Detroit Subway Transportation (Hamtramck, Wayne, Highland Park: employment, neighbourhoods, university)

[MichiganMarkie8570]

Originally Posted by ThePage

Big cities like Detroit deserve to have underground trains such as the ones we have in New York, Washington DC etc. Detroit would be better served with underground connections stretching from
Metro Airport to all suburban cities. The problem is the Big Tree ( Chrysler, GM and Ford ) might thwart this idea.
Montreal Subway

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wn4bOWWUg8[/URL]

I will say this as someone born and raised in the D 'till I was 14....Detroit doesn't deserve anything at this point. NY, London, Chicago, Montreal etc. deserve subways because they have residents who use it to get to work and social events and it's useful....


Detroit is a mess, and I will wager to say that most people who actually live in Detroit aren't gonna use it to get to work because most people in Detroit proper don't work. Those people who work downtown, live in Sterling Heights...


If you finance it and pay for it's upkeep OP, I'm all for it.

[memph]

Originally Posted by 02blackgt

Here is a serious question, hypothetically speaking, if starting today Detroit (only inside city limits) was to build some massive, efficient, well-planned subway system similar to NYC do you think it would result in people and jobs flocking to the city, or it would end up being a huge waste of money? Would it change the course of the city in a positive forever, or would it be the nations most wasteful public works project yet?

Congestion is not too bad in Detroit so that makes for less of a need for an alternative to driving. I'm sure some lower income families and yuppies would appreciate it if it allows them to make to without a car (or manage as a one car household) but I don't think it would get huge ridership numbers.

It might make the housing in neighbourhoods near the subway more desirable and less prone to abandonment, but I don't think you'd see a huge boom throughout the city as a result.

[Retroit]

While I don't think Detroit is ready for subways, now that there is so much abandonment, it would be a good time to prepare for future subway lines by setting aside land for right-of-ways. Preferably, these lines would be away from the main thoroughfares to prevent traffic conflict. Once the population returns to Detroit (which I think it will in the next several decades), it will be easier to build these rail lines without having to use eminent domain to tear down recently built buildings.

[ThePage]

Originally Posted by MichiganMarkie8570

I will say this as someone born and raised in the D 'till I was 14....Detroit doesn't deserve anything at this point. NY, London, Chicago, Montreal etc. deserve subways because they have residents who use it to get to work and social events and it's useful....


Detroit is a mess, and I will wager to say that most people who actually live in Detroit aren't gonna use it to get to work because most people in Detroit proper don't work. Those people who work downtown, live in Sterling Heights...


If you finance it and pay for it's upkeep OP, I'm all for it.

Do not focus only on the city of Detroit, instead see the big picture METRO DETROIT.
Do you all know how much does a taxi cab cost from Waterford ( Just 5 or 6 mile north of Detroit city limit) to Metro Airport? almost $100 ! How much does a taxi cab cost from Downtown Detroit to Rochester ? between $75 and $90 in a cab from Detroit. Those cabs have the lowest rates in the metro area.
Experience the traffic jam on our freeways on rush hours .
On I-75 North ( from 9 Mile to University Drive by Chrysler HQ) is a nightmare between 4:00 PM and 6:30 PM
Not to count I-96 from Detroit to Livonia. Or 696 From the city of Southfield to Wixom exit .
I mean Detroit is a busy place were hundreds of thousands of people (workers, students, businessmen etc) are getting in and out everyday.
The bus system is a shame in Metro Detroit. No bus schedule or phone numbers at bus stops even in Oakland county.
In Montreal at a bus stop you call the transportation number, the system will give you the time the next bus will be at that stop, this is 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. And besides that you have the subway that is helpful especially in harsh winter.
What people are saying is Chrysler, GM, Ford plus the car dealer lobby and auto parts lobby are opposing that idea because they want people to always be on the edge buying those expensive cars and autoparts.

[WayneCounty]

I've seen this fantasy subway map of the Detroit metro around on the internet. Although I certainly cannot ever see a system like this come to the planning stages in our home today, it does make you ponder what the city would be like today if a subway system were built say 60 odd years ago.

[memph]

Problem is Metro Detroit is pretty spread out and decentralized with a lot of the destination retail and offices in auto-oriented settings. That Detroit Metro map has about 200 miles worth of subways (counting each line separately where there's interlining, otherwise maybe around 150 miles) and that's not counting the Windsor sections. Compare that to just 43 miles for the Montreal subway.

I agree with Retroit about reserving ROWs, even though I don't expect any subways on them any time soon, I could see some of them being used for light rail, commuter rail or intercity rail in the next few decades.

[WayneCounty]

Originally Posted by memph

Problem is Metro Detroit is pretty spread out and decentralized with a lot of the destination retail and offices in auto-oriented settings. That Detroit Metro map has about 200 miles worth of subways (counting each line separately where there's interlining, otherwise maybe around 150 miles) and that's not counting the Windsor sections. Compare that to just 43 miles for the Montreal subway.

