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The Detroit People Mover has been cited as a civic embarrassment, a joke or, at best, the distribution arm of a connecting rapid-transit system that was never built. But why not expand it into a city-wide rapid transit system?
I don't consider the PM as a joke and, in fact, the planners got a number of things right. For one thing, the technology is tried and tested. Cars run on (internationally) standard-gage railroad tracks and use 3rd rail, linear-induction technology: the same as Vancouver BC's highly successful Sky Train, the most extensive linear induction rapid transit system in the world, about 50 total route miles; and Vancouver is looking to expand it, most notably in a subway to the University of British Columbia's campus on the Pacific Ocean.
Detroit's PM circulates quite well through downtown and hits the major points of interest and goes within a few blocks of the ones it doesn't directly serve. The station stops appear well built, reasonably attractive and functional. The modern, single-pillar elevated support system is non-intrusive (like the old Rube Goldberg-ian 19th century steel-girder Chicago L). The PM 21st Century looking and almost attractive, in a way. It makes downtown Detroit feel modern and up-to-date imho. A 2-track, center-support pillar system up the center of wide Woodward Ave, perhaps with hanging planters, could work quite well visually.
And with the loop already in existence there would be no need, at least not initially, to expend funds on a downtown terminal or distribution system. Sure, the single-track, 1-way system would have capacity limits, and present some congestion problems, but with an initial 1 or 2 branch system, I think it could work -- and wouldn't be that much, or any, worse than Chicago's 2-track, 2-way downtown Loop which has grade-level crossings and junctions and severs several lines as either through lines or terminal services, ie the Midway Airport (Orange), Ravenswood (Brown) and Douglas Park (Pink) lines.
How about an initial line branching north from the existing PM loop at Grand Circus heading north along Woodward through New Center, Highland Park, the State Fairgrounds and into the burbs ending at a large terminal transfer center (which already in part exists) in Royal Oak at current Amtrak station? To save on construction costs, at some point the PM line could diverge from the Woordward Ave pillars over to the GT/Amtrak railroad corridor and drop down to ground level next to those tracks (perhaps the PM could branch off/ride over John R Street at McNichols to reach the RR ROW). I understand an idea similar to this was floated years ago to extend the PM as far as New Center and the Amtrak station there. It wasn't a bad idea, then, nor do I think it is, now. Again, much of the infrastructure is already in place.
Other priority branches could be one to Detroit Metro Airport, to the west using a combo of Michigan Ave and the Amtrak RR ROW to a transfer station with the long-discussed Detroit-to-Ann Arbor commuter rail, then branching south over/along side Merriman Rd. south to the Airport. Another could be westbound over Jefferson into Grosse Point Park. ... as well as others. To alleviate congestion on the current look, a 2nd track could, say, be added to the southern portion allowing for through trains btw the Jefferson line and the airport with the option of switching northbound to Woodward/Royal Oak.
With this, Detroit would be well on its way to the rapid transit it deserves. Vancouver's parallel-technology Sky Train packs in the passengers and is a huge hit; and we don't need to discuss its impact on its widely-admired vertical, sexy host city. The foundation is there for Detroit. The PM is not a joke. And if we could finally get the City/metro area off the schnide and develop the longer commuter rail branches -- to A2, Pontiac, Mt. Clemens, etc.; metro Detroit suddenly has one of the best transit networks in the US, and the positive impact on the City, in terms of TOD and walkability would be priceless.
Interestingly, over in Macau, they're about to open a city wide light rail system that is comprised entirely of people movers. (Sorry for not sticking to North America only).
Interestingly, over in Macau, they're about to open a city wide light rail system that is comprised entirely of people movers. (Sorry for not sticking to North America only).
