It WAS nice to dream for a second on transit.

[begingri]

Private money on the line: Woodward rail donors wait for layout they like

By Bill Shea

Until an accord is reached on critical aspects of the Woodward light-rail line, a consortium of private-sector donors who have pledged $100 million toward the project's $528 million capital costs won't commit any money.

"We'll wait to see if there's a project that makes sense and is viable. Then we'll be prepared to invest," said Matt Cullen, CEO of M1 Rail, the coalition of project financial backers who mainly favor a curbside alignment for the line rather than the median-running layout apparently preferred by the city.

And until the debate is resolved, the $100 million exists largely as just a series of informal "soft" commitments from donors, some of which have lapsed because the 9.3-mile, streetcar-style line between Hart Plaza and Eight Mile Road still remains in the planning stages.

"It isn't like this money was in a box," Cullen said.

The M1 money accounts for 47 percent of the project's $210 million required local match needed to leverage $318 million in federal funding to build the line.

The impasse over the line's alignment -- M1 Rail prefers slower curbside service that delivers people to the sidewalk, while the Detroit Department of Transportation is pushing for a purely center-of-street line that travels at higher speeds -- continues behind the scenes, sources familiar with the situation told Crain's.

Until those details are resolved, M1 Rail isn't going to firm up its financing commitment, Cullen said, nor will the group commit money to a project that it doesn't philosophically agree with.

Cullen is quick to add that he expects the city and M1, along with the Federal Transit Administration staffers advising DDOT on the project, to come to an accord.

"Everybody on our side of the project wants it to happen and will be reasonably flexible about it," he said, adding that preliminary plans for a mostly median-running line have begun to circulate in recent weeks, and project engineering is only about 10 percent complete.

"All the funders, including the city, M1 and FTA, have to have a project they're all comfortable with," he said, noting that the line will be a hybrid curbside-median layout that will likely loop west to include the Rosa Parks Transit Center at Cass and Michigan avenues.

Continued at: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...yout-they-like [[Google the headline and click on the first link for the full article.)