Public Transportation: Anything is Possible

If you want a group of Metro Detroiters to reach immediate consensus, ask them whether a viable, regional public transportation system would help return Detroit to the ranks of cities that work. Despite the fact that we love our cars and truck, the answer would be an emphatic “yes.” Anyone who has visited New York or Chicago or Washington can appreciate what high-speed buses or trains linking the airport to points like downtown Detroit, Birmingham, Royal Oak, Mt. Clemens and Dearborn would do for our region. And employers in places like Novi, Sterling Heights and Auburn Hills have long desired a system that can get their employees to work and back without the struggle many of them endure right now.

If you ask the same group of public transit supporters how and where to build the system and who will pay the bill, the ruckus that results might look like an episode of the Jerry Springer Show. Making real progress on public transportation will require a new attitude on the subject around our region, a renewal of the powerful optimism we felt about Detroit for much of the last decade. We have to take a fresh approach to how we think about mass transit and how we define ourselves as Metro Detroiters.

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Regional commitment is a requirement

Our region got good news involving public transportation in March 2004. Initial funding arrived for the regional entity that is to operate as the Detroit Area Regional Transportation Authority (DARTA).

Federal money totaling $347,725 was granted to DARTA to hire a CEO and staff and to pay for a study of how the system should be structured and operated. DARTA also received $24,300 in startup funds from the state transportation department. Later, an additional grant came from the Federal Highway Administration in the sum of $500,000.

By October, DARTA had about $1 million in startup funds, including $150,000 loaned to the agency by the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce and Detroit Renaissance Inc.

DARTA launched a nationwide search for a CEO in the fall, offering $120,000 to $150,000 in salary. The board expects to have a DARTA CEO hired and in position by the start of 2005. One year after the CEO’s hiring, the agency is required to present a comprehensive plan for a regional public transportation system.

The smallest steps taken to improve public transportation in Metro Detroit are welcome. Right now the road to a regional bus or rail system for Southeast Michigan is long and treacherous, but certainly plausible.

Clearly, regional public transportation will require a solid commitment of resources that is not yet evident. The City of Detroit, several key inner-ring suburbs, major business organizations, and vocal citizens organizations have expressed strong support for shared regional funding of a metropolitan transit system. But individual municipalities – particularly prosperous, outer-ring suburbs – for many years have been reluctant to contribute financially to a regional bus system.

Although interesting possibilities are being studied, not much progress has been made on a regional rail system. One concept involves a commuter rail line that could be established on existing “heavy rail” train tracks that run throughout the metropolitan area. Amtrak service between Chicago and Detroit currently makes six stops a day in Detroit’s New Center, Royal Oak, Birmingham, Pontiac and Dearborn. But advocates of commuter rail have visualized a network of connections extending from Lansing to Detroit’s Renaissance Center, with stops proposed for Detroit-Wayne County Metropolitan Airport, Dearborn, Birmingham, Royal Oak, Pontiac, Auburn Hills, Detroit’s New Center and downtown.

A one-year study spearheaded by the Lansing Capital Area Transit Authority and partially funded by the state and Southeast Michigan communities in 2001, concluded that a commuter rail system between Detroit and Lansing would cost about $80 million to introduce and $6.4 million in operating subsidies. Such a line would attract an estimated 411,000 commuters in the first year, according to the study.

Much easier to visualize in the near term is a proposed widening of I-75 along an 18-mile stretch of southern Oakland County. Every day, more than 200,000 commuters travel that stretch of highway according to transportation officials, with many, if not most, going to and from downtown Detroit. Adding another lane to I-75 after the year 2011 was the solution prescribed in a SEMCOG regional transportation plan released in June 2004 and adopted by the General Assembly in Nov. 2004. A public transportation advocacy group formally objected to the highway expansion, arguing that the bulk of $41 billion in federal funds earmarked for the Detroit region over the next 25 years should be invested in a major public transportation program, rather than more highway expansion.

I believe we need the safest, most efficient highways possible because our cars and trucks aren’t going away. I also believe that now is the time to get serious about a public transportation alternative that will complement the current highway system, and give the thousands of citizens who don’t own a car or a truck more options for getting around our region. For many of them the number one issue is reliable transportation to a decent-paying job.

