The various proposals lawmakers had been considering "do not work for everyone," Chatfield said.

"Because of that, we are going to set this issue aside and tackle other priorities," he said.

Transit advocates were pushing for passage of the bill this month because there's a narrow time frame to formulate a transit service plan to get on the November ballot.

"There were several plans on the table, and we just couldn't get consensus and agreement within the caucus to come to an agreement," said Rep. Diana Farrington, R-Utica.

Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, who has led the push for a three-county transit plan that excludes Macomb, blamed the bill's demise on "obstructionist politics with no apparent obligation to present solutions."

"Transit should be decided by voters based on an actual transit plan with proposed services, but we can't even cut through the political smoke screens to debate a substantive plan," Evans said in a statement. "It's a complete lack of vision, and our region and state suffer because of it."

Opponents of the legislation saw it as a victory for suburban voters in Macomb and Oakland counties who previously rejected a regional transit tax in 2016.

"Today is a victory for Brooks Patterson, but more importantly it's a victory for every taxpayer in Macomb, Oakland, Wayne and Washtenaw counties," said Rocky Raczkowski, chairman of the Oakland County Republican Party.

Patterson, the longtime Republican Oakland County executive who passed away last summer, spent his final years in office fighting new attempts to resurrect a four-county regional transit tax that he contended would generate tax revenue from higher-value property in his county for the benefit of neighboring counties.

But the political dynamic in Oakland County changed following Patterson's death as the County Commission appointed Democrat Dave Coulter as county executive through the end of this year.

Coulter got behind a proposal pushed by Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Washtenaw County leaders to put a transit tax proposal on the November ballot without Macomb County.

But that plan required enabling legislation that had been stalling out in recent weeks as Republican legislators in Macomb and Oakland counties mounted opposition to a bill that would have allowed a property tax as high as five mills to be placed on the ballot for a regional vote.

Township leaders in northern and western Oakland County mounted a fierce campaign against both transit bills, arguing that property taxes generated from far-flung suburbs would subsidize transit in first-ring suburbs.

"This is taxation without transportation," Raczkowski said.

In recent weeks, Chatfield signaled support for an alternative proposal from Farrington to amend the 2012 law creating the Regional Transit Authority by allowing Macomb County to opt out of the RTA's service area.

"Just in the last two weeks there's been a kind of shift in strategy that seems to be more palatable to more people," Detroit Regional Chamber CEO Sandy Baruah said Monday in an interview with Crain's.

The new bill had the backing of the Detroit chamber, DTE Energy Co., Quicken Loans Inc. and Transportation Riders United, an advocacy group for daily bus users.

"This just seems like it might be the path," DTE Vice Chairman Dave Meador told Crain's on Monday.

But a flurry of amendments proposed for HB5550 had sewed new confusion, even among transit advocates such as John Hertel, general manager of the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation bus system.

Just an hour Tuesday afternoon before Chatfield's office announced the transit bills were being tabled, Hertel was expressing reservations about the new proposal in an interview with Crain's.

"I want to make sure that whatever happens ends up being a positive thing rather than a negative thing," Hertel said. "I don't want it to hurt FAST (limited-stop bus service). I don't want it to hurt Macomb. I don't want it to hurt existing services. And I don't want to make it more complicated between us and DDOT."