  Erikd Member Username: Erikd Post Number: 909 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: Livernoisyard, Since you specifically mentioned the Troy shuttle and the SMART service in Troy as some kind of realistic transportation option, I would like to challenge this assertion. I will bet that you cannot commute from a Detroit neighborhood (outside of a few select locations in downtown or midtown) to a job in Troy, five days a week, for just 90 days, using nothing but the bus system, and arrive at work on time every day. If you can accomplish this feat, I will gladly proclaim our public transportation system to be "good enough", I will stop advocating for improved mass transit, and I will buy you one of those great $200 cars as a reward. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4330 Registered: 10-2004 |
My, my, my! All that bitching about DDOT and SMART... If those two agencies cannot even get their own acts together, just how could any or both of them be expected to put together, fund, and operate an even more ambitious mass and rapid transit system? And stay within budget. It seems as if E is shooting himself in the foot and essentially admitting that the governmental agencies in metro Detroit are simply way too incompetent to run much of anything. Besides, eventually there won't be too many jobs to worry about getting to if economic conditions continue deteriorating as they're doing now. Obviously, the city of Detroit--which contained the bulk of the region's economy eighty years ago when it started to become unglued--is clearly not attracting any businesses for its own residents. All that land and (vacant) buildings, yet so few jobs and job prospects... (Message edited by LivernoisYard on October 14, 2007) | ||
Erikd Member Username: Erikd Post Number: 910 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: This is one aspect of the situation that we seem to agree on... I agree that these two systems can't get their acts together. I agree that these two systems can't put together, fund, and operate more ambitious transit system. We agree that the current dual transit system doesn't work very well. It seems the difference in our opinions is what should be done about it... When I look at our broken transit situation, I see an opportunity for vast service improvement, and better use of our tax dollars. This could easily happen with a modicum of regional cooperation, and a merger or replacement of the competing systems to create one regional system. quote: I admit that many of the governmental agencies in metro Detroit are not doing a good job of providing the local taxpayers with the most benefit for our tax dollars. I think it is a disgrace that Michigan is still a donor state. I am disgusted by the fact that Michigan taxpayers only recoup a meager 43% of the mass transit funding that we send to Washington. Don't confuse my recognition of our past (and current) failures as a sign of apathy or hopelessness. I am simply advocating a change in mindset that would help improve the way we do things. | ||
Tigers2005 Member Username: Tigers2005 Post Number: 145 Registered: 02-2005 |
Kid_D I was reading through this thread and thought the same thing. Why the hell is Perfectgentleman even posting on this site. He made a comment that said something like (paraphrasing) 'the bus doesn't go anywhere I want to go anyway'. The bus system goes in and around Detroit, which is what this forum is all about. If this is not someplace you want to be, why do you comment on it? To tell us how bad it is here? I've got news for you, we all know it isn't that great here now. The one thing that we (almost) all have in common on this forum is that we see so much potential in Detroit, and want to discuss the possible solutions for its revitalization. Public transit is not something that this area wants, it is something that we NEED. It is not the answer to all of our problems. It is one piece in the puzzle. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4342 Registered: 10-2004 |
quote:An easy remedy for that imbalance would be to curtail spending on mass transit elsewhere. That would necessarily raise the meager 43% to, hopefully, a much higher figure. | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 3475 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: Kiss my ass. And I mean that in the nicest way. Your ingenious "solution" for boosting Michigan's statistics is to effectively cripple the economies of cities that rely on transit. You would so much as propose that New York, DC, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and Philadelphia shut down entirely just so Michigan has better statistics? Brilliant! Of course, as someone who is intentionally transit-dependent, I can't help but take such a comment personally--you'd deny people economic opportunties and vibrant, densely populated urban neighborhoods, just so you could have a few bucks more a year in your pocket. What the hell was I thinking? That strategy has worked brilliantly in Detroit for the past 50 years, hasn't it? (Message edited by DaninDC on October 15, 2007) | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 1026 Registered: 06-2004 |
