|
|||||
Archive for the ‘Detroit’ Category
» 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 » 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
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
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 When are there too many public transportation systems in one place? Last week, Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel, Jr. announced that he was interested in merging the Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT), which runs the city’s buses, and the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART), which operates buses in the city’s suburbs. Merger has been under discussion since SMART was founded in 1967. The two services mostly don’t overlap – the former is entirely designed to serve in-city commuting, while the latter simply takes people living in the city to work in the suburbs, or The Detroit Free Press reports today on Detroit’s rapidly advancing plans for a light rail system in that city’s core. The first segment, as we’ve reported before, will be a 3.4-mile line running from Downtown to New Center along Woodward Avenue (which is now being called The Regional Area Initial Link, TRAIL). There continues to be some confusion about whether this project will replace, compete with, or merge with the Detroit Department of Transportation’s proposed Woodward Light Rail line. We’re betting on a merger. Other phases of the project, which has been approved by the |
     |
||||
|
Copyright © 2010 The Transport Politic and Yonah Freemark - All Rights Reserved |
|||||
Yonah Freemark | 
February 8th, 2010 | 
Filed Under: 
Recent Comments