The People Have Spoken – Transit Expansion is Popular!
It’s official – the Wayne County Transit Millage has passed! An overwhelming majority of voters, 67% in total, approved the millage from Detroit to Huron Township, from Plymouth to Flat Rock. We know public transit expansion is popular, and the public wants more! Everyone wants seniors, people with disabilities, students, and workers to get where they need to go.
The Entire Tri-County Area is Connected!
For the first time in over 30 years, each community in the tri-county area will be connected with a unified public transit system. Seniors and people with disabilities lives will no longer end at their city line. And everyone will be able to live their lives, regardless of if they can drive or not.
In 1995, when SMART first allowed opt-outs, many suburban, exurban, and rural communities decided to quit transit service, without putting it to a vote by residents. This patchwork of transit service left tens of thousands of people across Metro Detroit stranded. We’ve slowly worked to reunify our regional transportation system. Macomb county has always had countywide service, and renewed their last millage with 65% of the vote. Oakland County ended opt-outs in 2022 after their first countywide transit millage. And in 2024, the state legislature legally ended opt-outs, requiring Oakland and Wayne to vote as an entire county on the SMART millage, just like how Macomb always had. This all led us to today… where we finally passed the Wayne County renewal that officially ended opt-outs.
For the foreseeable future, the tri-county Metro Detroit area will have a unified public transit system under SMART, DDOT, and local providers.
Everyone Accomplished A Major Feat!
This historic victory was not possible without the great work done by all of our transit champions, advocates, activists, members, and allies. By joining us on a canvass, supporting our work, talking about these issues, and voting, YOU made countywide transit a reality.
Thank you for making better transit possible. SMART has proposed what service could like, including 10 new and extended bus routed, dial-a-ride zones in at least 3 townships, and paratransit across the entire county. The final service implementation will come in waves, starting as soon as next year. Each community will likely have transit service implemented within the next 3 years.
This work over the millage campaign was possible thanks to countless transit champions, partners, volunteers, members, donors, and allies. Without the contribution of each and everyone of you, this victory would not have been possible. Over the course of this Summer, our team, allies, partners at Transit for All Wayne County, and volunteers:
- Talked with and/or gave transit flyers to over 8,200 people through 68 canvass events at 40 different locations covering 12 different cities or townships. Of those events, 23 were in “opt-out” communities and 36 at Detroit events.
- Contacted over 120 organizations over 8 months, garnering 22 endorsements, including from Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity, United Way of Southeastern Michigan, and ATU Locals 26.
- Presented to 28 organizations, 12 of which resulted in endorsements or other campaign support. Of those, 12 were to groups focused in “opt-out” communities and 6 regional in focus.
- Mobilized and/or assisted at least 18 groups to take action to promote the campaign, including Henry Ford Health emailing 65,000 employees and Michigan United Action distributing transit lit at over 3,000 doors.
- Distributed over 900 lawn signs across at least 10 communities, including to 75 polling polling places
- Reached 150,000 people with social media advertising, generating over 716,000 impressions in total.
- Garnered over 60,000 views from organic social media posts on Instagram and Facebook alone, and had over 4,500 views on our websites (ConnectWayneCounty.org, and DetroitTransit.org) with election information.
Let’s Keep the Fight Going
If you missed out on the fun and want to help the fight for better transit, join us at our next volunteer meeting on August 13th. And if you can’t make it, consider becoming a TRU member if you are not to help support the work all of our volunteers and staff do to make transit better in our region. We’ll see you there!