LANSING – John Hertel, director of the Regional Transit Coordinating Council, brought the State Fair back from the brink of its demise to solvency and now he is confident that he can shepherd through a plan to unify transit in the Metro Detroit area and provide that regional system business seeks.
“In terms of the economic future of Southeast Michigan right now I believe it is the most significant issue,” Hertel told Gongwer News Service this week. “Not only does the rest of the world have mass transit, we’re the only metro area in the country that does not have a regional mass transit system.”
Hertel and leaders of the transit systems noted that ridership has already reached record levels across the region and is growing faster as fuel prices continue to rise. He is now halfway through the three years he was given to move toward that regional system.
But the plan this time will be different than in the past because it will rely on cooperation between the transportation agencies in the region. Unlike the Detroit Area Regional Transit Authority that met two untimely deaths, one to the veto pen and a second to a court ruling, the coordinating council is not intended to replace or oversee DDOT and SMART.
“(The council) has planning capabilities and it has the ability for being a pass-through for federal money,” Hertel said. “It doesn’t have the ability to build or operate a system.”
The good news, he said, is that needed cooperation appears to be starting at the top. The council is overseen by the Detroit mayor, the county executives for Oakland and Wayne counties and Macomb County Commission chair, all of whom unanimously supported his appointment in early 2007 as well as the vision document that forms the basis of the coming plan when that was presented last spring.
“It been super cooperative, extremely cooperative,” he said. “Not only DDOT and SMART but the Michigan Department of Transportation and members of our federal delegation in Washington and (the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments). We’ve had nothing but cooperation. I have a great belief that it will continue.”
DDOT Interim Director Lovevett Williams, in an email, echoed the cooperation between the transit agencies. In addition to connecting and overlapping routes, he noted DDOT and SMART are jointly operating a park and ride program, using the high occupancy vehicle lane, from Downriver to Downtown. The agencies ran a similar program to help commuters get around the construction when the Lodge Freeway was closed, he said.
The two systems also already have systems to allow riders to transfer between them without additional fee, as well as monthly passes that provide access to both systems, said SMART General Manager Hayes Jones.
“We are working very well with DDOT,” Jones said. “Fifty percent of our riders are citizens of Detroit who we take out to the suburbs for jobs because of the migration of business. Fifty percent of our other riders are going suburb to suburb.”
But he said he would welcome additional ideas.
“We need to be more creative,” Jones said. “So I’m going to be very open with what the RTCC study presents and I’m very confident that SMART will be consistent with what they propose.”
That cooperation will be essential not only for developing and operating transit as a regional system, but also for generating the funds needed to add to the existing routes and capacity.
“We’re short on supply for the mass transit demand that is growing day by day,” Hertel said. “The planning can be done with the federal money that I have. If you’re going to build a system, you’re going to have to come up with some form of local match.”
That lack of matching funds, and lack of a plan, have already cost the region. “We’ve missed out on hundreds of millions of dollars that we could have had if we had a local matching situation,” he said.
With the current economy and thin state budget, it will take a united front from the transit agencies to pull in any additional funds beyond the operating funds already approved. “Once the plan becomes public we’ll see if there’s political support,” he said. “I would think with gasoline prices and the fact that nationally it’s been proven over and over again that mass transit system creates jobs (there would be support).”
Jones said additional state and federal support will be essential to any expansions of the system given the rising fuel prices are also hitting the transit operators. “Our gas prices are going up. One penny costs us $33,000 a year,” he said. “That’s an extra $4 million we have to find just to keep our existing service.”
Williams agreed there would need to be broad public buy-in, both regionally and at the state level, to develop a truly regional system. “I think the bigger question is the region as a whole needs to decide that transit is needed to turn the state’s economy around,” he said in response to questions about cooperation between DDOT and SMART. “With high gas prices and insurance rates in Michigan employees cannot afford cars. Public transit has to be subsidized to truly become regional.”
But there appears already to be some discord. Hertel said it was likely the regional plan would include some form of light rail transportation. But he would not comment on how the rail line along Woodward Avenue, from downtown to about the city limits, developed under the Detroit Transit Options For Growth Study, would fit into the plan.
“That’s something the city of Detroit’s done unilaterally,” he said.
And he indicated Wayne and Oakland counties may have to require broader participation in the system. Macomb County requires all communities to participate in SMART, but Wayne and Oakland allow communities to opt out.
Jones said he was already working in many of those communities. “It is my goal to encourage these opt out communities to join us so we will truly have a regional transportation matrix,” he said. “People are driving 15 to 20 miles to one of our park and rides to get on our bus. We think that’s a disservice.”
Hertel said he also plans to spend his last year in his post out selling the plan. “I was hired to get this done,” he said. “I’ll spend several months moving around the area and sharing it with the public.”
Jones said the public education effort will have to include not only how the proposed system would work and why residents should foot the bill, but also why they should use the system. “It’s just part of our culture and we need to get away from that,” he said of owning multiple vehicles. “It’s a mindset that we have to convert the people.”
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