Novi's mayor is calling for the affluent Oakland County suburb to join the SMART bus system, a significant development in the push to expand transit options into areas of the suburbs that have long been disconnected from the rest of the region.

Mayor Bob Gatt said Tuesday he's directed Novi's city manager to invite SMART General Manager John Hertel to make a presentation to City Council as soon next month on opting into the suburban bus system.

"I'm aboard the SMART train and hoping that I can get council to bring SMART to Novi," Gatt told Crain's.

Gatt moved to start debate on joining SMART at Monday's City Council meeting, four months to the day after I wrote about the often treacherous journey low-wage workers face in trying to get to a minimum wage job at Twelve Oaks Mall.

Last month, Wayne County Executive Warren Evans made a similar trek to the one I took to demonstrate how much walking along busy roads low-wage workers from Detroit endure in getting to retail and hospitality sector jobs in Novi. Evans had to take two buses and walk two miles to get to a Best Buy on Haggerty Road.

Because Novi is not part of SMART, buses drop off passengers at 12 Mile and Haggerty Road at the Farmington Hills border, forcing workers to walk the last mile or two to the mall and other nearby shopping centers.

"I didn't like to see people walking down 12 Mile from Haggerty to get to work," Gatt said.

Joining SMART, Gatt said, is "the right thing to do."

"And we're going to do it," he said.

By opting into SMART, Novi would add a 1-mill property tax to fund bus service, likely along Grand River Avenue and the mile roads that run east and west and currently stop at the city's border.

The Novi mayor said he still remains "100 percent opposed" to a proposed 1.5-mill property tax for the Regional Transit Authority.

"I got the ball rolling, and I believe that if/when the RTA issue is put to bed by not making the ballot, the SMART issue will gain steam," Gatt said.

Opting into SMART could be the compromise for getting some level of public transit in Novi, a city where 85 percent of its 37,000 workers do not live.

City Councilwoman Gwen Markham, one of the more vocal proponents in Novi for the RTA, welcomed Gatt's willingness to address Novi's public transit issues.

"I will need to understand what they would be proposing for us before I can comment further," Markham said Tuesday in an email. "However, I think this is a good sign that we can have further discussions about better transit options in Novi."