I completely agree.

Originally Posted by WayneCounty

I feel Detroit is too spread out with low population density to make such an expense viable.

[MS313]

Originally Posted by MichiganMarkie8570

I will say this as someone born and raised in the D 'till I was 14....Detroit doesn't deserve anything at this point. NY, London, Chicago, Montreal etc. deserve subways because they have residents who use it to get to work and social events and it's useful....


Detroit is a mess, and I will wager to say that most people who actually live in Detroit aren't gonna use it to get to work because most people in Detroit proper don't work. Those people who work downtown, live in Sterling Heights...


If you finance it and pay for it's upkeep OP, I'm all for it.

Huh!?!? What in the hell are you talking about? Most people in Detroit proper do actually have to work for a living. There are plenty of people in Detroit who need to get to work, social events, ect like any other city. You don't think Detroiters have places to go? There are countless numbers of people I know that work HARD to provide for their family. DDOT has a daily ridership of over 80k, that's the city alone, add smart and it's probably over 100k. Most of these are people who have to use PT as a last resort, if we had a reliable regional transit system, many people wouldn't even be going out of their way to buy cars. Not only that, if there was some system in place that could get you to the other side of the region in about a half hour (not including time for buses but rail only) connecting major employment centers, shopping, and entertainment districts, the regional ridership numbers would probably triple. People could easily catch the bus to the nearest rail line, and even people with cars could "park and ride". Putting high speed rail on the Woodward corridor alone (Downtown to Pontiac in less than 30 minutes with 10 stops MAX) would be a huge step in the right direction. Or if they really want to be ambitious, a downtown to Ann Arbor train that goes straight through the airport (and it already helps that their building another outlet mall across from the airport btw).

Another incentive is the car insurance, I'm sure if given the option, some people in this region would ditch their cars (I wouldn't) and save a few thousand bucks a year, especially younger people. More people may even consider moving into/staying in the city if they could get to work faster than driving and save money on car insurance.

We have made excuse after excuse and the result? We are now behind most major metro areas in terms of public transportation, no more excuses of why our PT system hasn't made it to the 21st century yet. For a region that created a mode of transportation, it's embarrassing.

Problem is Metro Detroit is pretty spread out and decentralized with a lot of the destination retail and offices in auto-oriented settings. That Detroit Metro map has about 200 miles worth of subways (counting each line separately where there's interlining, otherwise maybe around 150 miles) and that's not counting the Windsor sections. Compare that to just 43 miles for the Montreal subway.

I agree with Retroit about reserving ROWs, even though I don't expect any subways on them any time soon, I could see some of them being used for light rail, commuter rail or intercity rail in the next few decades.

Again, look at many of the sunbelt cities, they are very spread out as well. Atlanta has a very low density in much of it's metro area. LA is the most spread out region I have ever been to. It's so bad that even the census have Riverside, CA counted as a separate metro area from the LA metro area but they are very much apart of the same region.

[memph]

Originally Posted by MS313

Again, look at many of the sunbelt cities, they are very spread out as well. Atlanta has a very low density in much of it's metro area. LA is the most spread out region I have ever been to. It's so bad that even the census have Riverside, CA counted as a separate metro area from the LA metro area but they are very much apart of the same region.

LA is still about 2x denser than metro Detroit throughout, and the densest parts are 3-4 times denser than the densest parts of Detroit, and that's just population density. I would say that most of the office parks and shopping in LA aren't nearly as sprawly as in metro Detroit.

And Atlanta still has about 2x as much office space in its dense urban CBDs as metro Detroit, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a similar difference with the retail situation.

Plus just because Atlanta has rapid transit that has provided benefits, doesn't mean it was worth the cost. Atlanta still has about 1/5 of the ridership Montreal and Toronto have despite a similar sized system. And the cost might be different from what it would be in Detroit too.

[gwillyfromphilly]

I don't normally post on the Detroit forum but I felt I had to weigh my opinion on this subject. Subway systems are expensive to construct. Even the fastest growing cities like Houston, Phoenix, and Charlotte will probably never build a subway system. Also add to the fact that American culture has a very "anti-mass transit" sentiment that started back in the 1950's. In many other first world nations, subway systems are seen as a "necessity" as oppose to being a "luxury" for a major city. Most of the US cities that already have subway systems, were built before the 1930's. It would be nice for Detroit to have a subway system to complement the successful monorail system but I think it would be too expensive unless the Detroit suburbs help out on some of the funding. I'm so glad Philly built its 4 subway lines when it did. It would be much more difficult if Philly wanted to build a subway system for the first time in modern day America. Too many obstacles and red tape to deal with.