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Detroit mass transit- our future in high speed rail and light rail commuting
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A busy Michigan Central Depot greets a fleet of trains circa 1940. Could this be back in our city's future?
It is a given that Detroit is known for cars- designing them, building them and driving them. Its as ingrained in our local culture and heritage as much as snow is to Eskimos or pasta is to Italians. For better or worse, the automobile has affected just about every aspect of life in the metropolitan area. One of the more notable, or dare I say infamous side affects of having the Big Three in our backyard is the lack of any major mas transit system. Aside from SMART buses driving around, there are no elevated trains like Chicago (and no, the
toy train called the people mover doesn't count!), no subways or river ferries like New York or light rail like so many other rapidly growing cities in the South and West.
Ironically, Detroit had a highly useful streetcar system operating in and around the city and into the the suburbs up until the 1930's. The streetcar lines were originally run by private companies until the city managed to take over the lines in the 1920's. The Detroit United Railway (DUR) was big business in the early20th century, operating as a private rail line. This was later succeeded by the city's own Department of Street Railways (DSR). For a more detailed history of Detroit transit history check out http://www.detroittransithistory.info/index.html.
Detroit's streetcars quickly gave way to expanded bus service after World War II. This was led in part by General Motors' ability to crank out bus after bus off the assembly lines. The hometown was an easy market to corner the mass transit market, and buses offered greater ridership with lower operating costs. Also, it was a different era in postwar America. The country was prosperous and there was a dizzying number of new and exciting cars coming from the Detroit carmakers. We wanted to drive ourselves instead of be driven. Cities were hastily sprawling out further in every direction in plans that cateredto individual automobiles more than mass transit. The streetcar lines were torn up to make way for more buses and cars, and mass transit was more or less forgotten in Detroit for more than half a century.
Ironically, with the city of Detroit population at less than 1 million people, there has been a recent, more fervent push for a coherent mass transit plan for not just Detroit, but the entire Southeast Michigan area. The main arguments for mass transit are the lessening of traffic congestion, individual savings on gas (especially when it climbs into the $3.00 and $4.00 range) and overall ease of local commuting. Another reason for this is the nationwide and global push for more environmentally friendly forms of transportation. Since hybrid and electric cars are not the easiest or cheapest solution at the present time, there is a presumption that more people will be willing to ride commuter trains to save on our overall air quality. While it is proven to save fuel versus the same amount of people driving cars, the trick is to attract enough riders to where the system will pay for itself instead of being another government subsidy. Will this work in Detroit, an area with declining population, declining public revenue for transportation, and a general public not accustomed to riding commuter trains on a daily basis?
Some of the groundwork for this has already been laid. Federal stimulus funds are being tapped to improve existing rail lines between Detroit, Ann Arbor and Chicago. These rail lines are already capable of handling high speed trains above 80 mph, but with improvements will be able to handle trains up to 110 mph.
Another particularly interesting idea is a light rail loop, also in the planning stages, that would run, much as the old DUR lines did, down the center of Woodward Avenue. This planned line would be a system of smaller, bus-sized commuter trains running on embedded tracks from the New Center Area to Hart Plaza. This is hoped to be a catalyst for bringing people from the Wayne State and Cultural Center area to the theaters, stadiums and other nightlife downtown. This would really be a great connecting system if completed, filling in a lot of holes in the existing rail, street and bus system. If successful it could ideally be expanded to other main arteries like Michigan Avenue or Grand River to spur more traffic in development in these depressed areas. Theoretically, you could check out of the hotel at the RenCen, take the people mover to a light rail stop in the downtown area, and hop the light rail up to the Amtrak station uptown in the New Center area, and from there take a high speed Acela train from Detroit to Ann Arbor or even Chicago without getting in a car.
Taking my own, even more imaginitve (and costly) step into the future, why not open the Michigan Central Depot back up as the main railway entrance to Detroit? This grand old beauty of a building could ideally be brought back to life as a hotel and shopping destination for rail passengers and travelers just back from Canada via the Ambassador Bridge. This rail corrider also passes near Metro Airport, so why not make a railroad stop in Romulus and bring travelers into Detroit by high speed rail from the airport to the Rail Depot as a great welcoming gateway into the downtown? Link the Woodward light rail system
to the Rail Depot and bus service, and commuters would have an unprecedented number of options for getting from one destination to another. Not that we would abandon our cars at all, of course, but we do need more transportation options. It will make commuting easier and bring more jobs and workers into the city and suburbs. Visitors from other cities with mass transit would find more ways to see the city and thus give more options for getting around to more points of interest, and thus spending more tourist dollars. This would naturally apply to local tourists as well, those suburbanites who might be in Ferndale or Royal Oak and decide to leave their car North of Eight Mile and take the light rail downtown for a Tiger game on a summer evening.
Of course, the trick to this, as I stated above, and as it has always been for mass transit, is to first design a system that will be laid out in a useful way to promote the maximum ridership possible to pay for costs and maybe, here's a crazy idea- make a profit. Assuming enough Federal and State funds are available for all these grand plans, another hurdle will be getting the City of Detroit government to agree to a common plan and not stand as an obstacle, as it has done so well recently with putting a roadblock up against the Cobo Hall regional authority. The next round of elections in the city will be very telling as to whether any changes to City Council wil smooth over any meaningul development. Prospective mayors Dave Bing and Ken Cockrel Jr. both seem to at least be reasonable and mindful of the progress that needs to happen in Detroit. If these hurdles can be overcome, the future of mass transit rail in Detroit looks bright, and we may just see a return to the hubbub of streetcars and the romance of stepping off the 5:15 from Chicago at the platforms of the Michigan Central Depot.
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