May 31st, 2010 |
» Developing common goals is more productive than forcing a merger of regional transportation agencies. An authority for Detroit comes closer.
If there’s anything Detroit needs most, it may be regional cooperation, where it finds itself distinctively behind the times. While some major cities like New York or San Francisco are large and wealthy enough to be able to close themselves off politically from the surroundings, Michigan’s largest metropolis benefits from neither of those characteristics, so it must find ways to make agreements with nearby municipalities.
Frequently mentioned is the idea of a regional transportation district, which would coordinate funding and
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April 13th, 2010 |
» The Motor City must get its priorities straight to move ahead with a new transit system.
After receiving millions of dollars in commitments from private foundations and a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, Detroit’s planned M-1 Streetcar is virtually assured of completion as planned in 2013. The $125 million project will be the first major transit investment in this vast city since the opening of the one-way downtown People Mover loop in 1987. Construction is planned to commence by the end of this year.
But that 3.4-mile line, running in lanes shared with automobiles along Woodward Avenue between
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February 8th, 2010 |
» A rail system cannot solve city’s huge problems.
Detroit’s half-dead nature has captured the nation’s attention over the past year. Though the whole country continues to suffer from the recession, the emptying of Michigan’s largest city is notable to the degree that its fate seems practically irredeemable: Given its economic, social, and political position, how can the city survive?
Municipal leaders and pundits from around the country are convinced that a concerted planning effort and major investments could to free it from its doldrums. The plan that has commanded the most attention recently is
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December 21st, 2009 |
» Public-private partnerships could bring big benefits to the Motor City. But they might be sending the wrong message about governmental responsibility.
If Detroit has yet to receive the kind of huge public investment that may well be necessary to save it, it hasn’t been entirely forgotten by its natives. Over the past year, a group of individuals and corporations have donated tens of millions of dollars towards the creation of an entity that would construct a new rail line down the city’s primary corridor, Woodward Avenue. Their example of direct private involvement in a transit project for a non-profit purpose is
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March 17th, 2009 |
State is now considering private proposal for elevated, hydrogen-powered maglev trains from Detroit to Lansing and Ann Arbor
The Detroit Free Press reports today that the Michigan State House is holding hearings on whether to consider a private plan to build a maglev rail line between Detroit and Lansing, the state capital, and Detroit and Ann Arbor, where the main state university is located. The company making the proposal, Interstate Traveler Company, claims that it could build the $2.3 billion system without public money, as long as it gets to use highway right-of-way for free. As an added bonus, profits would be
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March 16th, 2009 |
Detroit has a terrible history of transit investment – since the 1950s, it has repeatedly rejected efforts to spruce up its public transportation systems in favor of expanding highways, often to the detriment of the city’s core. There is no concrete evidence that the city’s lack of rapid transit has contributed directly to its giant population exodus – from 1.85 million in 1950 to around 900,000 today – but it is clear that the region’s steadfast devotion to the automobile hasn’t helped matters much either, especially considering the recent implosion of the Big Three.
This isn’t to say that Detroit
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