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“DDOT Now,” Detroit Paratransit’s Same-Day Service

DDOT launches same-day paratransit service for Detroiters with disabilities

The Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) launched a new same-day paratransit program called DDOT Now on Monday. The service allows residents with disabilities to schedule rides the day before or up to an hour in advance.

Robert Cramer, executive director of Transit, says the new program gives riders more flexibility. “The new service allows people to schedule transportation on short notice,” he said.

Paratransit services are guaranteed under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in accessing public accommodations — including transportation.

DDOT Now operates between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Riders can schedule a trip by calling 313-570-6845 between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. The fare is $2.50 per ride, and the program is supported by federal and local funding.

The city has recently made improvements to DDOT’s paratransit services, including better on-time performance and the hiring of additional staff

Download the PDF to learn more. 

Thousands rally in Metro Detroit as part of nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests

Tens of thousands of people rallied across Metro Detroit on Saturday as part of the national “No Kings” protests against authoritarianism.

Many demonstrators carried signs criticizing President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and his decision to deploy Marines and National Guard troops to protests in Los Angeles.

At a rally in Southwest Detroit, high school student Julio Henry gave an impassioned speech in support of immigrants.

“We are here in the United States to come together,” Henry said. “Our diversity is what makes the United States the United States.”

Henry added that young people are paying attention to national politics and they’re not pleased with what they see.

“We call him so many things, the fascist, the dictator, the white supremacist, but what we all agree on is he should not be our president,” Henry said.

The event in Detroit remained largely peaceful. However, a brief altercation broke out when members of a local biker gang arrived and began harassing protesters. Detroit police quickly intervened to defuse the situation.

Reporting by Russ McNamara, WDET

MDOT to extend life of I-75 Rouge River bridge with surface treatment

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is planning a two-year project to coat the surface of the I-75 Rouge River bridge in Detroit.

Crews previously rebuilt the bridge deck in 2017 and 2018. Project engineer Bill Erben says the structure is in good shape, but additional work will help preserve it.

“Sandblasting and smoothing the concrete will make it last longer,” Erben said.

MDOT plans to close the Rouge River bridge eight times this year and eight more times in 2026, each time affecting one direction of traffic at a time.

The first closure was scheduled to begin last Friday on northbound I-75 between Schaefer Road and I-96, but the threat of rain delayed the start.

Reported by Pat Batcheller, WDET

Republican-backed budget would slash funding for U-M and MSU, expand support for other public universities

The University of Michigan could lose a significant portion of its state funding under a higher education budget passed by the Michigan House of Representatives late last week.

The plan would also reduce funding for Michigan State University, while increasing support for most of the state’s other public universities.

Republican House Appropriations Committee Chair Ann Bollin said U-M and MSU rely less on state support than other schools. She and other GOP lawmakers say they hope the proposed cuts will reduce the number of out-of-state and international students at those institutions.

The education budget bill would also eliminate funding for free K-12 school meals across the state.

Reported by Collin Jackson, Michigan Public Radio Network

Taste of Dearborn returns with food tour of 20 local restaurants

The Dearborn Area Chamber of Commerce is hosting its annual Taste of Dearborn event this week, offering visitors a chance to sample dishes from local restaurants.

The event takes place Wednesday, June 18, from 6 to 9 p.m. Check-in begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Bryant Branch Library.

About 1,000 attendees are expected to tour 20 restaurants in Downtown West Dearborn.

General admission is $35, and a VIP experience is $50. Tickets are available at www.dearbornareachamber.org

WDET’s CuriosiD series answers your questions about everything Detroit. Subscribe to CuriosiD on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of CuriosiD, listener Jennifer Kulczycki of Sterling Heights asks... 

“I’ve heard for many years that metro Detroit doesn’t have a robust transit system because the Big Three undermined the streetcar and bus systems in order to sell more vehicles. I’ve always been curious about that, but I’ve never really been able to find any concrete evidence of it.”

