Duggan Comes Through

When Mayor Duggan and Vice President Biden announced a program to repair and expand on bus services in Detroit, I was impressed. Mass transit has long been neglected, deliberately neglected, in Detroit and it has always been an obstacle to employment for Detroit’s poorest residents.

Along with the rail lines being built along the Woodward corridor, the reliable and expanded bus lines will not only enable poor and unemployed residents to find jobs, it will also be good for business in the city. It is the right priority and Mayor Duggan deserves recognition for acting on it and for having the political relationships to get it funded and done. Many of us were concerned that with his past history in the Wayne County bureaucracy that Detroit would be put up for sale to corporate interests at the expense of Detroiters.

Many have expressed a concern about the deference being given to the Gilbert real-estate juggernaut, but his developments on the whole have greatly benefitted Downtown Detroit (the Ilitch developments, however, are much more self-serving). On the whole, Mayor Duggan deserves praise and support.