  Sg9018 Member Username: Sg9018 Post Number: 27 Registered: 10-2006 |
I just read artice about a other transit struggle city (Milwaukee) According to many national research and studies Detroit and Milwaukee is the only major metro areas where there is no regional transit authority or dedicated funding. Link, http://www.jsonline.com/story/ index.aspx?id=652806 I also read there this Detroit Transit Authority named DARTA.http://www.darta.info/ After reading this information on Detroit transit I have several questions. First on transit funding, Without dedicated funding how does Michigan, Metro Detroit and The City of Detroit pay for SMART and DDOT bus systems? With no dedicated funding is SMART and/or DDOT in financial trouble( budget cuts,route cuts) now or in projected years? Is there any funding plan to bring dedicated funding in Metro Detroit transit systems? Does the way Metro Detroit fund transit places a burden on the local budgets and the state financial problems? Does any one fells that Metro Detroit transit funding needs a overhal? If yes how can the state and metro area can fix transit funding? Now DARTA What is DARTA? Does DARTA control anything about SMART and DDOT or the transit studies(DDOT light rail,Ann Arbor to Detroit Line, etc) ? Who is in change of DARTA? How is DARTA funded if funded at all? Will DARTA ever take over SMART and DDOT bus lines and get also control future transit (rail,BRT)? Hopefully transit in Detroit and Milwaukee will get better soon. There are many groups and studies to bring transit in Merto Detroit. Combined with new transit centers like Rosa Parks, the one in Troy and many others. Transportation Riders United (TRU) http://www.detroittransit.org/ index.php Ann Arbor to Detroit http://www.annarbordetroitrapi dtransitstudy.com/ Detroit Area Rapid Transit Study http://www.dtogs.com/main.html Freep article Council launches mass transit study http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs .dll/article?AID=/20070829/NEW S05/70829048/1001/NEWS I feel this is the best time in many years Metro Detroit have for transit. Detroit and Milwaukee need to connect buses with rail and with dedicated funding. The time is now for transit. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3866 Registered: 10-2004 |
Federal funding was meant for paying a hefty share of the capital (start-up, etc.) costs. But the operating costs were to be the problem of the local transit system or the state, if it cares to fund a locality. It appears that the OP wants funding for operating costs too? Or was that just my faulted assumption? If I may be a bit skeptical... It appears as if the OP isn't the transit novice he/she is portraying himself to be. But instead is an ardent rapid-transit proponent. Somehow, there were just too many pointedly directed links and such for a rank beginner to have gathered and presented... But, of course, I might be wrong. | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 1407 Registered: 04-2006 |
"Detroit and Milwaukee is the only major metro areas where there is no regional transit authority or dedicated funding." Not true, SMART has a regional transit millage and DDOT uses property taxes to pay for DDOT. The story has a tropic of its stupid for Cities to run bus systems. In terms of the only Cities, well if Milwaukee counts as a major city, where does that put bus only towns like Phoenix, Toledo, Columbus, Cincinatti, Indianapolis? I am sure there are a billion more examples that don't pop out at me. (Kanasa City maybe?). DARTA is not the regional authority. It was struck down by the courts several years ago. It is better to look at the Regional Transit Coordinating Committee (Run by the old State Fair Chief) for answers. I have to agree with LY. Looks like soeone is on a fishing trip. Looked for an article that vaguely said what he wanted it to say, added some facts to persuade. Someone who talks too much about transit funding should know there is no DARTA and there never was one. It was a noble step made by SEMCOG and the Regional Chamber that fell flat due to politics. (Message edited by Detroitplanner on September 07, 2007) | ||
Miketoronto Member Username: Miketoronto Post Number: 659 Registered: 07-2004 |
Milwaukee's transit is pretty regional. The Milwaukee County Transit system is one bus network that serves all of Milwaukee County, which is basically most of Metro Milwaukee. While not the best by any means, Milwaukee County Transit is pretty good with their services. According to MCT provides "regularly scheduled transit service within a quarter-mile walking distance of 85% of Milwaukee County residents(city and suburbs)" "Nearly 70% of riders have access to an automobile but choose to ride the bus instead" So not bad for a bus only system. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3869 Registered: 10-2004 |
Milwaukee County extends to the west only to 124th Street. As a teenager, my family lived at approximately 157th and Burleigh Place in Brookfield (Waukesha County--a posh suburb much like Plymouth Twp. or Northville). During the 1960s, the bus system only went to 92nd and Burleigh or to 109th and Capitol Drive--one mile north of Burleigh. Back then, I had to hitchhike or walk the final four miles from the closest bus stop on my way home from high school--Marquette University HS at 35th and Wisconsin Avenue--some ten miles in total. Elmbrook--the two posh western burbs of Elm Grove and Brookfield--is 36 square miles--much the size of Livonia. And I don't know how far the bus service extends today out towards the west burbs. I seriously doubt if the wealthy out that way would ever ride the bus much, IMO. So providing bus service out there would probably amount to a colossal waste of public funding. | ||
