Huge, huge news for Metro Detroit transit.
So, Wayne County Exec Warren Evans was expected to announce a pared-down transit millage to the RTA, and originally it was thought he'd cut out Oakland and Macomb counties altogether, but that was never the case. Well, he flipped it on everyone. He is proposing a system even more expansive than the one that very narrowly failed in 2016. It'll be hard to get it on the ballot, but I like this guy's ambition. The only problem with the last one was the year in which it was on the ballot. It'd have passed in any other year. I like this "go big or go home" approach.
Quote:
New $5.4B regional transit plan costs more, adds more destinations
By Eric D. Lawrence | Detroit Free Press
March 15, 2018
A new 1.5-mill, 20-year metro Detroit regional transit plan Wayne County Executive Warren Evans presented Thursday promises more service for more areas in southeast Michigan than the plan rejected by voters in 2016.
But with potential political opposition from officials in Oakland and Macomb counties and a higher cost than the previous effort, the plan that Evans is presenting to the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan board will have substantial hurdles to overcome if it is to make the November ballot.
https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...ans/427741002/
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Called "Connect Southeast Michigan," the plan does:
Quote:
The latest proposal steps away from the high-level bus rapid transit — sometimes described as light rail on wheels — promised in 2016 on three corridors, replacing it with 15 bus routes at 15-minute frequencies during peak hours on 10 of those and for 14 hours per day on five key corridors (two of those would be at 10-minute frequencies). Commuter rail between Detroit and Ann Arbor remains from 2016, along with airport express and additional services, such as new commuter routes and 15 park-and-ride lots.
In addition to having Woodward, Gratiot and Michigan as key corridors, the proposal adds Grand River and Mound/Van Dyke as the routes with the most premium service, including an additional $1.5 million per mile in infrastructure upgrades.
Additional money — $30 million per year — for locally designed transit in out-county areas not served by fixed-route services and 15-minute frequency lines during peak hours farther from Detroit, such as on 23 Mile in Oakland and Macomb counties, appears designed to answer critics in those counties who have asked what they would get for their money. The "core area" of the region would get $20 million per year for flexible mobility.
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Though this wouldn't include BRT, it would in fact spread more of the money across more routes making transit in general - and not just on the previous BRT corridors - faster. It would do this with traffic signal prioritization for even regular buses. More than this, with taking out the BRT portion it frees up money to increase the frequency of the commuter rail between Detroit and Ann Arbor. Initially proposed at 8 trips per day, money would be put toward it to get it up to
20 trips per day. The biggest change of all would finally be the administrative merging of DDOT, SMART and the RTA. It sounds like they'd still operate as seperate entities as it relates to operations, but would share administration and be under one brand.
I really, really,
really like the sound of this. I wasn't ever a big fan of the BRT in the first place. This skips that steps with I believe the ultimate (unsaid) goal of being to get rail once everything is in place and working.
The biggest deal? The Detroit Chamber has come out in full support of sending this to the voters.