Woodward rail project held up because of usage disputes

[EL Jimbo]

Why does it need a turnaround? Just have a switch at the terminus to transfer the train onto the right track.

Exactly. It's a lot simpler, and a lot cheaper. As far as the distance to Compuware and CAY, its a 7 or 12 minute walk down Woodward respectively. I don't think a downtown loop would be much quicker considering the slow speeds required due to turning. Furthermore, according to the People Mover time chart, it takes the People Mover less than 2 minutes to get from the GCP stop to Cadillac Center stop [[Compuware) and 5 and a half minutes to get to the Millender Center stop [[CAY).

So WHY another redundant loop?

[iheartthed]

That is a Y. The reason not to do that is that it takes a fair amount of time to do a turnaround, and the inbound trains have to wait while you do it, which limits how closely you can space the trains.

if the train never runs more frequently than what I understand to be the currently planned 15 minute spacing, then it won't matter, but it would be kind of dumb [[in my opinion) to constrain the system that way from the beginning.

Oh okay. All NYC subway lines use that type of turnaround so I doubt Detroit's system would ever come to the point where that would significantly impede efficiency. The cost of laying all that extra track isn't worth it, IMO.

[Russix]

Why have a downtown loop at all? If I were king for a day, I'd make it so that the downtown terminus of this median-run, fewer stop light rail at Woodward, just north of Park. That, in my opinion is the gateway to downtown between the "Two Davids" [[Whitney and Broderick). Also, if transit riders are still not within walking distance of their destination, The People Mover stop at the Whitney provides transit access to the rest of downtown and beyond [[as the stop at Michigan & Cass provides access to the bus system at Rosa Parks).

Adding Light Rail down Woodward might actually make the People Mover viable as the biggest problem with the People Mover is that it doesn't interact with any transit that "feeds" into its downtown loop.

I agree, we already have a downtown option, no need to add light rail south of GCP.

[EL Jimbo]

Oh okay. All NYC subway lines use that type of turnaround so I doubt Detroit's system would ever come to the point where that would significantly impede efficiency. The cost of laying all that extra track isn't worth it, IMO.

Why not just put the engine of the train in reverse instead of turning it around

[Russix]

You have to have some kind of loop; the train can't just make a U in the middle of Woodward. [[you could do a Y turnaround, but that limits headway) You could loop it around the park I suppose, but I'd rather not.

I don't have a strong opinion about the downtown loop, and I don't dislike the people mover as much as some seem to, but having to transfer to the People Mover to go south of Park would make it take quite a bit longer to get to Compuware or CAY, for example.

The trains can be ordered reversible[[driver cabs on each end). If the line merged into a single track before it crossed 75 into downtown, you would have a smaller GCP station where the driver would change seats to head the other way.

[iheartthed]

Why not just put the engine of the train in reverse instead of turning it around

The trains are designed so that they can be operated from either end.

[Bham1982]

They really should have never built Rosa Parks in that odd, out-of-the way location.

It should be on Campus Martius, in the heart of the city, but I think city fathers wanted to remove the poor folks.

Now the city is forced to have non-aligned bus and rail service, or rail passengers will have to make a wacky, inconvenient downtown detour that will likely impact potential ridership.

So it's basically screw the bus riders or screw the potential rail riders. I'm guessing bus riders [[as usual) lose.

[iheartthed]

They really should have never built Rosa Parks in that odd, out-of-the way location.

It should be on Campus Martius, in the heart of the city, but I think city fathers wanted to remove the poor folks.

Now the city is forced to have non-aligned bus and rail service, or rail passengers will have to make a wacky, inconvenient downtown detour that will likely impact potential ridership.

So it's basically screw the bus riders or screw the potential rail riders. I'm guessing bus riders [[as usual) lose.

It's a block away, not really that big of a deal. They could build a tunnel to the bus station from where ever the put the nearest stop along Woodward.

An eventual Michigan Avenue or Grand River line can service the station directly.

[Yooper]

What a joke.
No doubt that with each delay, millions of dollars are being wasted.

[Detroitnerd]

The distinction here is, you WOULD object if they wanted...say 200 plows to serve a couple hundred homes. Or jet powered, super high capacity plows that were 8x more expensive. What if the plan was to upgrade that dirt road to a four lane boulevard, complete with decorative landscaping, when a two lane road is all that is needed? Somehow I think objections would be made to the egregious lack of reality in the planned spend.

