Maybe.
A new Bridge Michigan report says that a $30,000 feasibility study should wrap up by the end of the month and that talks are happening between “Ford, the City of Detroit and other transportation officials.”
What we know: Lots of people would love to see this happen. And Ford has said they want a significant part of the big beautiful lobby to be, well, for the public. Ford is actively rehabilitating the building for a variety of uses, including offices and residential.
What we don’t know yet: What it would cost and who’d pay for it. The feasibility study hopefully could help answer the cost side of this.
Also in play: As we talked about on our podcast, Curbed reported that passenger rail service from Detroit to Toronto is being considered. There’s another report about rail service being feasible from Detroit to Toledo — and Ann Arbor to Traverse City.
Crazily enough, you need to take a bus to take a train from Toledo right now. Passenger rail service between the two cities stopped in 1995.
As a personal note, how cool would it be to take a train up north say from Detroit to A2 to Traverse City? I actually took a train from MCS in the 80s with my dad to Ann Arbor for the weekend, and it’d be great to be able to do it again.
In a perfect world, I’d like to be able to take a train from here to Mackinac City (and ferry to Mackinac Island) like back in the old days. One can dream.