If I could have one wish for Detroit, it would be to have a great rapid transit system.  Detroit is the largest metro area without rapid transit. There have been a few signs of hope recently.  In general, we, as a city and as a region, think way too small.

There are plans in the works to build light rail up Woodward, at least to the New Center. This is a step in the right direction, as is a planned commuter rail line from Ann Arbor to Metropolitan Airport to Detroit. This is a start and will pay dividends. My hope is that we can leaders in this region to have a bolder vision. Light-rail will add to the quality of life for the reqion.  It works great in the sun-belt. But we get snow in Detroit and snow can impede light rail the same way that it does with the automobile.

To real get the economy humming in the long run, a subway would make a huge difference.  Other cities in the northeast quadrant of the country that are vibrant have subways: Boston, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, as well as the Canadian cities of Montreal and Toronto. While these cities have had experienced sprawl, it has been no near the sprawl found in southeast Michigan.  If light rail systems are vitamins to growth, then subways are megavitamins or even steroids.

There is also talk of the United States actually catching up to the rest of the world by investing in high speed rail. Our Michigan local and state officials should be falling all over each other to make sure Michigan is in the thick of that investment. We should be hearing from them daily about it.  I am hoping they working this out in private because it simply does not seem to be on their radar.

For years in Michigan, we always here how cutting taxes will move us forward. We’ve cut taxes over and over, but we lag behind many other states because we only think of infrastructure as car and truck infrastructure. Transit is an economic catalyst that returns a bigger return on the investment, so it is time for the state of Michigan and all of its metropolitan areas to making the investment necessary to rebuild our cities, which will help to rebuild our state.

Transit needs to be a high priority. For Michigan to be the state it can be and for Detroit to be the city that it can be, a great rapid transit system must our number one priority.