Part 1: If At First You Don't Succeed: The Southeast Michigan RTA

Imagine you're in elementary school playing basketball, trying to make your first lay up.  You set yourself up at the foul line, dribble forward and scope the ball in the air only to miss.  Imagine trying again and again as you grow older and taller, until on your 23rd birthday, you finally make two points.  Finally.

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Now imagine your the Michigan State Legislature.  According to the Metro Times, it's taken 23 attempts since 1970 to create a Regional Transit Authority (RTA) in Southeast Michigan.  As taken from SMART's History of Southeastern Michigan Transit, previously failed attempts include:

• 1976 – President Gerald Ford offers southeast Michigan $600 million to build a rail transit system. Other than the People Mover nothing was developed due to the lack of local/regional political support.

• 1979 – The Southeast Michigan Transportation Authority (SEMTA) approves a regional transit plan which includes the development of rail lines and an improved bus system. However subsidies were cut and the plans were never implemented. 

• 1984 – Regional leaders approve the Regional Public Transportation Consensus Plan, a refined version of the 1979 regional transit plan. The plan was never implemented.

• 2006 – The Detroit Area Regional Transit Authority (DARTA) formed in 2003 through an interlocal inter-government agreement (IGA) that includes the City of Detroit, Wayne County, Macomb County, Oakland County, Monroe County and SMART, is dissolved by a Michigan State Supreme Court decision.

The RTA comes to Life

In the presence of balloons and a celebratory parade organized by Transportation Riders United, the first RTA board meeting was graveled to order at 3pm on Wednesday, April 10, 2013.  During public comments, Megan Owens, Executive Director of Transportation Riders United, joking lamented that, "There's got to be some benefit from being the last place in the country to do this." (Huff Post, June 25,2013)

The RTA seeks to coordinate, orchestrate and improve transit for Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne Counties including the city of Detroit. 41% of suburban Metro Detroit communities currently do not participate in any sort of mass transit system.  However,  this new legislation makes it mandatory that all municipalities within the member counties participate (Data Driven Detroit.).

Among the RTA's first responsibilities is to oversee our areas existing transit providers. They are SMART (The Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation), DDOT (Detroit Department of Transportation), AATA (Ann Arbor Transit Authority), DTC (Detroit Transit Corporation which controls the People Mover) and the upcoming M1 Light rail, which starts construction this summer.

The legislation also specifically calls for rolling rapid transit along four corridors: (1) a Woodward corridor, (2) a Gratiot corridor, (3) a northern cross-county line to operate between the city of Troy and the city of Mt. Clemens, and (4) a western cross-county 47-mile route between downtown Detroit and the downtown Ann Arbor Blake Transit Center.

The RTA's four rapid transit corridors
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Funding Sources

All federal transit funds currently being used within the region will now flow through the RTA and will be supplied to local agencies as if they had applied independently.  In other words, funds from one agency cannot be diverted for use with another.  By centralizing federal funding, it increases the RTA's ability to apply for additional federal funds for future projects.

How federal funds flow through the RTA to existing agencies
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The key to the RTA's power is its ability to generate revenue.  With the approval of voters, the RTA can impose a special property tax assessment or enact an additional vehicle registration fee of up to $1.20 per $1,000 of the list price of a vehicle. In order to protect a member county from subsidizing a project in a neighboring county (or city), 85% of the funds raised by a county must be spent on transit within that county.

Individual member counties can also impose their own voter approved vehicle registrations fees. However, these funds will be adjusted if an RTA fee is already in effect.

The RTA board is structured so that any vote to place a tax assessment or vehicle registration fee on the ballot for residents of the four-county region can be vetoed by the representative from Detroit, or by a dissenting vote from both representatives of a single county.

The RTA Governing Board

The RTA board is composed of two representatives from each county and two additional representatives — one from Detroit and one chosen by Michigan's Governor.  Each serves a 3-year term.  Paul Hillegonds, a former state GOP lawmaker, was appointed the RTA's first chair by current Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. The legislation also provides for the establishment of a citizens advisory committee.

The make-up of the RTA board
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A Bias Towards Rail

The City of Ann Arbor's City Council drafted a resolution objecting to the RTA enabling bill's “onerous and offensive provisions related to consideration of rail based transportation.” The legislation requires unanimous approval from the 9-member RTA board to “acquire, construct, operate, or maintain any form of rail passenger service within a public transit region.”  Efforts by Washtenaw county representatives to remove the requirement failed.

As explained by former Ypsilanti City Planner Richard Murphy and current RTA board member, the unanimous requirement was included to protect Macomb and Oakland counties from funding light rail systems within Detroit that would be more cost effective if built as bus rapid transit (or BRT).

He continues by arguing that the cost effectiveness of constructing a high-speed rail between Ann Arbor and Detroit has already been proven.  Quoting from a 2007 report (Ann Arbor-Downtown Detroit Transit Study Detailed Screening of Alternatives):

• BRT: $879-$969m to construct, $23-27m annually to operate.
• Commuter rail: $95.5m to construct, $6.25m to operate, for 8 trains/day on the existing tracks.

