Eric D. Lawrence

Detroit Free Press

The deal that should allow voters to decide the fate of regional transit in southeast Michigan is expected to focus on three areas – the future operation of Detroit's streetcar, voting consensus for major decisions and paratransit funding in Oakland County.

Work to finalize the deal continues, but Paul Hillegonds, chair of the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan, said officials are hopeful things can be resolved in time for a vote by the RTA board Thursday morning. He praised the effort to reach an agreement, which came during a meeting in Detroit on Tuesday.

"The tone of the meeting was just very positive. I really do appreciate the commitment of all the regional leaders to just get this done," Hillegonds said today, noting that he is "confident that we have an agreement in principle."

Metro Detroit leaders reach deal on transit

The shift is a far cry from recent weeks when officials in Oakland and Macomb counties had raised concerns about the RTA's regional master plan prior to a recent board vote on whether to place the measure before voters in November. Transit advocates had decried the concerns being raised as coming in the "11th hour," fearing that they might scuttle what appeared to be metro Detroit's best shot in decades at achieving a regional transit system. Although the RTA board failed last month to muster enough votes to send the plan to voters, pressure built to reach a compromise, helping to prompt Tuesday's agreement.

"The frustration was these issue being articulated so close to our vote, but we've always wanted to be responsive to our partners, our governing partners, and our staff has worked very hard to try to respond to those concerns, and I feel we're on a positive track right now," Hillegonds said.

Those issues dealt with concerns specifically about areas of northern Oakland County that Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson had previously said would not be served by the RTA's 20-year, $4.7 billion plan despite contributing significantly through property taxes. Most of the service improvements envisioned in the plan for Oakland County, as in the other parts of the region, are geared toward more populated areas and job centers.

Under the deal, Oakland County would get to shift multiple millions of dollars of its transit allocation to paratransit and on-demand services to accommodate out-county areas. Hillegonds did not have the specific dollar amount but called it "substantial."

Another part of the deal would require at least one vote from each county of the four in the RTA – Macomb, Oakland, Wayne and Washtenaw – and the City of Detroit for decisions on federal and state funding allocations and for major changes in the master plan. Concerns had been raised about a potential shift in the federal funding split between the Detroit Department of Transportation and the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation.

The final piece would delay when the RTA assumes operational control over the QLINE, the 3.3-mile streetcar line being built on Woodward Avenue in Detroit, from 2024 as envisioned previously to 2027. During a meeting with transit advocates in Pontiac today, Gerald Poisson, chief deputy Oakland County executive, said the governor's office had previously made a commitment that the streetcar would not become the RTA's responsibility.

"(QLINE) we hope it turns out to be a wild success ... but it's 3.3 miles that doesn't touch us," he said, noting that once it is a functioning public transit service, the streetcar will pull money from the sources that fund the other transit entities.

In addition to the main areas of focus, details were being worked out on a mechanism to ensure that 85% of the money raised in each jurisdiction would be returned there, addressing another concern that had been raised in recent weeks.

If the board OKs the ballot measure, voters in November would be asked to support a property tax millage that would cost the average homeowner in the region about $95 per year.

Officials involved in the process described a sense of shared purpose in the discussions. Washtenaw County Commission Chair Felicia Brabec, D-Pittsfield Township, credited Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan with the idea that paved the way for agreement on RTA decision-making and said Oakland County officials were also open to compromise.

"People are looking at the greater good rather than individual municipalities," she said. "Good things (happened), not just in that room but also for all our constituents."

Even though the plan is now expected to get the go-ahead at the RTA meeting, it may not get a ringing endorsement from all local leaders.

Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel, who had joined Patterson in raising concerns about the plan prior to the previous RTA vote, indicated, as he has in the past, that it would be up to voters to decide the merits of the updated plan rather than offering to formally back it. Hackel explained that in calling for changes that the plan needed to be able to pass public scrutiny before getting on the ballot.

"I'm going to be very positive about it, but still let people decide if they still have angst about it," Hackel said.

That position was echoed by Oakland County's Poisson and Patterson, at their meeting with members of the Motor City Freedom Riders who had hoped to convince to the county executive to formally support the plan.

"We are in support of putting it on the ballot and letting the people decide," Poisson said, telling the advocates that numerous Oakland County communities have expressed their opposition through resolutions.

And Patterson, who said "this proposal can stand or fall on its own merits," pushed back against those who paint him as an obstructionist on regional transit, noting his previous support for SMART millages and the RTA. He also said the real issue is money and that SMART has done "an incredible job on limited resources."

But the advocates pushed their case nonetheless, arguing that many Oakland County residents want better transit options, that businesses in the county have lost out because of poor transit access to Detroit Metro Airport and that better public transit would connect those in need of work with the county's job centers.

Andrew Sarpolis, 25, of Novi, described how, before he had a car, he would have to walk to work in all kinds of weather.

"There are people out there who want the system," he said, "It would say a lot for the county executive to come out and say, 'I support the plan.'"

Before the meeting, Joel Batterman,, a coordinator of the advocacy group, stood with a sign reading, "Support regional transit."

"We've been waiting for decades for better regional transit, even for the opportunity to vote on regional transit, and it's high time that we placed that on the ballot tomorrow for people to decide," Batterman said.

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

If you go:

The Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan has scheduled a special board meeting for 10 a.m. Thursday at the authority's Executive Board Room, 1001 Woodward Ave., Suite 1400 in Detroit to again consider placing the master plan on the November ballot. Committee meetings begin at 9 a.m.