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Originally Posted by Steely Dan
interesting, so the Pointes were never connected to downtown detroit by commuter rail, only street car lines?
that would be another fairly big departure in regards to the comparison to chicago's northshore burbs.
it's propably why the northshore burbs grew a bit bigger prior 1920, before MASS automobile ownership.
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The Detroit interurban connected Grosse Pointe to downtown Detroit by rail, but I believe that was replaced by buses in the 1930s. After that was discontinued, the Detroit street car lines were the last rail connection that Grosse Pointe had to downtown. Several streetcar lines terminated right at the Grosse Pointe border.
Grand Trunk Western operated a commuter rail service in from downtown Detroit to Pontiac that was taken over by SEMTA (Southeast Michigan Transit Authority) in the 1970s. That line serviced downtown Detroit, Royal Oak, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, and Pontiac. SEMTA also built the Detroit People Mover, and was planning to build a Detroit subway system but that was ultimately killed by political squabbling. When SEMTA's commuter service shut down in the 1980s it became the SMART (Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation) bus system that operates the suburban bus network today.