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Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Transportation After the Future: Detroit's People Mover

Posted by Charles Mudede on Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 7:36 AM

Yesterday happened to be the 25th birthday of Detroit's People Mover. Though its route is only 3 miles, it cost a fortune to build and costs a fortune to maintain. The People Mover was made for a future that never arrived. Neal Rubin of Detroit News:

It was supposed to carry tens of thousands of daily passengers who had arrived on our shiny new light-rail system.

Unfortunately, the light-rail system was never built, so we wound up with a hole and no doughnut.

It's a nice hole, mind you, clean and safe and quite handy when you need it. But it's been luckless from the start, and was an unwitting victim of the Hudson's implosion on Oct. 24, 1998.

I'd let myself into the abandoned department store a year before with a demolition expert. Looks like an enjoyable project, he'd said, but it's complicated and unpredictable. If you don't use wrecking balls, you'll need to build a steel cage to protect the People Mover track.

Naturally, the city opted not to shell out for the cage, even though the route ran only 12 feet behind the store. A chunk of the 439-foot-tall building took a wrong turn and punched out a 350-foot length of track, and the People Mover was out of commission for a year.

Here is a video of the hole without a doughnut:

millender - a detroit timelapse from Geoff George on Vimeo.

The link for the video came from Aaron Kahn.

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Comments (18) RSS

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What Detroit needs is more diversity like Seattle.

Posted by Blacktopia on August 1, 2012 at 8:10 AM

The only people left in Detroit are the poor and the human garbage that prey on them. In other words, Chuckie's hip-hop, urban utopia.

Posted by Stranger'sWorstNightmare on August 1, 2012 at 8:11 AM

Good Morning Charles,
Wow, that's bloody sad. What a waste. Cool video though.

Posted by lark on August 1, 2012 at 8:11 AM

Anyone else watch America's favorite black comedy, The First 48?

The Detroit episodes are a laugh-along!

Posted by Ian Smith on August 1, 2012 at 8:20 AM

So I guess the word "Detroit" is instant racist-bait? Good to know.

Keep hating people for their skin tone guys, I am sure you will end up on the right side of history for that choice.

Posted by Theodore Gorath on August 1, 2012 at 8:35 AM

Skin tone? Plenty of wiggaz at 8th and Gratiot. Nope, the problem is cultural.

Posted by Ian Smith on August 1, 2012 at 8:47 AM

i still wish we'd expanded the monorail. ballard to west seattle would have been the shit.

Posted by Max Solomon on August 1, 2012 at 9:05 AM

Koyaaniflopsie

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on August 1, 2012 at 9:37 AM

@7 don't worry, we're going to do it by subway. the underground light rail from u district to northgate, though, being $4.3 billion and oh about 4.5 miles...well, expect a 14 mile greenline subway west seattle to ballard to be about oh, $12 billion.

that monorail we voted down? $2.2 billion.

Posted by mobility fan on August 1, 2012 at 9:50 AM

I love riding the People Mover when I visit family in Detroit.

Posted by Baconcat on August 1, 2012 at 10:59 AM

The article's right - it's clean, it's quiet, it (mostly) runs, and if you're downtown, it'll take you to Greektown, or Comerica Park, or Joe Lewis, or Cobo. But you can't, as they say, get there from here. You've got to drive if you want to ride on it. Which, if you think about it, is just the dumbest thing in the world.

Posted by crivins on August 1, 2012 at 11:03 AM

It really is useful, and an interesting sight-seeing trip past the library and the churches. If they're still there...

Posted by orino

on August 1, 2012 at 11:06 AM

I love the People Mover. Great way to get around Detroit.

And I disagree with @11--I've been there plenty of times on transit. It connects up nicely with the Rosa Parks Transit Center, which gets you local and regional buses all over the Detroit area, as well as with the Transit Windsor tunnel bus to Canada.

Such an awesome city. I love visiting it several times per year.

(And they are finally, finally moving ahead with a commuter rail to Ann Arbor and a light rail up Woodward Avenue...)

Posted by Cow on August 1, 2012 at 1:09 PM

(Also: same technology as Vancouver's SkyTrain and Toronto's Scarborough Rapid Transit lines. That familiar electric hum of the motors spinning up always feels like home to me, having lived in all three cities now.)

Posted by Cow on August 1, 2012 at 1:17 PM