Matt Helms

Detroit Free Press

Top regional leaders reached a last-minute deal this afternoon to salvage the $4.7-billion proposal for expanded mass transit across southeast Michigan, officials told the Free Press.

Details weren’t immediately released, but Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel confirmed a deal has been reached, subject to final details he declined to discuss.

"I do believe we have something that's going to be satisfactory to all parties," Hackel said. "I do believe we have come up with a legitimate document for voters to decide on."

Representatives from Detroit and Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties worked out the deal during a meeting this afternoon at the Detroit Athletic Club downtown.

The agreement means the proposed 1.2-mill, 20-year transit plan is likely to go before voters in November. That was in doubt last week after concerns raised by Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson and Hackel left the board of the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan unable to come up with the votes to put the millage on the ballot.

“I am satisfied that the accord we reached today not only offers something for our 40 communities and over half a million residents previously left out of the transit plan, but also incorporates the necessary protections we were seeking for Oakland County taxpayers,” Patterson said in a news release. “I’m grateful to my regional counterparts who joined me in moving forward."

Patterson said the deal also resolves "the omission of an auditing mechanism to demonstrate compliance with the 85% requirement in the RTA law which mandates that 85% of the taxes collected from a county are spent in that county on transit."

“During our meeting today, the regional leaders agreed on language for both the transit plan and the RTA by-laws that addresses our main issues. Like President Reagan said when negotiating international agreements, we will ‘trust but verify,’ ” Patterson said. “Now, we are awaiting an opportunity to review the RTA’s ballot language to ensure it conforms to the agreement reached today.”

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said he appreciated the region's leaders "agreeing to come together and move our region forward."

"This regional transit plan will bring not only independence and opportunity for people all over southeast Michigan, but it will allow us to compete with metropolitan areas across the country for development and investment," Duggan said in a news release. "This agreement also signifies that our region is starting to move beyond a half-century of infighting that has served only to divide us and hold southeast Michigan back."

Wayne County Executive Warren Evans issued a statement late Tuesday praising the deal.

"After meeting with regional leaders today, I remain hopeful that our citizens will have the opportunity to vote on the RTA millage in November. While there are still minor concerns that must be addressed, our goal is to improve the public transit system in southeast Michigan," Evans said. " ... I remain committed to work with regional leaders over the next several days to ensure we get this important issue across the finish line and to the ballot for a November vote."

The board of the RTA last week scheduled an emergency meeting for Thursday to vote on a revised version of the plan.

► Stephen Henderson:Hackel, Patterson trying to build a wall in S.E. Michigan

► Editorial:Not again! Don't derail metro Detroit transit hopes for 27th time

It would cost the average homeowner $95 a year for a plan highlighted by modern bus rapid transit lines between Detroit and the suburbs along Gratiot, Woodward and Michigan avenues, express service to Metro Airport and commuter rail between Detroit and Ann Arbor, along with expanded cross-county bus lines and localized transit for outlying areas of the counties.

Patterson and Hackel had objected to the plan, saying it left wide swaths of north Macomb and north and west Oakland with too little transit service for voters there to feel they were getting any return for the taxes they’d pay.

Patterson and Hackel also had pushed to require major decisions about funding and deployment of services to be subject to super-majority or unanimous votes by the board of the RTA, rather than a simple majority. That would make it harder to adjust the current 50-50 split of federal funding between the Detroit Department of Transportation and the suburban SMART system.

It wasn’t immediately clear how those concerns were addressed specifically in the compromise. Hackel said he wouldn't discuss the details until he sees them in writing, a process that's still taking place.

Hackel expressed resentment today about criticism that race or other considerations played a part in the objections he and Patterson raised. He said the concerns were about providing adequate service to all of Macomb and Oakland counties and ensuring a better form of governance of the RTA, "nothing more, nothing less."

► Heart and sole:Detroiter walks 21 miles in work commute

► Stephen Henderson:Awful transit policy fails everyone in metro Detroit

News of the agreement left transit advocates relieved that a deal is now very close to let voters decide on the millage.

“I’m certainly optimistic, certainly excited they’re making progress and a deal appears to be in the works," said Megan Owens, executive director of the advocacy group Transportation Riders United. "Obviously, we’ll have to see the details. But if it’s something that works for all the parties involved, I’m hopefully we can finally move forward and let the people vote.”

The vote last week — in which RTA board members representing Oakland and Macomb counties rejected the plan — left supporters of transit angry. They said it put at risk the best chance in years for southeast Michigan to come up with a comprehensive plan for broader and more modernized transit in the region. Compared to other big metro areas around the country, Detroit has underfunded public transit for decades.

The state law that created the RTA requires that votes on a transit millage can only be done during years with large general elections, meaning that if the millage plan missed this year's ballot, the earliest it could be brought to voters is 2018. But the millage that supports the suburban SMART buses will be on the 2018 ballot, and it seemed unlikely that transit backers would want both the RTA and SMART millages on the same ballot.

“The idea of having to wait two or probably four years before we could try again would have been devastating to the region," Owens said. "Some people argued that it if we lost this momentum, it could have been another generation without effective regional transit.”

Owens said the RTA plan is widely supported by regional civic leaders and major employers who want their employees to be able to get to and from work. She said she's optimistic that supporters will be able to make the case to voters to approve the millage.

Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @matthelms.