Detroit Metro Airport

[Atticus]

People can more than afford plane tickets here. Even lower middle class types regularly take trips to Florida.

I completely agree. The point is though, if you can afford the plane ticket, you can also afford the Uber ride. And unless there is a crash on I-94, Uber is going to be more convenient, faster, and easier to use than even the best designed transit system.

Transit is more convenient for out of town guests who want to be cheap, or who are from other countries and don’t have a US phone data plan [[making Uber difficult to operate from their phone, or a foreign system they don’t understand). Again, the point remains: Transit’s greatest benefit is to serve out-of-town visitors [[and thus make the region more appealing to that audience), and also to serve airport workers who commute daily.

Transit needs to be designed to serve a need. If there is no need, people won’t use it. All too often we hear people say “the region needs transit”, which is basically a solution looking for a problem statement. What the region actually needs is to identify specific problems where transit is the best solution. The person flying to Florida doesn’t need transit, as Uber is a better solution for their need. The airport worker on other hand probably could use better transit, so frame the problem statement correctly.