May 15, 20178 yr The entire line is on Woodward except for the brief portion in the median south of Campus Martius. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
May 15, 20178 yr ^The same way the HealthLine is on Euclid or you mean sharing space with cars/trucks? Assuming the latter, was there serious discussion about providing rail-only lanes to promote speed/reliability?
May 15, 20178 yr ^The same way the HealthLine is on Euclid or you mean sharing space with cars/trucks? Assuming the latter, was there serious discussion about providing rail-only lanes to promote speed/reliability? The Qline runs in mixed traffic lanes on the outer edges of Woodward. It would have been a better design had it been placed in the middle of Woodward with dedicated lanes, like the HealthLine
May 15, 20178 yr ^Thanks. Isn't Woodward pretty wide, with parallel roadways that could handle any displaced peak hour traffic? Seems like an odd choice. I promise I'm not trolling- I'm just coming into this late.
May 15, 20178 yr Yeah, it's odd that they didn't just give it a dedicated lane, but I'm sure there people shouting, "you can't take space away from cars for the silly trolly!!!" like there are in every other city...
May 15, 20178 yr They ran the rail along the curb in an attempt to boost the economic development along the line is the reasoning I've heard. Seeing as most of Woodward is 9+ lanes wide, I would think they could always re-stripe the lanes as bus/train only in the future as they see fit. What I didn't realize is that over half of the route is off-wire. That's kind of interesting. “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
May 15, 20178 yr ^The same way the HealthLine is on Euclid or you mean sharing space with cars/trucks? Assuming the latter, was there serious discussion about providing rail-only lanes to promote speed/reliability? That's what doomed a lot of streetcar lines in the 1940s and 50s, and it's what continues to doom some of them now. City officials aren't willing to give them dedicated ROWs or at least signal preemption. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
May 15, 20178 yr This is wonderful. I will take one in Cleveland please~ You need to petition RTA GM Joe Calabrese who seems adverse to anything on rails. There have been several streetcar or LRT projects he's beaten off in favor of BRT.
May 15, 20178 yr In Europe & Canada, when cars are in the way of #trams, they remove the cars. In the USA, we blame the #streetcars.... Toronto Has a Plan to Clear the Way for Streetcars Stuck in Traffic http://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/05/15/toronto-has-a-plan-to-clear-the-way-for-streetcars-stuck-in-traffic/ "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
June 22, 20177 yr QLINE free through Labor Day, thanks to Kresge Foundation In a boon to passengers, the Kresge Foundation will cover all fares on the QLINE streetcar service for July and August to promote usage and build confidence in public transit in Detroit. The donation, likely to total at least a couple of hundred thousand dollars, means that users of the QLINE will not have to pony up the announced $1.50 fare until after Labor Day. And the extension of the free-ride period comes as the QLINE is making operational changes to lessen wait times and to speed up travel times, including training more drivers and eliminating stopping at stations where no one is waiting and no passengers wish to get off, much as many DDOT buses now operate. More below: http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/john-gallagher/2017/06/22/kresge-foundation-covering-all-fares-qline-through-labor-day/417333001/ "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
January 9, 20187 yr I'm late with this but whatever. QLine to permanently extend night hours The QLine will permanently extend ridership hours beginning Monday, officials announced Thursday. M-1 Rail spokesman Dan Lijana told The Detroit News that the move is in response to feedback from riders. “We’ve received a lot of feedback from riders encouraging us to extend our hours,” he said. “When we started, we always hoped demand would be here to extend the hours, and that we’d be able to improve operations and increase manpower to the point that additional hours would be feasible. Now we’ve reached that point.” This means on Monday through Thursday, hours will extend from 11 p.m. to midnight. On Friday and Saturday, the streetcars will run until 2 a.m. the next day when they previously ended at midnight. Streetcars will run until 11 p.m. Sundays instead of shutting down at 8 p.m. More below: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2017/12/28/qline-extending-hours/108979862/ "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
January 10, 20187 yr Amazing how much a modern streetcar system can succeed when the city administration wants it to.
January 10, 20187 yr Author I was able to ride the QLINE the day before Thanksgiving. It was easy to use and the machines were not complicated. I recommend it if you find yourself in Detroit.
January 10, 20187 yr Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly depending on your view of humanity), the Qline still manages to get plenty of hate from Detroiters, with the same arguments you see everywhere of people saying it doesn’t go anywhere and gets stuck in traffic and is useless for commuting. But there also seems to be more outcry for adding dedicated lanes to the system, which should be relatively easy since Woodward is 47 lanes wide. I just don’t know what the political climate for such a re-striping is like. “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
January 10, 20187 yr The Qline isn't without it quirks. The way that it shifts from center-running to curb-running (multiple times, I think?) is really bizarre and unnecessary. If they had stuck to one or the other, it would be much easier to add dedicated lanes or signal priority. Also, the extra expense and complication of using streetcars with batteries so that a portion of the route could be wireless was really unnecessary. (In Cincinnati, people complained about the overhead wires for the first week or two that they were up, but I don't think anyone even notices them anymore.)
January 10, 20187 yr And it sounds like they’ve had issues with the battery-operated sections of the line, at least from what I’ve heard anecdotally elsewhere online. The other big complaint I’ve seen is frequency, which again is the same with a lot of other streetcar lines. “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
January 10, 20187 yr Author When I was there, they actually had the overhead lines powered off for the parade setup (annual parade down Woodward on Thanksgiving). They were running only on battery power, and said to expect some delays as they had to charge the batteries at either end of the line, but it wasn't too bad (maybe we just got lucky with timing).
August 22, 20195 yr I suppose this could go here..... "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
August 22, 20195 yr Author The QLine is transitioning to the DART payment card as part of the regional transit system. So they are making moves to coordinate with other transit agencies.
January 15, 20205 yr Not sure if this is the most appropriate place to share but .. Detroit had a subway plan around 1915. Unlike Cincinnati, no work was actually done. http://www.dailydetroit.com/2016/05/29/10-fantastic-facts-detroits-scrapped-subway-proposal/?fbclid=IwAR33toKLNC2FbkseGD1i_c3d0-ksq6sTDgJKx_qfS2wqqzppfruN0cVAnsk
March 31, 20223 yr "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
April 1, 20223 yr Hopefully they finally make it fare-free. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
October 31, 20231 yr Unreal. The only thing worse is getting the voters to approve a subway and it still didn't get built.... See Cleveland. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
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