Quote Originally Posted by K-slice View Post
Unlike in most large cities, it would be so easy to figure this out in Detroit. We have thousands of miles of underused, or unused, right-of-way including railroads where tracks have been removed and surface streets that are 3X wider than they need to be. You could start by taking every spoke road [[with the exception of Woodward) and eliminate half the car lanes and convert to rail.

I'd still rather see the area contained within Grand Blvd connected with additional streetcar lines to bring together our cities greatest assets and re-densify the core, but that will probably never happen.
The ROW for the Detroit interurban lines are still there for the most parts and the wide streets,based on early photos were because they also had a rail line sharing.

So the connect ability with surrounding cites,which would also increase ridership rates in order to offset the slower parts is there without the extra costs of having to acquire additional ROW like a from scratch system would.

There seems to be independent groups pushing for it and an RTA but if the ROW is already there,you can bypass that city and there is not really anything they can do to stop it,there seems to be more of a focus on what one cannot do then what they can do.

What makes it even worse is at a time when barrels of cash are sitting there ready to be spent,Detroits representatives that could get their hands on it are focused on everything but and have been throttled over issues that have zero to do with the city that voted them in to look out for them.

Politics has everything to do with it if you are trying to do it based on taxpayer dollars,if you do not have anybody in your corner you are basically screwed and as it stands,yea at this rate it probably will never happen.

You might be better off courting the private investor groups that are getting into establishing transit lines,originally they were built by private companies.

Yes it was a different senário back then but trends have a habit of returning.