Wishing for mass transit in Detroit is like wishing for peace in the Middle East. It’s theoretically possible, but in practice there’s always something that prevents it from happening. Obviously the obstacles for mass transit in this city are not as dramatic as Israel’s disproportionate and indiscriminate retaliation against the Palestinians. And yet the obstacles to mass transit in Detroit still add up to something that feels just as intractable.
A couple of weeks ago on Live in the D, they were talking about the possibility that a Buc-ees store might open in Michigan. Live in the D is a morning news show focusing on “lighter” news stories around metro Detroit. It airs on WDIV, the metro Detroit NBC affiliate.
Live in the D host Tati Amari, who has been with the show since its beginning, expressed her wish for mass transit in metropolitan Detroit. “I would take the bus to work every day,” Amari declared.
Theoretically, she could already. Buses exist in this city, I see them sometimes, though not very predictably. There’s a Detroit Department of Transportation (D-DOT) bus that passes right in front of the WDIV studio in downtown Detroit, eastbound and westbound. Actually, it’s at least three different routes, not counting training coaches and not in service buses.
So I thought about a few different scenarios in which Tati Amari lives in various Detroit suburbs, and made the assumption that she has to be in the studio three hours before airtime. Then I went on Google Maps and had it come up with bus travel plans so that she can arrive to work on time.
Live in the D originally aired at 10 a.m., local time, now it airs at 11 a.m., as the 10 a.m. hour is now for Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager to do national “light” news stories. In the scenarios I thought about, Tati Amari has to be in the WDIV studio at 8 a.m.
In each of the scenarios I considered, Tati Amari leaves her house after 7:00 a.m. and arrives very close to the studio several minutes before 8:00 a.m. In some of the scenarios, she has two different options for buses to take, which make the difference between her being dropped off right in front of the studio (though sometimes across the street) and her having to walk a couple of blocks, still having minutes to spare either way.
But it’s one thing for me to sit at my computer playing around on Google Maps and it’s another for a working person to actually rely on the bus day in and day out.
If Tati Amari actually tried taking the bus to work on a Monday, maybe she could actually pull it off. But then maybe on Tuesday, for reasons no one can explain, the bus just doesn’t show up. After a few minutes of waiting, worried that she might not make it in to work at all, she either calls an Uber or walks back to her house and gets in her car.
Detroit’s buses are very unreliable. All the other issues that a locally famous woman might have with public transit are irrelevant if the bus doesn’t even show up for her to come aboard.
This past Saturday, I tried to get on a bus. I was at the right bus stop two minutes before Google Maps said I needed to be there. I saw the bus in the opposite direction of where I needed to go pass by.
After ten minutes, I was fed up, and started walking in the direction the bus was supposed to take me. I stuck to the bus route as long as it made sense to do so. And when I deviated from the route, several blocks later, the bus that was supposed to have come had still not shown up.
There’s an official D-DOT bus tracker app. In addition to being far less accurate than Google Maps, and much more limited (it can’t suggest alternatives to D-DOT), it is a well-known case study in bad UI/UX design. You might have better luck predicting the buses with astrology.
Even without any firsthand experience, I would still know that Detroit’s buses are frequently late, or don’t show up at all. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories. And if I ever worry those horror stories are outdated, I can just walk over to the Rosa Parks Transit Center and hear or even witness some brand-new Detroit bus horror stories.
Mayor Mike Duggan (D?-Detroit) did that soon after starting his term as mayor. The new mayor was outraged by what he saw and heard. Watching him on the WDIV newscast, I got the impression of a man who would not tolerate this awful situation any longer. Heads would roll and things would change for the better. Tati Amari can dig up this footage from the WDIV archives.
And yeah, things did change. D-DOT got a long overdue brand refresh (the previous one, I’m guessing, was in the 1960s). Ten routes were identified as essential as renumbered to become the “Connect Ten” group. New vehicles were purchased. More drivers and mechanics were hired.
And yet, here we are, years later, in a situation where people see buses pass by and wonder how anyone gets on them at all. At public meetings with the mayor, people still complain about the buses, and you can hear the emotion in their voices, right up until Duggan makes a gesture to his staff to cut off that person’s microphone. If I can’t hear your pain, I don’t care about your pain.
Duggan got what he wanted out of the buses, and now he doesn’t care about the people whose only means of getting to work are buses that may or may not show up.
Tati Amari can’t take the bus to work because she can’t rely on it coming on time and dropping her off on time. That’s the main reason.
I’ve got no solutions for regular folks here today. I do have a suggestion for Tati Amari and WDIV: maybe WDIV should buy a couple of buses and hire a dozen drivers. Then those buses drive whichever WDIV employees sign up for the shuttle program to and from their houses.
Then Tati Amari would get all the benefits of taking the bus to work (time to read or meditate or whatever) with none of the downsides of D-DOT specifically or public transit in general.
Like I mentioned earlier, Live in the D airs at 11 a.m. local time on WDIV Mondays through Fridays.