads)

[DetroitDad]

The People Mover

Generally, the People Mover was the hub of a system that was never built. It was supposed to be the center feeder loop, and have several spokes going to various suburbs. The spokes would not be able to connect at a central hub of any kind without the circulating line, so that is what was built first.


M-1 Light Rail Line

The M-1 Light Rail Line is likewise supposed to be a feeder line for a heavy rail connection in New Center [[Detroit to Ann Arbor). Current bus systems are inadequate for this purpose, therefore this line needs to supposedly be built before that line is activated. Furthermore, this line is also supposed to be the central city portion of a radial spoke to the People Mover, connecting the Downtown feeder loop to the spoke, via Woodward Avenue [[M-1).

There was also the Red Loop, until recently. The Red Loop was Downtowns bus route.

Relevant Links:

• Transit Dicussion; Road & Rails.

Transit Video

[swingline]

I love mass transit trains I have taken in differnet cities.
Problem is the cost and the inflexibility of it.

What government services would you cut to pay for it.

The inflexibility is the beauty of light rail transit. When built, such systems are the quintessential long term commitment to the support of development along the route. The recently built systems in Minneapolis, Charlotte, Salt Lake City and Denver have supported BILLIONS in adjacent located development within the last decade. And this development is not just taking place in dense urban places. A place doesn't have to be built like Chicago or Manhattan to benefit from rail transit.

But places far removed from the transit lines benefit as well. You don't have to ride the train everyday to receive the benefits. In Charlotte, the suburbanite in Mint Hill benefits from the Lynx train because the train is part of what has made that whole region vibrant. Folks in Provo or Ogden aren't spending much time on the Trax train but they sure benefit from the strong ecomony in the Salt Lake City region.

Transit supporters have to promote this concept better. We have to get people away from the selfish focus on whether they will ever personally ride the thing.

[RYANGUARD]

The City of Detroit should have used the trolley system it had in place downtown to build a circuit around the main part of downtown as a supplement to the People Mover.They had almost half of the downtown area already built from GCP to the Ren-Cen.When they had all of the money to fix up downtown for the Super Bowl,they could have made a complete circle and had it go through Greek Town and past the 2 Stadiums back to GCP.And from there they definitely would of had something to start mass transit with.Instead,it was uncerimoniously dismantled and IIRC placed in storage,most likely at Fort Wayne.The vintage cars they had such as the Double-Decker would have made for an experience for everybody.I took my sons to the Trolley there on Washington Blvd.after a Tigers game and the conductor let my sons "drive" the Trolley.We were the only ones on it at the time and something my sons and I will never forget.Those are the little quality of life times and they could have accomplished something instead of having a light rail system that was just a novelty for the time that it ran.

[mwilbert]

The issues that I have seen are that:

1) A rail transit system will cost a fair bit of money in a state that is basically broke.

2) Most people think they would rarely, if ever, use it.

3) Some people think that spending any money inside the city limits is pointless because the city is doomed and everyone should leave immediately, although preferably not for a neighborhood near them.

4) Other people apparently think that any transit activity should be part of a comprehensive plan.

My view is that these issues are false.

1)We spend lots of money on transportation, including on buses on the routes that people have proposed transit for. The capital cost is highly subsidized and I don't see why the operating costs would need to be higher than they are now, and we would end up serving more people than we do now.

2) We don't build roads for everyone; we build them for people who need access to the areas near the roads; I never drive on M-59, but for some reason it exists anyway. Transit shouldn't have to meet a higher standard.

3) The city being a bottomless pit of despair argument has some appeal, but there are still a large number of people in Detroit and there is no prospect of it being emptied out completely. [[If by some chance it were, it could start over and then Detroit II would immediately start filling up again, and the new residents would like having transit.) In any case, my guess is that transit will attract more people to the areas being served.

4) It would be lovely if there were comprehensive and sensible regional plan for anything in Metro Detroit, but there isn't and never has been. The nice thing is that no transit plan could possibly avoid putting a transit line up Woodward, so we can probably go ahead with that without any danger of screwing up some theoretical future plan.

[Mackinaw]

My view is that we need it.

Further, public policy should create economic incentives to use it, and economic disincentives for the more socially harmful, more dangerous, and less responsible activity of driving.

Yes, I am talking about Detroit.