In metro Detroit we have gotten used to stalemate on the transportation issue. We don’t expect the lines that have been drawn to disappear anytime soon, anymore than we expect Eight Mile Road to disappear anytime soon. Yet, a look around the country shows that even communities that love cars as much as we do and have committed themselves to efficient freeways like we have, have found ways to be flexible and creative on the issue of public transportation. While the debate still rages about how successful their transportation systems are and how beneficial they’ll be in the future, there is no question that the willingness of cities and regions to embrace mass transit gives them a progressive image that attracts new residents and new investors.

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Light rail: models across the nation

In June 2004, the Minneapolis-St. Paul region opened the first 12 stations and 8 miles of an 11.6-mile, street-based light rail line, which will stretch from downtown Minneapolis to the metropolitan airport and the Mall of America in suburban Bloomington. The rail line is elevated in some sections, and it tunnels underground at a local park and at the airport. When the project is completed – expected by the end of 2004 – the total cost to the regional transit authority will be $713 million. Riders pay $1.25 a trip during non-peak hours, and $1.75 during rush hour. Initial use of the system is 70 percent higher than planners expected, at 15,000 passenger trips a day, compared to the 9,500 trips anticipated. Transit officials expect the daily trips to increase to more than 19,000 a day by December 2004 when the Mall of America and airport stations are scheduled to open.

Since 1984, Pittsburgh has operated a 25-mile light rail system. In June 2004, Pittsburgh reopened a 5.2-mile section of its existing light-rail system that was closed for four years for total renovation. Pittsburgh’s overhaul, that cost nearly $116 million, reconnected the city’s Overbrook area with downtown. It involved building six new bridges, reconstructing five existing bridges, and replacing 22 streetcar-style stops with eight modern rail stations. The improvements are expected to increase the number of riders by 13,000 a day over the next decade.

June 2004 also marked the return of electric trolley cars in Charlotte, NC. Charlotte’s 2.1-mile, 10-station line brought trolley service back to the city for the first time since 1938. More than $400 million in new commercial and residential development exists along the trolley line, which is expected to be shared with light rail cars as part of a 9.8-mile system that will run through downtown and connect Uptown Charlotte to the South End. The light rail system is expected to cost $371 million.

During the same month, Sacramento, CA added three new stations and 2.8 miles to its light rail system, making the 41-station network 26.9 miles long. Another 7.8-mile extension is expected to open in 2005. About 39,000 people ride the system each weekday.

According to a New York Times article by Kirk Johnson that was published in the Detroit Free Press, Nov. 26, 2004, in the late 1990s 644,000 people moved to Colorado, mostly the Denver area, creating huge traffic problems. A $4.7 billion mass transit project, called FasTracks and financed by a local sales tax increase, was approved in Nov. 2004 by 58 percent of the region’s voters according to the article. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said, “The approval of FasTracks is a mark of recognition that Denver’s future is to be shared among all the counties and communities of the region.” Denver’s transportation project is one of the most ambitious in U.S. history –120 miles on six rail lines to be built over the next 12 years – and it defies current thinking that mass transit systems are tougher to build as cities age and grow.

That’s just a sampling of the huge investment urban American cities are making in public transportation. In none of those cities have people stopped buying cars and trucks.

Let’s take a look at Houston, where people value the independence of driving, and also like the open spaces and lifestyle choices offered by steady suburban expansion. America’s fourth largest city has always been dedicated to unrestricted growth and development. A network of freeways dominates Houston and some of the principal streets, which have significant retail and commercial development, are actually frontage roads of Houston’s urban highways. “This is a car city – it was built by, for and on behalf of the automobile,” said Stephen Klineberg of Houston’s Rice University in the March 7, 2004 edition of USA Today.

