Wayne, Washtenaw, Oakland county leaders seek regional transit expansion, Macomb sits out

Regional cooperation in southeast Michigan took a detour Monday when a group of local and state political leaders unveiled the latest plans to kick-start a regional transit plan, but left Macomb County out of the mix.

Instead, officials from Wayne, Oakland and Washtenaw counties, along with the city of Detroit and several state lawmakers, announced their plan to amend the Municipal Partnership Act of 2011 in the state Legislature, with the goal of having a proposal expanding regional transit in several southeast Michigan counties on the November 2020 ballot

The plan came together after the August death of Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, a vocal opponent of previous efforts to get a transit proposal on ballots in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties.

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Former Ferndale Mayor Dave Coulter, an avid supporter of public transit, was appointed to fill out the rest of Patterson's term and said within days of being appointed that he wanted to see transit on the 2020 ballot.

Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel, who also opposed previous transit proposals, decided to opt out of the latest plan.

He said he has no problem with the other communities going forward with the latest plan and figures it's a way to involve all the communities in each of the counties. Currently, Wayne and Oakland counties have allowed communities to opt out of transit plans, leaving wide swaths of territory with little to no public transportation. When Macomb County residents have approved suburban bus millages, including in 2018, it has included the entire county.

"I don’t disagree that there is a need to connect communities, but how do you do that?" Hackel said. "It’s going to be a remarkable change in the transit system if all of the communities opt in because there's a tremendous amount of funding that they’re not getting that money from those communities."

He's still opposed to a regional transit millage on top of a suburban bus millage that's already being levied.

The latest plan allows for Macomb County and others to join in the future, unlike the original Regional Transit Authority bill.

The reason the Regional Transit Authority hasn’t worked as intended, Duggan said, is it calls for all jurisdictions involved — Detroit and Wayne, Macomb, Oakland and Washtenaw counties — to be on board, and if any of those jurisdictions didn’t support part of the plan, “the whole region got zero."

The remainder of the so-called Big Four — Coulter, Wayne County Executive Warren Evans and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan — once again enlisted Washtenaw County leaders into the ballot proposal plan. The local leaders, along with several state lawmakers, announced the new proposal at a news conference at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak.

The latest plan is one of many that have been floated to try and improve public transit in the region, which has been plagued by slow or nonexistent service, a lack of coordination between the city and suburban bus systems and insufficient equipment. Previous attempts have failed because someone in political leadership didn't buy into the proposal. Former Gov. John Engler killed one plan on his last day in office in 2003, vetoing legislation that created a regional transit authority. Patterson and Hackel have put the kibosh on other plans and voters have defeated measures too.

The bill amending the Municipal Partnership Act of 2011 would allow for the approval of a municipal partnership levy by a majority vote within a participating jurisdiction, exempt participating governments from the local millage cap and ensure levied revenue is used exclusively for transit, Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said in the news conference. 

“This is not a transit plan,” Evans said. “This is legislation that can get us to a transit plan.”

Sponsoring the proposed bill is state Rep. Jason Sheppard, R-Temperance, who said he wants “this to be a bipartisan effort.” He has the support of both Speaker of the House Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, and House Minority Leader Chris Greig, D-Farmington Hills.

Sheppard aims to get the bill on the House floor when the state Legislature convenes in December.

“I don’t want this talked about being Republican versus Democrat,” he said. “This is a state of Michigan issue that we have to solve.”

If the bill is approved in Lansing, a vote by each county's commission could place a transit millage question on the ballot, and it would be up to voters to approve the millage. 

Evans said he wants a plan the involved counties can all agree upon drafted by spring 2020, and get the public involved with “significant intensity” to allow it to be placed on the ballot in November 2020.

“For over half a century, southeast Michigan has become one of the most segregated places in America. For over half a century, we’ve been trying to get fully connected public transportation in our area. For over half a century, we’ve been cutting ourselves off from a substantial portion of our own talent base because they can’t access opportunity,” Evans said. 

Coulter said he hopes to get support for the new plan throughout Oakland County, where in 2016, a Regional Transit Authority millage was defeated. 

Coulter said it was no secret that previous plans didn't have enough resources or incentives for residents in the northern parts of the county to gain enough support.

Better connections from less populous communities to main transit lines is one way of gaining support throughout Oakland County, he said, as no one is going to want to walk a mile to get to a bus stop. 

On the flip side, the FAST Woodward bus service, which connects Pontiac and downtown Detroit with stops along Woodward Avenue, is “rocking it,” Coulter said. 

Weekly ridership of FAST Woodward buses has increased 90% since January 2018, he said. 

“For me, that’s just a glimpse of what future ridership could look like if we created the right regional plan that moves people quickly and efficiently and affordably,” Coulter said. 

The plan will likely be dealing with a lower millage request and, as a result, less revenue for regional transit, Evans said, but it’s not clear at this point what the number will be. The 1.2 mill-proposal failed by about 18,000 votes in 2016.

Officials stressed the economic impact regional transit would provide. 

A quarter of residents in the city of Detroit do not own cars, which means their ability to get where they need to is "limited by a transit system that's probably the worst in the country,” Duggan said. 

Evans said regional transit will help retain young people in the region and attract businesses, stimulating economic activity. .

“Talent is king in the economy, and economic development is becoming as much a part of talent cultivation as it is talent attraction. We’re leaving way too much homegrown talent out of the system,” Evans said. “This is a key step toward a truly inclusive economy. I, for one, am tired of waiting and believe this is our best shot in getting there, and I hope our friends in Lansing agree.”

The right people are involved in the formulation of this plan, Duggan said. As the Detroit mayor voiced his final remarks, he lightheartedly said, “As long as (Rep.) Jason Sheppard gets the bill done, we’re going to get a transit system.”

Contact reporter Omar Abdel-Baqui: 313-222-2514 or oabdel-baqui@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @omarabdelb