Yes, I've been following Honolulu's rapid transit exploits. Clearly this project is needed for the city's intense congestion esp on its limited freeway network, but the fully-automated, linear induction technology is making this project ridiculously expensive. In Detroit, the operating expenses for the People Mover way outsize its 2-mile loop distance esp in attracting about 10K riders per day -- which isn't horrible. There would be nothing stopping Detroit from scrapping the fully automated technology as well as the linear-induction propulsion while still using the built loop superstructure. As I noted above, the PM utilizes standard railroad technology, dimension-wise, so employing more conventional, Chicago-sized rolling stock would make a Detroit build out more cost friendly.
How about an initial line branching north from the existing PM loop at Grand Circus heading north along Woodward through New Center, Highland Park, the State Fairgrounds and into the burbs ending at a large terminal transfer center (which already in part exists) in Royal Oak at current Amtrak station? To save on construction costs, at some point the PM line could diverge from the Woordward Ave pillars over to the GT/Amtrak railroad corridor and drop down to ground level next to those tracks (perhaps the PM could branch off/ride over John R Street at McNichols to reach the RR ROW). I understand an idea similar to this was floated years ago to extend the PM as far as New Center and the Amtrak station there. It wasn't a bad idea, then, nor do I think it is, now. Again, much of the infrastructure is already in place.
Other priority branches could be one to Detroit Metro Airport, to the west using a combo of Michigan Ave and the Amtrak RR ROW to a transfer station with the long-discussed Detroit-to-Ann Arbor commuter rail, then branching south over/along side Merriman Rd. south to the Airport. Another could be westbound over Jefferson into Grosse Point Park. ... as well as others. To alleviate congestion on the current look, a 2nd track could, say, be added to the southern portion allowing for through trains btw the Jefferson line and the airport with the option of switching northbound to Woodward/Royal Oak.
With this, Detroit would be well on its way to the rapid transit it deserves. Vancouver's parallel-technology Sky Train packs in the passengers and is a huge hit; and we don't need to discuss its impact on its widely-admired vertical, sexy host city. The foundation is there for Detroit. The PM is not a joke. And if we could finally get the City/metro area off the schnide and develop the longer commuter rail branches -- to A2, Pontiac, Mt. Clemens, etc.; metro Detroit suddenly has one of the best transit networks in the US, and the positive impact on the City, in terms of TOD and walkability would be priceless.
1. Serious problem with this: Detroit has lost a lot of history and tradition over the years. However, one tradition that Detroit has kept going and has zealous reverence is the long-running Thanksgiving Day Parade along Woodward from the Cultural Center to Downtown. It is entirely possible that the people of SE Michigan would reject the PeopleMover routing along Woodward because it would make it impossible for the parade. That is how fervent they feel about it.
Running up Cass Avenue from downtown to the portion of Midtown around Little Caesars Arena and the Masonic Temple area, then going over a few blocks east to run it along John R to hit the Detroit Medical Center and Museum District Area, then going back a few blocks west to run it along Cass Avenue to hit Wayne State and New Center areas seems more feasible. Then north of the New Center, running over Woodward.
2. One thing I don't like about the PeopleMover is the puny two-car train configurations. They don't have the look of a rapid transit, more like an airport peoplemover. I do believe the PeopleMover does have decent capacity, and because of the automated technology, the trains can reliably arrive in 1.5-2 minute intervals.
3. I don't like your idea of going to the old Grand Trunk (until north of DT Ferndale). Woodward north of Six Mile all the way to Pontiac has a wide median intended for rapid transit trains, just like in Cleveland, the light rail runs in the median in that Shaker area. Routing in the GT right-of-way would miss the Palmer Park area, Michigan State Fairgrounds, and downtown Ferndale (which is the suburban downtown seeing a the most development at the moment - 3 mixed-use projects).
4. The cost of rapid transit is getting ridiculous. An elevated rail line is costing like $450 million/mile in Honolulu. I think we can still do it for $150/200 million per mile.
1. Serious problem with this: Detroit has lost a lot of history and tradition over the years. However, one tradition that Detroit has kept going and has zealous reverence is the long-running Thanksgiving Day Parade along Woodward from the Cultural Center to Downtown. It is entirely possible that the people of SE Michigan would reject the PeopleMover routing along Woodward because it would make it impossible for the parade. That is how fervent they feel about it.
