[LMich]

It's surprised me to such and extent that it seems to be Bing holding this up that I'm wondering if it's really him or someone else in the city's power structure using him as a proxy, or if there is something else deeper to this?

I mean, realistically, the funding split is something that could be easily ironed out. If it was done for Cobo, I'm not sure why he's being so adament about a regional authority for the transit system. This is not to mention that even when the funding split is changed, I can't imagine the county execs caring much about where transit money is spent since they generally don't care about transit, anyway. Sure, Patterson is going to push back on anything, but Ficano and whoever is in the revolving door of leadership that is Macomb County could either care less or genuinely want to be better connected to the central city.

It still remains unclear to me, unless I've just read over something in this years worth of talk, if SMART and DDOT are to be merged, of if an umbrella authority will simply exist over the top of them to dole out the money for them to subsequently dole out from their respective departments/organizations. It's always been my wish that they destroy BOTH of these departments and organizations and start from scratch, but I guess a step at a time is the more realistic outcome of this.