SpeedLink

Key Reasons for SpeedLink

SpeedLink
Key Reasons for SpeedLink Rapid Transit

The Detroit metropolitan area critically needs the efficient, convenient, fast, and safe rapid transit service that can be offered by SpeedLink’s “train-on-tires” service. The reasons we need rapid transit service that is truly regional in scope are many and significant:

• Building a Strong Economy – Our region’s business climate is at a competitive disadvantage with other metropolitan areas because we do not have the means to move workers quickly and efficiently. Workers who cannot get to or keep jobs due to lack of regional transit raises the cost of doing business and encourages companies to look elsewhere to locate or expand.
  
  
• Serving an Aging Population – Southeast Michigan is “graying” at an accelerating pace. By 2030 the region will have one-half million residents aged 75 or older. We will not be able to adequately support the transportation needs of our senior citizens with the present public transportation infrastructure.
  
  
• Addressing a Future Labor Shortage – Over the next 30 years experts project that the region will create 445,000 new jobs while our working age population will shrink by 233,000. This means we will need a significantly enhanced transit system to connect every potential employee with a job – including those without a car.
  
  
• Combating Traffic Congestion – Traffic congestion on our roads and highways will only continue to worsen – causing great aggravation to all and also driving up the cost of moving goods and products. By 2025 about a third of all travel will be on congested roads. Transit alone will not solve all these problems but, as other major metropolitan areas have demonstrated, it is an important part of a balanced solution. We do not have the dollars or the space to pave our way out of congestion.
  
  
• Enhancing Quality of Life – An essential element to insuring a sound regional economy is a high quality of life that attracts and retains the best and the brightest employees, especially young urban professionals. A major contributor to that high quality of life is an efficient, convenient, and safe regional rapid transit system. Even in the age of the automoblie, recent studies show that metropolitan areas with excellent rapid transit – and the vital urban life that comes in its wake – are more successful in attracting young professionals and their families, particularly those with the high tech skills our businesses so badly need if they are to remain competitive.
  
  

Finally, surveys of our region’s residents have consistently demonstrated support for improving regional transit. For example, a survey of infrastructure funding needs conducted by Market Strategies in June 2002 revealed that 77% of residents of Southeast Michigan believed it was important to improve the region’s transit system.