I appreciate tradition, but sometimes change is for the better and rapid transit up Woodward definitely trumps (now, hate that word) tradition... Also I don't see why the T'Giving parade can't still proceed down Woodward even with a center-column concrete structure down the center this very wide street.
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Originally Posted by usroute10
Running up Cass Avenue from downtown to the portion of Midtown around Little Caesars Arena and the Masonic Temple area, then going over a few blocks east to run it along John R to hit the Detroit Medical Center and Museum District Area, then going back a few blocks west to run it along Cass Avenue to hit Wayne State and New Center areas seems more feasible. Then north of the New Center, running over Woodward.
I don't like this for several reasons. For one, I love the narrower aspect of both Cass and John R in the core areas of town. Cass, in particular, has become one of my fave Detroit streets in the Midtown area: it's narrower (than Woodward) aspect alone with buildings placed closer on the sidewalks makes Cass human-scale and walkable and probably is the catalyst behind the mushrooming restaurant/bar, outdoor seating boom we're seeing there. John R is also seeing both extensive mulit-unit residential rehabs as well as high density construction. I don't want elevated transit structures over either streets -- would you want to mess up this with overhead trains? https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3463...8i6656!5m1!1e2
Again, I believe the sheer width of Woodward make a modern, attractive center-pillar support el system tolerable.
Secondly, Woodward is, and always has been, the main commercial transportation artery of Detroit. I don't want rail transit addressing its populace or institutions via the back door along secondary traffic arteries like Cass and John R.
Third. The undulating nature of your proposed route would slow down service and otherwise look weird and unattractive from the ground.
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Originally Posted by usroute10
2. One thing I don't like about the PeopleMover is the puny two-car train configurations. They don't have the look of a rapid transit, more like an airport peoplemover. I do believe the PeopleMover does have decent capacity, and because of the automated technology, the trains can reliably arrive in 1.5-2 minute intervals.
If the PM was expanded into the true rapid transit system I propose, the stubby 2-car sets would be replace by longer trains a la Vancouver and other places.
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Originally Posted by usroute10
3. I don't like your idea of going to the old Grand Trunk (until north of DT Ferndale). Woodward north of Six Mile all the way to Pontiac has a wide median intended for rapid transit trains, just like in Cleveland, the light rail runs in the median in that Shaker area. Routing in the GT right-of-way would miss the Palmer Park area, Michigan State Fairgrounds, and downtown Ferndale (which is the suburban downtown seeing a the most development at the moment - 3 mixed-use projects).
The technologies of the trains as well as the character of Shaker Heights vs. north-of-8 Mile Woodward are very different. The Shaker Heights Rapid Transit was unique and revolutionary at the time: planners used conventional streetcars, upgraded their speed and coupling ability to allow for multi-unit trains. The greatness of Shaker Hts planning was that it placed often expensive, high-quality homes on a street facing the railroad. But even as trains, the light-rail, low-platform level street-crossing is not adverse to the upscale properties; in fact, studies have shown that it actually enhances them. ... Shaker Square, just inside Cleveland, is a high-density neighborhood of retail surrounded by a lot of apartment buildings, many quite large and quite elegant, esp the Moreland Courts to the east of the Square... and of course, the final 6 mile route into downtown Cleveland is grade separated with only 5 intermediate station stops... Shaker's Rapid was designed to move more distant suburbanites downtown quickly. It was NOT designed to serve, intimately, built-up areas between Shaker Heights and downtown (although such an area does exists at E. 116th street, where TOD is growing with more planned).
The Detroit People Mover, or any high-platform, 3rd rail powered (designated as 'heavy rail') system does not afford this. And given the density and distance from downtown (8 Mile Rd along Woodward is just over 9 miles from the downtown core), the PM would be more regional in nature, somewhat akin to commuter rail, and I see no problems with people either walking, biking or driving (to cheap or free parking) to transit stations. The DC Metro, among other HRT systems, operates very successfully in this fashion. Commuter rail along the GT, interfacing with the PM terminal at Royal Oak, would work in tandem with PM rapid transit in an express/local arrangement similar to other cities, including (again) Washington, D.C.
