Modeling Metropolitan Detroit Transit

The seven-county Southeast Michigan region, that encompasses the Detroit Metropolitan Area, ranks fifth in population among top 25 regions in the nation. It also ranks among bottom five in the transit service provided, measured in miles or hours or per capita dollars of transit service. The primary transit agencies in the region essentially cater to ‘captive riders’. Cities with a stronger transit base in the nation have two things in common; their ability to draw “choice” riders, and their success in building some type of rail transit system, with capital funds generally provided by the federal government. Over past three decades, a number of studies have examined the feasibility of rapid transit services in the Detroit region including speed link (rubber tired high speed buses), Light Rail Transit (LRT), Commuter Rail Transit (CRT) and High Speed Rail Transit (HRT). Among the many problems associated with building such a rapid transit system in the region, is the lack of a “quick response” tool for preliminary planning for light rail transit along an urban travel corridor. The primary objective of this project is to develop a quick-response tool for sketch planning purposes that may be used by other cities to test the feasibility of building LRT systems along a predefined transit corridor (i.e., a corridor with existing transit service, in form of buses). The primary focus of this study is to maximize the use of available data without any new data collection effort. In the report, the authors present an LRT case study for Detroit, where a number of LRT planning studies are currently underway, each with specific objectives, followed by a set of guidelines that can be used by transit planners for sketch planning of LRT. The guidelines are designed to assist transit planners in the preliminary planning effort for a LRT system on an urban travel corridor with existing bus services.