Why Detroit Needs Light Rail

"Although the GOP’s anti-tax ideology is, for the moment, trumping its business-at-any-cost predilections, the enormous expense associated with all things having to do with roads is inviting a new reckoning about transportation investments. Oakland County and the state, for instance, are united in their zeal to reconstruct feeder roads and widen an 18-mile portion of I-75 from Eight Mile to M-59, at a cost currently projected to be roughly $1 billion.

But late last month, to everybody’s surprise, the Oakland County Board of Commissioners, by a near-unanimous vote, approved a resolution urging the county to much more seriously consider spending at a similar magnitude on a regional public transit system. The issue, in a new century of deficit, uncertainty and change is: Which is the wiser investment?"