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Originally Posted by usroute10
4. The cost of rapid transit is getting ridiculous. An elevated rail line is costing like $450 million/mile in Honolulu. I think we can still do it for $150/200 million per mile.
This is why I noted Detroit has the option of scraping the expensive automated system like what the PM uses (and what Honolulu is building) for a cheaper, more conventional technology. But my whole reason for starting this thread, in addition to my long standing angst at Detroit's transit lethargy, is that, in the PM, the City already has viable rapid transit terminal distribution facilities in place in the form of the current PM.
As for the ongoing, tired excuse (not from you) that rapid transit is expensive? Yeah, well ... that's life. No pain = no gain. Really good stuff is often expensive. Why other cities and not Detroit?
Detroit has been crapping its collective pants over the cost of rapid transit since World War I, and its constant beating back mass transit proposals for this reason has been simultaneously holding the City back and killing it. Locals need to get over it and catch up with the rest of America -- and, as we know, that's not saying much in this transit starved/indifferent country. It's not just Honolulu, sprawling cities like Denver, Dallas and LA (among others, including smaller places like SLC) have bit the bullet, recognized the ongoing error of their ways, opened their civic wallets and buying into rapid transit in a BIG WAY. And the benefits are paying off bigtime. LA, for example, while still sprawling and freeway clogged, is a much more dense, walkable city, esp downtown and in key areas, like Hollywood, Pasadena, the Expo area, Little Tokyo, Culver City, etc, where TOD springing up all over the place.
The Q line already runs up Woodward. Replacing it with the people mover would be an improvement. At grade light rail is silly.
Bringing it out to the burbs is problematic. People and racists are afraid it would bring hordes of poor and/or black people to degrade their suburb and/or rob them. You might get a line to Ferndale, but probably not to Royal oak or Troy. Ideally you would want it to go out in different directions to pick up all or most of the major suburbs, but there are not ten suburbs that would welcome it. Probably not even five.
You just need a hundred billion or so dollars. The only place that kind of money can come from is the federal government and they just broke their piggy bank for the next five to ten years. Once things get stabilized, it will still take ten years to come up with funding. Figure on twenty years more for planning, acquisition and construction, and many of us would not be alive by the time it went into full operation.
It would need to be a double rail. One train at a time only in one direction on a single rail would not be practical. Probably at least six to ten trains to be effective. No one is going to wait an hour for the next train. They would have to rebuild a lot of Woodward, or very possibly all of it. Then you have the stations at a cost of $20-$30 million each. It would also need security, lo voltage communicants and control, etc.
The Q line already runs up Woodward. Replacing it with the people mover would be an improvement. At grade light rail is silly.
Bringing it out to the burbs is problematic. People and racists are afraid it would bring hordes of poor and/or black people to degrade their suburb and/or rob them. You might get a line to Ferndale, but probably not to Royal oak or Troy. Ideally you would want it to go out in different directions to pick up all or most of the major suburbs, but there are not ten suburbs that would welcome it. Probably not even five.
You just need a hundred billion or so dollars. The only place that kind of money can come from is the federal government and they just broke their piggy bank for the next five to ten years. Once things get stabilized, it will still take ten years to come up with funding. Figure on twenty years more for planning, acquisition and construction, and many of us would not be alive by the time it went into full operation.
It would need to be a double rail. One train at a time only in one direction on a single rail would not be practical. Probably at least six to ten trains to be effective. No one is going to wait an hour for the next train. They would have to rebuild a lot of Woodward, or very possibly all of it. Then you have the stations at a cost of $20-$30 million each. It would also need security, lo voltage communicants and control, etc.
