Detroit Bus Improvements Finally Take Hold With 24 Hour Service, Direct Express
DETROIT (WWJ) The Detroit Department of Transportation announced last fall there would be more buses and more round-the-clock service for Detroiters, and those improvements are finally taking effect this week.
WWJ City Beat Reporter Vickie Thomas hopped on the bus to talk to riders have been waiting a long time for these improvements.
Nine service lines including Jefferson Avenue, Woodward, Gratiot, Grand River, Michigan Avenue, Van Dyke and Lafayette will have 24 hour service starting today, Thomas said. Direct express service has been added to and from places including Wayne State University, the Detroit Medical Center and Henry Ford Hospital.
Regular rider Mike Vaughn says it's about time.
"It needs to improve because this is slow, I've been out here (waiting) for an hour," Vaughn told Thomas.
Waiting on the Greenfield line, Destiny Cross echoed that sentiment.
"Seems to me the buses take all day long just to come," Cross said. "There's a lot of people out here that's cold and trying to get home ... They need to hurry up, all this money they be making out here? That's why I need to get a car," Cross said.
DDOT has created so many improvements that the federal government lifted financial restrictions on the service a couple of weeks ago that it had implemented in 2013 due to poor service.
According to freep.com, improvements included:
- An on-time bus departure rate of 98 percent as of November 2016, up from 62 percent in January 2014.
- Meeting and exceeding preventative maintenance on buses.
- Upgraded procurement procedures, bus fleet management plan and standardized administrative operating procedures as well as an overall asset management plan.
- Improved used of funds that had been idle in old federal grants.
