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Legislative Updates

SMART FAST bus at a shelter with a realtime screen

Support Transit for ALL of Wayne County!

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 […]

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Wolverine at Ann Arbor with SOAR logo overlayed

What Michigan Could Build: SOAR Reform

With the Legislature coming back in session for a few short weeks, we’re ready to put wind back in the sails of transit investment! On the agenda is a SOAR-reform package that would invest $2 billion over ten years in transformational transit, rail, and other mobility projects. But it’s a few votes short of passing

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Michigan Failed to Boost State Investment in Transit

Final update 6/27: Disappointing final budget Despite hundreds of individuals and dozens of organizations speaking out for greater transit funding, the final budget failed to increase or even maintain the funding levels provided last year. The final budget included just $246 million for Local Bus Operating, which must then be divided among 77 transit agencies

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Will Michigan Finally Invest in Transformational Transit?

After decades of barely even funding maintenance-level investments in public transportation, new legislation just introduced would invest fully $2 billion in transformational transit projects across Michigan over the next decade! The 5-part bill package would allocate $200 million a year for the next ten years for public transit! As sponsor Rep Jason Morgan told the

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How Michigan Leaders Propose to Fund Transit

To maintain Michigan’s current transit, the state’s FY25 budget must invest at least $285 million in Local Bus Operating, which they can achieve if the House, Senate, and Governor:

Adopt the Senate proposal to add $40 million from the general fund AND
Move $20 million from the Governor’s proposed “Transit Innovation Grant” into LBO.
This critical LBO funding is in addition to $252 million for transit capital, $152 million for rail, and $2.9 million for an electric bicycle incentive program.

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