SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Suburban leaders are teaming up against Detroit in the battle over transportation in Southeast Michigan.
One one side, the Detroit-backed Regional Transit Authority has aspirations of real mass transit throughout Southeast Michigan.
On the other side, Macomb County Executive Mark A. Hackel and Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said the SMART bus system works just fine.
The transit battle has gotten ugly, with a war of words and name calling. Suburban leaders fired the latest salvo on Tuesday.
The plan Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans proposed has the northern counties paying the lion's share of the increasing riding and not seeing many of the new routes. But Tuesday's announcement wasn't about the RTA. It was about keeping the SMART bus system.
"We've got to set that aside right now because my No. 1 worry is that people are going to get confused about this ballot language on the ballot this August," Hackel said of the RTA plan.
Increased regional transit is an idea, but a SMART millage on the August ballot is a reality.
"SMART is regional transit," Hackel said. "People tend to think, 'We want a regional system?' Well, we have one."
Voters in Macomb County were aware of the August millage vote, and it had mixed support.
The battle comes down to who will pay for what and how much use they'll get from it. Patterson said Detroit will get far more help that it puts in while Oakland and Macomb are on the flip side of that.
Some Macomb County voters supported the RTA plan, but others did not.
Macomb and Oakland counties voted against an RTA millage in 2016, but Hackel and Patterson worry that people won't understand that voting against the SMART millage will cause problems they don't want.
You can watch Rod Meloni's full story in the video posted above.
Here is a statement from Evans:
"Clearly, many residents in Oakland and Macomb are expressing their feelings in favor of more transit options, and that’s a good thing. I’m pleased to hear the conversation around transit continue to grow, but we need to have a candid conversation. We spend $67 per capita on transit, and that’s not going to get it done by any stretch of the imagination, particularly with opt-outs. Today, included many of the compelling arguments for transit absent any of the realities of what is achievable under the current set-up. Relying solely on incremental steps to meet our citizens’ need for more transit options will hold us back and lead to continued missed opportunities like Amazon HQ2 and Foxconn. I support the SMART millage because less transit would devastate the region. I support RTA because it is the best path to a true regional system with all the benefits transit can provide."