This relates to the commuter line (purple on the map). Things are starting to really pikc up steam.
Rail station chosen for Detroit Metro Airport
by John Mulcahy | The Ann Arbor News
Wednesday November 26, 2008, 8:32 PM
Planners working on a commuter rail service between Ann Arbor and Detroit have chosen a location in Westland for a station to serve Detroit Metro Airport.
The decision on the airport station is the latest step toward a proposed beginning of service in October 2010.
The station would go on Wayne County-owned property at US-12 and Henry Ruff Road, said Carmine Palombo, director of transportation programs for the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments.
Washtenaw County Commissioner Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, who has been a strong proponent of the commuter rail service, said the decade-plus effort appears finally to be setting and making realistic deadlines.
"Picking the site for (the airport) station is critical because 30 million people a year come into the airport," Irwin said.
The site is about four miles north of Metro Airport. A building on the site is used as a library for the blind and may be shared as a station, or the commuter rail project may build a different shelter for passengers, Palombo said.
Service from the station to the airport would be by bus, Palombo said. That could be provided by a public agency such as the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, or by a private service, he said.
The newly chosen site "meets our criteria of, first of all, trying to provide the best access to the airport, and it utilizes existing infrastructure," Palombo said.
Other stops along the route will be in Ann Arbor at the existing Amtrak station; in Ypsilanti at a site yet to be determined; at an existing Amtrak station in Dearborn; and at the New Center in Detroit, Palombo said.
Dearborn and Ann Arbor officials have talked of possibly developing different station locations rather than using existing Amtrak stations, Palombo said. In Ann Arbor, that has included discussion about a possible station near where the rail line passes the University of Michigan Medical Center, he said.
Norfolk Southern Railway Co. has completed a study of how to share its tracks, used by its freight trains, with the new service and existing Amtrak service, Palombo said.
The company has provided a list of infrastructure improvements that would allow four, eight or 15 round trips a day by commuter train, and the project staff is studying those proposals, Palombo said.
Project organizers are still negotiating with Canadian National Railway, which owns a portion of the tracks, to run at least four round-trip commuter trains a day, Palombo said.