On Monday, November 27, 2006, Livonia will officially terminate its relationship with SMART, the suburban Detroit bus transit system. The city claims it will save $2,800,000 per year, and claims that only 500-1000 residents used SMART each year.
It will be interesting to watch what happens to the retailers in Livonia who rely upon workers for their low-paying jobs that use regional transit systems. Livonia is replacing SMART with a reservation based system that will pick up riders at the city's borders and drop them off at nine locations within the city. The system will run only during rush hour, and requires 30 days advance reservations from riders.
Some (okay, many) claim that Livonia's termination of SMART is another indication of the continuing racial politics that have plagued the Detroit region. A vast majority of the riders on the regional transit system were minorities, many from Detroit. Livonia continues to be one of the most homogeneous cities in Wayne county.
In any event, Livonia's termination of SMART is yet another blow for the already fragmented regional transit system in the metropolitan Detroit region. The only positive news is that SMART's ridership has increased 25% since 2002.
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