Megan Owens is the executive director of
Transportation Riders United (TRU), Detroit's non-profit transit advocate dedicated to improving public transit throughout greater Detroit.
Owens also serves on the Oakland County Public Transit Authority, which oversees SMART bus service in Oakland County, and on the Transportation Advisory Committee of the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG). She is active with the Regional Elder Mobility Alliance and statewide Trans4M coalitions. She has completed fellowships with Detroit Regional Chamber's Leadership Detroit, the Michigan Non-Profit Association's Executive Leadership Fellowship, and the Center for Progressive Leadership.
Previously, Owens spent six years with PIRGIM (the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan) and presently serves on their board of directors. She has also worked on several political campaigns and taught environmental education in the Michigan State Parks.
A lifelong Michigan resident, she graduated from the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and the Environment. She currently lives in Hazel Park with her husband and daughter and enjoys traveling, camping, baking, video games, and Detroit's many wonderful festivals.
TRANSIT IMPROVEMENT IS NOT OPTIONAL
Transit improvement is not optional. It's not a nice-to-have. It is absolutely essential.
Greater Detroit has a great opportunity to dramatically improve our transit system with a new Regional Transit Authority being developed. But that will require strong leadership and a willingness to invest in great transit.
Greater Detroit needs more and better transit to revitalize.
Whether you ask
national experts or the local residents who depend on transit every day, Detroit will never revitalize without an effective transit system.
Our auto-centric development may have worked when we had lots of strong middle-class jobs and 75-cent gas, but that was decades ago. Today's families cannot afford the costs of buying, maintaining, insuring, and gassing up a car for every member of the family, especially given
skyrocketing gas prices and Detroit's outrageous insurance rates. Neither can recent
college graduates struggling with student loans. Neither can anyone who's lost a job or is trying to get by on minimum wage.
Every time we fill up a gas tank, we're shipping dollars out of our region to Texas, Alaska, or the Middle East, instead of supporting local businesses.
For the Detroit region to succeed, it must be easier for people to get around without requiring a car. We must provide low income workers with affordable ways to get to jobs, job training, and other necessities. And we must provide recent college grads and others with the walkable, transit-friendly urban areas they're seeking.
For our region to succeed, we need convenient transit to really connect our region together. We need to link U of M students with exciting Detroit experiences and opportunities, Detroit workers with suburban job opportunities, and visitors coming into the airport with all the treasures our region offers. Only when we make it easy to travel between the wonderfully diverse parts of our region will we really come together and begin to revitalize as a region.
The new Regional Transit Authority could be the key to transit improvement. Or maybe not.
After decades of failed efforts and political squabbling, southeast Michigan finally has a new
Regional Transit Authority! Passed into law in December, the new RTA will finally be the one agency dedicated to coordinating and improving transit throughout the entire four-county region (including Washtenaw County). This could be a huge step forward, or it might not be.
The RTA is tasked with coordinating transit – finally making sure DDOT, SMART, the People Mover, AATA, and other transit agencies work together to provide coordinated, cohesive and effective transit service to southeast Michigan. This could mean better coordination of routes, one map for the whole system, one number to call to get transit info, or other improvements. Or it might not.
The RTA will also develop a coordinated regional transit plan, plus be in charge of making that plan into reality. It could develop real rapid transit along major regional corridors, substantially improving travel between Detroit, Royal Oak, Mt. Clemens, Dearborn, Metro Airport, Ann Arbor, and elsewhere. Or it might not.
Ultimately, the new RTA will only be a strong as the people running it. With innovative, regionally-focused, transit-minded leadership, the RTA could launch our region into finally achieving what so many other major metro areas have achieved with their transit investments.
But there is a real risk that the RTA could continue along the same paths of the past decades, with board members focused on their own parochial self-interests and key staff stuck in the mindset of Detroit of old. If the RTA just makes little tweaks around the edges of our current system, what a huge lost opportunity.
By mid-March, each county executive will appoint two board members to the RTA (in addition to the
Mayor's and
Governor's single appointments). These need to be people who fully understand and embrace the enormous positive potential of a strong regional transit system, people who can see that their county will benefit by having the best transit system for the whole region, and people who are not afraid to invest in a high quality transit system for our community.
By August, the new RTA board will select a CEO. We need someone with proven experience developing an effective regional transit system. Luckily there are lots of great people across the country who have done just that. We need a major national search for the very best CEO. Let's learn from experience around the country, not settle for whoever we can come up with locally.
With the right people running it, the RTA can lead our region into an exciting new direction towards the type of high quality transit system we need. Then we just need to fund it.
A great transit system requires a major investment, which we've never yet provided.
For decades we have sorely underfunded public transit and it shows.
Most major metropolitan areas spend over $200 per capita per year in tax dollars to fund their transit systems. With that they provide a broad network of buses, trains, subways, streetcars, light rail, and other options for reliably and affordably getting wherever their residents and visitors need to go.
Southeast Michigan spends barely $75 per capita. And we get what we pay for.
Strong leadership can improve bus coordination and develop a good regional transit plan. But without funding, it will be little more than maps and dreams.
The RTA will have the opportunity next year to put before the region's voters new dedicated transit funding – probably a vehicle registration fee that would cost $20-40 a year depending on the value of your car. It will be up to the region's voters to decide whether getting more and better transit is worth that extra dime a day.
If the overwhelming support of past SMART millage votes and transit ballot measures across the
country are any indication, voters will support funding these improvements. Especially if they understand the full value of what they're buying.
Together those dimes can add up to attractive affordable transit options linking our full region together and supporting the real revitalization of our city and our region. It won't happen any other way.
Your help is essential to moving regional transit forward.
Shifting southeast Michigan into a positive new transit-friendly future won't be quick or easy – rather it's a little like turning a battleship. But with enough people pushing in the same direction, we can succeed. Please join this transit army!
1) Talk with your friends, neighbors, and co-workers about the enormous benefits of having more and better transit. And if they're on board with the benefits, start talking about the need to invest in making those transit improvements.
2) Tell your
county executive what you want in new RTA board members! TRU's provided an easy online tool for doing that.
3) And stay involved! Join
TRU's email newsletter for weekly updates on top transit news, events, opportunities, and more.