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I just can't believe we're in this position talking about these options. Most embarassing for a society expected to lead mankind forward. We need to find a way to make sprawl pay for its own infrastructure. Maybe it's time for some federal property taxes, graduated by one's choice of living situation. Outer rings and exurbs get soaked, inner cities and small farms are exempt or close to it, rural areas are much higher if you aren't farming. Social engineering yes, but sprawl is too.

I just woke up. Who put this axe in my head?

That makes a lot of sense, and I hope that's how they're thinking.

I second rockefeller playboy guy.

Medicine and education are not the future of the US economy, any more than law or accounting are. These are just specific professions, necessary but not sufficient in themselves to make society go. Technology is a really broad term, and by all accounts it includes automotive. Our current financial system is but one of many ways that capital can be moved around. Supply, demand, and all the secondary effects they spawn, can all be manipulated. They aren't constants like gravity, nor are they gods. They can't tell us to shut down major cities if we don't want to. The world has pretty much the same supply, the same demand levels it had a couple years ago. There are people, they need things, and they have energy & ideas to do things. And yet today, nothing can get built, bought or sold because the financial system is all a-flutter. I ask you, is this finance-first arrangement helping or hurting?

Not a huge Pelosi fan, but don't have a strong opinion on her. Still don't get why people who shape metal or install components for a living need to go through some sort of wakey-shakey upheaval. Don't see why finance is more critical or deserving of support than the productive activity for which finance exists. Creation is an end in itself, while finance requires an object-- and a viable object at that. I'm not contending that downsizing shouldn't take place. I'm contending that it needs to proceed in a more orderly fashion than bankruptcy or collapse would entail.

I personally don't need an MTS, but I wish no ill upon it. There are many ways to change and adapt the auto industry. Dropping chaos onto Detroit, Cleveland, Youngstown, etc is about the worst possible option. If that does happen anyway, let it not happen due to irrational spite and bitterness of Americans on Americans.

MTS, you are joking right? No, we don't need an economy at all... I'm increasingly surprised by the lack of support so many millions of Americans are recieving from their own. I don't understand why the criticism isn't more evenly spread across sectors. Why aren't we tying the real estate profession to a stake? It's taboo to criticize the police when crime spikes, or even when it plagues certain neighborhoods relentlessly. At least they don't make cars! Earlier today I stepped on someone's toes with a comment about people in a certain line of work and where they could stick it. That's never good. But why is there a different standard in play when we discuss people who work for domestic automakers? They can all burn Burn BURN for what they've done! Even though, as in most fields of endeavor, key decsions are made by a small cadre and everyone else does the best they can with what's been dropped on them. Letting the companies go down, letting the entire industry go down, punishes so many people for problems they had no hand in causing. Cutting off the nose to spite the face, throwing out the baby with the bathwater, insert cliche. They're cliches because humanity has supposedly learned these lessons before. Is there no way we can distinguish between the auto executives (for whom, in many cases, nepotism has played a role) and the other several million people involved who don't deserve to have a lifetime of skill so devalued? These are peoples' careers we're talking about, people who may not like SUVs any more than we do.

And increasing use of that tactic has done nothing good to our overall economy. If you can't count on a job to last the life of a car loan, let alone a mortgage, sales are going to drop for everything. It doesn't work to have one "side" of the economy free of all commitment while the other side is expected to bind itself for decades on end.

I don't want to get hypertechnical but depending on what exactly happened, aid and abet can be awfully broad terms. Regardless, I think reaching full function and full confidence is the main goal now.

Coming from either the eastside or downtown isn't that bad. I take Carnegie to Commercial/Canal, cross the W. 3rd St. bridge (although it sucks when you have to wait for it to lower back down), and head up Literary. You are most intrepid. I have a hard time remembering which lift bridges are operational. Didn't realize Columbus Rd was open at all, and I'm glad to hear W 3rd is back in action.

Tremont needs more bridges period. It needs a pedestrian link to downtown more than it needs a freeway ramp.

