Your Superbowl Experinece...

[Michi]

Heh, I walked back to Midtown in the snow Saturday night as well. Only, my treck was up Russell Street from Gratiot, through Eastern Market. I was soaking wet after about 5 blocks. By the time I got home, there was not a dry spot on me and my face and legs were numb.

The short time I stayed downtown Saturday was fun and exciting. Although, I drove back down to pick up a friend after my winter treck. Driving around Washington Blvd and Michigan Ave was a nightmare. You guys mentioned raised tention and that's exactly what it was. It almost seemed like people were so anxious to move their vehicles through streets, they didn't care if it meant hitting someone else's car just to prove that "they were here first". It was a disaster. (the driving part)

[tapezord]

Bottom line, depsite 2 murders, a snow storm, horrible transit opperations, Detroit came out looking awesome... and that says a lot in my book!

Go Detroit!

[GRDadof3]

Fantastic job Detroit!

[Zissou]

I was suprised how positive everyone was even after the murders. The night I read about the first one I couldnt sleep I was so upset and disappointed. I thought all was lost but it wasnt. Detroit will build off of this. I couldnt believe how many people on television, talking heads and visitors, were touting the city.

[statedude3]

I gotta admit that the one murder had me worried about image issues, and the 2nd murder had me terrified of the media perception. I'm not sure how, but in some way Detroit avoided taking a media blitz from these events. It's sad to say, but it actually is just about the city's average of 1 murder/day or so that was maintained through the week (I'm not proud of it, just stating the fact).

I thuoght OUR town did great. I am excited to see more events come our way (Final Four 2009, Frozen Four 2011, etc.). The only request I have...and I believe I'm speaking for the group when I say..."Bettter mass transit, please!!"

[tapezord]

[shameless plug]

Yes, better mass transit is a must... and if you want to help out with the cause (or at least learn about what is going/not going on) join up with TRU. The Woodward Avenue corridor study may be revving back up here soon which is very exciting to say the least. PM me if you want some details.

[/shameless plug]

[Allan]

Why are you guys all so negative, my friend and I walked from downtown back to Wayne State in the snow... I was soaking wet, but I still had a great time. Get over it! Detroit looked great! I suggest you put your cameras down and have a little fun.

Negative? I was only expressing my feelings as to how my night went on Saturday...I was beyond frustrated with how everything with going, particularly with the DDOT shuttles. When you're surrounded by people who are yelling at each other, cutting in line, and knocking over barricades, it's hard to have a good time. Overall though, I had an amazing time!

Early in the day Saturday I had the pleasure of leading architecture tours of historic skyscrapers. All involved had a great time. I even went out of my way to lead one last tour for a group of young people from Rochester Hills who were interested in the city, architecture, & photography. The remainder of the afternoon and evening was absolutely amazing. I couldn't have asked for a more fun way to spend my day!

[jsmyers]

...

1. Sell tickets BEFORE you board the bus. It took nearly 15 minutes just to board a bus. This is rediculous. You have people in line waiting. Have them pay before the bus even arrives, give the riders a stamp on the hand or something to show they paid. That would cut down headways in a BIG way.

2. Spread out the fort-cass terminal.

They made some good changes by moving some busses onto other streets, but there is no reason for all busses to stop at a common location. Spread the stop points out on the EW streets.

The bottom line is that the system was used more than anyone would have ever imagined.

...

I was a volunteer street ambassador (one of the people in the red XL coast handing out maps) on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights.

I was at Fort and Cass from about 8-1:30 on Saturday.

My observations about tapezord's post:

Tickets in advance would have been a good idea. I bet they would have done so if they knew how many people they would have to handle.

You are completely correct that the system was used way more than anyone thought it would. I was told Sunday that there were over 250,000 reciepts for bus tickets for Saturday. (I have no way of confirming this.) Remember that kids didn't count. That is a lot of people! In many ways, problems weren't created by any specific failure as much as the success of everything else happening downtown.

I don't believe it would have been a good idea to spread out the busses. The beauty of the system was that everybody downtown knew they could catch their bus at Fort and Cass. Half of the out of towners couldn't remember the names like Fairlane and Macomb. They could ask where to get the bus (A: Fort and Cass), and then get help finding the right bus. If they had to find a specific street corner for a specific bus, it would have been confusing for many.

My own observations about the buses:

The other big problem with the buses was that there was gridlock auto traffic in places trying to access the freeways, making those trips much longer to Macomb, Northland, and Fairlane. If you noticed, WSU, the airport, and the Zoo had shorter wait times, those buses took surface streets away from crazy traffic.

There could have been a better job of setting up lines to handle the people. IMO the biggest problem wasn't the length of the line, but the confusion about where the lines were combined with the length.

Please realize that those DDOT employees where working their asses off and moving well over 125,000 people round trip a significant distance in a day is a pretty tough undertaking.

I also think that people tended to all want to leave at roughly the same time. (10-12) I don't think this was anticipated.

So if you where in that Northland Line after about 11 on Saturday, and there was a tall guy in a red jacket herding people around, that was me. I was on the SE corner of that intersection from 8 until I took a break around 10ish. (I was mostly trying to keep people from biting the icy dust on that sidewalk.)

