Feds, Snyder kill Woodward Light Rail Line

[Dexlin]

canuck,

Things don't work down here like they work in Canada. Though, constitutionally, local governments are wards of the state, in practice, power has been so devolved down to the level of local government that unilaterally forcing a merge would be political suicide. This is not even to mention all of the lawsuits that would arise that delay the actual merger for years even though everyone knows that the municipalities technically exist at the pleasure of the state.

Apart from that, municipalities/local governments can only be merged by an act of the legislature. Snyder could beg all he wanted to; ultimately, only the state house and senate have the consitutional authority to merge local governments.

It really doesn't make sense to talk about this, though, because that's even more of an improbability than even forming a regional authority given Oakland County's rejectionn of doing it if they have to put their skin [[money) into it.

[Tig3rzhark]

While reading this story I saw this


60% of residents work outside the city!!! It is not surprising why Detroit is always being pissed on. All the industries are outside the city and this led Bing and LaHood to decided that super-buses taking the poor citizens of Detroit to the suburbs would be the best course of action. Wait, the region has two piss-poor bus systems hanging on by a thread. Only in Detroit.

I will be dead before Detroit is a world-class city again. It will not happen in my lifetime. No way in hell.

I would hate to say it, but I agree with you. After hearing this crap on the Freep, I got more of an incentive to finding another place to live.

[Novine]

Wattrick's take via Mlive:

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...etroit_pl.html

[Signman]

I give up. This city just plain sucks.

That was your final straw?

[313WX]

Another elephant in the room is a lot of Dan Gilbert's developments [[who is pretty much the only one continuing any type of momentum downtown) hinged on the Woodward light rail.

[R8RBOB]

Another elephant in the room is a lot of Dan Gilbert's developments [[who is pretty much the only one continuing any type of momentum downtown) hinged on the Woodward light rail.

I hope he enjoys those Snyderbuses that will be driving up and down Woodward.

[iheartthed]

This is a questionable argument. If high-speed rail were actually superior to air for distances of under 200-300 miles, don't you think we'd see a high-speed rail system somewhere in the US?

Lots of stuff happens or doesn't happen without a good reason.

The United States doesn't have the patent on good ideas. I think universal health care is a good idea but we don't have that either.

[brightpavilions]

I DO understand the idea of going with buses over trains if they're not sustainable. I'm glad the City wouldn't make another poor decision just to say "look we have light rail." I prefer trains over busses and I think everyone does. I see rail leading to more riders and in turn train "stations" [[not bus shacks) where businesses could open up around them and then hopefully lead to residential development etc.

Bottom line, I think if given the choice between a car and a train people will ride a train. I don't think the same can be said for a bus.

[Tig3rzhark]

Maybe the only hope for a regional authority, is to bypass Oakland County.

Find some way to convince the people that if OC don't get on board, that they will be left behind. If that means that it becomes difficult for people to get to cities in Oakland County, then so be it.

We shouldn't have people like LBP stop progress.

[j to the jeremy]

Not just the lamb. They sacrificed the herd! You do realize that just about every development project in Detroit going on now is centered on that light rail line. What happens now???

Not every one in the city, but pretty much everything in the CBD, for sure.

Snyder is going to have some explaining to do to Dan Gilbert, Penske, etc. He has also put himself in a very tough spot between Detroit, Oakland County, the Legislature, and the Federal Govt. Methinks this is too much pressure to put on a BRT system which hasn't even gone through all the engineering and EIS process that the Woodward Light Rail did for the past 6 years.

[canuck]

canuck,

Things don't work down here like they work in Canada. Though, constitutionally, local governments are wards of the state, in practice, power has been so devolved down to the level of local government that unilaterally forcing a merge would be political suicide. This is not even to mention all of the lawsuits that would arise that delay the actual merger for years even though everyone knows that the municipalities technically exist at the pleasure of the state.

Apart from that, municipalities/local governments can only be merged by an act of the legislature. Snyder could beg all he wanted to; ultimately, only the state house and senate have the consitutional authority to merge local governments.

It really doesn't make sense to talk about this, though, because that's even more of an improbability than even forming a regional authority given Oakland County's rejectionn of doing it if they have to put their skin [[money) into it.

I hear you, that is what I suspected. A while back, there was a forced merger of Toronto's major core municipalities by the Ontario gvt and then a forced merger of Montreal island municipalities by the Quebec gvt. A demerger of a number of cities [[including mine) happened a year later when a new gvt brought a referendum to resolve the issue of discontent of former suburban citizens. The reason for the forced mergers was the need evoked by the mayors and prime ministers for stronger better leveraged cities. In spite of the demerger, 55% of my property taxes go to the Montreal urban community which pays for integrated transit across the island, fire, police EMS and other goodies.

Incidentally, the demerger occured mainly along language lines. So our cities, much like Detroit have cultural issues dividing and sometimes diluting the efforts. But there are also transit authorities for regional development that ally off-island suburbs with the core city. There is also a regional agency that promotes metropolitan development [[CMM).

[iheartthed]

Not every one in the city, but pretty much everything in the CBD, for sure.

Which pretty much means the city right about now. Where else are the revenue sources gonna come from to support the 139 square miles? Property taxes? Good luck getting someone to pay $10K/year on a house that they can only sell for $20K.

[j to the jeremy]

Which pretty much means the city right about now. Where else are the revenue sources gonna come from to support the 139 square miles? Property taxes? Good luck getting someone to pay $10K/year on a house that they can only sell for $20K.

Well, obviously. This could really get messy in the next few weeks

[Novine]

"Maybe the only hope for a regional authority, is to bypass Oakland County."

