Ford Considers Buying Detroit's Central Station

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It may be many millennials realize the true costs of owning personal transportation. The $40,000 car; payments, insurance, repairs, etc can be covered by rentals or using public transportation options. That will mean better time usage by freeing up more billable or hobby hours. Of course business travel on public transportation is deductible at the IRS rate which is most often more than the cost of public transportation.
 
Pere Flyer said:
desertflyer said:
As a millenial who loves urban living, I take Uber and Lyft rarely. I don't want to own a car, but of course I do want/need mobility. Without a car, taking a daily Uber or Lyft would really add up. Combine that with the fact that the ethics of these companies are questionable and that San Francisco has actually found Uber and Lyft have added to the congestion on city streets means I don't really like supporting them more than necessary. Cities shouldn't be designing themselves around the idea that these venture capital fueled money losers are more than just a piece of the urban mobility puzzle. (Should I tell you how I really feel?
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Instead, I much prefer having a comprehensive public transit system along with infrastructure that is designed with pedestrian & bikes in mind. Add to this inexpensive additions like bike sharing, one way scooter rentals, one way car shares, along with taxis/rideshares, and the city starts to become a nice place to live pretty quickly. Living a 20 minute bike ride down a protected bike lane to work makes my commute easy, less stressful, and consistent. It also is better for the environment and makes me generally healthier. In addition to giving people mobility, people also want to have housing close to where they work and play. Having dense housing near offices, public transit, restaurants and shops is really a key reason cities have become so attractive. You can only add so many lanes roads, and wide roads don't equal less congestion or "healthier" cities.

I love seeing places like Detroit and companies like Ford embracing more than just the suburbs. Detroit could become a really great, urban city again (not to say it isn't) and Ford occupying the historic Central Station could be a part of that revitalization.
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As a fellow urban millennial, I agree with you word for word.

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As a 52 year old suburbanite non-millennial, I also agree word for word.

Also - as a fan of that beautiful, current eyesore that is the Michigan Central Station in Detroit, I fervently hope that Ford succeeds in acquiring and developing that site. It’s not a slam dunk, as the current owner is a bit eccentric to say the least.

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The "minimalist" concept is not new to millenials. It's been a common lament of the young for generations often based on economics. Like student loan debt. Most of my nieces & nephews were apartment types often stating they didn't understand the desire to own a home in the suburbs. Then reality hits them as they get married and begin having kids. A house, a yard and good schools in the suburbs suddenly look pretty good.
 
Wolverine72 said:
Most of my nieces & nephews were apartment types often stating they didn't understand the desire to own a home in the suburbs. Then reality hits them as they get married and begin having kids. A house, a yard and good schools in the suburbs suddenly look pretty good.
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Fewer people (within GenX/Millennials) are having kids, though, which reduces the “need” for a house.
 
Where I lived, back when Gen-X were kids all the guys could think about was assembling obnoxious stereos, buying and upgrading personal vehicles, and eventually getting our own place with the largest and loudest home theater we could manage. One of our earliest goals was a provisional drivers permit and one of our favorite pastimes was a euphemism for aimless driving. Compared to that Gen-Y is already on a completely different track. The real question now is if this development eventually grows into a sustained multi-generation movement or fades into a transitional cultural obscurity.
 
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Or that there may be consistent/steady growth where intercity passenger rail is competitive. So, don't look for the Sunset Limited to suddenly explode with riders, but California corridors, Hiawatha, NEC, and others that provide a decent level of service may well see continued ridership increases.
 
Wolverine72 said:
The "minimalist" concept is not new to millenials. It's been a common lament of the young for generations often based on economics. Like student loan debt. Most of my nieces & nephews were apartment types often stating they didn't understand the desire to own a home in the suburbs. Then reality hits them as they get married and begin having kids. A house, a yard and good schools in the suburbs suddenly look pretty good.
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I'm 46 myself, so not a millennial by any stretch, and I don't own a car or drive.

I don't really want to drive. I don't like driving, and if there is an alternative I will use it, even if it comes with disadvantages, such as the alternative that I use being a slow bus with a rubbish and sporadic schedule that I need to walk a long way to even reach.

But I fully accept that circumstances can change. My next job might well be in a location that I can't commute to by public transit at all. So then I would have to buy a car and drive.

But then that is a necessity, forced on me by outside conditions. That is not at all the same as wanting to own a car.

In the past, owning a car was a status symbol for many. Many young people bought their first car as a rite of passage, long before they actually needed it. That is not at all the same as buying one when you genuinely have no alternative.

This is the same with a family house with a yard in a pretty suburb. Some people may dream of that, and for others it is a necessity because there is no alternative if you want to bring up your kids in a safe area, allow them to play outside and do all the things that belong to a decent upbringing. One shouldn't confuse buying something with desiring it.

