2007 Detroit Federal Transit funding.

[monsoon 1]

Looks as if Bush's proposed budget for Transit funding includes two projects for the Detroit area.

• $5,000,000 to study commuter rail between Ann Arbor and Detroit

• $4,000,000 for the Detroit Center Loop

If you are interesting in the complete funding list for 2007 it can be found here.

[tapezord 0]

Looks as if Bush's proposed budget for Transit funding includes two projects for the Detroit area.

• $5,000,000 to study commuter rail between Ann Arbor and Detroit

• $4,000,000 for the Detroit Center Loop

If you are interesting in the complete funding list for 2007 it can be found here.

You can't do much with $5M. We have $100M on the table just to take the project through preliminary engineering. I guess every little bit helps though.

For the record, having experiance with engineering fees and whatnot, I find it very hard to believe that they could spend $100M on engineering and design for a commuter rail system. (light rail, yes, commuter rail no)

[statedude3 0]

I totally posted this in the wrong thread.

Okay, I'm not going to try to be an expert on politics or money or urban planning...but how do you spend $4-5 Million on a study? What exactly is this money spent on? What time frame do they have to spend this money?

[tapezord 0]

I totally posted this in the wrong thread.

Okay, I'm not going to try to be an expert on politics or money or urban planning...but how do you spend $4-5 Million on a study? What exactly is this money spent on? What time frame do they have to spend this money?

Well, when you have multiple guys working on a project with hourly rates billing at $200 an hour... it can really add up. Still, $5M is a LOT of cash to spend on prelim egr...

[Zissou 0]

I know of the Detroit Ann Arbor line but what is the Detroit Center Loop?

[RustTown 60]

I think it's a downtown/Midtown loop that would be based on one of the large side streets on each side of Woodward. I thought I remember something in the neighborhood of Cass and John R...

[Wordsmith 0]

I think that that refers to the People Mover.

WS

[jsmyers 0]

I can't remember, but it is a study about something other than the people mover.

I think LMich might have it nailed.

[hudkina 0]

What kind of loop? A streetcar? An extended People Mover?

[RustTown 60]

Some type of light rail/trolley. Does anyone know what I remember so loosely?

[tapezord 0]

it maaaaay be new cars for the DPM. I remember reading in SEMCOG's TIP that they will be replacing the cars in addition to rail grinding. The cars are approaching 20 years old and were made by Bombardier. Bombardier recently made new cars for Vancouver Sky Train (same technology) and they look quite slick! I'd like to see those here.

I would really prefer if it was an extension of the dpm, but at $4M, I don't think it would be very long.

[Allan 0]

A $4 million extension of the DPM would be about 1/10 mile long. LOL. They may be replacing the cars, but they just recently replaced all the trucks under the cars, so it doesn't make any sense to buy new cars after investing all that money in them.

[Zissou 0]

New cars are great and all but why invest that money into a system that just continues to lose money? Get the new cars when you extend the people mover or when it attaches to some other form of transit. This area needs to spend every transit dollar we get wisely.

[wolverine 0]

I'm surprised some of the studies are so expensive.

$4 million for 1/10 of a mile seems to cheap to me actually, especially through a city.

[RustTown 60]

Now, I'm really confused. Is this money towards the Midtown Loop, a pedestrian trail around Midtown?

http://www.modeldmedia.com/developmentnews/midtownloop.aspx

[Zissou 0]

That sounds different to me. Plus its about 2 million less than what is being discussed above. Its nice to see that money being awarded though.

[Jasoncw 0]

How much money is spent on the Freeways? But you take what you can get.

Yea, I don't really get how so much money can be spent on pre planning. And $200 an hour? That's alot! Hopefully their work pays off in money saving efficency for the future.

[wolverine 0]

It costs about 40 million to build a freeway in most urban areas. It's about 1 million to resurface. Fortunately in favor for mass transit, freeway planning takes forever to plan...sometimes over a decade and is very expensive, and the results are almost always short term.

[Zissou 0]

Do you know the price and time for lets say light rail compared to a freeway?

[wolverine 0]

A lot less. LOL, I don't have a price tag.

[tapezord 0]

A common figure i have seen thrown about is $20 Million a mile but this is not really true if you consider all of the other elements of the system (stations, signaling, maintainance facilties and of course, the cars. The figure of $56M/mile was used in the 2000 DTC Woodward Corridor Transit Alternatives study. Remember that ROW acquisition is quite pricey in developed areas. The Woodward Corridor study cites that in addition to the facilities, all of the surrounding facilities must be improved as well. Landscaping, new traffic signals that allow for LRT units to override them area just a few of the requirements for installation of LRT.

[Zissou 0]

That is really expensive. More and more Interstate Traveler is looking like the solution for Detroit.

[tapezord 0]

That thing kinda scares me... the website looks real cheap... although, given the past events of "thepeoplemover.com," that might be par for the Detroit Transit course.

I think the woodward corridor is THE line to start with. This is really the only Detroit corridor that would support LRT sucessfully due to density of both jobs and residents (within the corridor, there are 144,000 residents and 173,800 jobs respectivly).

Michigan Ave from Wayne through Dearborn to Detroit may have a shot as well. My only problem with the Ann Arbor to Detroit thing is that I really don't think that many people will use it and the transit nay-sayers will point to that as an example we don't need to invest in rail based public transit.

[Zissou 0]

Thats why I see the Interstate Traveler option being the best for the whole region. Although the website does look cheap they have the financing in place to go through with this project. It wouldnt cost the taxpayers any money. And the transportation units are smaller, so its not like there would be large empty trains traveling from Detroit-Ann Arbor and vice versa. Demand on certain lines will dictate how many cars there will be. Maybe its just me but im really sold on the idea. I could have my blinders on now.

[hudkina 0]

Here's some interesting statistics:

266,000 Macomb County residents live within 2 miles of Gratiot Ave. That's about 34% of the total population.

295,000 Oakland County residents live within 2 miles of Woodward Ave. That's about 25% of the total population.

270,000 suburban Wayne County residents live within 2 miles of Michigan Ave.

235,000 suburban Wayne County residents live within 2 miles of Fort St. south of the Rouge River.

It should be noted that these numbers don't even include the Detroit portion of their respective routes (though, the Downriver route does include three Detroit census tracts that are south of the Rouge River and the Michigan Ave route includes two Detroit census tracts that are just north of Dearborn)

Altogether, about 35% of suburban Tri-County residents lives within 2 miles of those four thoroughfares.