On this week’s Daily Detroit Happy Hour with Sven Gustafson, we talk mass transit. A new plan called “Connect Southeast Michigan” has been put forth by Wayne County Executive Warren Evans (more here)… but does it even have a chance? Does any plan have a chance?
The Daily Detroit team walked through some of the speech Evans gave to a Regional Transit Authority Board meeting, a couple of comments, what the plan is and what it could mean.. and had straight talk and openly wondered if there is any plan that would actually be acceptable to suburban leaders as the target for what a good plan is, if you look back at the history of this process, keeps moving.
One of the conversation threads was the “alternative fact” that transit wasn’t a reason Detroit made the cut for Amazon, even though we have plenty of evidence that it was, especially in light of a previous show where we went to Indianapolis and were told clearly that without a viable mass transit plan Indianapolis wouldn’t have made the list. Or our panel of experts on the subject, some who were part of the bid process.
We also talked about the lack of vision when it comes to leaders in Macomb and Oakland County as they basically have their positions for life and don’t have to fight off challengers, and the reality that although it may have been politically necessary and it looked good on County Executive Evans for putting the plan forward, there are a lot of headwinds.
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