Yet, on Jan. 1, 2004 Houston opened a 7.5-mile light rail line called Metrorail, stretching from the heart of downtown to Reliant Stadium. After a five-year development process, the commuter line opened just in time for Houston to host a very successful Super Bowl XXXVIII. The rail line runs on the same level as street traffic and is subject to the same traffic lights and street signs as buses and cars. Most of the line travels along Houston’s Main Street, which is the equivalent of Detroit’s Woodward Avenue, connecting the central business district and the baseball stadium with a medical center campus, an art gallery and museum district, a major university, a residential and commercial area, a primary public park, and the Astrodome/Reliant Stadium.

Houston’s new rail system didn’t come easily. Even though voters approved the Metropolitan Transit Agency, development of light rail, and a one-cent sales tax to help pay for it in 1978, the region did nothing to advance mass transit for 20 years.

The breakthrough came in 1998 when then Houston Mayor Lee Brown told his Metro Board appointees to “dust off their plans.” The Metro Board identified $280 million from federal funds previously granted to the city for construction of a high-speed lane on a Houston highway, the Federal Transit Administration approved reallocation of the money, and light rail was on its way in Houston.

Preliminary engineering began in Jan. 2000 and construction began in March 2001. By April 2002, 1.5 miles of rail line had been constructed, testing the system began in late 2003, construction was completed at a cost of $324 million, and operation began in early 2004.
 

While valid concerns already have been raised about Houston’s light rail system, voters approved in Nov. 2003 a major Metrorail expansion: 22 more miles of light rail connecting downtown to the University of Houston and a major mall. The “yes” vote also approved a 50 percent expansion and upgrade of Houston’s bus system. Voters authorized a $640 million city bond issue for both expansions, although the light rail component will cost about $1 billion and will require more federal funding.

Houston’s aggressive light rail project may not be the right model for Detroit – at least not right away. Dedicated high-speed buses and street bus lanes that have been proposed for the upcoming DARTA system seem more feasible. But what Houston and 18 other American cities have done with light rail, and the fact that 35 other U.S. cities are either planning or studying new light rail systems, ought to send a strong message to Metro Detroit.

The rest of the world is moving forward with high-tech public transportation, determined to make their cities more attractive, more competitive, easier to get to and get around for both residents and visitors. Meanwhile, we argue over whether a regional bus system would be good or bad, and who will pay the most for it – them or us?

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Public transit, private investment

What about that Detroit bus plan anyway? A January 2000 study, commissioned by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) and conducted by the Metropolitan Affairs Coalition (MAC), concluded that a 70-mile system would be very feasible for metro Detroit, with start-up capital costs of $490 million and annual operating costs of $35 million. The most innovative plan presented as a real possibility so far came out of that study. It’s the SpeedLink plan, part of a $2 billion bus system expansion and modernization plan envisioned by the MAC study.

SpeedLink would involve the purchase of high-speed buses that look like trains and are roughly twice the size of regular buses. These buses would travel down lanes on 12 primary roads throughout the metro area: Woodward, Jefferson, Grand River, Fort, Gratiot, M-59, Van Dyke, Telegraph, Greenfield, Michigan, Eight Mile and 16 Mile. Less traveled streets would be served by regular bus service, and smaller vehicles would serve interior streets in some areas.

The proposed SpeedLink system is a so-called Bus Rapid Transit system where the standard vehicle is viewed as a “train on tires.” Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Orlando and Miami have introduced Bus Rapid Transit in recent years. It has become a very popular and successful mass transit system in Ottawa, Ontario since its introduction in 1983. Three-fourths of all rush-hour Ottawa commuters enter downtown by mass transit.

The international model for Bus Rapid Transit is the system in Curitiba, Brazil, a fast-growing city of 2 million residents and a tradition of systematic, long-range city planning. Daily ridership on the 50-mile system is reportedly 1.2 million, more than half the total population. Interestingly, although government transportation subsidies support the Curitiba system, it is privately owned -- primarily by Volvo, the Swedish automaker whose parent company is Ford Motor Co.

That fact leads me to a question I have pondered before: is the solution to the funding challenge private investment led by Detroit’s auto companies? Our automakers, often perceived as opponents of mass transit, have expressed support for a good system. They know their workers, who do an outstanding job in the face of tremendous international competition, would welcome the stress relief and increased productivity of being able to ride to and from work. I believe Ford Motor, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler would be active and generous partners in the establishment of a high-speed bus or light rail system. They have helped pay for mass transit feasibility studies in the past. But our division and foot-dragging has left them with nothing to support.

