QLine (file photo)
Keith Crain writes in Crain's Detroit Business that buses, not trolleys and subways, are the answer to Metro Detroit transit needs.
In a column headlined "Please don't dig any more trolley lines," the publication's chairman and chief executive officer doesn't have much good to say about the QLine:
We need a much better, much bigger public transportation system in metropolitan Detroit. But I sure hope that we learned our lesson from the very short, very expensive rail line we built on Woodward Avenue.
I have no idea how it is doing now that everyone is aware of it, but I am sure it will always cost more to run than it takes in fares. It is near impossible for public transportation to break even.
Detroit cannot afford to build a fixed-rail system. Even the friendliest Congress is not going to give Detroit anywhere near the billions of dollars required to build fixed rail touching all three counties of Metro Detroit.
Not only is it not financially possible, but it would simply not make good sense to build something that would be unmovable. Detroit needs the flexibility to be able to change transit as conditions change, and that would appear to be some sort of bus system.
DDOT and SMART bus systems serve Metro Detroit, but many critics still find the bus system inadequate.
