Nearly 40 years ago, local municipal leaders throughout Wayne and Oakland Counties decided whether to allow their voters to choose to invest in public transit. (Macomb County included all communities.) Many communities let their resident vote and those voters approved transit investments nearly every time, resulting in the current SMART bus system. Other municipal leaders never took action to join in, leading to a transit patchwork that thousands of people without mobility options.
In 2022, Oakland County decided to go all-in on transit and voters strongly supported it. Finally communities like Novi, Wixom, and Rochester have public transit services connecting people to jobs and providing greater access to opportunities for all. Seniors and people with disabilities throughout the county are enjoying more options than ever before.
Time for Wayne County to Go All-In!
Wayne County Executive Warren Evans has voiced strong support for transit for all. To get it on the countywide ballot, the Michigan legislature needs to amend that old law from 1986 to include all of Wayne County, instead of a town-by-town patchwork. House bill 6088 would do that but not every legislator is convinced:
Today, 17 communities in Wayne County aren’t opted-in to regional transit service, including Livonia, Plymouth, Canton and many southern communities. That has left hundreds of thousands of people without options when they can’t drive and has left thousands of businesses struggling to consistently hire enough workers. Residents and employers alike are often shocked to find out, often when crisis strikes, that there are few or no options to get around.
The Wayne County of 2024 is quite different from the Wayne County of 1986. What may have made sense then makes no sense now.
Every community has residents and business that need transit. All of our communities are better off when transit is an option. Help us convince Michigan’s legislators of that!
What Would All-In for Wayne County Mean?
Detroiters and residents in 27 Wayne County communities already have at least basic transit services, including traditional buses on fixed routes and paratransit services providing advanced reservation door-to-door rides for seniors and people with disabilities. That would not change.
Residents in the 16 communities in Wayne County that are not part of SMART or DDOT would get new transit services for their investment, the types of which would depend on their density, destinations, and need. In every community, seniors and residents with disabilities would finally have the same freedom of movement that seniors in Holly and Wixom are now enjoying – rides that don’t end at their township’s borders. (Watch this video about two such seniors!)
This would also unlock thousands more job opportunities in job-rich places like Plymouth, Canton, and Livonia, connecting people willing and able to work with employers who need workers, without requiring each worker be physically and financially able to drive themselves.
Wayne Countywide transit may also unlock more metro Detroit connections with Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, once the transit gap between Wayne and Washtenaw Counties is eliminated. Ann Arbor Area Transit Authority has long been interested in Wayne County connections.
And while it would still only ensure baseline service throughout the whole county, it should enable meaningful improvements in Detroit’s transit too. County leaders will have to decide how to invest transit funds this millage would raise to ensure every part of the county experiences substantive benefits. We at TRU would love to see SMART add more FAST services with greater frequencies in Detroit. Or this could fund the DDOT Reimagined plans to improve bus frequencies to every ten minutes or better. Those and other details still need to be decided.
This would replace the existing Wayne County Transit Authority millage that funds SMART in Dearborn, the Grosse Pointes, and several other Wayne County communities. There would be no added costs in the communities that already have SMART bus service.
But first, the Michigan legislature has to pass House Bill 6088 so the Wayne County Transit Authority can include all of Wayne County.