Not only did Wayne County voters support the transit millage proposal in the recent election, they supported it overwhelmingly.
That’s the takeaway from a close reading of the election results, as shown in the map above.
A Supermajority of Voters Said Yes to Transit!
Overall, over 67% of voters – two out of three – said “yes” to transit, which is impressive in itself. Perhaps most interestingly, though, voters said “yes” to transit in a wide variety of communities.
It comes as little surprise that support for transit was highest in the City of Detroit and Highland Park, with a remarkable 85% of votes in favor!
But most suburbs, too, turned in sizable majorities for transit. If Detroit’s votes were excluded, the millage would still have passed with nearly 60% of the vote.
In general, inner-ring suburbs and communities that were already part of the SMART system supported transit at higher rates.
Even Communities Without SMART Supported Transit
But of the 17 communities that weren’t previously part of the SMART system, 10 delivered pro-transit majorities, including Canton, Brownstown Township, Plymouth and Northville.
Livonia, which “opted out” of SMART two decades ago, was just 77 votes short of a pro-transit majority.
The largest majorities against transit were in the most rural areas of the county, like Huron and Sumpter Townships and the furthest reaches of Downriver.
These results are a testament to the strong coalition that developed around the transit proposal, but also to widespread public support for transit.
TRU has argued for many years that the people of the metro region are ready to get behind efforts for better transit.
We hope that elected officials throughout the region will take note, and renew efforts for the additional transit investments we need and deserve.
Let’s Keep the Momentum Going
Would you like to help shape the implementation of Wayne County-wide transit service, or help TRU build political support to sustain this momentum? E-mail Joel Batterman, TRU Campaigns Manager, at joel [at] detroittransit [dot] org.