The Detroit Transportation Corporation (DTC) is working on its $800,000 study on ways to improve the People Mover. The group plans to share its list of short-term improvements and long-term recommendations this spring.

Melia Howard is the general manager of DTC. She took over the role in January after previously serving as Detroit’s deputy mayor under Mike Duggan.

Howard says public meetings about the elevate rail’s future have been productive.

“People were coming in,” says Howard, “slowly, surely going through the design charrettes. Really taking their time and being thoughtful about how they want to see us grow and expand or remodel.”

Howard says expanding the People Mover to add new lines is not out of the question, but that would likely require outside funding from business leaders or the federal government.

“It’s all about the people,” says Howard. “So if the will of the people desire for us to move forward, then the onus is on to try to fill that need and move forward with it.”

The DTC plans to share its list of short-term improvements and long-term recommendations this spring.

After years of pandemic disruption, driver shortages, and declining public trust, Southeast Michigan’s transit agencies say they’re finally back on their feet.

There are new labor contracts. New buses on the way. On-demand service pilots. Even a regional transit app designed to knit a fragmented system together.

But recovery doesn’t always feel like progress… especially if you’re still waiting 40 minutes for a bus that’s supposed to come every 10.

At a recent State of Transit meeting hosted by Transportation Riders United, transit leaders struck a cautiously optimistic tone. They said the crisis is over. But questions remain about access, equity, and reliability.

Noah Kincade leads Detroit Documenters, a civic journalism program where trained residents attend public meetings and take detailed notes to help the rest of us stay informed. He joined The Metro’s Robyn Vincent to examine how transit officials are framing the system’s rebound and how those claims compare with riders’ experiences.

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The Michigan Department of Transportation has big plans for I-94 in western Wayne County. 

Crews will rebuild and repair the freeway between I-275 and Michigan Ave. at the Detroit-Dearborn city limits. 

MDOT project engineer Bill Erben says the work will start with clearing shoulders and medians in February. Erben says that includes removing some trees.

“For every tree that we cut, we replace trees at the end,” he says.

February weather is notoriously unpredictable, so the timing is important—especially for wildlife.

“There’s a prohibition on cutting trees during the season that’s conducive to bats mating,” Erben says. “So, we have to get the tree removal done from an environmental standpoint.”

Reconstruction and rehabilitation

Erben says the Restore 94 project has two main components—rebuilding and repairing.

“We start just to the east of Wayne Road and it’s all-new pavement through Beech Daly,” he says. “And then there’s significant section of pavement on westbound 94 from Southfield to the [Ford] Rouge [complex] that will get replaced as well.”

Between I-275 and Michigan Ave., MDOT will install five new bridges and create a new interchange at Ecorse Rd.

Spokesperson Diane Cross says drivers will have access to Metro Airport at all times.

“Drivers will always have I-275, which we redid in the last couple of years,” she says. “If we’re working at Merriman Rd., we’ll make sure Middle Belt Rd. is open and vice versa.”

Getting around it won’t be easy

MDOT plans to shift traffic from one side of the freeway to the other, starting with the westbound lanes. That will reduce traffic from six lanes to four. Erben says the goal is to keep traffic moving on 94 throughout the project.

“There will be local detours, but the bulk of the project is to try to maintain traffic on the freeway,” he says. “We’ll have temporary ramps that will carry traffic from one side to the other.”

The three-year project will affect homes and businesses along 94 in Allen Park, Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Melvindale, Romulus and Taylor. That includes the Ford Rouge complex.

Erben says he’s listening to stakeholders. “We’ve met with Ford already, we’ve met with the mayor of Taylor,” he says. “We’re going to do whatever we can to keep that line of communication open.”

Toward that end, MDOT has two public meetings on the project. The first takes place at 1 p.m. on Feb. 2 at the Allen Park Department of Public Services on West Outer Drive. The second happens at 4 p.m. on Feb. 11 at Taylor City Hall on Goddard. 

The annual “State of Transit” event was this week. Put on by advocacy group Transit Riders United, it gathers leaders from around southeastern Michigan to discuss all things related to public transportation.

Detroit Director of Transit Robert Cramer told WDET at the event that one thing DDOT has made progress over the last year is modernizing its fleet of buses. That includes adding 45 new hybrid and four electric buses.

He says the hybrid models have seem to be more feasible than the electric ones at this time.

“Because we don’t have a network of charging around the city that can keep topping it off, we send [the electric buses] out for 4 or 5 hours, then we’ll have to bring them back for a pretty lengthy charging,” says Cramer. 

However, Cramer says DDOT is still facing bus availability challenges as it works to bring more buses onto the road. He says on time performance isn’t quite where it needs to be as a result.

“Right now we’re in the upper 60s,” says Cramer, “about 70% is out on time performance. The industry standard, and our goal, is 85%.”

Cramer says improving wages for drivers and mechanics has also helped the department improve service over the last year. He says it’s helped with employee retention.

Ford is changing tactics again. 

Last month, the company decided to pivot from its electric vehicle plans, and into hybrid cars and gas engines. The biggest signal was the phasing out of the all-electric F-150 Lightning.

That’s a big shift from four years ago when Ford said it wanted to make EVs account for 40% of their global sales by 2030. 

Why are they pivoting again? And, what is the future for Ford and other automakers?

Paul Eisenstein is a contributing editor for Headlight.News and a contributor to dozens of media outlets, including Japan’s Nikkei. He spoke with The Metro‘s Robyn Vincent.

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

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

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