Miketoronto Member Username: Miketoronto Post Number: 660 Registered: 07-2004 |
You can check out the map at http://www.ridemcts.com/files/ SystemMap.pdf It looks like there is one route to Elm Grove, by the looks of the map. The route goes to Brookfield Square Mall. No matter what, Metro Milwaukee residents still have way better access to transit then Metro Detroiter's. 85% of Metro Detroits are not within walking distance of full service bus routes, like Milwaukee County is. | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 719 Registered: 12-2006 |
Actually, if we define a "full service bus route" as one that runs all day and well into the evening and provides better than once-per-hour service, then I would say: 1. A significant number of Detroit (City of) residents are within walking distance of such a route, but I couldn't guess at the percentage, but: 2. The vast majority of suburban residents, which comprise something like 80% of our regional population, are not even close to being within walking distance of such a route. While we do have a funding source for each system, there are two problems: SMART's funding is only sufficient to provide a somewhat anemic level of service (does that word work there?) and DDOT has no dedicated funding whatsoever; the operational costs are paid from City general-fund money, and when the City has a budget crisis it can (and has) cut service. The most recent cuts, in 2006, took DDOT from 52 routes down to 45, eliminated mid-day service on some routes, and eliminated overnight service on all but a few. Transit-wise, we are a big effing mess. The fact that there are other much smaller urban areas without good transit should not mask the fact that metro Detroit is the only major region (let's say, 2.5 million plus) in North America without a regional rapid transit system of one kind or another. But I think I've said that here before  | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3871 Registered: 10-2004 |
The way Detroit is heading, there won't be any reason to get to work--regardless of its being rapid or not. | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 720 Registered: 12-2006 |
Also, while we're comparing Milwaukee to Detroit: 1. Milwaukee's bus schedules show where you can transfer to other buses on each route, and what route you transfer to. This is critical information for a bus rider, yet neither DDOT nor SMART bother to do this, which would be essentially a zero-cost improvement. 2. Milwaukee buses run at good frequencies, based on my sampling of routes. Routes tend to run during the day at 5 to 20 minute headways. I did not find (though it may exist) a route without mid-day or evening service. Many DDOT routes run at 30 minute headways or worse, and some provide only peak-hour service; most SMART bus routes run only at peak hours or with a frequency of 45 minutes or worse. Between those two differentiating factors, I would say it is probably much less of a pain in the ass to be a bus rider in Milwaukee than in metro Detroit. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3872 Registered: 10-2004 |
One major problem with Milwaukee's buses is having many of their routes going through high-crime areas that now resemble Detroit's during the crack 1980s. Caucasian bus passengers along route 30 (Sherman Boulevard to downtown along Wisconsin Avenue) have been issued death threats via notices by the bus stops. My Milwaukee address as a preteen or young teenager during the 1950s was 1/2 block from Sherman and Capitol Drive--now considered the vague outer limit of that city's Ground-Zero for urban crime--often violent. A Caucasian bus passenger or pedestrian (I forgot which) was recently gunned down in the very same block where I once lived at 42nd and Capitol Drive, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Milwaukee is far more dangerous than Detroit. | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 721 Registered: 12-2006 |
My only memory of Milwaukee was going to summerfest about 25 years ago and finding to my surprise (and delight; I was young) that City did not have the typical and ridiculous American prohibition about drinking beer while walking on a sidewalk. It didn't strike me as dangerous but I was in a "touristy" part of town. Now, in Detroit less than six months ago I was riding the DDOT Jefferson bus to visit a friend on the east side, and I asked the driver how to get from there to Gratiot to get the SMART 560 bus out to where I live. He first suggested "take Jefferson back downtown; catch the 560 downtown". When I asked whether I couldn't make a shorter trip by taking the Conant bus north to Gratiot he said "yeah, you can do that - but - just take the Jefferson back downtown. You don't want to be waiting for a bus at Conant and Gratiot." So the drivers have formed opinions as to where it is safe to make transfers, and where not. I don't take stock in that; I have stood and waited for bus transfers all over Detroit (I am white, by the way) and never have had a problem unless you count panhandlers as a problem, which I don't. I've been doing this for thirty years. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3873 Registered: 10-2004 |
