Cultivating a Culture of Transit
How Detroit, historical home of the U.S. automotive industry, can create a culture of transit and the equitable transportation system its residents need.
February 23, 2021, 7am PST | David Gifford |
When you hear the name Detroit, what words come to mind? Motown is a common one. It references the Soul Music made here but also the auto industry that put Detroit on the map. A word you might not find synonymous with Detroit is “transit,” at least not in a good way.
Because Detroit is so well known for its automotive industry, most people don’t know that the Motor City has had continuous public transit since 1863. Nearly 100 years ago, Detroiters traveled around on the nation’s largest municipally-owned network of electric streetcars and a system of far reaching interurban trains. But personal automotive use started to rise as Ford’s Highland Park Plant and other automakers started cranking out millions of vehicles a year. City-owned streetcars soon struggled to compete with the onslaught of cars and expanding city borders. As early as the 1930s, buses started replacing streetcars in an effort to save money, compete with cars, and more quickly expand the system to serve the growing city and suburbs. Transit became a place of racial tension during WWII as ridership became more integrated in a city that was largely segregated. By 1956 the streetcars were gone, replaced by buses.