Are Plans for Detroit's Light Rail Back On Track?

Just three weeks after the city announced it was cancelling plans for a 9.3-mile light rail line, a truncated version may be built, but with some key caveats.

1 minute read

January 16, 2012, 2:00 PM PST

By Jonathan Nettler @nettsj


Mayor Dave Bing recently announced plans for a light rail line down Woodward Avenue, just three weeks after abandoning city-led efforts to build a longer line down the same corridor. What's new this time? Requirements that the line be funded by a private group and that an acceptable business plan be submitted within 90 days.

Writing in The Transport Politic, Yonah Freemark analyzes this recent turn of events and its larger implications: "the circumstances in which the project's reactivation has occurred speak to a continued dysfunction not only in the City of Detroit but in American transportation politics in general.

Sunday, January 8, 2012 in the transport politic

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