The short answer

In 1949, General Motors and the Firestone Tire company, among others, were convicted of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and products to National City Lines, which had taken control of dozens of transit systems. But GM, Firestone and the others were acquitted of trying to, in effect, monopolize the transit industry. And experts say automakers could not run over Detroit’s streetcars, because the city itself owned the system.

Riding the rails all around the town

Imagine traveling back to Detroit in the 1920s and ’30s, when streetcar tracks split the middle of Woodward Avenue.

Riders who once strolled past horse-drawn carriages to get onboard the Department of Street Railways system, known as the DSR, now had to dodge vehicles going 30 miles an hour or more.

The DSR touted the system’s widespread use. It noted that at peak periods of the day as many as 1,000 streetcars crisscrossed the city, “carrying Detroit’s industrial army.”

It was also a different animal from some other municipalities, because in 1922 the city itself had bought out the streetcar system, ostensibly to operate it more efficiently.

“Every time a bus or a trolley car rolls down the street, there’s a stockholder’s meeting in motion,” the DSR proclaimed.

Iowa State University Professor Robert Pfaff did his dissertation at the University of Michigan on the history of Detroit’s streetcars. He says it was the largest publicly-owned transit system in the U.S. at the time.

And Pfaff contends Detroit’s burgeoning auto industry viewed rail cars as a necessity.

“They recognized that this was the way that most of their workers actually got to work,” he said.

The takeover of transit

Over those decades, a company called National City Lines (NCL) and its subsidiaries, backed by a consortium that included General Motors and Firestone, took control of dozens of transit systems.

The moves caught the interest of the U.S. Justice Department.

In 1949, GM, Firestone and others in the consortium were convicted of a conspiracy to monopolize the sale of buses, fuel and similar products to National City Lines. They were fined a token few thousand dollars each. But the companies were acquitted of trying to take over the systems owned by NCL in order to, in effect, form a transit monopoly.

Still, the idea of automakers sabotaging streetcars gained increasing traction in the public imagination, even serving as the plot for numerous books and movies.

For instance, the 1988 animated film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” features the villainous Judge Doom buying up the Red Car rail line, preparing for a new freeway with “wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see.”

When a character tells him no one will use the freeway since they can take the streetcar for 5 cents, Doom replies, “Oh they’ll drive. They’ll have to. You see, I bought the Red Car so I could dismantle it!”

Buses take the lead

Pfaff hits the brakes on any takeover of streetcars in Detroit, however, since the city itself owned the system.

“That automatically prevented other private investors from trying to come in and disrupt that space. We are the ones to blame for dismantling that system. We don’t have some private company that swept in with some grand scheme, we have to look inwardly at ourselves,” Pfaff said.

In the mid-20th Century, the American Dream was paved with highways crossing the country. Pfaff says metro Detroit transit officials wanted to be on the cutting edge of it all.

“The super-modern thing were these nice, fast, rubber-tired diesel buses that operate on the streets. And they decided if they’re gonna serve the modern region with more suburban residential areas, they couldn’t do electrification and tracks. The easy way to do it was with buses.”

The transit system that is

About three-quarters of a century later, Metro Detroit’s transit system unfolds along streets like Gratiot Avenue.

Detroiter Charles Green stands at a bus stop on Gratiot near 12 mile in Macomb County. Green says he grew up riding buses with his father.

He calls newer routes, like the suburban SMART system’s Fast Gratiot line into the city, a definite upgrade. Mostly.

“I like the bus. It’s eco-friendly and convenient. But the frequency of the bus just ain’t right,” Green lamented. “I work at a bar and man, every bar over there is closing after midnight. So at that point I gotta pay $20 for an Uber just to get home.”

Detroit’s DDOT bus system wants to significantly increase its number of drivers and cut wait times for customers. But at a bus shelter further along Gratiot, Detroiter Shina Harps says she’s part of the roughly 25–33% of the city’s residents who don’t have their own vehicle.

