Private bus line aims to fill the gaps in Detroit's failing transit system

Public safety, transit among $160 million in cuts in Detroit budget proposal

On top of earlier cuts



Slowly private business people are wondering if they can serve this market.

From The Detroit News

Didorosi's first bus will launch the last week of April, and the other two will follow. Didorosi said he wants to quickly expand to day service after starting with a schedule that runs from 5 p.m. to midnight Mondays and Tuesdays, and 5 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Wednesdays through Sundays.

Didorosi said he plans to base routes on public bus lines and market research. A day pass will cost $5 even as gas prices sit above $4 a gallon.

The obvious need for the service is so great and the current system so bad, few politicians are complaining.

Didorosi said longtime promises of more efficient bus systems and light rail are going nowhere.

"In the now, there's nothing. It's impossible to get around downtown," Didorosi said.

We have to get away from the idea that the failure of top down, poorly run government transit automatically means the death of transit service.

Operator of NY's Taxpayer Financed Yankee Stadium Garages Nears Default

Don't ever say governments don't invest in our communities. Allegheny Center, was an investment that took the heart out of The North Side, while Mellon Arena was an investment in the lower Hill- which just happened to remove it's residents and businesses.

The Cross Bronx Expressway was an amazing feat of engineering, leaving a wonderful gash through the Bronx. Often tax investments are given to vital interests like sports teams who have the community's interest at heart.

Few were as misguided and despicable than the 2005 deal between NY City and The New York Yankees. It's blowing up now.

From The Daily News

THE FIRM that built and manages the new Yankee Stadium parking garages can’t repay $237 million in tax-exempt bonds the Bloomberg administration arranged for it four years ago, new financial records show.

Bronx Parking Development Company LLC is running perilously low on cash reserves and faces a looming default by the end of the year, according to a report filed Friday by a trustee for the firm’s bondholders.

Time is running out, in other words, to avoid one of the biggest failures in decades of bonds issued by a New York City agency.

Local politicians who supported the deal like Council Speaker, Christine Quinn thought...

“I think it would be great if people could go to sporting events exclusively on mass transit but that’s not going to happen,” she said. “So one has to, when they’re developing projects like this, have a reality sense of what the needs are as it relates to parking.”

Even though more than fifty percent of game goers used mass transit.

The positive thing is that, as the garages go belly up, people are finally thinking of actual money making ways to use the land, like building hotels and conference centers. The problem is that, with the city so eager to bend over and hand out tax dollars, sports teams have little incentive to make good use of their properties. Honestly, George Steinbrenner's obsession with expanded parking revealed how little he thought of The Bronx.

Supersize NYC, Apartment Buildings Scale Up

When you live in a city or visit often, it's hard to notice how rapidly things are changing. NYC used to always have a whole lot of apartment buildings, averaging between 12 and 25 stories with a relatively small number of really tall ones. Even so by looking at the skyline one could usually know with confidence that most of the tallest buildings of 30 stories and up were office buildings, located in the two main office districts--downtown and midtown. Also, many large areas were mostly made up of much smaller residential buildings. In the last 15 years or so this has radically changed with a new emerging skyline in which both apartment and office buildings regularly top 40 stories.

Spotting the apartments is somewhat easy, since most of these new buildings have tall needle like forms or other tricks meant to maximize window space as opposed to office buildings in which large block floor plans are more desirable.

There are two main factors, the first being that Manhattan as basically the only urban area with a fully supported high capacity subway system and mostly unbroken street grid is just seeing a massive amount of demand.

Another factor is that city government in the Bloomberg era has made a concerted effort to maximize development and tax revenue per dollar of transit investment.

The sum total result is a city that is both increasingly anti car, pro pedestrian and pro growth at the same time. Similar things are happening in the outer boroughs, but the story there is more complex.

Buncher Co Land Fight May Hold Up Light Rail

Up until very recently, I wasn't following the many dream Pittsburgh light rail systems floating around on napkins around town. From what I had heard, Peduto's idea of some kind of loop linking Downtown with the Strip, Bloomfield, Oakland and Shadyside made the most sense. (although, I really thought the cost estimate I once heard of only $25 million seemed absurdly low ball)Of course it makes sense-- I thought of it myself after living in Pittsburgh for one week.