I hear you Coldjensens, but suburbanites are going to have to get over the race stuff -- it exists in all American big cities, sadly, but other cities barrel forward with rapid transit because the good people realize it's in the overall better interests in the city. Metro Detroit is going to finally have to abandon the doughnut-hole mentality, grow up and put on its collective Big Boy/Girl pants. Besides, while we all know Ferndale is well known to be gay friendly, I thought Royal Oak was also more progressive and open-minded than most burbs, but what do I know... I would like to think all the protests, be they peaceful or sometimes violent, are moving us to a better society where those bigoted feelings would dissipate but, again, this is the screwed up United States where, unfortunately, one of the freedoms (too) many people embrace, is the freedom to hate other people based on race, color, religion, sexual preference, etc, etc...
Yes, ideally, the PM would be better served as a terminal loop if it were double tracked. But for now, at least for rapid transit in its initial stages, like a single-line up Woodward to 8-Mile and possibly beyond (I tend to think dense, urbanized downtown Royal Oak is a good destination), the one-way loop would be adequate. Consider the fact that, in gigantic Chicago with its historic Loop L, all of the individual downtown terminal Loop lines operate in a one-way, single-track mode anyway; trains enter the Loop either clock or counter-clockwise, call on all the Loop station-stops then exit back out to their fixed service areas.
I hear you Coldjensens, but suburbanites are going to have to get over the race stuff -- it exists in all American big cities, sadly, but other cities barrel forward with rapid transit because the good people realize it's in the overall better interests in the city. Metro Detroit is going to finally have to abandon the doughnut-hole mentality, grow up and put on its collective Big Boy/Girl pants. Besides, while we all know Ferndale is well known to be gay friendly, I thought Royal Oak was also more progressive and open-minded than most burbs, but what do I know... I would like to think all the protests, be they peaceful or sometimes violent, are moving us to a better society where those bigoted feelings would dissipate but, again, this is the screwed up United States where, unfortunately, one of the freedoms (too) many people embrace, is the freedom to hate other people based on race, color, religion, sexual preference, etc, etc...
Yes, ideally, the PM would be better served as a terminal loop if it were double tracked. But for now, at least for rapid transit in its initial stages, like a single-line up Woodward to 8-Mile and possibly beyond (I tend to think dense, urbanized downtown Royal Oak is a good destination), the one-way loop would be adequate. Consider the fact that, in gigantic Chicago with its historic Loop L, all of the individual downtown terminal Loop lines operate in a one-way, single-track mode anyway; trains enter the Loop either clock or counter-clockwise, call on all the Loop station-stops then exit back out to their fixed service areas.
What do you mean by loop? Do you mean a single train that goes in one direction to the terminus and then turns around and goes back down the same track the other way? Or do you mean a big circle like the PM is now, or the Chigcago loop? If you mean a big circle, where is the circle you are thinking of? It goes to Ferndale, and then where? How does it get back downtown? If you mean a loop that goes up Woodward on one track and comes back on a different one, whether on Woodward or swinging out through other locations like the current PM does, either way that is a double quantity of track.
There are really two options. 1. you go and return on the same track which means you can only have a very limited number of trains. (Probably two). You are talking about an hour wait between trains (at least). If you are talking about a "loop" where the train returns on a different track than it goes out on, then you are doubling the track (and cost). The people mover for example, it do goes out on the track to the left. It returns on the track ot the right. It is not the same track. Thus a "loop" to ferndale would require a return track someplace.
A third option is impractical. You could have turn outs at various locations to allow a train to pass the other. Not only does that double or more the land and cost of stations, it creates a logistical nightmare because when one train is a little late, is messes up the entire system. That is the problem with the current shared track system between Detroit and Chicago. You can end up with three hour delays.
One possibility might be to have a lot of trains into the city in the morning and just remove them from the track at the terminus. then have a lot of trains out of the city in the evening. You could change the timing on weekends and holidays. You somehow have to come up with something that provides better service than the existing bus system if you want to get any traction for the idea. the bus workers will fight the idea tooth and nail. You are talking about terminating a lot of employees currently involved in the bus system. trains are ore efficient. form the employees viewpoint, that is not a good ting.
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