 
Bc_n_dtown
Member
Username: Bc_n_dtown
Post Number: 51
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 6:03 pm: |    |
Professorscott,
one could probably say that the DSR underwent two peak periods during its 52 year history. One was during the pre-depression years, where the DSR experienced its highest ridership day ever in January of 1929, and the other during WW-II, primarily as a result of the economic industrial boom during the war, even setting new ridership records. Total passenger numbers for the DSR hit an all time peak of 492.2 million during FY 1945 (compared to 36.4 million who rode DDOT buses during FY 2006).
After the war, the DSR operated with just over 900 streetcars on 19 routes and just under 1,900 buses on 48 routes. Today, DDOT operates approximately 550 coaches on 45 bus lines. Timetables for that era are hard to come by since the DSR didn't begin offering individual route pocket schedules until around 1955. Most of that information would have to come from internal DSR records, a few of which still survive today.
Fortunately, I've been given a few DSR Schedule Analysis reports from 1950 thru 1955, that break down the service requirements for each line, by terminal and carhouse. These include information such as total number of runs, trippers, headway requirements and type of coach used, and even projects how much each line costs the DSR in overtime, spread time, pay hours, revenue hours, etc. As far as actual running times, the earliest I have are old Service Inspector headway reports from the early sixties, which of course don't include the streetcars.
For example: Take the Tireman line for "school open" service beginning Sept 6, 1950
It was assigned to the Wyoming Terminal; operated weekdays with 27 total runs; no trippers; required 20 units to operate during the AM, 16 during PM, and 9 during the base, 5-minute AM and PM headways, 10-minute headways during the base, and was assigned the small-size 31-pass Checker and Transit buses. One coach operated during owl service hours. Toady, the Tireman line operates with 40-minute headways during the peak hours and 60-minute headways during evening hours; three coaches operate during the day and two during evening hours. Of course, no 24-hour owl service.
btw—thanks for the comments about the web-site. It's an ongoing project of mine.
(Message edited by bc_n_dtown on February 13, 2008) |
Bc_n_dtown
Member
Username: Bc_n_dtown
Post Number: 52
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 6:41 pm: | |
quote:...DSR had at least a few "feeder lines" delivering people to and from the Grand River streetcar. Did the other major streetcar lines also have feeder-service bus routes?
Oh that's right Professorscott, you also asked about "feeder" bus lines.
Originally, 'all' DSR bus routes were short feeder lines only a few mile long. When the DSR's motor bus division began operations on January 1, 1925, the bus routes were to be used to provide feeder service to bring riders from the new outlying areas of the city to the streetcar lines. Some routes were just extensions of the streetcar lines. The city's first bus route "Mack" was as example of this. It was cheaper to send a bus out to the newly annexed territories than to extend the lines.
Except for a few express bus routes added in 1926 to supplement the streetcar service, the first regular bus route that serviced downtown wasn't until 1928, that's after about 60 small feeder bus routes had already been started. By 1928, the DSR began launching bus routes that traveled downtown—although a competing privately-owned company, the Detroit Motorbus Co., already had downtown routes since 1920. By 1928, the DSR's bus operation had grown tremendously, and by the 1930's many feared that the once rail oriented operation was becoming more and more focused on buses. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1090
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 8:12 pm: | |
Thanks! Great info. |
Miketoronto
Member
Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 778
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 9:04 pm: | |
Interesting info.
Question. How much transit ridership do the universities really get? Do suburban students really take SMART and DDOT to school? Or do most drive? |
Mwilbert
Member
Username: Mwilbert
Post Number: 89
Registered: 11-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 10:00 pm: | |
This is only slightly relevant, but I remember in the mid-70's one of the newspapers published information on how much each bus route took in per operating mile. Woodrow Wilson came in last, so it wasn't too surprising they eventually eliminated it.
Buses that run with an hour headway can still be useful IF THE BUSES RUN ON SCHEDULE. However, if you really have a 30% absenteeism rate, that isn't too likely. Maybe twenty years ago my mother, who doesn't drive and used to ride the bus a lot, called the DOT to ask about the schedule and was told that there was no schedule--not that there were no paper schedules, but that the buses weren't run on a schedule, so she couldn't be told what it was. Hopefully she was just talking to an ill-informed person.
