Southeast Michigan voters could see new mass transit plan on ballot in November

After months of negotiations, a new $5 billion mass transit plan was proposed Thursday for southeast Michigan that seeks to address the concerns that killed the regional transportation initiative two years ago.

Wayne County Executive Warren Evans had planned to lay out the proposal – which could go to voters this fall – at a meeting Thursday afternoon of the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan.

The proposal would make several major changes to the plan that voters rejected in 2016. The new plan:

* Provides a commuter train between Detroit and Ann Arbor
* Provides $50 million per year for a program called Hometown Service to 60 communities that do not have regularly scheduled bus routes. The money can be spent locally on “creative mobility solutions” such as ridesharing or campus connectors - or rolled over for the county to spend
* Adds 11 new highway-based express bus routes with park and ride lots; and adds one airport-bound route from each county
* Adds 15 regional bus routes that run every 15 minutes during rush hour, including 10 routes that run cross-county 20-hours per day and three that offer 24 hours service
* Provides 105 percent return on each county’s investment, compared to 85 percent in the prior plan.

It doesn’t come without a cost, though. The plan would charge homeowners 1.5 mills per year. That’s more than the 1.2 mill per year plan for Wayne, Oakland and Macomb that voters narrowly defeated in 2016.

Read more: https://www.bridgemi.com/detroit-journalism-cooperative/se-michigan-voters-could-see-new-mass-transit-plan-ballot-november