Regional Transit Authority?

[Danny]

RTA WILL NOT HAPPEN! Too much bureaucracy and economic red tape.

[dtowncitylover]

RTA WILL NOT HAPPEN! Too much bureaucracy and economic red tape.

This isn't 1989. It's 2009. Those arguements are archaic. A RTA must happen in order to more cost-effective and if we want to become a better region. I think politicians and us citizens are realizing this, though mass transit probably isn't on the average person's mind daily.

[Trainman]

A one percent three county sales tax for Wayne, Oakland and Macomb County is proposed. One half percent for the county road commission and another one half percent for the NEW Regional Transit Authority is what is wanted by transit tax advocates.

Is this what you DY’ers want?

Sure go ahead and make my day and pay this for my bus ride and my road. Let’s all share the costs.

And then next year maybe Santa’s elves will make us new buses, so the SEMCOG / MDOT Multi Billion Dollar freeways can then be built in 2011 with the money that used to pay for SMART in Livonia.

That’s the purpose of the SMART Tax nest August 2010

Learn all the facts in Trainman's save the... in DETROIT LINKS

[MichMatters]

This isn't 1989. It's 2009. Those arguements are archaic.

As much as I'm still of the belief that a regional authority will happen sooner than later, simply because the region simply can't get any worse as far as regional cooperation is concerned, the disbelief by some of this happening is not unfounded, and it's definitely no archaic. Does no one remember how this very decade DARTA was killed? It could definitely happen, again, but god I hope not.

Whether the region gets light rail or not, DARTA [[or a DARTA-equivalent) is an absolute necessity for the long-term health of the region. I do think we're in a better position than 1989 and even the early 2000's when DARTA was killed. I think the ultimate outcome of the Cobo regional authority shows that things are changing, if even begrudgingly, because Detroit has no where else to go; there is no longer any place left to hide from our social and economic malaise.

[Lorax]

Detroit as a city has backed itself into a corner, and it's taken years to get to this point. The condition and prospects for the city are so dire at this point, that regionalizing many of the city's services will be the only option if Detroit expects to save itself from receivership and an eventual breakup into smaller cities- which would probably save many of the better parts of the city from eventual destruction.

Regionalizing transit, police, fire, parks, schools, libraries, etc, is the only way it's going to make it. Miami-Dade county realized this early on, and while not ideal, consolidates costs and keeps everything pretty much covered.

[Akane]

As a veteran mass-transit user in the suburbs, it's absolutely unbelievable to me that there are two separate bus systems here. I remember trying to figure out a bus transfer schedule to Wyandotte from my current location [[Eastpointe) and realizing that it would take either three buses and a bicycle ride or four buses just to get from point A to point B. And this is without even having the benefit of a rapid transit service as one of the transfers.

There really needs to be a regional transit authority, even if it is just to get bus routes slightly normalized.

[d.mcc]

It falls back on all my other arguments:

1. Is it Detroit [[ in this case Michigan )
2. Does it make sense?

If 1 and 2 both apply, said issue will never happen.

[Danny]

This isn't 1989. It's 2009. Those arguements are archaic. A RTA must happen in order to more cost-effective and if we want to become a better region. I think politicians and us citizens are realizing this, though mass transit probably isn't on the average person's mind daily.

In order for this RTA to happen government ,bureaucracy and the use of regional tax dollars must be set up. It's going to LONG, LONG, LONG time for serveral paperwork to go through sevaral cubicle offices. DARTA tried its best to bring mass transit to the Metro-Detroit Area but it failed through fare costs. DARTA IS DEAD and so will the RTA if the politicians and bureaucrats don't see the results.