Ride The D-QLine

Well Detroit now has it's shiny new streetcar.

The Detroit News: Amid Detroit area transit debate, cue the QLine

3.3 miles of streetcar to nowhere, with 12 stations in that 3.3 miles, or almost a station every quarter mile.

And the cost, well that's the fun part:

With additional money from private, local, state and federal sources, the QLine has received more than $182.2 million, enough funding to last through 2022, according to M-1 Rail. It will take about $6 million a year to sustain it.

If you beleiveit will only be $6 million you're optimistic.

The construction cost overran its 100 million estimate apparently hitting 140 million, and considering it's Detroit the operating cost will likely similarly exceed the estimate by a comfortable grafting margin.

So what do we get for this quarter-billion wonder?

Well in the Detroit News' helpful A QLine how-to navigate guide we learn the streetcars may reach breathtaking speeds of 35mph and you better hold on as there's not a lot of seats but lost of hanging straps to grab and you can pack 150 people in a car. There's a few fold down seats but they seem rather few and far between. But, it looks like they're saying (its kind of hard to figure out see the article and you'll see why) it will take 30 minutes to go the entire 3.3 miles in that guide, which means a blistering speed of 6.6 miles per hour.

So yes, Detroit will now have a shiny new streetcar to go nowhere alongside the mugger-mover, oh, sorry the People Mover.

Not sure how 3.3 of very expensive streetcar will be Detroit's salvation, but they sure are optimistic about it, just sub QLine for monorail in the song below and you'll get an idea of the fervor of the Detroit SWPL intelligentsia for the project: