DETROIT [5] The People Mover

[hkskyline]

The Detroit People Mover is a fully-automated monorail that serves downtown Detroit through its 13 stations. For only 50 cents, it is a great way to capture Detroit's cityscapes for 15 minutes per revolution.

My tour began at the Greektown Casino :

Notice the colours change as I moved to a different window.

Grand Circus Park

Back towards the waterfront :

More on the next part!

[Allan]

Nice photos.

It is quite unfortunate that Detroit hasn't got a real mass transit system besides the 3 mile people mover loop around downtown. When it was built, it was nicknamed "Coleman's Train to Nowhere." In the early 1980s, metro Detroit received millions of dollars from the federal government to build a mass transit system. The system almost got scrapped completely because of fighting amongst the cities involved. The mayor of Detroit at the time, Coleman Young, salvaged some of the money and used it to build the central hub of the system - the loop around downtown - in hopes that eventually the rest of the system would be completed.

Since its construction, it has been criticized as being a train that goes nowhere and loops endlessly around abandoned buildings. However, it is used to capacity during the International Auto Show in January, and during sporting events downtown, because it allows people to park in one area and then take a cheap ride to their final destination. At the very least, it provides visitors with an excellent 15 minute tour of downtown.