Detroit and Southeast Michigan lag behind many major metropolitan areas in America—such as Chicago, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia—and even midsized cities like Salt Lake City, Denver and Portland, OR. —when it comes to having a first-rate public transit system that includes a rail network.
With the Detroit mayoral and gubernatorial races underway, Deadline Detroit asked Detroit-based public transit expert Neil Greenberg to weigh in on the subject.
Greenberg has worked for multiple local transit agencies, including the Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT). He currently works with transit agencies across the country on service design and ridership growth strategies.
He is also the creator of the website Fresh Water Railway, "a fictional commuter rail system for Michigan that bypassed the uninspired, constrained transit planning process."
Q1
Is it too late to have a true rail system?
That’s completely up to us.
We frequently hear about the twenty or thirty failed attempts to build a transit system.
When we fail, do we learn? Local leaders may take VIP day trips to observe light rail in St Louis or bus rapid transit in Cleveland. Those visits, however, only expose them to a tiny fraction of what it takes.
In this knowledge vacuum, we often resort to a distracting excuse: some external force must be holding Southeast Michigan back.
“If only” the state enacted a certain policy, we’d have the transit system we deserve. “If only” the federal government gave us our due, we could mark our calendars for the ribbon-cutting. “We” have the right people in the room. Someone else, somewhere else just needs to hear our plea – and then shower us with billions to keep doing things the same old way.
If that’s our approach, then yes, it’s too late.
Fortunately, we can choose another path. We can recognize that a rail system – or any transit system – won’t appear in one spectacular burst. Like any other city, we’d need to develop it one segment at a time. We’d need to reevaluate our local commitment. We’d need to outgrow the idea that Lansing, Washington or the private sector will do all the heavy lifting for us.
A true system, to borrow your term, is the sum of a million forward steps – most of them at the local level. Each small victory earns the support of local transit customers, local elected officials, local neighbors and local voters. That’s when we get moving.
Q2
What do you think about the QLINE?
QLine (Deadline Detroit photo)
I don’t have strong feelings about it. I confess: I’ve never used the QLINE, so my reference points are limited.
Still, I can see some positives. The QLINE offers an easy way to try transit – no small accomplishment in our setting. It provides some alternative to driving short distances, which tempers demand for parking. In turn, Downtown and Midtown can shift a bit of emphasis from cars to pedestrians.
Personally, I never had outsize expectations for the QLINE. I recognized its medium-duty design and unrealistic funding model. As such, I knew that it wouldn’t compare to top-tier urban rail systems.
It seems that many stakeholders – private developers, private foundations – perhaps did have higher hopes. While there was some good intent, I’m not sure that these backers did their homework on transit. The result is an isolated, hard-to-scale experiment – one that missed its marks functionally and financially.
I wouldn’t cast the QLINE as a total failure – but its shortcomings may stain the larger idea of transit. Will a series of private oversights cause further public setbacks?
That cloud has one silver lining. Early on, private interests charged hard about going it alone. In their view circa 2009, private investors could construct, operate and expand a whole rail system. QLINE backers have since learned the hard way: public infrastructure just isn’t profitable. Quietly, private interests behind the Qline have come to approve of public funding for a public service.
Q3
Why does Detroit keep struggling with this issue?
Photo by Neil Greenberg
Entire generations have internalized the idea that transit cannot succeed in Southeast Michigan. That’s problematic enough. The danger is when it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I recall my time on staff at DDOT. Countless great people on the ground – they hold their own with transit professionals anywhere in the country.
Yet, at higher levels of city government, we’d rarely get the time of day. Among other city administrators, the underlying attitude was, “who cares? It’s just DDOT.” In that climate, a procurement agent wouldn’t bother to buy the right tires for the bus fleet. I could rattle off hundreds of other examples along those lines.
Despite its challenges, transit in Detroit can be useful. The bus on 7 Mile cuts a clear path across the city – 24/7. If you live in West Village, you can make it Downtown in 20 minutes. The buses themselves, they feel like buses in any other big city – maybe even a little brighter.
As a city, we decide not to highlight positive features. Where we actually do have successes, we don’t build upon them. We make it difficult to obtain information about the system – because we can’t fathom that anyone would want to use it.
This is how we end up with the QLINE.
It doesn’t connect any dots that the bus system didn’t. It’s just an elaborate response to our failure narrative. We treat the QLINE as an asset, the bus system as a liability. That’s not remotely consistent with how healthy transit systems operate. Frankly, it’s not consistent with how healthy cities operate.
I get it: “improve the bus system” is not the most exciting rally call. If we’re serious about transit, though, we’ll need to use every possible tool to do the small things right. Only then can we get the big things right, too.
Q4
Why do you think people are so against public transportation? Is it because they’ve never experienced a good system?
D.C. subway (Deadline Detroit photo)
I acknowledge that some people are against public transit. I disagree that opposition is so widespread. The real challenge sits in the middle. The vast majority of Southeast Michigan residents never even think about transit.
Local voters sometimes vote yes on modest funding measures, usually with the idea that “someone -else- needs transit.” That’s not necessarily a bad message. But there’s no more to squeeze from it. At some point, if we pursue long-term funding increases, voters will ask out loud, “what’s in it for me?”
I do agree that first-hand experience has a lot to do with it. Years ago, I had a mentor in Detroit who grew up in Chicago. She said it best: “Detroit doesn’t have a transit culture.”
Exactly.
It’s one thing to take transit to a ballgame twice a year. It’s something else to take transit to work, to class, to your dentist appointment, to carry on independently if your car is in the shop. Transit and cars can coexist, too: with effective transit options, a household can maintain one or two cars rather than three or four.
How do we convey these possibilities in Southeast Michigan? How do we change the goal from “transit as bare minimum” to “transit as a practical, everyday resource”? Without a transit culture, we’ll need to meet people where they are. We’ll need to make the issue a lot more compelling.
Q5
Are you encouraged or discouraged?
Photo by Neil Greenberg
I see signs of encouragement. In Detroit, elected officials have budgeted more for transit. In the suburbs, full counties are getting on board with transit. The very fact that transit is a credible discussion today – that’s encouraging right there. Not so long ago, the issue itself was a nonstarter. These are big breakthroughs.
I see discouragements, too.
I see projects like the Jason Hargrove Transit Center near 8 Mile & Woodward. It was pitched as a grand palace of transit – which is an utterly nonsensical concept. Transit is not a destination. Transit only works when it’s fully integrated with the city, enabling direct access to stores, jobs, schools, medical centers, neighborhoods.
From mayoral candidates, I hear vague claims that “public-private partnerships” will somehow fix transit. I hear uninformed language that can’t distinguish between local transit and regional transit. I sense little genuine curiosity about the issue.
In the suburbs, most officials have assumed that “opt-out” is the sole impediment. Even if all communities are “in”, what model will enable great transit service? How are we defining “great transit service” to begin with? We don’t have much of a dialogue around these questions.
In the end, I find the best encouragement wrapped in a challenge: as Detroit evolves, how do we bring people together? Transit has a special power to do that – literally and figuratively. It’s on us to tap that power. We can do it one bus stop at a time, one incremental improvement at a time, one relatable story at a time. It all adds up.