Haha. No, I don't think providing [[heck, RESTORING) light rail service in Detroit is the equivalent of buying everybody in the UP a rocket-powered snowplow. What I think we do come up against is that people in Michigan do not seem to understand how cities work. They approach a city with the mind of a highway planner. We've taken that approach for 55 years now and ... I have to say, it is a failure. We've turned downtown into parking lots surrounded by a moat of freeways and it hasn't been a bang-up success. Bear in mind, the ridership that justifies an upgrade in service on Woodward is already there. Many other cities have put in light rail and find that they get riders of choice, who prefer the smooth and quiet trip. And the mode moves many more people than individual buses. That's another thing: I don't think a lot of people in Michigan realize how expensive buses are in the long term. It sounds pennywise to say we shouldn't upgrade service, but it's pound-foolish. Downtowns need density to survive. They need foot traffic to survive. They need to provide infrastructure and services to survive. And one thing that fits all those bills is providing light rail service, taking cars off the road, and allowing people to live in a dense area without being [[a) prisoners to their cars and [[b) their cars laying waste to the dense urban fabric. This is a must, not a frill. Not some boondoggle [[although, as we've amply discussed, there are ways to turn it INTO a boondoggle unless we're vigilant). We must bring public transportation in Detroit into the 21st century. I wouldn't deny anybody in Michigan an upgrade that was necessary to infrastructure, as long as it was sensible, competently implemented and especially if it promised sustainable economic payoffs.

Is what is being built a mass transit system or a parking shuttle to serve the private money's interest? Sending expensive trains part of the way down an already heavily served transit line is what is sticking in many people's craw here.

I share your concerns. The last thing I want is a toonerville trolley designed by Detroit's myopic "business leaders" to benefit their individual fiefdoms. We need a way to quickly move the thousands of people who already use Woodward Avenue. I don't think that's up for debate -- except in the minds of our moneybaggers. And we should hoot and holler and raise hell if they sneak in their idiotic plan at the last minute.

Or, maybe it's just a lot of people seeing the same mistakes getting repeated and really don't want to pay for People Mover II ?

Well, in the case of somebody like the person I was responding to, I believe it's a deep-seated hatred and mistrust of cities, especially cities with majority minority populations. I believe they feel that Detroit's ongoing failure gives them a feeling of ideological or racial triumph, and they will never approve of anything that would reverse the city's decline, even as it drags us all down as a region.

With so many obstacles -- ranging from self-centered rich people backing a dumb plan, self-satisfied non-city-dwellers opposing any upgrade, and a state-sponsored mentality that refuses to examine solutions other than cars and concrete -- we have a good long fight ahead of us still. One of the things we can do on here at least is educate, organize and debate.

I just want to reiterate: Detroit is poor, but it's richer than a lot of third-world cities. It has world-class architecture, a deep history and a strategic site. A lot of outstate people, perhaps, would like to thing the state would do just fine without Detroit. Maybe some people down here think we'd do just fine without the U.P. But it's worth pointing out that we are all stronger for being in the same state. I laugh bitterly sometimes when I think that if we were to give Detroit to a country like Germany or Cuba, they'd probably pour the resources in to make it into a functioning city. Of course, we can't do that, because, you know, that would be, like, COMMUNISM.

[Detroitnerd]

Exactly. It's a lot simpler, and a lot cheaper. As far as the distance to Compuware and CAY, its a 7 or 12 minute walk down Woodward respectively. I don't think a downtown loop would be much quicker considering the slow speeds required due to turning. Furthermore, according to the People Mover time chart, it takes the People Mover less than 2 minutes to get from the GCP stop to Cadillac Center stop [[Compuware) and 5 and a half minutes to get to the Millender Center stop [[CAY).

So WHY another redundant loop?

So that M1 rail riders can enjoy a smooth, uninterrupted ride to the poop-covered, closed bathrooms at the transit center?

[stasu1213]

I had told everyone that this was going to happen but bloggers had thought that I was a naysayer. Another roadblock. Everyone was soooo excited about the upcoming promising light raill Ask yourselves; why is Detroit is the only major city that cant get light rail off the ground? Is it because of the oil companies and gas station owners have the city leaders in their back pockets? I would not be surprise if the who plan is squashed. Detroit never cared about it's transit riders throughout the years. The Rosa Parks Transit Center will became a regional center for the merging DDOT and Smart. That probably will be the only mass transit Michiganders will see in the next 10 years, Wake up those of you who are over 40 and read the history books on mass transit planning in Detroit. HELLO SOMEONE

[mwilbert]

The trains are designed so that they can be operated from either end.

Of course, otherwise the Y approach wouldn't work at all. But the driver has to move from one end to the other. You still call it a turnaround.

[mwilbert]

All NYC subway lines use that type of turnaround

I'm quite sure that some of the lines have turnaround loops. The Number 5 has one at Bowling Green at hours when it doesn't leave Manhattan. There is a turnaround for the number 6 at City Hall. I really doubt there aren't any others.

On lines where they actuallly don't have any turnaround loops, it is much more likely they use an H arrangement. I don't know how well you can run LRV's with an H, but it might be possible.

[iheartthed]

I'm quite sure that some of the lines have turnaround loops. The Number 5 has one at Bowling Green at hours when it doesn't leave Manhattan. There is a turnaround for the number 6 at City Hall. I really doubt there aren't any others.

