Watch Your Wallet

With Southeast Michigan's RTA functionally destroyed because of Oakland and Macomb Counties' opposition, Wayne and Washtenaw have been seeking ways to pull something of value out of the wreckage.

One prominent Washtenaw County leader (who shall remain nameless) recently said, "It looks doubtful that the smallest county and the poorest county in the RTA can make anything worthwhile happen. And if Washtenaw tries to work with Wayne on this, we'd better watch our wallet." (Paraphrased)

How well this expressed two recurring themes that make Southeast Michigan the struggling region it has become. "We're poor! We're small! We can't trust our neighbors!"

Nonsense! Look around the world, and you'll see regions poorer and (in some cases) smaller than we are, doing far more. Their communities pull together. They have a can-do attitude. We have a can't-do attitude. This is not what made America great, folks.

Brisbane, Australia

Indulge me in a comparative example: Brisbane, Australia. Population about half that of Southeast Michigan's. GDP, both absolute and per capita, also much lower:

Brisbane Central Business District, flanked by expressway and busway.

Quick Facts	Detroit Metro	Brisbane Metro
Population 2016	4,313,002	2,360,241
Metro GDP	$207.53 B	$96.6 B
Per capita GDP	$48,118	$40,928
Poverty rate 2016	14.9%	12.5%

I spent just three days in Brisbane last year, and was amazed at the quality and convenience of their transportation offerings. For a quick overview, let me quote Wikipedia's "Transport in Brisbane" introduction:

Transport in Brisbane, the capital and largest city of Queensland, Australia, is provided by road, rail, river and bay ferries, footpaths, bikepaths, sea and air.
Transport around Brisbane is managed by both the Brisbane City Council and the Government of Queensland.
Public transport in Brisbane is co-ordinated by TransLink. Rail services are operated by Queensland Rail, through its City network system. Bus services are operated by both the Brisbane City Council's Brisbane Transport subsidiary and private operators, and uses the road network as well as dedicated bus lanes and busways. Ferry services on the Brisbane River are operated by Transdev Brisbane Ferries. [Retrieved 2018-05-16]

These diverse services have shared a smartcard payment system since 2007, so nobody has to worry about exact change or whether their transfer is valid. Seventeen transit operators provide bus service throughout Southeast Queensland, with scheduling and payment coordinated by TransLink, which is a department of Queensland's equivalent of MDOT.

Roughly sixty bus routes share 17 miles of busways, built since 1996.

Brisbane's frequent bus network, most of which run on busways.

Victoria Bridge into central Brisbane is exclusively for buses, bikes, and pedestrians.

Brisbane's busways are not BRT lines, though they share some resemblance to them. They are exclusive bus-only highways, 2 lanes wide in most places, running through tunnels under the city much of the way, and crossing two sizeable bus-only bridges over the Brisbane River at different points. These busways connect north, east, and southeast parts of the city, and carry about 20,000 passengers per hour during morning and evening peaks.

Buses on the Northern Busway at Normanby Bus Station

Also of note are the commuter train lines - thirteen lines, including one to the airport, almost all electrified. The system has 152 stations on 468 route-miles, and served 52.44 million passengers in 2015/16.

Brisbane commuter rail network

Commuter train entering Roma Street Station during evening rush

Perhaps the most charming public transportation in Brisbane is CityCat, the fleet of high-speed catamaran water-buses plying the Brisbane river. (How about a rapid ferry service from near Mt. Clemens to Detroit's RenCen and Cobo Hall?)

Ferry network map, downtown portion

Brisbane didn't achieve this by skimping on expressways: there are seven in and around the city, including an underground tunnel expressway to ease downtown congestion.

Bowen Hills area of Brisbane. Busway (left) and commuter rail maintenance facility (right) flank major expressway intersection.(Google satellite image ©2018)

Theme 1: We're too small, too poor

The BTC (Brisbane Transit Center) Roma Street

OK, so we must be poorer than Brisbane, right? Wrong, Brisbane is not a wealthier metropolis than Detroit. While Detroit was going through that painful bankruptcy, the metro area in 2014 was estimated by the Brookings Institution to have a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $207.53 billion. At the same time, Brisbane's was pegged at $96.6 billion by the same Institution - again, about half the size of Detroit's. Per capita, Detroit's GDP is $48,118, Brisbane's $40,928.

So: Brisbane has half the population, half the GDP, and 85% of the productivity per capita as Detroit...a comparable freeway system, and incomparably better public transportation.
Why? Because they have a can-do attitude, and they're willing to work together as a region.

Prosperity is as much a state of mind as it is a a state of the economy. Brisbane thinks it can do great things, so they make great things happen. (They also have incredible parks and trails in the middle of the city.)

Brisbane River, bikeway, and highway

Theme 2: We don't trust our neighbors

In Southeast Michigan, we don't trust our neighbors. We won't work together. There are about 250 municipalities in Southeast Michigan. Each competes with its neighbors for industry, jobs, and commerce. We could be competing as a region with other metropolitan areas like Phoenix, Seattle, Minneapolis, and San Diego - all cities of roughly the same size - but instead, we squabble with each other.

We could be competing as a metro area with similar-size cities around the world: Hamburg and Stuttgart, Germany; Sydney and Melbourne, Australia.

But in Southeast Michigan, as long as we perceive ourselves to be doing better than our nearby neighbors, we won't work with them because they might benefit at our expense. Or if we perceive ourselves as less well off that our neighbors, we suspect them of wanting to steamroller us somehow (and maybe they've tried).