I used to ride the Dexter bus all the time because it came really often. The Second or Hamilton buses ran faster though, so I would take those if they came first. One thing about the Dexter is that it has multiple endpoints. Once when I was about ten, I took the Dexter/Fenkell instead of the Dexter/Greenfield and was disconcerted when I ended up in the wrong place. I had no money, but the bus driver took pity on me and gave me a transfer so I could get home. |
English
Member
Username: English
Post Number: 666
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 10:43 pm: | |
When I was a rider during my teens and very early 20s (1991-1998), I found that the Dexter and Woodward lines were the fastest and the best. Anything running from the 'burbs to downtown was just great.
It was the crosstown busses that were terrible. Chicago-Davison was decent in the early 1990s, but by the time I was in college and working downtown during the summers, the bus only came "when it felt like it". 1-2 hours was a normal wait.
And don't get me started on some of the others. The Livernois bus is pure myth, like a unicorn. And I grew up 5-6 blocks away from the 'nois.
I'm sure DDOT reliability has eroded since I depended upon them. But I'm not too worried about this conversation. Peak oil and global warming means that a reckoning is coming soon. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1091
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 10:44 pm: | |
Mike, SMART and DDOT both serve WSU really well so lots of students take the bus. DDOT serves UDM well, but SMART doesn't serve it at all, so that limits it to students from DDOT communities such as Detroit, Dearborn and Southfield. SMART serves Oakland University, but miserably, and I have never seen more than one or two students get on or off the bus there. (The prof. gets around.)
Mwilbert, the days of the Dexter bus having multiple endpoints are pretty nearly ended; just about every bus northbound goes to Providence Hospital.
I disagree with one of your points. A bus running once an hour is miserable; you have to plan your day around the bus. I find if a bus runs every 20 minutes or better, I don't need to worry about the schedule, I just show up. If a bus runs every 30 minutes or worse, I have to worry about where I am and when since I don't want to eat a half hour out of my busy day idly waiting. Different people have different limits of tolerance.
I suspect if you took one of the DDOT 30 or 40 minute buses and doubled the service, ridership would go up quite a bit. But it's an empty argument; Detroit just hasn't got the money to improve service.
By the way, most of the time every bus I ride, DDOT and SMART, comes within a few minutes of when the schedule says it's supposed to be there. Not all the time, but nearly so. The service is not as bad as people seem to think it is. |
Miketoronto
Member
Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 779
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 10:59 pm: | |
Professorscott, that is interesting what you said about not worring about a schedule if the bus runs every 20min or less. I always thought 15min was the norm before people say they need a schedule. Anyway Toronto is working on a service improvment program, where this fall every bus in the system will operate every 20min or less(the majority of routes already operate about every 10min most of the time), from early morning till atleast 1:30AM. Right now some buses only operate every 30min. So I found your comment interesting.
I wonder what the percentage of Wayne State students who use transit is? It just does not seem like many suburban students could use SMART if they even wanted to, unless they live off Woodward.
As for DDOT, has their service improved in terms of having buses on time? I remember hearing a couple years ago that people would have to wait two hours for a bus that was suppose to come every 30min. But you don't hear those stories anymore.
And one final thing  I know this is not liked by people on here. But I would consolidate DDOT bus routes. I think we have to relize that Detroit does not have as many people as before, and DDOT might be able to provide better bus service by consolidating routes. You could for example consolidate two routes that operate only blocks from each other, and instead of having two routes on 30min service, have one route with 15min service.
I know it is not well thought of, but there are many routes in the DDOT system where consolidation could work, and residents would still be within a easy walk of the bus stop.
(Message edited by miketoronto on February 13, 2008) |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1092
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:00 pm: | |
By the way in Bc_n_dtown's example above, the Tireman bus is one of the worst lines in terms of service frequency, but in 1950 a daytime rider never had to wait more than 10 minutes. In 2007 there is only one bus - Woodward - with 10 minute or better mid-day frequency. Woodward and Grand River would have been, I suspect, one-minute lines in 1950.
