Quote Originally Posted by MicrosoftFan View Post
Everybody knows that the Q Line is opening this weekend. But amid all the excitement- and protests- I am sure many, myself included, are wondering what will come after the Q Line. Well, I sat down to my computer at 2:00 PM today and started making a plan for what a Detroit Light Rail system that includes the Q Line might look like.

The System I planned out has 7 lines-
Q Line [[Woodward) Downtown-Pontiac
M Line [[Michigan) Downtown-Airport
G Line [[Gratiot) Downtown-Mt. Clemens
S Line [[Downriver) Downtown-Flat Rock
N Line [[Mound) Downtown-Utica
L Line [[Lodge) Downtown-Novi
J Line [[Jefferson) Downtown-Grosse Pointe

It's 144 miles [[that's all of it though) long and 20.1 Miles of that is side-running streetcar track, 67.9 is center-running light rail in dedicated lanes with signal priority, and a whopping 66 miles is grade separated.

Now 144 Miles is nothing but a pipe dream, so I chopped up the lines into phases. Phase One is an expanded streetcar system, Phase Two extends to inner ring suburbs and Detroit city limits, Phase Three extends to the Airport and Pontiac, Phase Four fills out the other lines to their limits, and the pipe-dream Extended Phase has, well, pipe-dream far reaching lines.

I'd like to hear your take on it, as well as any questions you might have about lines or stations, constructive criticism, what should be left out, and what should be added. Including general discussion on Detroit's transit future.

View Map Here:
VIEW

Thanks,
MicrosoftFan
Why did you choose to run the L on the freeway instead of along Grand River? Not saying that's bad, I'm just curious since all your other routes run along arterials.

I wonder if it wouldn't be more interesting to layer an expanded streetcar network on top of a few rapid transit lines, rather than making one system that moves between streetcar and rapid transit modes. And note that by the time you get to Flat Rock or Pontiac, you're almost talking commuter rail distances. The number of closely spaces streetcar stops means that long trips are going to take a very long time to get all the way downtown [[or out of downtown). 30 minutes just to get from downtown to New Center means a trip to Pontiac will easily be over an hour, not including wait time at the station.

Any plan to make a system map?