My comment there was unwarranted, I removed it, and I apologize. I have not worked in construction. I have however worked in multiple situations where substantial cost overruns, and even more costly delays, were realized not because of testing but because testing wasn't done. The same story plays out over and over again-- in a variety of fields-- testing looks really expensive on the front end, then much cheaper in hindsight when the entire job must be redone and the customer relationship is damaged. If there is no room in the budget for testing, there is certainly no room for a mile of bad road, and once done is done collecting from the guilty party can be time-consuming and tricky. I have also encountered several professional situations in which contractors (in the more general sense of the term) were given far too much trust and leeway, when they ultimately don't have to answer for the final product in the same way their client does. Public sector situations endure an extra level of scrutiny and they always will. If F-35s start falling out of the sky, it's not a Lockheed problem nearly so much as it's a Pentagon problem. Lockheed can get sued or go out of business all it wants, but the Pentagon simply cannot be allowed to fail. Again, I apologize for making blanket statements about peoples' line of work. My line of work gets some of that too, and I don't like it either.

Indeed.

If a third party sees something criminal, yes there is a duty to report or they're complicit. Monday's not looking good here, however... On a project of this magnitude there is a certain amount of buck stoppage that has to take place. RTA was in charge of getting it done right, period, and the cost of replacing defective roadway-- including social cost-- trumps the cost of testing every single time. We all hope the concrete turns out to be OK, but what an absurd position to find ourselves in.

The only such legal points I'm aware of are Ohio's sunshine laws, the public records act and the open meetings act. If it's something the county is doing, all records and communications are available to the public upon request and all decisions must be made in accessible meetings-- there are exceptions, notably personnel issues. But that's what's so disturbing about shifting the site selection call to a private, unelected entity in the chamber of commerce. I don't know if the sunshine law would apply to them, even when they're essentially engaged in state action.

After reading both sides of this Jackson debate, I'm becoming convinced that he needs to start making noise about the mall site. The comparative weakness of the TC site is at an emporer without clothes level. The only reason the TC site still has legs, or ever did have legs, is pure corruption. Our local tolerance for that is way too high. Jackson has an opportunity here to send a message that the community has decided to stand up for its own best interest.

Agreed, in general. Though one advantage of it, which I've seen in action, is that it can easily re-route in situations that would shut down a rail line. And near Case there may be too much traffic to lose 2 lanes completely to train tracks. There is no alternative path for cars once Chester ends.

The article doesn't say Nance's quote is a new one, and I don't think it is. It's probably from when they first announced the decision. The article has a reassuring tone, so I'm guessing they ignored the controversy on purpose. Nothing's been overruled yet. But also notice the article never mentions the riverfront site again. This is a county project and therefore Jackson doesn't have much to do with it. He could speak up about site selection, but it isn't his call and he could come away looking dumb(er).

Straight and single.

That's what everyone in metro Detroit told me when I asked them how they could have let their city become what it is today. "We have nice suburbs." Guess what, so does everybody.

Good point. It just seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Downtown Detroit really isn't bad at all, and it has some residential base. The abandoned skyscrapers are disturbing but the place is still functional despite them. There is potential for a decent stretch all the way from there to New Center. Otherwise, I agree with Evergrey regarding the lack of anchor neighborhoods. Mexicantown is an exception, though it's not all that far from downtown. What I don't get is did these neighborhoods never develop, or have they been torn down?

Some degree of dishonesty has already taken place, in RTA not being informed of the conflict of interest with the testing firm. We're also allowed to be upset about honest mistakes, because multiple systems are supposed to be in place to prevent mistakes from getting this far. This isn't like Earnest Byner dropping a football. One person screwing up by themselves can't make this happen, it requires a cascade of failure. Like that one Mars rover where nobody noticed the plans were in metric. Unfortunately, this project starts out with strikes against it because BRT is somewhat alien, and seemingly everyone but us is talking about getting new rail lines. (Incidentally, how does one get a job running a cereal company if one hates corn? Why would one so inclined even pursue that job?) Thus a smooth rollout was critical, but at this point that's spilt milk. I think people are less upset that things have gone wrong, and more upset about RTA's lukewarm approach when their partners are unfairly making them (and our city) look bad. This isn't just about the concrete, either. People want to know that our officials are zealously advancing our interests. Certainly, promises were made by the signal timing vendor in their proposal and/or their sales materials. I would hope they have someone here working around the clock to get things fixed.

MTS, good points. The problems began long ago. I think the complaints about leadership are self-proven if we all have to keep badgering them like "hello, McFly!!!" on really obvious issues.