Royal Oak eyes tax increase to pay for citywide bus service

Christina Hall | Detroit Free Press

Royal Oak residents and visitors might be able to ditch their cars and take a bus across town to visit the farmer's market, the Detroit Zoo or their favorite downtown eatery.

They might be able to take a bus to Beaumont Hospital or a store or have their middle and high schoolers hop one to school.

And they might be able to take these buses on nights and weekends.

Royal Oak voters could be asked as early as November to fund a citywide bus system if the City Commission accepts a recommendation by the city’s Transit Task Force. .

If approved in November, the new citywide bus service could start in July 2019.

ROGO, as the proposed system is dubbed, would cost about $4.4 million to operate. The city would contract with the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, which would buy 14 buses for the service, officials said.

The majority of the proposed plan would be funded through a proposed 1.25-mill property tax for five years, said Marie Donigan, task force chairwoman, who is also a former city commissioner and state representative. That would cost a homeowner with an average $200,000 home about $125 a year, she said.

“The city, like all cities in southeast Michigan, has been studying mobility, how to make their cities more open to mobility options — biking, biking lanes, more walkable,” she said. So Royal Oak officials decided to look at public transportation at the city level.

A survey was conducted of more than 1,200 respondents. About 66% said they would use public transit if it was frequent, connected to the region and covered the entire city.

For months, the task force worked with SMART officials about various scenarios and funding options.

SMART already runs the FAST bus up Woodward Avenue and the Route 430 bus along Main Street. The proposal would connect with existing lines, including the FAST route, and the Amtrak station.

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The proposal would add two transit routes in the city — a Crooks/Coolidge loop and another loop on 13 Mile, Rochester, Campbell and 11 Mile, which would deviate to connect to the schools and senior center.

SMART would purchase the buses — which would probably be bigger than the Community Connector buses, but smaller than a fixed-route bus — that could hold about 30 people and navigate the smaller streets, said Robert Cramer, SMART’s deputy general manager. He said the buses would cost $1.1 million to $1.7 million and be purchased with federal and state grant money.

Cramer said if the Royal Oak plan is approved, it would be “kinda unique” for a community to purchase this level of service from SMART, but not that far off from other arrangements the suburban bus system has with other communities.

Donigan said the buses would be branded with ROGO and wrapped to distinguish them.

SMART also would offer more frequent service on the Route 430 bus — which Cramer called the “spine of our service in Royal Oak" — extending to the Detroit Zoo. There also would be 600 hours annually of extra service for special events, such as Arts, Beats and Eats.

The proposal also would double the funding for existing curb-to-curb service for senior citizens and disabled people, possibly having longer weekday hours (afternoons and evenings) and adding some weekend service, said Lucas Reigstad, SMART’s mobility management coordinator.

Donigan said this would allow seniors who don’t like to drive at night or park in spaces or a parking deck to have the option of going downtown for dinner and drinks with friends.

“We know that senior citizens don’t just stay at home and go to the doctor on Tuesday. We know they live active lifestyles,” she said, adding that more than 10,000 people are age 60 and older in the city.

Donigan added that she also thinks “a lot of people are missing a lot of things because they don’t have a car or can’t drive.”

She said other funding sources would include about 30% from state local bus operating assistance funds and 5% from fares, which would be in line with SMART’s fares. The proposal also calls for bus shelters, signs, cameras, and bus tracking systems.

The task force is recommending a permanent oversight committee be appointed by the city commission to handle all the details if the plan moves forward.

The recommendation comes at a time when talk about transportation in southeast Michigan is ramping up.

Voters in Macomb County and opt-in communities in Wayne and Oakland counties (including Royal Oak) will be asked to approve what is essentially a 1-mill renewal for SMART for four years on the August ballot.

On Monday, Novi Mayor Bob Gatt recommended that city administration ask SMART to give a presentation on what the bus service could offer Novi, a city that has opted out of SMART service for more than two decades.

Just a few weeks ago in 4-3 votes, city councils in Novi and Troy passed resolutions asking that Oakland County leaders support getting a proposed regional transportation plan before voters in November.

That plan calls for 1.5 mills for 20 years for regional transportation in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties. The county executives in Oakland and Macomb counties oppose the regional tax proposal, saying SMART provides sufficiis regional transportation.

A regional transportation tax vote in the four counties failed at the polls in 2016.Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @challreporter.