What Detroit needs is to get rid of its corrupt and inept city government and its leaders and start welcoming people of all races to come and invest and start businesses and provide jobs. Until that happens all the streetcars and commuter lines won’t do one thing.
You’re about as safe on a public bus in Detroit as you are in Kinshasha in the Congo. Until safety and security can be improved nobody will give up their cars for public transportation in Detroit.
And where is the $135 million coming from? Definitely NOT the few remaining taxpayers in Detroit aka “Entitlement City”! It is coming from YOU the hardworking taxpaying citizens of every municipality in every state of these United States. Detroit is bankrupt, they have not one penny to build a streetcar system so the federal government is giving them YOUR money … and without your permission. Detroit is dead by it’s own hand and no infusion of money from the other forty-nine states will revive it; the problem is Michigan’s and no others’.
“With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”
James Madison
@ALBERT BRIGHT - Wait, you’re telling me my taxes are being used to construct something I like rather than yet another road to nowhere or a war or a bailout of some extremely rich people or hunting down and imprisoning drug users or something?
That’s great news! Just a suggestion though: your way of wording things came across a little negatively, as if it were a bad thing that money is being spent on creating jobs, modernizing a distressed city, and creating better travel choices. I’m sure though you’re as glad as I am to see some minute, insignificant, percentage of our taxes used to promote the public welfare for a change.
What is the purpose of this train, and who really is going to use it?
If Jeff Guse is so worried about Detroit’s debt problems, perhaps he ought to shift his attention there to the new downriver bridge proposal as a new alternate route for the Ambassador Bridge. Billions were spent on building facilities at the Ambassador Bridge to enhance border security, new customs inspections facilities, and to improve the traffic approach flows to/from the bridge.
For less than what the new bridge downriver will ultimately cost, Detroit’s streetcar line and commuter rail will be up and running long before construction even starts on the new bridge. The owner of the Ambassador Bridge has even offered to build a new second bridge next to the existing Ambassador Bridge and why Jeff Guse is so mum to this idea baffles me.The same owner also bought Detroit’s old Michigan Central Depot and is intent on restoring that as well, which could serve as an office building for customs brokers and some of the other vacant land in the area could be used to build a full service truck stop and create lots of jobs which Detroit badly needs.
The streetcar line will add to being a beckon of hope for Detroit’s future, along with restored commuter rail services to Pontiac and Ann Arbor, and the new line over the former Wabash line to the airport.
Jeff’s comments are pure hypocrisy and should be ignored.