The People Mover and Detroit's lost public transportation system

One thing that separates Detroit from other American cities is its lack of a consistent public transportation system. Although this can be attributed mostly to Detroit's car culture, the oil industry is also to blame.

Like other early 20th century cities, Detroit possessed several substantial electric trolley lines, and before that, trolleys pulled by horses. Like trolley systems in most American cities, Detroit's was dismantled in the 1950's through efforts of the Rockefeller family, owners of Exxon-Mobil:

By design, the Rockefellers have received no blame for their pivotal role in destroying the vast trolley car system that dominated U.S. cities before the 1940s, thereby increasing city dwellers' dependence on automobiles and gas-fueled bus lines. Yet the Rockefellers' Standard Oil of California joined General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, and Phillips Petroleum to form the National City Lines holding company, which bought out and dismantled more than 100 trolley systems in 45 cities (including New York, Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Tulsa, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles) between 1936 and 1950 (source).

Although a small tourist line was built in 1976 (and dismantled in 2003), today the only public transportation Detroiters have are buses and the fairly useless Detroit People Mover, a fully automated elevated train that travels in a 2.9 mile circle through Detroit's downtown.

Now that I commute from Northern NJ to Manhattan, and use the NYC subway 5 days a week, I can see just how important public transportation is to maintaining a vibrant urban environment. As energy costs increase, mass transit will become even more important. The smartest thing a declining city can do is invest in mass transit programs. Even Newark, NJ, in many ways similar to Detroit, has invested heavily in mass transit, and the payoff has been a resurgence of Newark's downtown area, including NJPAC and the new Prudential Center. 

Buses alone are not the answer to Detroit's urban renewal problems. People won't buy condo lofts in an abandoned downtown center supported by only bus service and a useless circular elevated train. Casinos aren't the answer either. Detroit will never recover as a first rate city unless it can convince the Big 3 and Big Oil to step aside and let the city develop real mass transit solutions to support its renewal efforts. If Detroit's leadership can't do this, then the city, like the Big 3, will never recover.