Have you ever seen these maps from the 1950s and 1970s that depict what the bastards wanted to do to DC and SF? Here's one for SF. If you know the city, you so vididly realize the destruction these monsters would have wrought, with so many great areas ruined. As it is, they actually tore down a big downtown freeway that was damaged during a 1989 earthquake (God bless them). The also took down an intrusive extension of 101 in 2004. What we're these planners thinking? Of course, Detroit eagerly built every freeway suggested.  | ||
Jerome81 Member Username: Jerome81 Post Number: 1632 Registered: 11-2003 |
I haven't read all 5 pages (I gotta go to sleep!••• but I will just add this. I currently live in Chicago, and work in the suburbs. However, METRA is an option, though I have to bike about a mile to the office. 2 weeks ago my clutch went out and I was without my car for a week. Took the train, hitched rides, etc. It SUCKED. Maybe if I lived near the L and worked in the loop I could deal with it. I actually considered selling my car (thinking I could do metra and all that, not need a parking space, and save money). Man, am i convinced that would have been a huge mistake. I can drive to work in 30 minutes. The METRA takes 45 station to station. That doesn't include the 10 minutes to get to LaSalle and the 5 it would take me to bike to the office. then there is the weather. But the worst part? Not having the OPTION to use the car. I love to take the L or Metra when it makes sense, but I HATED not having the car when I wanted to use it. Face it, transit options are great. I use them when they work well. But I can now understand a whole lot more clearly why Americans love our cars and pay a gazillion dollars a year to drive them (especially in a big, dense city). It is about the freedom, when you want it. Doesn't mean transit isn't worth it (I think its hugely important, so that when we want to use it we can, and so that those who are less fortunate can get around too), its just that it needs to work together with cars. I remember being on the bus one day when the car was broken, with many folks who seemed to be barely scraping by, and thinking to myself "I could totally take the bus and train everyday, but I am so thankful that I'm fortunate enough to have the CHOICE to take the bus,train, or my car". Even as common as the car has become in America, it really is still that sense of freedom that makes us all love it so much. But yeah, if I couldn't afford the car, I wouldn't have it. Same as Europeans. Same as low-income folks in the US. Transit is important!•• | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4349 Registered: 10-2004 |
Detroit's a lot like a terminal cancer victim. It takes three or four decades to die of smoking via cancer unless the heart gives out first. Detroit had ample times to built a better transit system back when it was a wealthy city/region, flush with cash. But, it procrastinated and never bothered. Its population and wealth peaked about eighty years ago and since then has been living off its wealth until it no longer has any left. How come there's no ground swell in or around Detroit for rapid transit? Why is much of that noise coming from people with no vested financial interest in it and living hundreds of miles away from Michigan, to boot? If any advisory transit referendum were ever put to the voters about building a rapid system, it might pass, especially if the electorate was ill advised as to the ultimate funding of any rail system. BOTOH, if the locals were to vote on it while knowing that it would be very expensive to install and would cost far more than the systems they already have, I predict that any referendum on rapid transit would go down in flames. No significant percentage of Detroiters want rapid transit and even less of the suburbanites would want to pay for something they would probably only rarely ride. Maybe once in a blue moon, just for the novelty of it. | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 3476 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: You mean like SMART, which usually passes its millages by comfortable margins? | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4363 Registered: 10-2004 |
Only 2% of Livonians were reported in the Detroit News to ride SMART, so they axed SMART and implemented some type of local service as Troy does supplementally in addition to SMART, although not quite as well. A lot of Detroit's outer ring of burbs have little to no SMART service, BTW. And few exburbs have any service, except out along maybe three lines--Pontiac, Mount Clemens, and a tiny part of Wixom. And, of course, the closest thing to rapid transit anywhere is the PM toy. So, what about the majority of the US that has no transit of any kind? What should be done there? Nothing, I hope, as they've managed all these decades without ever falling off the planet. Public transportation is not a right, so quit whining because Detroit won't go choo-choo, other than a possible experimental line to AA, paralleling what Amtrak does thrice daily. I believe Patterson when he said that the Detroit/Ann Arbor run would not have sufficient riders to justify the expense. AA has a decent, actually much better, bus system than either SMART or DDOT. All what's needed to connect to SMART is extending one or both of SMART or AA's systems a handful of miles so that they do connect. No need to spend millions and buy/lease trains, etc. | ||
Toledolaw05 Member Username: Toledolaw05 Post Number: 90 Registered: 04-2006 |
