From CNN

Can Motor City combat its economic ills by becoming Rail City?

Along Detroit’s Woodward Avenue, a downtown stretch that seems permanently stuck in the “emerging” phase of business development, community leaders are hoping a new light rail system will help spark a renaissance. The city plans to break ground this year on stage one of a $420 million project: the first modern, mass-transit initiative in a city long synonymous with automobiles.

“Transit in Detroit has kind of been a joke,” says Matt Cullen, CEO of M1 Rail, a private consortium heading the development effort. “We’ve been a victim of balkanized politics and other efforts. But now we have a plan in place. We’ll get it done, and we feel it will have a huge impact on this region.”

In most cities, civic cash would pay for major infrastructure projects like a new mass transit system. But in Detroit, which faces a $300 million annual budget deficit, private backers have stepped in to try to kick-start the venture.

Read more:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/15/smallbusiness/detroit_m1_light_rail/index.htm

Take Private Money and Going Public

From Time Magazine

From The New York Times

DETROIT — The last train pulled away more than 20 years ago from Michigan Central Station, one of thousands of “see-through” buildings here, empty shells from more auspicious times.

Many of the blighted buildings stay up simply because they are too expensive to tear down. Yet Michigan Central is in a class of its own. Some city officials consider it among the ugliest behemoths to pockmark Detroit and have ordered its demolition, but others see it as the industrial age’s most gracious relic, a Beaux Arts gem turned gothic from neglect but steeped in haunting beauty.

Now Detroit has become embroiled in an urgent debate over how to save what is perhaps its most iconic ruin — and in the process, some insist, give the demoralized city a much needed boost.

Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/06/us/06station.html

From The Windsor Star

WINDSOR, Ont. — The rumours can finally be pushed aside as federal government and Via Rail officials announced Monday that Windsor will see construction of a new $6.3-million train station next door to the current location.

Construction will begin this June with a completion date slated for fall 2011. The new facility will be built just east of the existing station, said Marc Laliberte, president and CEO for Via.

Talk of a new Via train station in Windsor has been around for years with potential sites that included the current site, the airport or a location near Wellington Avenue near the rail tunnel entrance.

“The other locations, you need everybody agreeing,” Laliberte said. “There has been work on different scenarios, but it takes a long time. We don’t want to wait forever. We have decided to stay here for right now.

“It’s a project that we have been contemplating for many years and now is the time to do it. If something else happens in two, three or five years, we will look at it again.”

Article source:
http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Windsor+train+station/2628492/story.html