A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
spoof of the Pure Michigan commercials, by John Kerfoot, highlighting the Q-Line transit system.
The QLine does need to be expanded to be useful, at least out to the old State Fairgrounds on 8 Mile, if not to Birmingham and Pontiac. Otherwise, it will become another People Mover, which just happens to be a (closed) Disneyland ride.
In a boon to passengers, the Kresge Foundation will cover all fares on the QLINE streetcar service for July and August to promote usage and build confidence in public transit in Detroit.
The donation, likely to total at least a couple of hundred thousand dollars, means that users of the QLINE will not have to pony up the announced $1.50 fare until after Labor Day.
And the extension of the free-ride period comes as the QLINE is making operational changes to lessen wait times and to speed up travel times, including training more drivers and eliminating stopping at stations where no one is waiting and no passengers wish to get off, much as many DDOT buses now operate.
“The QLINE holds much promise as an integral piece of a true regional transit system and we are invested in its long-term success” said Kresge President and CEO Rip Rapson. “With dozens of summer festivals and activities up and down the Woodward Corridor, our motivation to extend free fares is to expose every city and metro resident to the QLINE."
It may only travel three miles, but it's still free. Enjoy it while it lasts!
On the third Thursday in June, National Dump the Pump encourages people to ride public transportation instead of driving and save money.
When gas prices are high and the economy is tight, riding public transportation is a good alternative and an economical way to save money. Many Americans use local public transportation to commute to and from work, school, for shopping and errands, and even to make family visits. This can save you money on fuel along with wear and tear on your car. It can also possibly reduce your commute time and help reduce road congestion.
I've been a big booster of public transportation on this blog, promoting theregional transit planin a losing effort and cheering on the QLine/M1 Rail. The latter, at least, has happened and I can count it as a success. Follow over the jump for three videos from WXYZ on the first month of the light rail/21st century trolley's operation.
The best news about this project comes from the Detroit News...
“Construction progress continues on schedule,” said Paul Childs, chief operating officer of the M-1 Rail. “Speeder tests will be ongoing over the next few weeks, eventually covering the full 6.6 mile track. It’s one of nearly 1,000 tests we’ll be going through over the course of the project.”
Officials continue to shoot for early 2017 as the start of passenger operations on the line. M-1 Rail on Monday announced that the track installation is 83% complete, station construction 40% complete, traction power substations to provide power for the system is almost 40% complete, overhead catenary system is at 60%, with 85% of poles installed.
Local leaders are announcing a new push for regional rapid transit.
Adding the commuter train to Ann Arbor is a smart move. I know that Ann Arborites are train riders. When I took the train from Detroit (actually Pontiac) to Chicago, more than half the passengers got on and off at Ann Arbor.
“The launch of QLINE marks a significant moment in the development of Detroit. Quicken Loans is proud to play our part in the beginning stages of modernizing the transit system in our burgeoning urban core,” Jay Farner, president and chief marketing officer of Quicken Loans, said in a news release.
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In addition to the name, the QLINE logo was also released. It "features a stylized 'Q' in a design that symbolizes the connectivity accomplished through the rail line," according to a news release.
The project's supporters tout it as an economic development engine. Tweets from Quicken Loans and M-1 Rail touted prior projections that "Detroit’s modern streetcar is expected to ignite over $3 billion in economic development."
Sommer Woods, vice president of external affairs for M-1 Rail, the organization developing the project, predicted in a news release that “the QLINE will activate the sidewalks throughout the community, encouraging residents and visitors to experience all the neighborhood has to offer, from our cultural institutions, restaurants and small businesses, to Detroit’s entertainment district. The streetcar will create connectivity and serve all who live, work and play in Detroit.”
I hope both Quicken Loans and M-1 Rail, which will still use the name to operate the streetcar line, are both right about their predictions. I promise to update my readers either way.
Now I can turn my attention to the construction of the M1 streetcar, the other project that got a second chance. Here's to that story having as happy a conclusion as the transit center!
DETROIT, MI – Construction of the M1 Rail streetcar line officially begins Monday, July 28, and traffic in the lower Woodward Avenue area should get pretty hairy.
M1 Rail representatives said in an email Friday that work on the 3.3-mile lightrail line will close Woodward from Adams to Campus Martius Park for about 120 days.
As I was driving along Woodward downtown, I noticed how narrow the street was and wondered how the light rail line would be installed while keeping the street open. The answer is that the street will be closed. I'm glad I've been warned.
That was a useful video to watch, if only for the year when the previous light rail system was removed. I'm also heartened by all the optimistic projections of economic development downtown. It may not help as much as Penske and Duggan say, but overall the effects will be positive.
When I drove downtown for NetrootsNation and the water protests, I realized that I had never seen Detroit so full of life.* A large part of that were the crowds of Tiger Fans crossing Woodward and streaming into Comerica Park both nights. It looks like Red Wings fans in the winter will join Tigers fans in the spring and summer and Lions fans in the fall, turning the area into a year-round sports attraction. WXYZ has the video report in Closer look into new sports and entertainment district plans.
