Quote:
Originally Posted by SIGSEGV
Royal oak seems easier to serve with commuter rail. It's too bad Detroit's railroad station is so far from downtown though.
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That's the thing. If you live near Royal Oak and work in Detroit, you'd have to take the bus to Royal Oak, wait for the train, take the train, and then unless you worked in New Center you'd have to transfer to another bus or streetcar, and then walk to your destination.
Royal Oak isn't very well suited for park and ride because it has its own parking demands, and part of the appeal of commuter rail is supposed to be not having to deal with downtown parking.
And then with all of the transferring the trip would take forever and if either you or one of the buses or trains are late then you're late to work. People can drive downtown faster and at their own convenience and the cost of parking is worth it.
But with a People Mover expansion, you'd have more stations and some of them would have good park and ride options. Trains would come every ~4 minutes, so you could take the bus or drive to the station at your own convenience. It would take you directly to work without another transfer. And it would run frequently all day. The only inconvenience is the initial bus ride, which could be alleviated by running special high frequency supplementary service along portions of the adjacent bus routes where commuting patterns indicate demand.
Of course commuter rail doesn't cost billions of dollars to build.
