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On the sides of Woodward Avenue, snow banks pile high. They are not beautiful, unmarred, as some imagine snow ought to be; flecks of slush, grey and semiliquid and unsightly, are evident on every surface, left behind by cars that earlier in the day rushed down Detroit’s busiest artery. For the moment, Woodward is silent. Rush hour has passed, cars trickle by only occasionally, and powdery remnants of last night’s snowfall rest peacefully on the pavement.

 

Whoosh.

 

A rush of red, popping bright against the wintery backsplash of white and grey, streaks by. Gusts of wind swell, swirling powder on the pavement into spectral figures that rise through the air and dance in the wake of the streetcar. Just a moment later, the area returns to what it had been—snow banks as tall and grey as ever, powdery snow once more sprinkled across the road’s surface, the air still. 

 

Yet further south on Woodward, snow continues to be tossed into the wind as the streetcar persists in its journey. Its destination: Grand Circus Park station, which since 1987 has served as a stop for the Detroit People Mover. But this streetcar, sleek and modern and free of McDonald’s and Metro PCS advertisements, is no People Mover train. Its windows, tinged black and almost completely opaque, host only decals that read DETROIT QLINE. 

 

As the streetcar enters the station, it slows, then comes to a halt. Its doors, between which are twin notices reading TESTING IN PROGRESS, slide open, offering entry and exit to a crowd that does not yet exist. After perhaps fifteen seconds, the doors slide shut. The streetcar lets out a sigh, as though it knows its toil will never end, then whirs to life once more, tooting its horn before continuing down Woodward. 

 

It’s March. Not until May 12 will QLINE open to the public.  But officials from M-1 Rail, the company that operates the QLINE, are already eager to move beyond testing. “QLINE’s grand opening will be a historic day in Detroit,” M-1 CEO Matt Cullen assured the Detroit News. “We’re bringing rail transit back to the heart of the city and connecting the Woodward Corridor in a way that’s already begun to transform the entire district.”

 

Indeed, Detroit is a city in great need of connection.  Sprawling over 143 square miles, it is the largest American city without any form of public rail system.  Midcentury, streetcars ran throughout Detroit, but the system closed down in 1956, when the boom of the auto age rendered it obsolete. Today, however, automobiles do not overcrowd the streets of the Motor City; over 1 in 4 households in Detroit are without a car. The city’s bus system is inadequate, especially after suburban voters last November rejected a Regional Transit Authority millage that would have created new routes for the system and increased accessibility to riders. Ever more pressing is the need for some form of public transit to make the massive city of Detroit a little smaller. 

 

The QLINE has ostensibly emerged in response to that need.  The light rail system—which will be the 50th built in the United States—is projected to accommodate three to five thousand riders daily, running at a fare of $1.50 per trip. Streetcars will travel at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour, and will carry riders along Woodward from Campus Martius to the Amtrak station in New Center.

 

But—and if you’re familiar with the geography of Detroit, you might have already caught this—the QLINE will not, in fact, be a panacea for the city’s transportation issues. The system stretches only 3.3 miles, and runs almost entirely through Midtown and Downtown—two of the areas least affected by carlessness in Detroit. The route travels only north and south, and does not extend into any of the city’s neighborhoods.

 

A young woman living in Detroit sardonically quipped in a Facebook post about the QLINE that she “Can’t wait to be able to go 3.2 miles with such ease!” Her sentiment seems to be one shared by many Detroiters. The presence of streetcars at city center will do little, if anything, to alleviate the stresses many residents face on a daily basis.  The QLINE will not connect the homes and workplaces of most residents, will not provide a means of moving from one end of the city to the other, will not benefit those people who actually live in Detroit.

 

Who, then, is the QLINE for? It doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that virtually every tourist destination in Downtown and Midtown—from Comerica Park, to the DIA, to Greektown—is just blocks from a QLINE station. Anyone looking to spend a day in the city, to explore the “best” of what Detroit has to offer, would find great use in the QLINE.

Only a small segment of Detroit is within walking distance of the QLINE

The system will be uncomplicated, simple to manage, offer no opportunity for riders to lose their way and end up in some part of the city they don’t want to visit. It is, quite simply, the perfect system for the suburbanite going downtown.

 

But it’s not only visitors who will benefit from this new system. Unlike most public transit systems in the United States, such as the New York City subway, or the Chicago “L,” the QLINE is not owned or operated by city government. At a time, this might have been the case—initial plans for a light rail system in Detroit relied on both local and federal government funding, and proposed a line that would run 9.3 miles from Downtown all the way to 8 Mile, the city’s northernmost boundary. But federal funding slipped away, and the light rail project seemed to be lost—until private investors stepped in. M-1 Rail, which owns the QLINE, was created in 2006 as a nonprofit that would bankroll a shortened, 3.3 mile rail system operating in Downtown and Midtown. Though M-1 does receive some funding from public institutions, it is backed primarily by corporations, like Illitch Holdings and JP Morgan Chase. Quicken Loans is also a backer, and in March 2016 paid $5 million for naming rights to the project—hence the Q in front of LINE, rather than a D, as Detroit residents suggested.

 

It’s hardly a mystery why these corporations would invest a collective $140 million in creating the QLINE. All of them have holdings and property in Downtown and Midtown, and will benefit enormously from the increased attention and foot traffic QLINE will bring to these areas. This is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself; businesses have the right to invest in that which will increase their profits and prominence. What seems wrong, however, is the branding of QLINE as a revolutionary system made for the people of Detroit.  Serving the needs of Detroiters is, at best, a secondary goal of the QLINE—no proposals have been made of extending the rail system into areas that would serve a greater number of city residents, and it seems unlikely they will be such proposals, until those areas become revitalized like Midtown and Downtown.

 

When streetcars fill with passengers on May 12, they will serve consumers, not citizens. The QLINE was made by business, and will operate like a business, working for what is practical, rather than what is necessary. Streetcars rolling down Woodward will certainly make it easier to get from one part of the city center to another; but they will do little to revolutionize, or even improve, mass transit in Detroit as a whole. 

QLINE ROUTE
GRAND BOULEVARD
AMTRACK
AMSTERDAM
Ferry
Warren
Canfield
MLK
SIBLEY
FOXTOWN
GRAND CIRCUS PARK
CAMPUS MARTIUS
CONGRESS
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