Previous Quotes of the Week

Another barrier to urban vitality

Common mortgage-lending practicies make urban living artificially unaffordable. Most homeowners devote about 55 percent of their income to housing and transportation costs combined. Families in suburban areas spend 30 percent on their homes and 25 percent or more on their cars. Those in urban neighborhoods with good transit spend a mere 10 percent getting around but 45 percent on their homes.

But mortgage bankers rarely allow housing payments to exceed 30 percent of income, so urban abodes are "mortgage unaffordable" for many buyers. The mortgage industry's view steers buyers to the suburbs, indirectly increasing air pollution, traffic, and sprawl.

Patrick H. Hare, as reported in September/October 2005 issue of The Sierra Club Magazine

We need to take on transformational issues, such as improving public transportation; encouraging urban development that promotes transit accessibility, social interaction, walkability, and better health and lifestyle habits; improving our schools; encouraging people to live closer to work, and vice-versa; making everything we do more environmentally sensitive by being mindful of how it is designed and how it functions in the real world; and continuing to seek increased clarity and simplicity in our regulatory and permitting processes.

Antonio Villaraigosa, City of Los Angeles Mayor, as reported in September 2005 issue of "Urban Land."

"AARP reported last April in its study Aging Americans: Stranded without Options that fully 71 percent of older households want to live within walking distance of transit to maintain an active lifestyle without having to rely on others for transportation."

Urban Land, February 2005, Transit-Adjacent Housing in Hot Demand Reports Market Study

"Anybody who has ever run a company will tell you that allowing small units of government to allocate tax dollars for infrastructure unilaterally, without a regional plan, wastes millions of dollars. But an autonomous network of fiefdoms is what we have in Southeast Michigan."

Mary Kramer, associate publisher and editor (Crain's Detroit Business, March 28, 2005)

I'm again and again surprised that in Michigan, it seems the only people who are worried about Detroit are people in Detroit. For me, every state including Michigan is very much defined by one or more major cities." The attractiveness of Michigan to young, talented people is strongly linked to "the quality of life that you show to the outside world, which in our case is Detroit." It's important that people from all over Michigan work together to make Detroit come back, "not to say, 'We live in Oakland County, everything is fine for us.' It is not fine for us. Let's fix it. How can I help?

Dieter Zetsche, Chrysler Group CEO, after a speech at the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business. (The Detroit Free Press March 10, 2005)

Detroit, facing a nearly $400-million budget hole over three years, proposes to cut service on more than 40 routes. In a city of nearly 1 million, 24-hour bus service is about to end, kicking a couple of thousand riders to the curb.

Detroit's transit system badly needs a fix by the city and by the new Detroit Area Regional Transportation Authority, or DARTA, which covers Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties. This is not just a Detroit problem. Transportation -- roads, rail or buses -- is a city-suburban thing. Cuts in Detroit's bus service mean some people can't connect to suburban bus lines and jobs. Detroit's loss of service will mean less state aid for both the city and suburban bus systems, because the aid to both is based on their combined expenses. A lame transit system makes the entire region less attractive to people and employers.

Jeff Gerritt, Detroit Free Press, February 2, 2005

This week, we report that the dramatic drop in market share for
domestic automakers is the reason we haven't joined the national economic
recovery. We need to attract more businesses and help existing companies grow, adding and keeping employees.
Transit is part of that equation. If we want the world to view us as a 21st
century region, isn't it time we start acting like one?

Mary Kramer, Crain's Detroit Business, Nov. 29, 2004

Trying to encourage youth to use transit, to understand transit and to be favorably disposed of transit is a little like playing the lottery. You never know when one of those people you took some time with now, 10, 20, or 30 years from now turns out to be a strong transit advocate.
Bill Millar, President of the American Public Transit Association.

In 2001, I had the opportunity to utilize public transit in San Francisco. Despite my unfamiliarity with the city and the local transit service, getting around the hustle and bustle took very little effort on my part. BART station employees and Muni bus drivers were helpful and knowledgeable, making my experience in San Francisco a truly wonderful one.
Christian Tabing, a senior at Angelo Rodriguez High School in Fairfield, California, who has just turned 17, founder of the Youth in Motion program

Everything the city of New York has depends on the growth of the subway system. Go our and ask how many people took the train to work today. Probably it's about three quarters of them. The idea of public transit is essential, sensible and the key to a healthy city. The ability New York City had on the opening of the subway was that they could physically move 30,000 people from 125th Street to Wall Street in less than 15 minutes. That's incredible. No one was able to do that...It was a massive success, it was money spent in the right place. I would say that the $50 million probably brought the tune of trillions of dollars and are still producing trillions of dollars to this day.
Historian and Subway Expert James Clifford Greller, from Newsweek, Nov. 1, 2004

Best way to revitalize Southeast Michigan
Light rail --- Metro Times, Sept 28, 2004

At the Transit on the Woodward Corridor: Our Economic Engine forum, Sept 20

“Quality transit is the one essential tool to encourage the transformation of urban sparseness to a vibrant urban environment.”
says Lawrence Hands of the 2030 Vision Project.

Fewer than 2 percent of commuters in metro Detroit get to work by bus -- and most of those riders don't have a car. But recent gains in SMART's ridership ought to rev up the debate on the potential for expanding mass transit in southeast Michigan. Riders will come if service improves.

"If a city has rapid mass transportation, it will hold together and renew itself. If it does not have a means of rapid travel, it will decentralize and the obsolete will be forsaken and left to fester and blight."
Sidney Waldron, Detroit Rapid Transit Commission, March 23, 1944.