WI: Detroit Subway Proposal Passes with One Extra Vote in 1919

[Paragon]

"The plan made it to the Detroit Common Council in 1919, which passed a resolution to begin negotiations with the DUR to put the plan in motion. But Mayor James Couzens, elected into office just the year before, had campaigned on eliminating the DUR, and he vetoed it. The Council’s attempts to override Couzens’ veto failed by a single vote. "

Ironically enough, Couzens at least publicly asserted that he vetoed because he preferred a wholly public option.

Let's stipulate his veto is overridden by the one vote it needed and eventually the DUR does fully fall into public hands down the road, as all privately operated subway systems eventually did.

Most of the trackage would be grade-separated surface or elevated rails (similar to much of Chicago's system) with underground tunnels downtown.

Questions

• Would this subway system survive to the present day?
• How would the system affect race/class relations and the growth of the suburbs? Would some suburbs support extensions of lines to avert congestion?
• Would the presence of a subway system alter Fordism? Park and ride instead of highways to the auto plants?
• Could a subway system be the tipping point for one of Detroit's Olympic bids in the post-WW2 period? They were runner up to Mexico City for 1968 and were championed by the USOC for most of the 60s before support returned to Los Angeles. I fancy a subway extension to Belle Isle would occur then, and run seasonal/weekend/event-based routes not unlike Montreal's Yellow Line to Parc Jean-Drapeau.
• How would such a system in Detroit affect the management class of the auto makers? Would we see at least one have a prominent section focused on rapid transit?

Sources

For maps of the 1918 proposal, Fifty Three Studios

THE MUNICIPAL TAKE-0VER OF THE CITY LINES (1921--1922)

A designer made maps of past and hypothetical Detroit transit systems

 

[1940LaSalle]

I see the potential ripple effects as huge. If Detroit has a (reasonably) comprehensive rapid transit system to augment surface car routes, and sets up that system to feed automotive plants, it'll be the model for cars and mass transit to co-exists. Assuming that happens, phasing out of streetcars (and trolley coaches) is likely to be much narrower in scope than OTL--I might even go so far as to say that National City Lines doesn't really gain traction (pardon the streetcar-related pun) except in small cities of perhaps 50,000 and under. Thus:

• Far greater use of PCC cars in the 1930s and 1940s
• Less dense transit lines converted to trolley coaches rather than buses also in the 1930s and 1940s
• Pullman-Standard and St. Louis Car Company survive as streetcar builders long after the 1950s: indeed, likely both would be turning out equipment for surface and rapid transit lines today
• Interstate highways likely wouldn't penetrate urban centers, but would operate with beltways around centers of population

 

[Simon]

How sure are we about that map? I had been under the impression that the proposal which was vetoed involved a subway along Woodward and surface running lines feeding into it, as illustrated here. A number of those lines look like they're from the 1945 proposal.

 

[Paragon]

How sure are we about that map? I had been under the impression that the proposal which was vetoed involved a subway along Woodward and surface running lines feeding into it, as illustrated here. A number of those lines look like they're from the 1945 proposal.

I'm not sure about the map and would agree that it's likely somewhat conjectural.

I think the 1919 vote was on the second report prepared by the DSR Commission, from the second source which itself cites a railfan publication (and so should be taken with a grain of salt):
"Meanwhile, back in December of 1917, and prior to Couzens' election as mayor, the second
of two Detroit Rapid Transit engineering studies had been completed. This second report,
prepared by a consulting firm hired by the D.S.R. Commission, had recommended that a
total of 65 miles of combined underground downtown subways with surface or elevated rail
lines further out in the city, should be built to relieve downtown traffic congestion."

65 miles is more than just the Woodward Avenue line which I figure to be 11 or 12 miles to 9 Mile & Woodward in Ferndale.

 

[Migrant_Coconut]

This is great for Detroit, but unless this somehow prevents white flight or the Rust Belt, ultimately irrelevant. Just means that the stupid People Mover never happens.

 

[Diez Mil Cantos]

Well Detroit probably ends up more like Chicago, where despite white flight, the downtown core remains the anchor for business and any factory along the lines benefits

 

[GeographyDude]

Well Detroit probably ends up more like Chicago, where despite white flight, the downtown core remains the anchor for business and any factory along the lines benefits

So a modest and a very realistic change, but one which could have significant ripples.

 

[Paragon]

So a modest and a very realistic change, but one which could have significant ripples.

More of the tax base staying in the city proper would have pretty dramatic effects on how deep the decline of municipal services goes. Highland Park if Chrysler remained would be unrecognizable. I doubt the Pistons or Lions decamp to Oakland County, for that matter.