PS: You'd change your mindset really quick after being in M'wauky, waiting for a bus at night for some 15 square miles or so of its near north and west sides. OTOH, the SoutSite (that's how it's pronounced, aina?) is about as safe as it gets there--little crime and many of the Polish families still live there. One of the kids tried and convicted there for first-degree homicide was eight years old, I think. He killed an Ameritech worker during the daytime because some teenaged gang punk there ordered the kid to kill the phone guy as some kind of initiation or something on the grounds that he might be a narc. | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 722 Registered: 12-2006 |
Eight? That's over the top. Sad how that kind of thing is going nowadays. I'm more or less too old to change my mindset at all, by the way. I ought to be able to, but it doesn't work anymore. One of many things failing. | ||
Paulmcall Member Username: Paulmcall Post Number: 392 Registered: 05-2004 |
Otherwise, how safe are Milwaukee's buses compared to ours? Do their drivers plead for police protection like they do here? | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 1578 Registered: 04-2006 |
^They probably don't have to. Most other places, police protection on buses is a given. Ironically, there was a cop shot on an NYC subway yesterday. I've actually lost count on how many cops have been shot in this city in the past year. I'm pretty sure we're approaching 10, including the 2 volunteer cops murdered in the Spring, and the cop murdered back in July. But yo, this city is sooooo safe! How many cops were shot in Detroit this year? | ||
Miketoronto Member Username: Miketoronto Post Number: 662 Registered: 07-2004 |
Milwaukee is fine. I have never heard of the crime being that bad. I know downtowns are usually fine, but I walked downtown Milwaukee at night, etc and it was fine. No crime issues. I was never told to aviod bus routes by locals. Infact there did not seem to be a transit stigma as much as in other cities. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3874 Registered: 10-2004 |
Milwaukee's such a sleepy town where nothing happens... From a rag known as Time magazine last December: Middle America's Crime Wave Sunday, Dec. 03, 2006 It's as if Milwaukee, Wis., had reverted to a state of lethal chaos. A Special Olympian is killed for his wallet as he waits for a bus. An 11-year-old girl is gang-raped by as many as 19 men. A woman is strangled, her body found burning in a city-owned garbage cart. Twenty-eight people are shot, four fatally, over a holiday weekend. These are the kinds of crimes American cities expected never to see in high numbers again. In the 1990s police departments nationwide began applying the so-called broken-windows theory: arrest the bad guys for minor offenses, and they wouldn't be around to commit more serious ones. This zero-tolerance approach--combined with more cops on the street to enforce it, a strong economy and a fortuitous demographic change that reduced the population of young men who typically cause the most trouble--lowered the rates of murder, robbery and rape for 10 consecutive years. Until last year. Not only did crime suddenly begin to rise in 2005, but the most violent crimes led the trend. Homicides shot up 3.4%. Robberies, 3.9%. Aggravated assaults, 1.8%. Hardest hit were not metropolises like New York City and Los Angeles but cities with populations between 400,000 and 1 million--such as Baltimore, Md.; Charlotte, N.C.; St. Louis, Mo.; and Oakland, Calif.--and this year looks to see similar rates of increase, if not worse. Few places have suffered more than Milwaukee. The homicide count for the city of 590,000 fell from 130 in 1996 to just 88 in 2004. But last year, according to FBI figures, Milwaukee saw the country's largest jump in homicides--up 40%, to 121. This year's total will probably be lower, but as the killings over that bloody holiday weekend and other crimes show, violence has returned to the city. "You'll be able to read about something even more heinous tomorrow," laments Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan. "People are scared." Like the residents of dozens of other recently crime-afflicted midsize cities across the country, people in Milwaukee are trying to figure out why their town has suddenly become so dangerous. While the cohort of young adults is ground zero for violent crime, the reason isn't as simple as a rapidly growing population. Since the late 1990s, the number of Americans under 30 has increased at a rate consistent with that of the general U.S. population, about 6%. Some other likely explanations have emerged. [ about 80% of the article snipped... ] One of Milwaukee's police big wigs uttered that its murder rate would have been much higher if the criminals there weren't such lousy shots. (Message edited by Livernoisyard on September 08, 2007) | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 723 Registered: 12-2006 |
Damn. Who woulda thunk. It seems to me Detroit is safer than it was when I got here about 30 years ago. Not looking at statistics or anything, just observation. I used to be afraid to park in a lot of neighborhoods, and in fact had two cars stolen from me (one of which the police told me where to look for it, and I did, and recovered it; the other one I never saw again). I used to be afraid to walk around parts of the City at any time of day; while there are still places I wouldn't walk between 1 and 5 a.m., there isn't anyplace in Detroit that scares me at 2:00 in the afternoon. Does that jibe with the experience of other long-timers? Or have I just become less jumpy as I've gotten older? | ||
Jjw Member Username: Jjw Post Number: 446 Registered: 10-2005 |
I see very few people walking in Detroit at any time of day, yet alone from 1 to 5 am. |