Suppose significant corporate branding were made part of the system’s development? What if we named the whole system after one or more of our automakers? The positive local, national and international publicity could go a long way for one or more ambitious companies, especially with the increased global importance of environmentally conscious marketing.

Do you think Peter Karmanos and Compuware employees – many of whom are traveling downtown from the suburbs five days a week – would support an enhanced mass transit system? That ought to be a natural, considering Peter’s enthusiastic support for the Urban Experience that he says attracts the best workers to any high-tech company.

What about other major Detroit employers? Early support for SpeedLink by the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, Detroit Renaissance, and the Greater Downtown Partnership suggests that significant private funding might be available for mass transit if 1) a valid operational and financing plan were prepared, 2) participation of the business community was properly defined, and 3) business leaders were properly approached and included in the planning process.

In the modern era the federal government pays for 80 percent of all public transportation, although that figure is expected to drop to 50 percent or less in the near future. If businesses were willing to make up most of the difference, the dynamics of the debate over Rapid Bus Transit in metro Detroit would be transformed overnight. Similar local business support would likely be available for a well-designed commuter rail line, running between the airport and downtown Detroit at the very least. It’s worth noting that government policy, here and nationwide, helped make cars the dominant mode of transportation in the 20th century, and helped put some private commuter rail companies out of business. If auto related companies invested in 21st century mass transit, the result would be more than a fascinating historical note. The improved productivity would help everyone.
 

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A 21st century region

The time is right to end the head-in-the-sand mentality and the counterproductive policies that keep metropolitan Detroit divided, uncompetitive and unattractive to many potential investors, employees and residents. The time is right for us to ask ourselves: why do our children move to New York and Chicago and L.A. and Atlanta as soon as they graduate from high school and college?

This question is becoming increasingly important to our region’s future if the trends identified by researchers like Richard Florida are real. Florida, author of the previously mentioned book, The Creative Class, reminds us that our most highly skilled workers are choosing to live in urban areas where amenities such as public transportation are easily accessible. We’ve reached the point where businesses are moving and investing where the best people are – not the other way around.

So the time IS right for Metro Detroit to stop saying, “We drive, we don’t ride around here.” Make no mistake about it: Metro Detroiters aren’t going to give up their cars. I know I’m not giving up mine. But if I have the option of riding mass transit to work while I improve my productivity by reading or planning or writing on a high speed bus or train – I will enjoy my car more for long trips, short errands, or visits with friends.

It’s time for us to stop making excuses for being the largest metro area in the country without a viable mass transit system. It’s time to stop pretending that it doesn’t matter that Detroit is one of only two cities among America’s top 25 metro areas that don’t offer adequate mass transit. It’s time to face economic reality and provide a viable means of getting local residents without vehicles to jobs in the suburbs. It’s time to recognize that gas is a dwindling natural resource and public transit provides an excellent means of lessening fuel consumption. It’s time to realize that by 2030, half a million Southeast Michigan residents will be 75 or older, and mass transit will be a viable transportation alternative.

Metro Detroit cannot afford to lose any more good people. We can’t afford to lose the investment of companies that are interested in our area but turned off by the lack of mass transportation. “The dramatic drop in market share for domestic automakers is the reason we haven’t joined the national economic recovery,” according to Mary Kramer in Crain’s Detroit Business, Nov. 29, 2004. “We need to attract more businesses and help existing companies grow, adding and keeping employees. Transit is part of that equation. If we want the world to view us as a 21st century region, isn’t it time we start acting like one?” asks Kramer.

Rev. Stephen Jones, pastor of Birmingham’s First Baptist Church and a member of MOSES, an active urban development advocacy group in metro Detroit churches, said in a 2001 newspaper interview that the people of Southeast Michigan have to lead our leaders on this issue. I agree. I also know that strong, decisive leadership from an elected official who commands respect and encourages consensus – as was the case with Mayor Lee Brown in Houston – is essential if public transportation is to go beyond the planning stage in metro Detroit.

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