A gargantuan 3-year plan: 5 new neighborhoods, a $450 million hockey arena and an accelerated timeline to complete it all
A DRAMATIC TRANSFORMATION OF THE HEART OF DETROIT will begin in September, when the Ilitch family breaks ground on the construction of a $450 million Detroit Red Wings arena concurrently with another $200 million in apartments, restaurants, office buildings, parks and shops over 45 blocks. This is the city’s entertainment district, super-sized.
Planned is a gargantuan three-year construction project to create five new neighborhoods intended to stitch together the city where it’s divided by the trench-like Fisher Freeway underneath Woodward Avenue.
The 650,000-square-foot hockey and events center and the new neighborhoods — including hundreds of apartments to be built both outside Comerica Park and the new hockey arena — are scheduled to be ready by summer 2017.
I'd noticed the large vacant expanses between Foxtown and Midtown and wondered what would become of them. Now I know. I'm looking forward to seeing it completed, just in time for the M1 light rail to serve it.**
The federal government gave its final environmental clearance Monday for the M1 Rail line to begin its work to build a 3.3-mile streetcar line on Woodward between downtown Detroit and the New Center area, a move that the rail line’s leader called a significant step forward.
The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) completed its environmental review, allowing the project to proceed to its next phases: design, purchase of right-of-way along Woodward and then construction. M1 Rail officials said the decision marks the federal government’s seal of approval for the $140-million plan to build the rail line from Congress to just north of Grand Boulevard, with stops along the route. ... The environmental clearance wasn’t a surprise. The Obama administration has signaled its approval of the project, which had hinged on the creation of a Regional Transit Authority for southeast Michigan, created last year in an act by the Legislature.
The authority ultimately will have control over federal funding for the Detroit Department of Transportation and suburban SMART bus systems and will ask voters in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties as early as November 2014 for a new tax to help build a regional bus rapid-transit network.
Instead of this being about conflicts between the light rail and cars, this is about a conflict between the trolley cars and bikes. I actually find this to be a good sign. Here's to being able to cheer on both sides and hoping that both of them win.
I'm skeptical they can get a high-speed bus line up and running, either. And I predict that in the end they will scrap it, too.
And from what I just read at the Free Press website, I predict the City will be taken over by the State. Which probably means no buses, period.
What you all need there is some kind of metropolitan district commission.
As the above confluence of events demonstrates, it wasn't the prospect of a state takeover that killed the deal. The state takeover is about to happen, and the light rail is going forward. That means the buses will, too. Instead, the issue was the lack of a regional transit authority, which passed during the Inflamed Duck session. Once that happened, the funding returned. It looks like Ed-M proposed the right solution.
Meta note: I finally got around to creating an M1 label for entries about this project. I needed it.
A $25 million grant has been award to bring the M-1 Rail system to life.
That early report passes along the elite opinion about the announcement. In a follow-up, WXYZ reports the reaction of the people along Woodward, who are quite positive about the light rail line.
M-1 Rail funding announced
I'm with all the people interviewed in the segment. The M-1 light rail line will be good for business, it needs to be extended north of Midtown, and Detroit's public transportation pales next to Boston's.*
The federal support came after the state Legislature approved a regional transportation authority late last year that will be charged with reforming bus service in southeast Michigan, building a city-suburban network of rapid-transit buses and, perhaps later, wrapping in M-1 Rail and a wider network of rail. The region’s leaders fought for decades over how to create a regional transportation system, and LaHood said no federal money for rail transit would come without a transit authority being established.
As I wrote, some good came out of the Inflamed Duck session, along with all the bad.
* In fact, Detroit is way behind metropolitan Boston, so far that even when the light rail is completed, it will still be more than 35 years behind. I can attest to this personally. In 1979, I took a bus from downtown Waltham, which at the time was a far fringe suburb, to Cambridge, then got on the subway to Boston proper, where I walked around Boston Common and the Combat Zone, then returned to Waltham. The equivalent journey in Detroit today is just plain impossible and still would be in 2015 so long as the bus system doesn't expand.
The last time I wrote about the prospects for light rail, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was making encouraging noises at the 2012 NAIAS. This year, he's coming back with more than encouragement. Here's what crossed my feed last week.
From WXYZ-TV on YouTube comes this auspicious beginning to the North American International Auto Show.
Anchor Vic Faust speak[s] with United States Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at the auto show in Detroit.
Not only is Secretary LaHood talking about the auto industry and the show itself, but also about the revival of lightrail in Detroit. He sounds cautiously optimistic while he praises Mayor Bing and Governor Snyder. I hope he's right.
This morning, the Detroit newspapers had good news about two transit projects, Detroit light rail and the Troy transit center, that had been left for dead. It looks like both might happen anyway.
First, the news about light rail in Detroit from the Detroit Free Press.
Gov. Rick Snyder and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing insisted Friday that a light-rail line for Detroit is still possible, backtracking on their decision last month to pull passenger trains out of the mix of modernized transit options for the city.
Snyder and Bing said they're supporting a plan for a shorter rail line from downtown to New Center that would be built as part of an upgraded system of rapid-transit buses crisscrossing the city and suburbs.
