DETROIT -- A new Southeast Michigan mass transit framework proposed by Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans this week garnered mixed reactions.
The four-county regional transit plan would create five cross-region bus service routes along major corridors and 15 new express routes, plus a Detroit-to-Ann Arbor commuter rail line.
If approved by the Regional Transit Authority, the group would look to ask voters in November for a 1.5-mill tax over 20 years to pay for the system.
Supporters at an RTA meeting Thursday pointed out high interest among seniors and Millenials in improving regional and local transit options.
"Millennials don't like driving. I'd much rather be texting my friends. I wrote my whole speech on my phone," said Nick Rancilio, 22 of St. Clair Shores. "For my peers and I, we want a mass transit system. Not just for easy traveling but for developing the city, and I'd much rather have all my friends stay here and live around here than move out to somewhere like Austin or New York.
"Let's stay here and build the city up. Along with travel and ease of travel comes diversity, and I'd love to see more connections with different people."
But activist Jim Casha of Tillsonburg, Ontario - a Michigan native who frequently advocates for community causes in Detroit - would have rather seen a plan that made use of the Michigan State Fairgrounds.
"I felt the Fairgrounds was a good location for the regional transportation hub," Casha said.
He said the transit plan "should have a bigger focus. It should connect the RTA with other regional transportation centers," Casha said, adding it should connect to cities as far as Lansing and Flint.
"This RTA was put together, I'm sorry, to satisfy one use... so that Dan Gilbert and the M-1 Rail people get our federal transit dollars for their local development project," Casha said.
Ann Arbor resident and former New Yorker Jesse Halfon told the board that places like Seattle are looking at bike share, painted bike lanes and carving out curve space for ride-hailing services.
"The fact that we're talking about basic transportation planning is effing pathetic," Halfon said. "I never come to Detroit. I don't like driving here. I don't like parking here. I don't like moving around here."
"I'm going to go back to my bubble in Ann Arbor. I'm going to make snarky tweets about how you guys can't get anything done and in a couple of years, my kids are going to be riding around... whatever is coming out while you guys are making the same points."
Halfon moved to Ann Arbor 11 years ago for college, but did not have a driver's license until his mid-20s, when he began assimilating to "driving culture," he said.
"I certainly don't come (to Detroit) to explore the city in the way I think of New York City, where you wander the streets and you hope you serendipitously come across what the city has to offer," Halfon said. "I've never felt comfortable coming down here."
Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson on Thursday released a statement noting the county north of Detroit would not support the transit plan, indicating it was no different than the plan that was rejected in 2016.