I know I'd brought this up in passing a few weeks ago, but with transit improvements nailed down for Woodward Avenue (Woodward Avenue BRT), the next corridors up for study by the RTA are Michigan Avenue and Gratiot Avenue.
Anyway, the
RTA put out an RFP for the two corridors on August 1st. Nothing much notable about the RFP's save for the fact that they make very clear that no modes of transit are excluded from the study, and that the costs (construction and operational) aren't the main point factor in how they'll evaluate modes and services.
The Michigan Avenue corridor will study the length of the street from downtown Detroit all the way to the Blake Transit Center in Ann Arbor (with a spur to Metro). The Gratiot Avenue corridor studies the length of the road from downtown Detroit to Mt. Clemens. And, here's the timeline for the RFP;
8/1/14: RFP issued.
9/15/14: Proposals due back to the RTA.
10/15/14: RTA approves/votes down proposal.
The process is actually moving a bit faster than I thought, particularly since the RTA won't even be able to go to voters for significant money for
any project until 2016. My only major question concerns the Michigan Avenue study, and that's if this is confined totally to the street right-of-way, or if the planned commuter rail could be included in the study, since the service basically parallels whatever they'll find along Michigan Avenue proper? My gut feeling is that if the study doesn't include the railway, then this could very well doom the commuter rail, as I doubt there would be enough demand for both a commuter rail service, and a BRT/LRT service paralelling that along Michigan Avenue.