--

Detroit is by far the largest US metro area without a rapid transit system. Several attempts were made in the 1960s and 70s, but by then relations between the city proper and the suburbs had become too acrimonious. I am curious if the SEMTA Commuter Rail service to Pontiac inherited from Grand Trunk Western would survive given the connectivity it would have with the Woodward Avenue subway and whatever subway line builds a stop at Michigan Central Station.

 

[e of pi]

The effects of this on other midwestern transit would be interesting. I know that Cincinnati looked to Detroit and Cleveland in planning their subway (tunnels and stations downtown built, surface route graded, stations built, never opened) and Pittsburgh cites it in some of their 1919 and 1925 subways studies ($6m bond approved by voters, never started construction due to lack of agreement on design and scope). If completed, it could help provide some momentum to other similar projects like this, but these do provide some caution as to if the system would be completed given the inflation and economic issues of the 20s for transit.

 

[Johannes Parisiensis]

More information about this project in Detroit’s 5 biggest transit misses.

The Detroit Subway Plan

In 1919, a proposal to build a subway and rapid transit system was actually approved by the city council, but vetoed by the mayor. Council tried to override the veto, but it lost by one vote.

The idea of a Detroit subway had been hatched as early as 1909, as tens of thousands of pedestrians, horses, streetcars, and automobiles crowded downtown streets. In 1915, a very thorough rapid transit report was submitted to the Street Railway Commission. One of the recommendations was to build a subway, but no action was taken.

But Detroit’s population continued to rise, doubling every 10 years, and was on track to hit 1 million by 1920. A second transit report was submitted in 1917, which included a downtown subway system and a far reaching rapid transit system. The report called for the privately owned DUR (Detroit United Railway), which also operated the streetcars, to run the system.

The main problem with the plan was political. For 30 years, Detroit’s mayors had been trying unsuccessfully to break up the streetcar monopoly through municipal ownership, believing they could run the system better and keep fares more affordable.

Mayor James Couzens was a self-made businessman from Canada who considered himself a mobility expert, having worked as a general manager at Ford Motor Company and on the Street Railway Commission. He ran on a platform of municipal ownership of the streetcar system, and was opposed to a transit plan that relied on the DUR as the primary operator.

Despite the warning that purchasing the streetcar system would leave no funds to build a rapid transit system, he pushed forward anyways. After the purchase, it was discovered that the system was in bad need of infrastructure and rolling stock updates. Much of this was due to the city’s efforts to undermine the system and force its sale. As a result, DUR was hesitant to invest in a system it could lose to the city at any time.

Detroit subway plans continued to be studied and proposed almost every decade, including in the 1980s for the People Mover, which was supposed to be part of a much larger regional network that never came to be. While a subway system would be far too cost prohibitive to build today, it would certainly be a useful tool given the level of activity downtown.

 

[DougM]

Ultimately it does nothing.
Detroit had a very large very effective street railway system that ran out to what are now the suburbs. You could easily take it from Farmington all the way into Detroit. The Subway and grade seperatio pn would magpie it a bit. fast but that is it. And NO the system was NOT sabotaged by GM. It like most street railway was going broke.
The reality is given a choice between Cars and mass transit people will (on average) the whichever’s is easier. Even in London you still get the roads filled to compacity and everyone else takes the the underground.
This will happen in Detroit as well. It is simply easier to Get in my car and drive then to get in my car drive a few miles to the station wait for the train take it into a big junction station get off walk to a different platform wait for another train take that a couple miles then get out and walk a block or three (often in rain or freezing weather) to work. The repeat on the way home. And pay for the privl of doing all this.
As for keeping the city... that is not happening either, Detroit once upon a time had the most House (privately owned) of any city in the US. Detroit had relatively few tenements and appartments and such and a lot of little lots with houses. This make mass transit hard because intsted of 4 6 stores apartment building with 20 families each you had a dozen or so house with one family each so you had fewer people on any block. So you have fewer people within any given distance of a station. So you either have fewer stations farther apart thus walking farther or you have more stations and stops serving fewer people increase time (more stops) and cost (more stations to build an maintain) the the same number of riders in other cities.
Then we have the problem that during WW2 and after the companies were building new factories and the easiest place to do that was out in the farmland. On top of that the GIs wanted houses to raise families so those were built outside the society on cheep farmland. So you have the expense of expanding the system and the houses in these new suburbs are built on more
and and thus few folks per sq mile so it gets even harder to build stations close enough to be used so you end up having to drive to them.
So folks ARE going to buy houses with yards for thier kids out in the suburbs where land is cheep, And the factories moved out there as well for similar reasons. The largest bomber production factory of its time was the Willow Run B-24 Liberator planet and it was built in a field out closer to Ann Arbor the Detroit. And that was for a reason. It needed lots and lots of room. FactorI es are big and need lots of land.
Once you have folks driving (impossible to avoid) living outside the city limits (impossible to avoid) and some jobs outside the city limits (impossible to avoid)
You will get a decline in the neiborhoods (“White flight”, which should be called wirking class flight as it was done by working folks that made a good working class pay, but wanted more space and the other advantages of the suburbs be it white or minority alike, admittedly this was more common in European descended then other ethi groups at the time) But he’s had even wealthy minority's left detroit. Motown Records didn’t have to leave but they did. (As one very obvious example)
And once you have the city turning (population wise) to majority of ethic minorities then you start seeing the politicians catering to them. So the problem is how to keep the city government from getting out of control, Mayor Young and Mayor Kilpatrik being two examples. One was eledigidly corrupt and the other is in jail. One basically told the white folks they were not welcomed and to hit 8 mile and keep going. But then had budget issues for decades thathe expected the state and county to pay for.... This basically caused a 40 year war between the suburbs and the a City.
You want a better Detroit THAT is what needs to be fixed. Stop the city from getting so corrupt and anti suburb and frankly anti white that it creates the huge divide.
Also if you want to keep more white folks in the city maybe you don’t built an auto plant in a residential neighborhood using eminent domain to take down one of the areas with more white folks in it....
And yes I know the city was corrupt. As I personally know folks that were asked for (and ultimately paid) bribes to get permits for construction in Detroit. It was pay a few hundred in cash and get your permit that week (usually before you left the building you could take it with you). Or wait weeks or months for it. One time the guy picked up the drawings In the morning and returned with the permits about lunch time. So the cuty was corrupt from top to bottom. Note I am not saying EVERYONE was but you could find some corruption in every department.

