Transit Follies...Lessons from Detroit

Unfortunately, transit proposals brought forward by people who know little about transit are not as infrequent as one may hope. Two recent such proposals in Detroit - the Detroit Bus Company and the Detroit light rail project - have as their goal the provision of entertainment service to suburban residents (who would drive to a park-and-ride lot or the nearest station) even as severe transit cutbacks from the two providers in the city have literally stranded some transit dependent citizens at street corners and trapped others in their homes. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns, or rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Fortunately the truly dangerous one - the light rail line due to its requirement of federal funding - seems to be dead in the water. Since the Detroit Bus Company is totally privately funded, I wish the founder of it good luck - although it is too bad he did not decide to deploy his buses to replace some of the service that SMART and D-DOT cut to allow Detroit residents to attend night shift work in the suburbs. Learn more about these proposals .