Quote:
Originally Posted by canucklehead2
Got a quick question for all your long-time Detroiter's... Do you have any online links to old rapid transit plans for the city more especially the plan to expand the Detroit peoplemover city wide? I just find it sad and ironic that the same technology that makes the Vancouver and Dubai metro systems world class is the same one that sits unloved and abandoned above central Detroit... Thanks if anyone has the scoop!
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Here are some links to google books:
Downtown Detroit People Mover: Environmental Impact Statement
https://books.google.com/books?id=Ud03AQAAMAAJ&num=19
Public Transportation Alternatives Analysis in Wayne/Oakland/Macomb Counties: Environmental Impact Statement, Volume 1
https://books.google.com/books?id=Gt03AQAAMAAJ&num=19
Public Transportation Alternatives Analysis in Wayne/Oakland/Macomb Counties: Environmental Impact Statement, Volume 2
https://books.google.com/books?id=Nd03AQAAMAAJ&num=19
If the links don't work, you might have luck googling the titles.
So far I've never been able to find any actual plans of expanding the People Mover.
The closest I've been able to find is that in the early 90s a house rep covering Detroit may have gotten some federal money for something related to expansion, but idk how true that really was and I would imagine if anything remotely serious had come of it there would be at least a little bit of information about it online.
There is also the general idea that the original SEMTA plans (linked to above) were People Mover lines, but that's not actually true. As far as I know, the projects were always separate. The light rail was to go from State Fair Grounds, to Downtown, then over on Jefferson almost to Grand Boulevard (it would hit some rail lines that intersected with Jefferson, and also serve that relatively high density area). However, most of the light rail was going to either be elevated or underground, so it was really a substantial system.
I haven't been able to confirm it, but it's possible that the technology selection for the People Mover was related to the Woodward light rail line. The SEMTA IES was from late 1979 and the People Mover EIS was from late 1980, and at that point the technology for the people mover hadn't been chosen yet. It's possible that the SEMTA plan had already failed by the time the PM was choosing their technology, and that they chose that technology so that if the Woodward light rail stuff was tried again it could take the form of a PM expansion. The linear induction motors it uses are smaller flatter and lighter than normal motors, so tunnel diameters can be much smaller/cheaper, and elevated guideways can also be cheaper, so executing the light rail project as a PM expansion would have been cheaper. But that's just my speculation and I haven't been able to find anything to confirm this.
But more about the projects being separate. First, the general SEMTA plan originated from SEMTA itself. The PM was done by SEMTA (until they mismanaged it and Detroit took it over), but initiated by Detroit business interests (actually, the Detroit Renaissance group, who also initiated the Ren Cen), and was part of a federal transit initiative (UMTA's (precursor to the FTA) Downtown People Mover Program). You can see in the EIS that they were separate projects and that they barely even referenced each other. And by its nature, the PM couldn't have included other lines because the federal project was to test the viability of downtown people movers, not to build metro systems. I haven't seen any evidence that the PM was designed for expansion, although the way it happened to work out, it's well suited for it.
And then more recently, in the mid-2000s, around the same time as the failed Woodward light rail stuff, a former manager of the people mover was pushing for an expansion, but it was half baked.
http://drcurryassociates.net/expansionroute.html Stations and guideway are put places where they don't actually fit, the map was quickly thrown together and rest of the website wasn't finished, and there was no real analysis of cost or ridership.
So like I said I'm not aware of any serious plans of expanding the People Mover but if anyone has any info I'd love to learn about it.