In Murphy's opinion, if cost is the main objection, then neighboring counties would be voting against their own interest if they supported bus service between Ann Arbor and Detroit.  Especially if the cost of current capital improvements being made to rails lines between the two cities is deducted from the estimated 2007 price tag.

The future looks bright, as RTA readies itself to finally implement a vision for Southeast Michigan regional transit.   And one of the center pieces of this plan, the M1 light-rail project, will be the topic of our next entry.

Next in our series on Southeastern Michigan Transportation:
Part 2: Reanimating Woodward Avenue's Street-Cars: The M1 Light-Rail Project

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Sources:
"The new Southeast Michigan Regional Transit Authority: A solid step forward, but many more ahead", DetroitHub.com, February 7, 2013.

"RTA sparks dissent in Ann Arbor", Michigan Daily, January 13, 2013.

"Ann Arbor Council Agenda: Ask for RTA Veto", The Ann Arbor Chronicle, December 7, 2012.

"Michigan Regional Transit Bills Unveiled", The Ann Arbor Chronicle, January 26, 2012.

"Michigan Regional Transit Authority Board Holds Optimistic First Meeting", Huff Post Detroit, April 10, 2013.

"How the funding works with a regional transit authority for Southeast Michigan", Ann Arbor.com, March 13, 2013.

"What's this RTA thing I'm suddenly hearing about, and what does it mean for Washtenaw?", Common Monkeyflower, December 9, 2013.

The Phantom Ford Freeway Bus Station

Driving east along the Ford Freeway, just as you start to pass under Woodward Avenue, nestled between the right-hand eastbound lane and the Woodward Avenue exit ramp is a single concrete lane that skirts one of the bridge piers.  The lane is narrow, in disrepair and defied until recently my ability to determine its purpose. Was this a maintenance vehicle lane?  Was this a lane dedicated to emergency vehicles?  Were cars just smaller in the 1950s?

Aerial view Woodward Avenue I-94 overpass
( Bing maps Birdseye view)

View traveling eastbound on I-94 exiting
at Exit 215C Woodward Avenue
(Bing maps Streetside view)

Having traveled this section of I-94 for more than 10 ten years, it took an accidental Google search to reveal its actual purpose. What I Googled was "I-94 bus lane Detroit".  What was revealed was the story of a phantom bus station.

The story begins with the 1945 Detroit Expressway and Transit System Plan.  The plan proposes a network of expressways that would radiate outward from the downtown area.  One of these radial highways would be a "Crosstown" superhighway that would later become the Ford Freeway.  It called for the use of streetcars, operating as high-speed trains, within the central mall portion of the expressway.  It also called for maintaining street cars along Woodward and converting existing street cars on Fort, Gratiot, Jefferson and Michigan to electric trolley-buses.  When these streetcars and trolley-buses reached downtown, they would operate underground.  Multiple downtown subway stations were planned, the terminus being an underground plaza at Cadillac Square.



Proposed Underground Cadillac Square Plaza
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Proposed Underground Cadillac Square Plaza
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Now there was obvious opposition to these plans with surprising opposition coming from the city-owned Department of Street Railways (DSR).  They had a different vision for alleviating post-war Detroit traffic congestion.  Their proposal advocated for the complete elimination of any and all rail service.  They instead proposed a plan for integrating high-speed bus service with plans for Detroit's radial highway system.  Quoting their report, they considered high-speed buses "a superior type of rapid transit".



Department of Street Railways (DSR) bus circa 1951
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So here's where the story get interesting.  The highways were built, but the underground, and center median rail system was not.  Instead, special bus boarding stations were incorporated into the design of the Ford Freeway.


Stairs leading from Woodward Avenue overpass
to bus loading stations at Ford Freeway level
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On Monday, January 31, 1955, the DSR launched its new Plymouth Express bus service which operated along two brand new Detroit expressways.  Special bus boarding stations were located along the Ford Freeway at Livernois, Grand River and Woodward Avenue.

Completed but never opened DSR
 eastbound bus loading station
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And here's where we finally learn about our mysterious abandoned bus lane.  For the cost of $29,500, four stairs were built at the Woodward Avenue overpass.  The stairs were meant to allow passengers to enter bus loading stations at freeway level.  The stairs and loading platforms were built, but were never opened.  It was determined after the fact that there was insufficient, "passenger volume to justify the new line."  The stair remained unused for 5 years until in 1960, for $63,500, the stairs were demolished and the eastbound and westbound on-ramps reconfigured.  What still remains today is the original unaltered eastbound bus lane.

Now our mystery is solved; however, solutions to Detroit's mass transit issues are just beginning.


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Information used in the above article was taken from the Detroit Transit History website.  The following is a link to their article and video discussing the "Edsel B. Ford (I-94) Expressway Bus Stops".

Additional information can be found in the Detroit News Article entitled "Stairway to Nowhere" (December 20, 1959).  A retyped copy of the article can be found at this link.