By the way - it's not just the counties I mentioned at the start of this blog. Within Washtenaw County a few years back, Ann Arbor was unwilling to form a Corridor Improvement Authority with neighboring municipalities to improve Washtenaw Avenue, largely because they were suspicious that it was a plot to improve others' sections of Washtenaw Avenue by siphoning off Ann Arbor's money. I believe this is partly to blame for the lack of affordable housing in Ann Arbor, because taxable value drops off quickly going east on Washtenaw. If Washtenaw were being improved more quickly, its attractiveness could ease the pressure on housing in Ann Arbor.

Who benefits from this distrust? Phoenix, Seattle, and other U.S. cities. Southeast Michigan's population shrank by 0.07% between 2010 and 2016, while Seattle grew by 5.6% and Phoenix by 7.06%. How much of that growth is from talented, can-do Michigan millennials moving to places with better jobs and better living. These two, as well as Minneapolis, San Diego, and several cities of similar or smaller population, have all invested cooperatively in public transportation, including commuter trains and light rail.

To paraphrase the late Ursula LeGuin, "Southeast Michigan is not a metropolis, it's a family quarrel." We all know that "United we stand, divided we fall." So, let's cut out the squabbling!

RTA: Where Now?

L. Brooks Patterson
DETROIT NEWS PHOTO by José Juarez

Last Wednesday Feb. 7, the report went out in the Detroit News (among others) that Oakland County's Executive, L. Brooks Patterson, had publicly stated he was opposed to the Southeast Michigan Regional Transit Administration (RTA). “I want you to know that as long as I’m county executive, I will respect the wishes of the voters of the select nine Oakland County opt-out communities,” he said, referring to municipalities whose leadership had refused to allow entry into the Suburban Mobility Association for Rapid Transit (SMART). He went on to say he would not allow them to be drawn against their will into the RTA. The majority of Oakland County voters approved the RTA millage, so Patterson's move is to defend the minority against the will of the majority. Such is Patterson's idea of democracy.


Actually, I am glad Brooks has finally removed the mask of "transit neutrality" he donned for the last five years. We knew he was against regional transit, but now he has acknowledged it. Now, we can move on without him.

We know he had a large hand in crafting the legislation that enabled the RTA, but he was obliged to compromise with leaders of the rest of the region, so the result was not 100% to his liking. Apparently, "compromise" and "will of the majority" are not in his vocabulary.

Four-county regional transit is necessary. It IS possible...but not now. Patterson, together with Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel, have been doing everything possible to slow down the process, limit the free flow of resources, tailor the RTA Board rules so as to make action as nearly impossible as they can, and tie down the RTA with unrealistic accounting requirements. The RTA legislation requires 85% of each county's RTA tax revenue be spent on service within that county. Rules demanded by Oakland County's Board representatives were intended to make sure that not as much as one penny more than 15% of Oakland's RTA tax revenue is spent beyond their borders at any time. It's clear that the closer we get to true regional transportation, the more obstacles they will put in the RTA's path.

Patterson's excuse about opt-out communities has some grounding in past policy, but if it's the real reason for shooting down the RTA, he has had six years to say so. At Thursday's Transportation Bonanza in Lansing (Michigan Association of Planning) I happened to speak to a planner from Livonia, one of the largest opt-out communities (though in Wayne County). Within the constraints  of loyalty to his employer, he indicated there is growing disappointment with opt-out strategy there. Likewise, a young planner from the other opt-out county was shame-faced at being revealed as an employee of that county.

Wayne County Executive Warren Evans at TRU

The suggestion has been made for some years that Wayne and Washtenaw counties should together form a separate alliance to improve transit between their communities. I believe the Wayne-Washtenaw option is the best we have now. At TRU's State of the Region's Transit on February 5, we heard an impassioned plea from Wayne County Executive Warren Evans for regional transit NOW. Four-county transit if at all possible...but Brooks has effectively put a stop to that. In one-on-one discussion with Al Haidous, Wayne County Commissioner and Chair of the SMART Board of Directors, I heard another Wayne County leader express a great sense of urgency about bringing regional public transportation to southeast Michigan. Most Washtenaw County leaders are also keen, especially for a strong rail connection with Wayne.


As in the other three counties, there is opposition to the RTA from the rural townships in Washtenaw. From their leaders, I have heard the sentiment that they are already taxed for services that go mainly to urban regions, and they don't want any more taxes without services for their region. Though there are enough votes in urban areas to overcome that opposition, I don't think it would be a smart plan. I believe any plan - whether in two counties or all four - needs to meaningfully serve low-density areas, or trim the transit district to leave out the edges. Yes, low-density areas are more expensive to serve, but I believe (subject to correction by contradictory survey results) that as a whole, the region would be willing to pay more to make that happen, at least in Wayne and Washtenaw.

Daniel Burnham's words over a hundred years ago are still true today: "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized." The RTA plan was highly constrained (by guess who) and had little or no magic to stir anyone's imagination. It came close, but perhaps we should have expected that it would not not be realized. Next time, let's strive for that element of magic!


In every US city that has experienced transit success, the first steps met with opposition. Once service began (typically on rails) the communities started clamoring for more. Voters stepped up and taxed themselves. So let's get Wayne-Washtenaw started, and move up from two-county success to four-county success.