Bus riders in Detroit have not wanted for bad news in the last few months.

In November, drivers walked off the job to protest poor security. In a bid to save money in January, the city outsourced operations for the chronically mismanaged bus system to a private company. This month it confirmed that there will be route and service reductions starting next week.

Amid the glum news, however, one businessman said he hopes to turn the city's transit fortunes around with an unusual business model: a private jitney bus company to be called, simply, The Detroit Bus Company. Andy Didorosi, the entrepreneur behind the scheme, thinks he can have it up and running by April. Others are more skeptical.

"We're attempting to fix some Detroit transit issues in the best way we can," Didorosi said. "Our goal is just to roll the one bus to begin with and to learn. We know very little about running a transit company, and that is both a strength and a weakness."

The solitary first bus will run, he said, in a loop connecting downtown with some of Detroit's most popular -- and gentrifying -- neighborhoods. "We don't have a route in stone yet, or even in chalk," he said. "But the first route will likely be a greater downtown connector loop, drawing a circle connecting downtown, Corktown, Woodbridge, Midtown, Eastern Market, Greektown and back again."

Continued at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1297818.html