The reasonable plans imagine using existing but underused old rail corridors and easements and almost all go through the Strip.

Such system would vastly increase the potential land uses and density levels along the route meaning more potential cash for almost everyone. It's a win, win so who would have a problem with it?

Well, already the problems are here.


"Although the tracks from 16th to 21st streets were removed or covered over in the 1980s, AVR contends it held the easement to operate rail service in the corridor, and that Buncher was barred from developing the strip of land once occupied by the tracks.

When AVR's chief executive officer, Russell Peterson, and a consultant met with Buncher's president, Tom Balestrieri, in September 2008 to invite the company into a public-private partnership to build a transit-oriented development between 16th and 21st streets, Mr. Balestrieri told them the easement didn't exist, Mr. Peterson said in a filing to the transportation board."

Now I want to make myself clear, (oooops, I really mean it) I'm pretty much a Libertarian and pretty much opposed to all eminent domain uses beyond the most extreme public needs and I really don't think transportation routes fit the bill at all. 90% of the time if a project really makes sense, it will gain support and justify the purchase price of land or rights. People always say they need public power to do what the market won't. Most of the time this is because the idea doesn't make a lot of sense in the first place.

I also have no knowledge at all of this contract. Still, I am pretty shocked and amazed, that a large property owner in the Strip wouldn't see how light rail would vastly increase the value of it's holdings by opening The Strip up to really dense, walkable mixed uses. Even more amazing, is that there's so little talk about these plans. I mean we live in a city that has bulldozed vast areas for Sports Stadiums and almost every other use.

Most people don't know that there is at least one major transit system in Hong Kong run by an incredibly profitable private company which also develops major apartment, office and shopping developments along it's routes.

( The plan talked about in the Post, once again-- focuses on linking to suburban areas instead of creating a comprehensive route in the city. Which, since it serves mostly low and moderate density areas offers little or no chance of paying for itself either by attracting enough riders or through increased property tax collections)

Another Note About Links

I'm gradually piling in a few new links, perhaps 6 or 7 in the last week and a good number before that. A lot of them are long overdue things like the City Walkabout blog on the Post Gazette site and the three City Paper blogs.

I just want to repeat that a link from this blog to your site is not complete endorsement of it's content. For example, I just added the Transportation for America site which is mostly a high pressure sales pitch and advocacy campaign for major government mass transit and rail funding. While I strongly endorse mass transit and even more importantly a return to the denser more walkable communities and design concepts that once made transit viable--as a Libertarian or Libertarian Republican, I don't think this is an area government should be in at all-- most especially the Federal Government. After holding my nose and looked further I had to admit they can be a good source of tips, articles, studies and links about transit issues as well as critiques of our flawed car oriented highway policies. I know it sounds nuts, but I actually think self funding privately owned mass transit and rail networks could become viable----if they didn't have to compete with the mostly "free" government highways. Freight Rail is coming back and hanging on in spite of a very unfair playing field and In Hong Kong a private company has made running a subway into a very profitable business. (while keeping fares pretty afordable)

I also hold an even more fringe view that a return to dense, mixed use urban design will make feet the primary transport mode.

The Streetsblog Network

I know there's a lot of of optimism out there about the new administration, most of which I don't share. Partly, I'm more than a little concerned about our ability to pay for ambitious new projects and partly aware of how badly misguided previous government efforts, like the national highway system have been.

Anyway, since Obama is from an urban center, a lot of folks are hoping that this round of capital investments is spent wisely. Streetsblog is working to better link bloggers with interests in cities, urban planning, pedestrian issues and transit through it's new Streetsblog network.

Streetsblog Network (streetsblog.net) brings together more than 100 blogs from 31 states — and counting. Its purpose is twofold: to create a place where people who blog on smart growth, livable streets and sustainable transportation issues can come together and learn from each other. And to provide a clearinghouse for information related to the transportation bill, or "TEA," that directs the spending of hundreds of billions of federal dollars. The next such bill is set to come up for reauthorization in 2009.