"We see light rail as a part of regional transportation, so light rail is not dead," Bing said at a news conference at his office with Snyder and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "It's back on the table."
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The mayor and governor said a less-ambitious rail system, about 3.4 miles long, could still be built, largely with private funding through the M-1 Rail group of investors.
In order to secure federal funding, the group was given 90 days to produce a study showing it could make the line work.
So it's not a definite yes, but the project has the status of "not dead yet." That's cause for hope.
The City Council on Monday is expected to vote on a scaled-back proposal for the Troy Transit Center weeks after the panel failed to award a contract to begin the federally funded project.
The resolution released late Friday reduces expenditures by about $2 million and was proposed by Councilman Dane Slater. "The integrity of the project is still there," said Slater, adding the new plan is based on a smaller facility with fewer features.
"It's my hope that through these concessions we can get a majority vote on this project and move it forward."
The way this article is written, it seems that it might pass by one vote. That would be enough.
The leader of the largest private-sector investor in the abortive attempt to build a light rail line on Woodward Avenue in Detroit said Friday that he would press ahead with plans to build a train-based connection between downtown and the New Center despite Mayor Dave Bing and Gov. Rick Snyder putting their support instead behind a modernized system of bus-based rapid transit.
Rip Rapson, president and CEO of the Troy-based Kresge Foundation, said the M-1 group of private investors who initially wanted to build a 3.4-mile rail line between downtown and Grand Boulevard do not agree with the decision to kill off the rail line, which was later planned to extend north to 8 Mile Road.
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The Kresge Foundation had pledged $35 million of the roughly $100 million in seed money pledged for the $550 million rail project.
I wish these people luck. I'm not optimistic, but at least they're willing to put their money where their mouths are.
The aftermath of the Satan Sandwich is still going on, but it's not the only thing happening. Here's some good news from WXYZ.
The city of Detroit is hoping the M1 rail project will spur development in the city.
Detroit City Council President Pugh makes a cameo in this story from the Detroit Free Press as well.
Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh expressed concern that Mayor Dave Bing's administration has been heavy-handed with wealthy private investors and civic and philanthropic groups that have pledged $100 million in seed money for the Woodward project.
"My concern is that they're going to walk away because they don't feel like they're being heard," Pugh said after the meeting. "I want to make sure that doesn't happen."
Pugh said Bing and the region's elected officials need to meet to sort out the rail plans.
That's what the representative of the Obama Adminstration said as well.
Metro Detroit leaders need to settle differences over funding and managing regional transit, the Obama administration's transit chief told a gathering of civic and business leaders Monday.
Acknowledging the region's chronic inability to cooperate on public transportation, Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff sounded an optimistic tone, saying other cities have overcome similar obstacles to building regional transit.
Rogoff said President Barack Obama is committed to helping Detroit reinvent itself, in part through the $550-million Woodward Light Rail line between downtown and 8 Mile, envisioned as the first leg of a regional transit system.
It looks like that might actually be happening, as the municipalities in my neck of the woods, the suburbs along Woodward in southeast Oakland County, are interested in extending the Woodward Light Rail Line all the way up to downtown Birmingham. The Detroit Free Press reports.
Southern Oakland County communities are looking for a game changer to spur redevelopment.
And they are looking to Detroit.
The idea: expand the Motor City's planned light rail line north to encourage redevelopment along Woodward into the suburbs. The move, they say, could create better transit for the 120,000 residents of cities from Ferndale to Birmingham and generate wider regional support for modernized rail and bus transit to boost metro Detroit's economy.
The group, under the auspices of Royal Oak-based economic and community development group Woodward Avenue Action Association, is preparing to apply for a federal grant of perhaps $2.5 million for a study of expanded transit options in six Oakland cities: Ferndale, Royal Oak, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Berkley and Birmingham.
I think this is a great idea, not only as an advocate of public transportation in general, but as a potential user. If this extention goes through and I am still living in one of these six cities, which I plan on doing until I retire, I'll be able to walk to the route and catch a train that could take me anywhere along Woodward I'm likely to want to go. YAY!
Even better, this project might finally start the integration of the local bus transit systems, which badly need coordination. That might lead to better coordination between Detroit and its suburbs, particularly those in Oakland County. The conflict among local governments has been an ongoing stumbling block for solving the region's sustainable development needs, as shown by this paragraph.
The region's political leaders have yet to agree on how to manage a regional transit network that could involve merging the Detroit Department of Transportation and suburban SMART bus systems. Nor have they determined how to pay to build and operate a system that would almost certainly require a regional tax subsidy. Most major U.S. metropolitan areas levy such a tax.
One of the worst offenders has been Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson. It looks like he's getting on board with this idea as well.
Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said he would support expanded transit if voters are willing to pay to subsidize the system through a regional tax.
"My question all along has been: How much is it going to cost, and who's going to pay for it?" Patterson said. "If it comes, it will come with the will of the people."
In this conflict between sustainability and austerity, it looks like the will of the people in Detroit and its near Oakland County suburbs is starting to come down on the side of sustainability. I'll be leading the cheering for this welcome development.