While I took a break I heard things were getting tense, so when I went back, I tried to help clean things up as much as possible. Some of my cohorts set up a cedar point style line next to that yellow and white tent, and we finally go the 3 lines clearly deliniated. After that things seemed to be a bit smoother. I think about that time, DDOT shifted a bunch of buses to Northland duty. (I was virtually completely unaware of what was happening with the Fairlane and Macomb buses.)

I looked around at about 12:30 or so to realize that the other volunteers where gone. Or shift was over at midnight and I got completely ditched in the crowd. There was still a lot of need for help, so I ended up staying till about 1:30. When I finally walked all the way home, I was exhausted.

From my point of view, there were a lot of irritated and some really pissed off people, but for the most part, people were civil.

I second the call for real mass transit. But I hope people realize that DDOT and the rest of the SBXL team pulled off the impossible by getting that many people into a small area without it.

[bobjgumby]

Yeah my friends and i had a great time on Friday until we ended up really close to the shooting outside of Mavericks. So close in fact that my one friend saw the flashes from the gun and my other friend was actually standing behind the shooter and saw the look on the guys face as he was shot in the leg. Fortunatley I did not see either and only heard the 5 or 6 shots. I saw my friend running past me and took off running after him tripping on the side walk while trying to avoid trampling a lady who fell in front of me. It was the most scary experience I have ever had.

[GRDadof3]

At least shootings are usually intended for a specific target. My Sister-in-law was in Atlanta during the Olympic bombings. Totally meant to spread panic amidst random targets.

[Jklug]

Detroit looked great, I had a blast! I waited over an hour at fairlane mall in the rain Sat, and was dissapointed to hear that my buddy had driven to MGM, parked for free and got there quicker than me but the whole trip downtown was great. Sunday I took the WSU shuttle and that was much better. I think it helped a lot that they didn't charge fare on the way back to WSU. Greektown and seeing Detroit's streets filled with people was priceless. Everyone I talked to was very happy and excited, so I hope most of the country feels the same way.

[jsmyers]

Learn some more about the shuttle situation here:

http://127.0.0.1/forum/messages/5/65888.html?1139340173

[asics]

Detroit was awesome! I was down on the infamous Saturday. I met up with relatives from pittsburgh. They were amazed by the downtown area and how cool it was. They admitted they had low expectations coming in and they left pleasantly surprised at how nice downtown was. And for the parking situation, we took the people mover to fort and cass and were amazed at how many people were in line. We thought we had found the end of the wayne state line near the tent but a person had must of been there for hours quickly corrected us and pointed in the direction a huge group of people so, we looked back and there was no end! So, under the leadership of my older brother we embarked on a mission to get back to wayne state! We walked down cass ave. the two miles. It was awesome. It was an adventure. I saw the G.A.R. building up close for the first time if i had the money i would renovate, it's like a fortress. We saw a few people walking around but for the most part it was very quite a stark contrast from the festivities only a few blocks away. Yes it was cold but i'm a native to the state and been through much worse. Then when we finally made(in all only two miles) we run into a group that found a taxi from downtown amazingly they shelled out $125 for the same trip we just walked for free! Yeah things got a little crazy but in the context of the biggest show in the u.s. the SUPER BOWL it was definitely understandable. And at the end of the day I have one hell of a story to tell!

[hudkina]

$125? I think someone needs to inform J.Gov of price gouging...

[Michi]

Cass Corridor? (visitor in?) lol...That must have been fun!

Although, there really isn't much left to "the corridor" aside from the lower portions adjacent to downtown. I'm so glad you found an adventure, asics. Detroit's mysteriously fun!

[hudkina]

Cass Park is the only area of Midtown where I feel like I shouldn't be there. Even Brush park (though eerie) I feel "safe" in.

[Veloise]

<I was a volunteer street ambassador (one of the people in the red XL coast handing out maps) on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights....

You are completely correct that the system was used way more than anyone thought it would. I was told Sunday that there were over 250,000 reciepts for bus tickets for Saturday. ... >

WE NEED MASS TRANSIT IN SE MICHIGAN!!!

If I'd had acces to Roger Penske's cell phone, it would have been loaded up with emergency numbers for:

--AATA, U-M, EMU, Wayne State, Flint, Toledo bus sytems

--Dearborn, Warren, Grosse Pointe, etc. public school bus systems (hey, they used school buses in NOLA!)

--Transit Windsor back-up buses

--Essex Cty school buses

--Any private coach buses in the area (don't the casinos have buses? HFM&GFV? Big 3?)

It would have been really cool to have rainbow fleets of buses lined up or on-call. (How to collect fares on school buses?? Hmmm...but I can't imagine any school district declining the opportunity to assist.)

I hope that TPTB can use major events (Red Wings parade? Fireworks? Thanksgiving parade?) as trial runs for more shuttle systems. This effort was great for a first time, aside from the obvious.

WE NEED MASS TRANSIT IN SE MICHIGAN!!!

--NEXT TIME: how about a demo project for a Speedlink (high-speed bus) system. Up & down Woodward. Use the shopping center parking lots at Meijer (Fred would do it!) in Royal Oak, have a fleet of school buses running a continuous shuttle to the bus stop at 13 Mile.

Riding the shuttle from Northland was f-u-n, but then I didn't do it on Saturday night along with 250,000 of my closest friends.

Oh, and did I mention the region's need for a viable mass transit system...?

--Karen in Grand Rapids

formerly of the metro