So yes, I believe that in 10 or 20 years time, many of these milenialls will own cars and live in transit-less suburbs. But for many that will not be a choice but a lack of alternatives.

And if an alternative comes along, they will be finding excuses to use it rather than excuses to ignore it.
 
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cirdan ----------- Have you compared the costs of transit you use to the car costs ? Of course figure in the lost time you cannot use due to driving.

Lets see

car payments ( depreciation )

finance charges

operating costs

gas and oil

tires

maintenance

tolls if any

parking

etc

Insurance

garage fees if any

transit

bus, commuter train, waits,

Uber

airline

Amtrak

In fact that may be an exercise for all of us
 
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I actually did an exercise like this before deciding whether to replace our vehicle that was too expensive to repair. We didn't include time cost either way (driving uses less time which for both of our jobs more than makes up for the little bit of work we could do on transit.) It came out to be that buying a late-model used vehicle would be more cost-efficient overall than trying to use transit to go everywhere and filling in with Uber/Lyft as needed.

In our situation, the factors that made this equation shift is:

- my wife, especially, can't get a solid 8-hour day in at work and take transit without having to make her day unsufferably long. The bus schedules are erratic and very limiting, so she'd wind up losing a fair amount of time to transit. This meant that we needed to calculate Lyft/taxi fares for at least a trip or two a week to make things work, and that added up quickly.

- both of our families live far away and in areas where transit is difficult to get to. Thus, we'd need to keep at least a non-vehicle-owner's auto insurance policy open, and we'd need to rent cars fairly frequently. We could ask our families to pick us up at the bus stations near-ish to them, but that's a hassle for everyone, the bus schedules aren't terribly convenient, and the cost for two tickets round trip winds up being more expensive than the cost to rent a car and pay for gas.

- we were able to find a decent deal on a year-old car from a rental car agency and get a low interest loan from our credit union, making our car payment relatively affordable.

That being said, we do stick to only owning one vehicle and don't really feel the need to get a second one. We can carpool together to work, and we still keep our Hourcar membership active so we have a second vehicle we can quickly borrow if we need to (they have one that's less than two blocks away from our apartment and we can reserve it online, and the cost is under $10/hour for everything.) We're also very close to a lot of transit options, so if one of us has the day off it's easy to get around and do fun stuff or errands around town.
 
There is a saying in transit planning circles that if you build it, people will ride it.

Of course this is not universally true, and there have been rail transit schemes that have failed dismally.

But as a general rule it holds nevertheless.

There are people who will ride transit given only half an opportunity, and there are people who won't leave their cars for anything in the world.

Planners often underestimate the strength of the first group and overestimate the second.
 
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Something that was not common before that is becoming increasing available, is the "car when you want it" concept. The best known of these is probably ZipCar. Some of the major rental car companies are also in the business. They are securing space in many of the prime residential areas in major cities, some new large apartment buildings are providing space in their garages for this type of service. Rather than deal with the considerable expense of a car and parking in an urban area, you can take public transit or any type of car service to/from work or shopping, if you want a car for a short trip or weekend, it is pre arranged, no hassle of going to a rental car location for contracts. Tap the card and go. Folks I know who do this are spending about the same as they would just to rent a monthly spot in their building.
 
Thanks for that update...I am hoping it happens. I also hope other large corporations will do similar, as far as investing in our country, and not going 'off-shore'.

Would love to see a 'renaissance' in US manufacturing, especially in the so-called "rust belt"....
 
Palmetto said:
Good news. Would this development in any way facilitate service over to Windsor and on to Toronto?
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IIRC from other threads here about MCS, Windsor’s recently built VIA station is not on the line that continues to Detroit. You could technically operate a service Detroit-Windsor-Toronto, but you’d have to build a brand-new station in Windsor. Since MCS will be a Ford Motor Co. hub, a commuter train like Metra, TRE, or GO Transit would be more practical Detroit-Windsor-(some exurb of Windsor) and bring some jobs to the Canadian side.
 
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MikefromCrete said:
I don't think there is any indication that Ford is interested in using the building as an actual train station.
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They've definitely hinted that it's going to be part of their self driving car unit. Plus with the Q line now connecting downtown and the Amtrak station, I'm not sure if moving back to MCS (if Ford rebuilt a station component) would be the best option for Amtrak anyways.
 
MikefromCrete said:
I don't think there is any indication that Ford is interested in using the building as an actual train station.
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There was some discussion/informed speculation of Ford using the station as a commuter rail hub for its employees to travel between work and home, but I can’t remember how much of it was pie-in-the-sky and how much was serious reporting.
 

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