Light Rail In Detroit Goes Forward : Who Gets Rich - Who Stays Poor

Even in the light of a multitude of facts supporting the notion light rail will not benefit the community and the costs will be prohibitive to build and even higher to maintain. Yet the Detroit officials move forward even though the city is dying from debt from decades of corruption.

This whole project is going to make a few people rich and drive the city further into the hands federal regulators that are suppose to be trying to bring the Detroit out of bankruptcy. Light rail has never work where ever it has been tried and it is guaranteed to fail in Detroit.

Light rail in this city is insane. But given who is in control of the money, and has been, leaves little to the imagination.

Detroit's New 3-Mile Light-Rail Line
Source: Jim Epstein, "Is Detroit's New Light Rail Line America's Greatest Boondoggle?" Reason.com, July 24, 2014.

July 28, 2014

Construction on a $137 million, 3.3-mile light rail line will begin in Detroit next week, reports Reason.com. One quarter of Detroit households do not own cars, depending instead on the city's bus service. But rather than fund more buses, the city has decided to build a light rail line that makes little financial sense:

• Despite Detroit's size (139 square miles), the new rail line will not serve travelers beyond a three-mile stretch.
• Even if the rail cars were packed full with riders, the fare that has been proposed for the travel ($1.50) would not cover operating expenses.

The federal government has given Detroit $41 million in taxpayer subsidies to build light rail, and supporters have asked for another $12 million for the project.

Unlike light rail, buses would be able to move in and out of neighborhoods, and for considerably less in operating and maintenance costs. Despite these realities, cities across the United States are moving to expensive, inefficient light-rail lines.