DDOT has cut, according to one analysis I did, more than 25% of its route-miles per day just since 2000. This does not help if the city is trying to convince people to come back. I can get miserable, infrequent transit in the suburbs; I expect more than that from a big city. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5160
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:05 pm: | |
quote:Buses that run with an hour headway can still be useful IF THE BUSES RUN ON SCHEDULE. However, if you really have a 30% absenteeism rate, that isn't too likely. Maybe twenty years ago my mother, who doesn't drive and used to ride the bus a lot, called the DOT to ask about the schedule and was told that there was no schedule--not that there were no paper schedules, but that the buses weren't run on a schedule, so she couldn't be told what it was. Hopefully she was just talking to an ill-informed person. The 49 Vernor has headways of 30 minutes for most of their daytime runs. I think that four buses are used then. One sunny but somewhat cold autumn day, apparently only one of those drivers made it to work (or there were insufficient buses able to roll). The headways that day were over three hours, close to four, that whole day. That is not unusual for 60- to 90-minute headways instead of thirty for that route.
The libraries that have DDOT schedules on hand store them in the fiction or humor stacks in those libraries...
(Message edited by LivernoisYard on February 13, 2008) |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1093
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:08 pm: | |
Mike, SMART provides east-side service that comes into Detroit along Jefferson from the Pointes and Harper Woods and then runs up Woodward to WSU. Go to smartbus.org and check out routes 610 and 615. And if you come into town from anywhere else on SMART you're just a 10 minute DDOT ride from WSU on the Woodward bus which comes every 8 minutes and serves the Woodward campus buildings or the Dexter bus which comes every 12 minutes and serves the Cass campus buildings. Easy to do WSU on the bus. Not bad at UDM either, you just have to be within DDOT's service area already.
The route consolidation thing isn't workable according to the DDOT people I know because so much of its customer base is elderly or infirm. If you tell somebody in a wheelchair he has to go an extra four blocks to catch a bus, he probably can't catch the bus anymore at all. It's only an "easy walk" to the bus stop if you can walk. When I sprained my leg last spring, and had to use a cane for several weeks, a two-block walk was a complete impossibility, and I'm not that old and otherwise healthy.
DDOT needs more funding, as does SMART. Our only problem with transit is we don't put enough money into it. We are getting what we are paying for, frankly. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1094
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:11 pm: | |
Yes, LY, Vernor is a weird exception to the norm in my experience. I've never seen another line that had as many service problems as Vernor, and nobody seems to know why. I've had that same problem. Most days, every trip runs, but when that line gets messed up it gets wickedly messed up.
Shame, too, because it serves a really thriving and active part of the City, one of the few areas with a really good business district and lots of pedestrians. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5161
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:13 pm: | |
The 49 route is not black enough... |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1095
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:21 pm: | |
Now that I think about it, LY, Vernor is only a 30 minute line at peak hours, when the bus goes to the east side. Mid-day it's a 40 minute line, so if one bus is offline, you're up to 80 minutes. (There are only 2 buses on the line at mid-day, making the round trip from Ford to Capitol Park.)
I actually called DDOT one day, trying to go east from Ford where I was doing some consulting. The folks that answer the phones have some kind of screen where they can see the buses. The lady said to me, with some shock in her voice, "I'm sorry sir, there's no bus on that line at the moment!" I asked her if she could have someone call a supervisor and see if they could perhaps spare a bus from somewhere so I could get to Detroit; 20 minutes later a bus came. So disasters are possible.
Three times, I have talked to customer service (over the past three years) and have obtained buses where, for whatever reason, buses were not appearing. A recent case, very recent, the Wyoming line kept losing buses to the flood under Eagle Pass in Dearborn, so they took a Schaefer driver who was done for the day and paid him some OT to make a couple trips up and down Wyoming.
