No Train for the Motor City

[wildmanjoe]

No Train for the Motor City

Link:

http://online.wsj.co...0265044228.html

DETROIT—After kicking the tires on a shiny new train system, the Motor City has decided to take the cheaper bus instead.

This week, the U.S. Department of Transportation and Mayor Dave Bing suddenly abandoned a roughly $600 million plan to build a light-rail line along a key corridor that supporters had insisted would attract new residents and jump-start economic growth. Instead, they proposed a less-expensive plan for a network of express buses to deliver workers from the city to the job-rich suburbs.

Even the express-bus system would require a level of regional cooperation on transit that has long eluded Detroit and its suburbs. The impoverished city is struggling to maintain its existing transit network, including a rickety, heavily subsidized bus system and a lonely elevated train that courses through downtown.

The uncertain future of mass transit is more than a passing concern in a city where one in three residents lives in poverty, and an estimated 62% don't own a car. At a time when hiring has perked up in the region, poor transit remains an obstacle to employment for many Detroiters.

"People are losing jobs because they can't reach them," said Mr. Bing, a Democrat.

Built by and for cars, Detroit is crisscrossed by freeways, but it has no subway system or commuter-rail line to connect its urban core to the suburbs. The few options for public transportation available to the city's 713,000 residents are disjointed, unreliable and going broke.

The bus system's aging, depleted fleet strains to meet demand across the 139-square-mile city, often forcing passengers, including schoolchildren, to wait more than a hour for a bus. A garage fire this month that destroyed six buses didn't help matters. The city pledges to add 66 new buses to its fleet of about 265 buses on the road, but that will take years.

Meanwhile, the People Mover train, which runs largely empty in a 2.9-mile loop around downtown, will need to tap $9.6 million of a reserve maintenance fund to keep operating for two more years, officials announced this week.

Dependent on this shaky system are riders like 31-year-old Martez Perkins, who works the overnight shift on the cleaning crew at a suburban grocery store. After work one morning last month, he was stranded halfway from home at the Rosa Parks Transit Center downtown by a one-day bus-driver strike.

Mr. Perkins takes two buses to and from work each day—one city bus and one in the suburban system—traveling 32 miles each way. Unsure when, or whether, the city bus will show, he said he arrives at his bus stop five hours before his shift begins. "As long as I have a job, I'm good," he said. "I just need them to run tomorrow so I still have one."

Less than two months ago, officials here were much more upbeat about transit upgrades as U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood met with Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder and Mr. Bing to announce a new task force on regional transportation.

Talking about the proposed "M1" light-rail line—named for the state-highway designation of Detroit's Woodward Avenue—Mr. LaHood pledged "unwavering" support and lauded its potential to spur job growth and expand mass transit throughout the region, despite sketchy ridership estimates. He vowed $46.7 million in federal transit grants to the city and state.

Local business leaders had a more limited plan in mind, a 3.2-mile privately funded rail line linking two busy commercial and cultural centers. But at the urging of the city and federal officials, organizers expanded the project to extend more than nine miles, from downtown to the city's northern boundary, sending the construction estimates toward $600 million.

Then, in a swift turnabout, Messrs. LaHood and Bing shifted their support to a 110-mile rapid-bus system connecting Detroit and three surrounding counties. In a briefing for Michigan's congressional delegation in Washington this week, Mr. LaHood described the estimated $500 million plan as a more cost-effective way to cover regional transit needs, people familiar with the matter said.

Ultimately, it was Detroit's crumbling finances that made the new rail line untenable. George Jackson, head of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., who recently reviewed the light-rail project for the city, said in an interview that the project had a $97 million construction-budget gap and no way to pay for the $10 million in annual operating costs. "The state of Michigan basically said, We're not paying for your operating deficits," he said.

[Drew Dowdell]

Fail

[William Maley]

I'm not surprised by this. Detroit has so many other problems to get through first before they even begin thinking about doing this.

[pow]

Why'd they move the jobs out to the suburbs in the first place??

[A Horse With No Name]

Fail

Agreed....and Detroit will continue to move backwards...

[SAmadei]

Why'd they move the jobs out to the suburbs in the first place??

Because highly skilled people don't want to visit war torn Detroit to earn a buck.

[loki]

they should have let the privately funded one take a shot instead of insisting it be bigger than the private interests thought useful....making it that much harder to plan/see real profit in it.