Aired January 27
INTRO: Transit in Southeast Michigan is gaining ground. No ground has been broken yet. But plans are proceeding for easy on and off trains from Detroit to Pontiac and Detroit to Ann Arbor. Transit advocates want transit choices. They also want to keep recent college graduates in state. Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus reports.
TRX1: Catharine Hansford says the sooner people and politicians support mass transit, the better. .
AX1: “I’m looking forward to the day when Michigan has the kinds of options that other places in the country have and that our young people will feel the pull back in this direction because the transit is here and because the options that happen around transit are available to them.”
TRX2: You have to think like this in Michigan these days. Michiganders have been leaving for places like Boston for decades. (NS) Hansford’s 25 year old daughter left 2 years ago. She describes her morning commute by train there.
AX2: “To get out of my house I walk about 20 feet across the street to the stop and I wait usually between 3-5 minutes. The train comes. I ride it for anywhere between 20-40 minutes depending on how slow because the above the ground train is dictated by the street lights. And the traffic. It could take longer depending on the traffic. I read the whole time and then I walk out and walk a block to my work. Much easier than driving. And I don’t drive here at all.”
TRX2: Marika Horstick is talking about Boston. But government officials in Southeast Michigan are clearing hurdles for similar transit here. The point is to reverse the trends… Take Horstick’s example. She sold her car when she knew she’d be moving to Boston. Her Dad lives in Ann Arbor. And she grew up in the suburbs with her mother.
AX3: “That was pretty boring. I knew I wanted to do something else.”
TRX3: This month, United Van Lines said Michigan leads the nation in outmigration. Twice as many people leave than come. Riding Boston’s T train, Marika Horstick puts the figure higher than that.
AX4: “90% of my close friends from high school live outside of Michigan now. And almost all of them live in big cities. I think that says something about the mentality of people who grow up in Michigan.”
TRX4: Graduates of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State take their educations and their dreams to places that are denser, more urban, more racially diverse. Then they make THOSE places better.
AX4: “From a transportation standpoint there’s no better city.”
TRX5: Paul Berg is NOT from Michigan. He’s from Connecticutt where his dad was in the railroad business for half a century. Berg has been an Institutional Investment Manager for almost that long. He’s walked out of the subway to show a reporter the Big Dig project. It’s 500 feet wide, 3 miles long, cost $16 billion and according to Berg, worth it.
AX5: “The elevated highway is this green space in between the two roads here going each way. And all of the traffic that used to come through here is directly below us underneath that pavement over there. It’s 3 lanes some cases 4 lanes each side.”
TRX6: Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook graduate and former Governor Mitt Romney oversaw the big dig’s completion.. The expressway had destroyed a neighborhood. People couldn’t really walk, just drive. Now you can walk from Beacon Hill down across a grassy park to the waterfront. So credit Romney the Michigan native with help taking down the expressway. Berg says Detroit has to change its mindset.
AX6: “The car industry dominates everybody’s way of life is driving around in a car. Go down to Atlanta. People drive in a car but there’s also mass transit. MARTA is moving people all over the place.”
TRX7: The private equity investor isn’t saying Detroit can’t make up for past mistakes. It can still build itself up with transit. And the timing is good.
AX7: “If you do it in a bond issue it ought to net out ultimately. It’s gotta be a long term bond issue. You can borrow money today at what 2%-3% in the public guaranteed sector. This would be a time to do a bond issue at low interest rates.”
TRX8: Back here at home, Marika’s mother Catharine Hansford agrees.
AX8: “
TRX9: When Hansford’s daughter applies for a PhD. program at U of M next year, she might be able to go without a car from there to Detroit, to Pontiac and the neighborhoods in between. Boston’s got commuter boats from the waterfront to other parts of town.
NS boat
TRX10: Michigan’s got more boats and more coastline than any other state, why not do that kind of mass transit too.
For Michigan Now, I’m Chris McCarus, back home.