So yes there are problems, not frequently, but if you get a hold of the right person you can get things fixed, in my limited experience. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5162
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:25 pm: | |
The 49 Vernor went east to Alter from the Rouge in the past. So, you say it only goes between downtown and the Ford Rouge plant now?
(Message edited by LivernoisYard on February 13, 2008) |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1096
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:33 pm: | |
LY, at peak hours it runs from Mack/Alter to the Rouge plant and runs on a 30 minute schedule. I think, not sure, they have five buses on the line at those times. Mid-day and night service is from the Rouge plant to Capitol Park.
It's been that way since the last round of service cuts in 2006, which is also when the Grand Belt line (also serves the Ford plant) discontinued all non-peak service. I was on the Gratiot bus one day about noon and the driver saw a couple folks waiting in a shelter on East Grand Blvd., he stopped the bus and yelled to them to come over, then he explained to them they would be waiting about three and a half hours until the next bus appeared on that line. Sad state of affairs.
No bus to Belle Isle anymore, either, since last April I believe. |
Miketoronto
Member
Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 780
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:37 pm: | |
Professorscott, are you a "choice rider" of DDOT?
How does DDOT get away with not having buses on a route, or having buses only every 2 hours when they are suppose to come very 30 min? Don't the riders complain?
Man I worked for the transit authority here in Toronto for a while, and if a bus was two min late, people would call up demanding to know where it is, let alone two hours.
I can't believe there has not been a revolt yet.
(Message edited by miketoronto on February 13, 2008) |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5163
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:38 pm: | |
Nobody in GP takes the 49, and there's nobody living in that part of Detroit's East Side. Must be for school runs. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5164
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:44 pm: | |
Fortunately, DDOT doesn't have any meaningful rail. Some motormen would continually derail on it, closing it for a day or two at a time, and the NTSB would have to open a full-time Detroit office for that.
(Message edited by LivernoisYard on February 13, 2008) |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1097
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:49 pm: | |
Mike, Detroiters put up with a lot of shit we shouldn't put up with. Yes, I have a car and a valid driver's license, I ride DDOT and SMART because I don't like paying $3.10 for gas. By the way, I'm contributing to your economy right now; I'm drinking a Labatt's Blue which I believe came from the bottling plant in London.
The fact about DDOT is most buses come when they're supposed to. If things get really bad, they will usually find someone to cover a run, if anyone calls them which I suspect very few people do. I do.
LY, you're right about Grossey Pointey, those aren't the peeps on the 49. I think the population loss along Vernor and Charlevoix led to the reduced service. Mostly on the east side I see middle age folks, but there probably is a school run involved as you suggest. But wouldn't the school kids need service around 2:00 or 2:30? I think the east-side trips don't start back up until 3:00 or 3:30 or so. I have a Vernor schedule upstairs, I just don't feel like climbing stairs right now.
Funny comment about rail. You're probably right. I like the precision too, "doesn't have any meaningful rail", which is exactly how I feel about DPM. |
Chuckjav
Member
Username: Chuckjav
Post Number: 368
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 10:33 am: | |
From the late 1960s through the middle 1970s, while standing at Ward & Grand River (7:15 am), I could see the next eastbound Grand River bus approaching Schaefer; like clockwork...the iron pimp was on it's way. After a short ride on the GR coach, the wait for a southbound Wyoming bus was never more than ten-minutes.
At day's end, catching a northbound Wyoming bus across from Mackenzie High School (following swim or track practice) was a different story; waiting 15-20 minutes was not uncommon.
I enjoyed reading about the old short-run Hubbell (Cooley and Catholic Central HS) bus line; seeing the route card for the Meyers coach was pretty cool.
I was fortunate to have lived in Detroit at the very end of the city's Glory Days; I wish everyone who posts here could have been there. |
Living_in_the_d
Member
Username: Living_in_the_d
Post Number: 58
Registered: 01-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 10:55 am: | |
Yeah, I must say this thread has turned into one of the most interesting, fact filled posts that I have read in a long time. The amount of information presented is truly amazing, and relevent for today. Long Live D.D.O.T. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 3890
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 1:01 pm: | |
Meanwhile:
quote:Metro is planning three improvements in its bus service that make a lot of sense.
