The Detroit People Mover “Mobility Report” created by AECOM is out with conceptual expansions!

I can’t say I ever thought it might exist, but here we are. None of the proposed expansions matches up with the historical concepts that I’ve highlighted in the past, but they do potentially make sense with a focus on the Downtown bubble. Prioritizing rail connection to the airport is a must and numerous cities with far off airport connections have invested in elevated rail to get it done.

The concepts don’t note an airport connection, but I can only assume that is the natural conclusion to expanding westward. The focus in this report is connecting DPM to the renewed train connections at a new train station near Michigan Central Station. That may not be the highest or best case for expansion unless train travel really takes off.

The eastern expansion concept seems odd and the one sentence about connecting to Eastern Market is lackluster. Again there seems like a larger opportunity to note its connections to City Airport with Eastern Market in between. A previous proposal focused on eastward expansion to connect to entertainment in Rivertown area. Maybe there is more potential with the East Riverfront efforts at Bedrock?

How well do these concepts match with your ideas for DPM expansion? Obviously, we need to talk about elevating the Qline first.