Quote:
Originally Posted by animatedmartian
Those are only small details in the overall picture. At this point, everyone is at least aware of the benefits of transit and TOD. At worse, it just means a lot of new developments will still have to be accompanied by multistory parking garages or parking lots in farther out suburbs. But in a lot of places mentioned in that article, as well as some not mentioned, have already set up zoning and planning for the possibility of transit.
The new goal for a lot of municipalities around SE Michigan is to become more walkable and appealing for yuppies. Some suburbs will pull this off better than others (the Southfield fiasco seems to be the worse so far) but generally it's in a good direction.
It would actually probably be more problematic if we were in a boom growth stage because then those setbacks would have bigger impacts as there would be a flurry of developments built without any consideration for the eventual transit that'd come. So really, we're lucky to be in a slow growing economy if you look at it that way. Although it is true that transit can't be delayed for too long before the economy continues to pick back up and TOD really starts to become important.
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Oh, I have no doubt that the actual projects will be built. That's inevitable given the improving economy. And, Detroit is going to attract
much more of the region's housing, office and retail development then in years and decades past. I'm not worried about whether the housing and residential projects will be built.
Really, my only critique is that I'd rather the development be done correctly, this time, and to facilitate that, the leaders in the region need to get really serious about mass transit. You know, in any given week I swing between pessimism, realism, and optimism given the history of the place. For instance, I was really heartened, today, to hear Duggan even mention the word "expansion" when it came to DDOT maybe getting back some of the service capacity it has lost over the years. Of course, he said it in the context that even considering expansion is years off, but it's the first time in years I've heard a mayor even mention adding to DDOT, when the decisions in recent years haven't even been about whether to cut, but how much to cut. I'm also happy that with the announcement of the new director of DDOT finally came some clarification (and expansion) of the role of the office of the director, which will include critical oversight of the PM and the Woodward Streetcar when it's ready to be handed off.
Anyway, my only frustration is with how disorganized and uncoordinated the comeback remains. This is partially because the city proper is under emergency management with different leaders pulling in different directions, sometimes not out of spite of one another or even forethought, but just because they communicate so poorly and it doesn't even cross their minds to coordinate efforts and initiatives. A lot of it is really just the generally sloppy nature of leadership in the region.
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