-- Expand the service that links Union Station and the Navy Yard Station. When the 41,000 seat Nationals Park opens at the end of March, there will be increased pressure on Metro to provide transportation for fans, and the Green Line can't do it all.
-- Expand service on Georgia Avenue's Metro Extra. Several routes were operating along Georgia Avenue when the Metro Extra (Metrobus Route 79) started in March. But the new route was designed to fill the needs of people who wanted a quicker trip along the avenue.
-- Create a daily, limited stop service linking the District with National Harbor. The huge new development on the Potomac River shore of Prince George's County, which is scheduled to partly open in March, needs a timely bus connection to the city.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com /getthere/2008/02/three_plans_ for_better_bus_ser.html
Detroit just gives parking lots to Mike Ilitch so he can charge $20 a car, yet people wonder why Detroit lags so much (and why there's seemingly never enough parking spots). |
Miketoronto
Member
Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 781
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 3:29 pm: | |
I know this is a talk on DDOT. But some great news was just announced in Toronto on the bus front.
"Two years of sardine-like packing onto TTC buses ends for transit riders on Sunday when the largest expansion in the city's transit history takes effect on 46 routes.
More service will be added to an additional 31 routes by the fall.
The new service, which will cost about $6 million, is expected to add another 15- to 20-million riders to the TTC this year. "
Anyway back to DDOT. When did things really start to go into decline with DDOT. Was it the 80's, or even before that?
(Message edited by miketoronto on February 14, 2008) |
Transitrider
Member
Username: Transitrider
Post Number: 44
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 4:06 pm: | |
As noted on the RPTC thread, DSR/DDOT's troubles have followed those of the city.
That said, the organization has surely made some decisions that have hastened both of their declines.
The GM-streetcar conspiracy is overstated at times, but what is lost in that discussion is that DSR officials were complicit in replacing streetcars with buses because some genuinely thought buses were "the wave of the future!" ignoring the maintenance, infrastructure and quality of life benefits lost. There's a Hall of Fame thread (I think) with pictures of planners' concepts for Detroit's freeways, with parks and children playing along the side of the idyllic "parkway"-looking highway. I think this gives us a glimpse of what kind of world those DSR commissioners thought they were building part of. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5171
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 4:24 pm: | |
The GM nonsense has already been studied in a number of urban-legend Web sites. There were usually only minority owners anyways. GM, with oodles of cash then, invested in all sorts of businesses. GM merely got into that sector of transportation lest another manufacturer beat them to it. They wanted to get the bulk of that bus building business for themselves, naturally.
Both passengers and the private and public transit companies favored bus coaches then. Just rerouting by buses to where the people had already moved and were moving. Besides, workers merely wanted to live closer to where the new jobs were. The businesses left first--like Ford in 1927 and many others. Some interurbans expanded somewhat in response, but they all soon failed... |
Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd
Post Number: 1889
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 4:36 pm: | |
Oh, yeah, the conspiracy charges didn't stick, but that doesn't mean GM didn't want to eliminate streetcars as competitors. In the company's own files, president Alfred P. Sloan created a special unit for the purpose of marginalizing light rail as early as 1922.
And others point out how the New York Railway was plagued with poor service and disinvestment after GM bought it in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Of course, National City Lines couldn't buy into the municipally owned DSR, but, in a city dominated by car-heads, there was likely little need to undermine their competition by buying and controlling and divesting.
Now, some would have us believe that GM was not interested in crushing its competition. That it was not actively working to rid the city streets of a competing mode of traffic. That, in a fiercely competitive country, where the spoils go to the victor, where ruthless people are in charge of companies that serve only their shareholders, that, somehow, just this once, GM was perfectly willing to let its buses and streetcars exist side by side.
Your choice which you want to believe. But beware those all too eager to call it "nonsense." |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 3891
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 4:40 pm: | |
quote:Both passengers and the private and public transit companies favored bus coaches then.
Hmmm. I've heard a lot of senior citizens (my own family included) remark wistfully about streetcars. Not once have I ever heard any of them talk about how excited they were when their streetcar line was replaced with a bus.