Undaunted by a $102 million price tag, five Cincinnati City Council members Tuesday voted to push forward with plans for a streetcar line from Freedom Way in downtown to McMicken Avenue in Over-the-Rhine. http://news.enquirer.com/apps/ pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071017 /NEWS01/710170375 | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 3478 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: So, participation in the economy should be limited to people who can afford (or choose to afford) a minimum $6000 a year to maintain a private vehicle? quote: This doesn't solve the problem with transit in Detroit, namely that it takes inordinate amounts of time for residents of the core city to get to jobs in the suburbs. I really don't think you understand or appreciate just how economically noncompetitive Southeast Michigan is because of its lack of transit. | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 1895 Registered: 04-2006 |
I really don't think you understand or appreciate just how economically noncompetitive Southeast Michigan is because of its lack of transit. That's hogwash! Everybody knows it's the taxes! | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4366 Registered: 10-2004 |
quote: Comrade, you surely cannot expect to be taken seriously if you really believe that this is the typical annual operating expense for vehicle operation around here--even considering the high insurance rates in the city of Detroit. And for those confronting high rates due to lousy driving records, etc., why just move closer to work? Housing is relatively cheap in metro Detroit. In case there are any like that, they should move out of the ghetto of Detroit. DDC, you're showing more and more lately just how irrational your BS and propaganda is. | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 3128 Registered: 10-2003 |
$200 a month to lease = $2400 a year. $20 a week in gas = 1040 a year. $1200 a year auto insurance $4640 a year. You could easily pay more by having a higher car payment, spending more on gas, and higher insurance rates. I don't think his $6000 is that unrealistic at all. | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 880 Registered: 12-2006 |
I don't know anybody who is spending only $20 a week in gas. I spend that much on gas the weeks that I take the bus every day, just because the bus doesn't go everywhere I have to go. And LY: "The majority of the US has no transit"? Really? If you mean the majority of the land mass of the US, sure. I doubt there's much transit in Montana or North Dakota. But if you mean the majority of the population, I would guess that a significant majority of the population has access to bus transit and a pretty high number, perhaps half and perhaps not, has access to bus and rapid transit. Detroit, the region, continues to have the worst public transportation of any big-city region in North America, and if some of my fellow bloggers think that is okay, I will look around at the results we are getting and decide to respectfully disagree. "Respectfully" is important, by the way. The ad hominem attacks in here are tiresome and unhelpful. If you must attack someone in this way, please attack me, since I don't lose any sleep over others' opinions of me. (Can't: wouldn't get any sleep at all otherwise.) | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 3479 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: Do the math. Maybe you should be telling AAA just how wrong they are, and not me. For what it's worth--AAA isn't exactly an advocate of public transportation. www.aaaexchange.com/Assets/Fil es/20073261133460.YourDrivingC osts2007.pdf Just because you say something repeatedly, doesn't make it so. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4367 Registered: 10-2004 |
Those who have $7/hr work skills aren't purchasing new cars. So, they would obviously have an older used car. Used cars and trucks are plentiful in the Motor City, BTW. Buying one for a grand or less is commonplace. If it lasts three years, a $1000 car depreciates to its ~$100 salvage value at the rate of $300/yr. Then figure in the fuel and insurance costs and see if the total costs come anywhere near $6000/yr. Also, consider carpooling with coworkers over ownership and then just share in the transportation costs, etc. Or, just take the bus and walk/ride from the closest bus stop. All SMART buses have provisions for hauling two bikes. Few riders bike and ride. Cherry pick some AAA stats all you want. Those stats probably were based upon purchasing a vehicle new and such every few years, etc. So, compare apples with squash all you want in order to justify your $6000 annual figure... | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 3481 Registered: 10-2003 |
So answer my question, LYard. Is it that every other city is just stupider than Detroit for throwing money at public transportation? Or what? How do you possibly claim that public transportation is a waste of money when 15% of Detroiters are unemployed? You sure have the answers (no matter how much shit you fabricate to arrive at them). Let's hear your explanation. And for what it's worth--those $1000 hoopties wouldn't pass inspection, if Michigan actually cared about such things as safety on the highways. | ||
Jjw Member Username: Jjw Post Number: 476 Registered: 10-2005 |