So the reality is that the Subway will not stop or slow any of this directly. It may accidentally make it less of a problem (or mayb make it worse) as it is possible that some of the players will be different but the overall situation will not change. If you get lucky and get politicians that are willing to work with the suburbs in the 69s/70s/80s then the city could be in good shape by now but that has nothing to do with the Subway and everything to do with keeping a Young and his group from getting power.

That being said Detroit is slowly coming back. Downtown is getting a lot better and folks are moving into the area . But the residential area in the rest of the city are best described as being a “hood” and hardly a day goes buy without shootings being reported somewhere. So maybe having a subway would help with the rebuilding as transit in downtwon is an issue, I tried to gro from the area with the ballparks and theaters to the area with the convention center a few years ago and it was all but impossible if you didn’t have a car. The problem is to get from the suburbs to downtown you basically go there the nastier neighborhoods and that is not going to make folks want to ride the subways so they will still drive in then take transit around downtown. So other then being easier to move around downtown (worthwhile in its own right) you will get nothing different by building a subway in the 1920s.

 

[Paragon]

I am relatively aware that the demographic and urban planning decks are stacked against Detroit in the 20th century - the ring of factories and industry isolating the city proper from the suburbs doesn't help. And while you could say the city became anti-white, I think that's confusing cause with effect - white supremacy was deeply entrenched in metro Detroit (e.g. the Black Legion conspiracys and the presence of the Klan). But really, that turn was in the mid-1960s.

So would the subway system survive to the present day or would we see it die stillborn like the Cincinnati subway? I think Detroit would be better able to handle the post-WWI inflation - their population is still doubling at a rapid pace - so it would probably get built. And no doubt it would have a dark few decades as surviving systems from that era did, but nothing some transit police couldn't curb....

Certainly if Michigan establishes a multi-county transit authority (as they did IOTL) the suburbs would be slightly more willing to cooperate with an already built backbone of such a system that solves the last-mile problem?

 

[Simon]

65 miles is more than just the Woodward Avenue line which I figure to be 11 or 12 miles to 9 Mile & Woodward in Ferndale.

Doing some very rough measuring the subway line from Jefferson up to Victor and the surface routes operating as feeder lines – shown as long dashes – are roughly 30 miles long, to which you can add another 5 miles or so if you continue the subsurface line on the surface north to 9 Mile. Add in surface routes transferring to the feeder lines – shown as short dashes – and you might start approaching 60 miles or so.

All that aside as I've posted in previous threads I think the most they're likely to get at the beginning is the subway and surface lines, they had several other rather expensive things happening around then, before the bottom dropping out of the global economy stops any further expansion. They seem to have planned fairly thoroughly with it being aimed at getting workers from their homes to their jobs and back so it likely does okay in the 1930s. During WWII just about every public transit system seems to have experienced a boom in rider numbers, so it sets things up nicely for the 1945 proposals which see further subway lines being built branching off from the Woodward Avenue line – it's easier to swing public approval for an expansion of an existing, generally successful, system than a brand new one.