In the car capitol of the world, Harps says that quickly becomes a badge of shame.

“I do get that a lot, ‘Oh you take the bus,’” Harps said in a disparaging tone. “That’s my life. I’m living in my truth.”

‘Does Detroit really want public transit?’

Detroit transit also carried a stigma among some in the federal government.

The Vice President of Rock, billionaire Dan Gilbert’s family of companies, is Jared Fleisher. He previously worked as a Washington, D.C.-based attorney who helped a Detroit nonprofit group develop what they hoped would be both a catalyst and a part of improved public transit in the region – the QLINE streetcar system.

“Going back to the Carter administration, Washington never saw metro Detroit really be able to get its act together around transit,” Fleisher said. “They did not take us very seriously or send money our way. (The QLINE) was meant to show Washington that we were serious, we were working together around transit in a different way.”

In 2012, before the QLINE even broke ground, officials formed an actual Regional Transit Authority for southeast Michigan, the same kind of transportation agency the federal government worked with in other municipalities.

But Fleisher says a four-county millage to fund inter-connected public transit in metro Detroit ran into a roadblock in 2016.

Rural voters came out in force to support then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. Fleisher believes it was an electorate that saw little value in paying extra taxes for a transit system they likely would hardly use.

“It went to the ballot and lost by half a percent. And nine years later, we still have not solved the issue of regional rapid transit.”

A magnet for young talent

What exists alongside bus service, along with Detroit’s elevated People Mover system, is a 3.3 mile stretch of railway on Woodward Avenue punctuated by the clanging bell of the QLINE streetcar.

It’s a reminder of what could be in Detroit, especially for younger travelers.

Onboard the QLINE, Wayne State student Sara Jaloul notes she has her own car. But she says using the streetcar for even a few miles helps her save both gas money and the environment.

“I think the less cars we have on the street is probably a lot less pollution, so that’s really important to me. As much public transportation as possible should be best,” Jaloul said.

Catering to that smog-free desire is a key selling point for many younger workers, says the head of the metro area’s Regional Transit Authority, Ben Stupka. And he says no one wants to grow the transit system more now than Detroit’s automakers.

“The Big Three and those that support them in that ecosystem have a laser-focused understanding that transit is part of the brew, if you will, that keeps and attracts talent to this region,” Stupka said. “And that is what they need to survive and thrive.”

Whether that eventually leads to metro Detroit public transportation that legitimately competes with other regions across the country though, remains a question for down the road.

Meet the listener

Jennifer Kulczycki is the Director of External Affairs and Communications at The Kresge Foundation. She lives in Sterling Heights. She came to metro Detroit from western New York state fresh out of college to work in the automotive industry.

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More from CuriosiD:

• What happens to old fire trucks in Detroit?
• What’s the story behind metro Detroit’s mile roads?
• What is on Boblo Island today? And what happened to the Boblo boats?

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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said that the Detroit-Windsor area is the “busiest active border crossing in North America,” and that about $200 billion of trade flows between the two countries annually. 

A border that is active has plenty of infrastructure that needs to be maintained. Regine Beauboeuf, CEO of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel for American Roads, oversees the bridges, tunnels and toll roads that exist between the two countries. 

She joined The Metro live from Mackinac Island on Wednesday to discuss what her job entails and to provide more insight on the consequences of the trade war between the U.S. and Canada. 

American Roads is a U.S.-based owner and operator of transportation infrastructure, including toll assets, and currently operates three toll bridges — including the international tunnel connecting Detroit with Windsor.

She spoke about the region’s unique cross-border economy and why she doesn’t expect to see a major impact at the border from Trump’s recent tariffs.

“Together Detroit and Windsor, really that’s its own ecosystem,” she said. “We’ve been working together; it’s not just trade, it’s also people [who] will come to work, like the health care workers who are coming here; you have people with families or in-laws in other countries…so there is a very strong history between Windsor and Detroit and I don’t think you’ll see that being affected.”

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

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