http://epodunk.com/top10/publi c_transit.html --Information on cities using mass transit. thought it interesting to add to the debate. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4369 Registered: 10-2004 |
quote:I lived on farms for a couple decades, so BS like DDC's manure would be hard to get by a simple smell test w/o being detected. Hint: You're the one trying to justify a region's going deeply into hock over something its residents don't want and won't use if it existed. Call my rationales what you want, you just don't have the solutions that you think you have. While you're at it, assuming that Detroit has active proponents for rapid transit (not mass transit), name its top ten proponents and then tell us how much suck they have on effecting any changes. | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 3482 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: Who did you ask? You keep saying you'd like to see this go for a vote. What are you afraid of? Come on--why don't you start circulating a petition to put an Initiative on the ballot? And deeply into hock? I think you read my post above stating that the Washington Metropolitan Area achieves a 19% ANNUAL return on investment from the Metro system. How can Detroit NOT afford to build a rail transit system? What's the ROI for the overbuilt freeway system? You amaze me, though, because you can make snap judgments on cost when you don't even know what the costs are. You must be some kind of clairvoyant. quote: Oddly enough, "my" solutions help people get to jobs--just not in Detroit. It's obvious that the strategies employed for the past 60 years in Detroit aren't working. Why do you demand more of the same? I'd like to think you're not that much of an idiot, but you're quickly proving me wrong. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4370 Registered: 10-2004 |
Yawn! Those jobs that DDC jabbers about would have few problems being filled by others if they suddenly became available. Unskilled-labor jobs around here don't need much advertising to fill. Seeing help wanted signs are a rarity around here. They'd see to it that they got to work using the alternatives that do exist. Those possessing job skills in demand just don't seem to be complaining about getting to work, DDC. They must like driving and all--even if they complain about mild traffic jams occasionally. Maybe, you could fill us in about them too... But again, you must be on their secret wavelengths and you are able to communicate with them and you know their critical needs and... | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4374 Registered: 10-2004 |
Jjw: Your source yielded these stats for those using public transit to get to/from work (from 2004): Wayne County: 3% Macomb County: 0% Oakland County: 1% Washtenaw County: 4% DC: 37% NYC: 55% How difficult (Message edited by LivernoisYard on October 18, 2007) | ||
Jjw Member Username: Jjw Post Number: 478 Registered: 10-2005 |
very difficult. However, the stats do show that when decent public transit is a viable alternative, people do use it. I mentioned in an earlier thread that when I was in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic last May, they were building a subway system. It still amazes me that a poor country can do that but our country can't. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4375 Registered: 10-2004 |
The stat for Macomb was somewhat surprising: fewer than one worker per two hundred uses public transit. About the only time one hears about mass transit in Detroit seems to be those slow news days when the papers or a radio/TV station might bring it up. Back when I spent a dozen years in commercial AM/FM/TV broadcasting, prerecorded accounts of things like that were stored away as stock footage and dusted off from time to time in order to fill time when nothing else was available... (Message edited by LivernoisYard on October 18, 2007) | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 3483 Registered: 10-2003 |
People aren't going to ride transit if it barely exists. Look at the table in the link provided by Jjw. Is it any surprise that the highest percentages of transit ridership are in cities with well-developed systems? | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 1903 Registered: 04-2006 |
Jjw: Your source yielded these stats for those using public transit to get to/from work (from 2004): Wayne County: 3% Macomb County: 0% Oakland County: 1% Washtenaw County: 4% DC: 37% NYC: 55% How difficult might will it be in order to convince those not using public transit in Michigan to ride the bus/train? Actually, this is doesn't tell the entire story. In NYC, the wiki quotes a daily ridership of 5,076,000 (which would be over 61% of NYC's population) but this ridership number also includes people who commute in from the suburbs and then transfer onto the NYC subway. This is also only the number for the NYC subway, there are other train systems (like the PATH train) which aren't a part of the NYC subway system, but get heavy ridership. How many examples of subway systems are there that have not been "successful"? | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4377 Registered: 10-2004 |
So, how is ridership determined? Two fares = 1 ridership unit? If so, if someone bought four fares for some reason or another that day, he would be counted twice. |
