Eric D. Lawrence

Detroit Free Press

A ride on the QLINE won't have to end as early as 10 p.m. most nights.

Instead, Detroit's streetcar line will run until 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and perhaps more noteworthy for weekend warriors, service will continue until midnight Fridays and Saturdays.

Concern that the system would not run late enough to serve many of those out for a night on the town, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights, has been a frequent topic on social media, even prompting a change.org petition seeking later hours. But a spokesman for M-1 Rail, the entity that owns the system, said Thursday the operating hours will be later than the previously listed end time of 10 p.m. on all but one night of the week.

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To accommodate the changes, M-1 Rail plans to shift other hours, opting to close the system two hours earlier than previously posted on Sundays -- to 8 p.m. -- and to open it two hours later on Saturdays -- to 8 a.m.

Dan Lijana, the M-1 Rail spokesman, said trends of greater residential and commercial growth in the Woodward Avenue corridor have emerged since the earlier posting about hours on M-1 Rail's website, which have "truly transformed what's needed for this service."

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For riders, the end service time -- midnight on Fridays and Saturday, for instance -- would relate to the time the last train leaves either the northern or southern terminals of the 3.3-mile line, Lijana said.

In addition, the number of streetcars in service can be adjusted. Six streetcars are being purchased, but fewer could be in use. During peak hours, the expectation is currently for 8- to 12-minute intervals between streetcars at each station. Lijana said residents would be encouraged to help keep the tracks free of obstructions, such as parked cars, in order to limit the impact on service times.

In Cincinnati, ridership has beat expectations in the weeks since that city's streetcar launched, but media reports indicate that service delays have also resulted.

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M-1 Rail is projecting that the QLINE will average 5,000 to 8,000 rides per day, Lijana said.

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @_ericdlawrence.

QLINE's projected hours of operation