If some at the region and the state level didn't feel the need to scrape and bow at Brooks' feet, there might be the possibility of picking up local support from some OC communities. The OC Woodward communities scored federal support for studying a light rail extension north of 8 Mile. That would appear to be dead now. But those same communities plus Southfield and maybe West Bloomfield and Farmington/Farmington Hills might sign onto a regionally focused transit authority separate from the County. Why allow the sentiments in Troy and Groveland Township drive transit discussion in OC? But no one wants to offend Brooks, the Great and Powerful so no one is willing to pursue that alternative.

[j to the jeremy]

"Maybe the only hope for a regional authority, is to bypass Oakland County."

If some at the region and the state level didn't feel the need to scrape and bow at Brooks' feet, there might be the possibility of picking up local support from some OC communities. The OC Woodward communities scored federal support for studying a light rail extension north of 8 Mile. That would appear to be dead now. But those same communities plus Southfield and maybe West Bloomfield and Farmington/Farmington Hills might sign onto a regionally focused transit authority separate from the County. Why allow the sentiments in Troy and Groveland Township drive transit discussion in OC? But no one wants to offend Brooks, the Great and Powerful so no one is willing to pursue that alternative.

haha, "I am Brooks, the Great and Powerful Racist"... It sucks to live in Oz

[Matt The Deuce]

What would the total cost be to fund a brand new authority for SE MI. including the BRT system?

According to info from a previous thread approx. operating budgets for 2010 -

DDOT - 168 million
SMART - 108 million

276 Million

Could current funding for DDOT/SMART + Government monies on the table/proposed right now cover a brand new regional bus system?

What are the real numbers?

[Zozo]

I have been mulling over making a commercial property purchase just east of Woodward in the midtown area. The move is risky, but it seemed to me that this area had a lot of potential, as it was going to be a few short blocks away from a proposed light rail stop. I was anticipating urban infill to occur in this area. With the light rail project being scrapped, I will be keeping my money in my pocket and will be backing out of the negotiations today. I just don't see any kind of bus bringing the excitement, energy, or transformation opportunities that the light rail line would have brought to this area.

I'm sure there will be others who will be taking their investments elsewhere now as well.

[ordinary]

My enthusiasm for the light rail vanished when they said it would only extend from downtown to 8 Mile Road. There's absolutely no point in making 8 Mile and Woodward the destination for anything. There's NOTHING there!!! Even if the new strip mall plans actually come to pass [[and I have my doubts about that), it's still not enough. The light rail has to actually take people to places they want to go. Downtown Detroit to the airport to Ann Arbor would be ideal. Or go all the way up Woodward to Pontiac, so passengers can get off in Ferndale, RO, and Birmingham. But Woodward Avenue between 6 Mile and 8 Mile is a dead zone, as is Woodward between New Center and the Highland Park border.

You have expressed what I have been thinking the whole time. It always seemed to me that it was one of those "If you build it they will come" deals

[Detroitnerd]

http://www.oakgov.com/exec/brooks/sprawl.html

[Wesley Mouch]

...They couldn't possibly care any less about moving the working poor around Southeast Michigan.

This has nothing to do with 'moving the poor' no more than the Lodge Freeway does. If you frame this as a 'help the poor' project, you are missing the point, and the opportunity. This will be [[when it finally happens, as it will someday) a project to move PEOPLE around. That's what transit does. It enables people to move efficiently, and therefore increases economic activity -- just as Woodward Avenue, Eight Mile, I-696, M-59 and the whole US highway system.

What is being done here is prioritizing where money is going in Michigan [[and the US). If DDOT / SMART CofD had their collective act together, rational LaHood and Synder would have supported it.

Dragging out the old tired is, well, tired. Let's clean up our acts instead.

[Wesley Mouch]

I have been mulling over making a commercial property purchase just east of Woodward in the midtown area. The move is risky, but it seemed to me that this area had a lot of potential, as it was going to be a few short blocks away from a proposed light rail stop. I was anticipating urban infill to occur in this area. With the light rail project being scrapped, I will be keeping my money in my pocket and will be backing out of the negotiations today. I just don't see any kind of bus bringing the excitement, energy, or transformation opportunities that the light rail line would have brought to this area.

I'm sure there will be others who will be taking their investments elsewhere now as well.

There's no reason why BRT can't spur development. In fact, a clean well-run BRT will spur development better than a mismanaged and poorly operated light-rail. [[And I'm naive enough to also think that a well-run regular bus system would do the same. You can see that in most major cities. We in Detroit think of busses as some sort of moving rat-hole. In NYC, Portland, or Vancouver they are clean and precisely on-time. Our problem was never one of methods, but one of execution. That's what LaHood [[D) and Synder [[R) jointly acknowledged.

[English]

Well, we've just proven the naysayers correct, in my opinion. The problem with Detroit is its people -- all 4.5 million of us. I'm including myself in that, too. We have no vision, and we have no leadership.

I can't believe that I actually thought things were changing! After all my boosterism, especially to my friends out of town and out of state, I feel foolish.

We won't have any viable mass transit system until we're forced to have one. And by then, not only will the city be bankrupt, so will this state, and very likely, the nation.

[XDetroitr]

What alternative energy source will these high-speed buses be using? I didn't see anything about them being electric. Probably good old fossil fuels. Short sightedness on so many levels. Alas, Detroit will never change.

[English]

What alternative energy source will these high-speed buses be using? I didn't see anything about them being electric. Probably good old fossil fuels. Short sightedness on so many levels. Alas, Detroit will never change.

No, it won't. It will have to be forced to change... and by then, it will be too late.

[Wesley Mouch]

Haven't seen anyone note that the big guys want to do Gratiot, Michigan [[good) and M-59 [[well, what can I say -- except what about Grand River?)