But of course, Livernoisyard has a stack of old surveys backing up his dogmatic "point". |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5172
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 4:51 pm: | |
Imagine those living beyond the tracks felt relieved, knowing that they would then get bus service. Some people were nostalgic for the streetcars, including me when my own streetcars were taken from me when I was fifteen by that big, bad bus company. I soon got over it.
Those streetcars were well known then for providing door-to-door service for the elderly and the handicapped--something that the buses could never do... |
Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd
Post Number: 1890
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 5:01 pm: | |
Streetcars never stopped people from getting bus service. Buses were the FEEDER routes for streetcars. But, of course, that contradicts the account of one mind's eye, so we'll just discard that inconvenient fact and go with the world according to LY, natch. |
Iheartthed
Member
Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 2679
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 5:09 pm: | |
quote:I think this gives us a glimpse of what kind of world those DSR commissioners thought they were building part of.
Or selling to the citizenry... |
Iheartthed
Member
Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 2680
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 5:13 pm: | |
quote:Man I worked for the transit authority here in Toronto for a while, and if a bus was two min late, people would call up demanding to know where it is, let alone two hours.
I can't believe there has not been a revolt yet.
There has been. Why do you think nobody uses it? |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5174
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 5:22 pm: | |
BTW, all the interurbans died during the 1910s to early 1930s but were not replaced by buses. Personal cars did the trick there. |
Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd
Post Number: 1891
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 5:24 pm: | |
Personal cars -- and government funded highways, roads, streets, highway commissions, concrete companies, all lavishly subsidized by taxpayer money.
In other words, dreaded socialism! |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1098
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Friday, February 15, 2008 - 12:57 am: | |
The City leaders in the middle of the last century had a vision of how a modern city could be built around private transportation. Nobody had any history for them to learn from, then, and I think most of them sincerely thought they were doing the right thing. Remember, many cities dismantled their public transportation to some degree during that time. We, arguably, went much farther than others.
Now, in the 21st century with all the history we know, to continue down a path of known failure is unconscionable. The "big city built around private automobile transportation" model is known to be a catastrophic failure; Detroit and the region is perhaps the best "textbook example" of that failure.
What's the old saying? "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" or something like that. |
Miketoronto
Member
Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 782
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, February 16, 2008 - 9:27 am: | |
Professorscott,
That is good you are a Choice Rider. We need more people like you.
I got a question about DDOT service. Is it true that on Sunday's most buses stop by 8PM except the Owl routes? |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1109
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, February 16, 2008 - 11:23 pm: | |
Mike,
Yes. Sunday service overall is fairly "thin" on both the DDOT and SMART systems. I don't know if I would say "most buses", but certainly most of the low-frequency routes only run from about 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays. If I were at University I could check; I have the entire current system schedule for both systems, but not here.
The routes that were Owl routes until 2006 still run 20 to 22 hours a day every day. So, for instance, the Fenkell bus (which used to be 24 hours) runs from 4 a.m. to 2 a.m. Since the Owl buses run hourly overnight, for the most part, that means they only eliminated one trip in each direction which can't have saved much money.
Cheers,
Prof. Scott |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 5222
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, February 16, 2008 - 11:41 pm: | |
Aren't there DDOT routes that don't run on Sundays at all, and yet others that don't run on Saturdays or Sundays? |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1111
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 12:54 am: | |
LY,
Yes. I can't remember which ones, but not every route is seven days a week, though most are. I think Holbrook is a weekday route. John R, which is gone now, was the oddest route; it was weekends only. SMART now provides service on John R, including local trips inside Detroit.
Grand Belt is the strangest; it is a peak-hour-only route Monday through Saturday, but an all-day service on Sunday. I'm not sure how something like that comes about.
Prof. Scott |
Bob
Member
Username: Bob
Post Number: 1680
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 11:32 am: | |
If you look at CTA in Chicago, there are bus lines that do not run on Sundays also. Schedules have to do with demand but also with finances. |
|
New threads cannot be started on this page. The threads above are previous posts made to this thread.