On lines where they actuallly don't have any turnaround loops, it is much more likely they use an H arrangement. I don't know how well you can run LRV's with an H, but it might be possible.

The 5 only terminates at Bowling Green when they are doing construction. It uses a switch to transfer between uptown and downtown tracks. And the 6 uses an out of service train station for the turnaround. That is probably the only legitimate turnaround in the city.

And yeah, you're right, NYC does use the H arrangement. That's what I envisioned Detroit using for the Woodward line.

[mwilbert]

The 5 only terminates at Bowling Green when they are doing construction.

Maybe. If I remember right there are scheduled times when it turns around there. Nights, probably. Or they may have changed the schedule.

NYC does use the H arrangement. That's what I envisioned Detroit using for the Woodward line.

An H would be OK. Of course none of this would work without a center alignment, and I don't expect they are going to stop the train at Park either, but I agree that it could be done.

I

[English]

Put it in the center and elevate it where possible. It needs to go from the river to Pontiac.

Yes. Exactly.

[Detroitnerd]

Yes. Exactly.

No on elevated. Street-level is inexpensive. That's all we need is $10 million stations where you have to have elevators for handicapped and keep them clean. If you want dedicated right of way, build it underneath the street where you must, as in Boston.

[MaxSpeed]

I lived in Europe for many years, system like that is great .... But if You can't connect suburbs to it it's pointless.... The entire metropolitan area should be connected like that. At least one track on Hall rd east-west, Gration from Detroit to Hall rd, Van Dyke or Mound rd from D to Hall rd, Grand River all the way.... and more lines connecting Detroit parts . The short track running just on Woodward to 8 mile is pointless...

[Detroitnerd]

I lived in Europe for many years, system like that is great .... But if You can't connect suburbs to it it's pointless.... The entire metropolitan area should be connected like that. At least one track on Hall rd east-west, Gration from Detroit to Hall rd, Van Dyke or Mound rd from D to Hall rd, Grand River all the way.... and more lines connecting Detroit parts . The short track running just on Woodward to 8 mile is pointless...

No, it's not pointless. There are already enough riders on Woodward between Eight Mile and downtown to merit the upgrade in service. LRVs can carry more people, more quickly and efficiently, than buses. Then the bus system can be redesigned to feed more people to Woodward, where they can enjoy the upgraded service.

It would be a mixed blessing, in my opinion, to connect with the suburbs, some pluses, some minuses. But we must understand that we already have thousands of riders a day on Woodward, riding expensive, smokey, jerky buses. If we upgrade, we can get some actual "riders of choice" who will leave their car in Midtown when they head downtown. The more the better.

[stasu1213]

I think that busses could still be useful on Woodward even with the hopefully up and coming light rail. Detroit could adapt the same system that Las Vegas has. A doubledecker bus goes up and down Las Vegas blvd every day 24 hours. A rider could board the bus paying 2 to 3 dollar one way or get a 24hr pass for $7 where riders could jump on and off the bus as many times as they please. Detroit could have that same system on Woodwards where riders could get on and off at there favorite spot such as the museums area, new center, comerica park, campus martius or anywhere in between.

[stasu1213]

I lived in Europe for many years, system like that is great .... But if You can't connect suburbs to it it's pointless.... The entire metropolitan area should be connected like that. At least one track on Hall rd east-west, Gration from Detroit to Hall rd, Van Dyke or Mound rd from D to Hall rd, Grand River all the way.... and more lines connecting Detroit parts . The short track running just on Woodward to 8 mile is pointless...

Don't forget a track on 8 mile rd from Vernier all the way west to what Novi or where ever 8mile ends. Telegraph could use one from Pontiac to downriver

[Brian1979]

Oh okay. All NYC subway lines use that type of turnaround so I doubt Detroit's system would ever come to the point where that would significantly impede efficiency. The cost of laying all that extra track isn't worth it, IMO.

NYC subway lines go past the termini station and switch tracks and come back the other way, I know the 6 train turns around in the City Hall station on a loop. And the 1 train use to turn around on a loop at South Ferry.

[Brian1979]

Why does this light rail need to go south of GCP in the first place? The People Mover is going to be considered pointless if this thing goes to Jefferson.

[Warrenite84]

The LRT Downtown loop is necessary because it connects out of town travelers [[using the intermodal station to be built in New Center), and points north to access Cobo, RPTC, and the Ren Cen without a transfer to the People Mover. The People Mover is perfectly fine for CBD access. Their uses IMHO are complementary. The LRT loop will access the People Mover loop at 4 stations, [[Financial District, Millender Center, Ren Cen, and one block from Bricktown Station).

If the LRT ended at GCP, a Cobo or JLA patron would have to ride the People Mover towards Greektown and around to get there, adding unnecessary congestion on the PM during the Auto Shows, etc.