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What’s next for regional transit in southeast Michigan? · Talking Michigan Transportation

• 0:07
  Jeff Cranson: Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast.
• 0:10
  Jeff Cranson: I'm Jeff Cranson.
• 0:12
  Jeff Cranson: Recently I spoke with Ben Stupka, who is the executive director of the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan.
• 0:22
  Jeff Cranson: Ben has been in that role the past few years, having worked there previously before ascending to the top position.
• 0:29
  Jeff Cranson: He has an extensive background in urban planning and has a great passion for transit and mobility for all, trying to serve all users, trying to coordinate services across Metro Detroit and Southeast Michigan, which has been a challenge for a long time.
• 0:49
  Jeff Cranson: But recently the RTA has made some serious strides with a number of services that they have a hand in, including the Q-Line in downtown Detroit.
• 0:59
  Jeff Cranson: So he had a lot to say.
• 1:01
  Jeff Cranson: He talked about how they basically focused on the incremental things that they can get done after very narrowly losing a ballot issue that would have provided solid funding across the region back in 2016.
• 1:14
  Jeff Cranson: I think you'll enjoy his anecdotes and especially his enthusiasm for what he's doing.
• 1:20
  Jeff Cranson: So I hope you enjoy the conversation.
• 1:22
  Jeff Cranson: So, Ben, I uh set this up a little bit in the introduction, but I was hoping that you could, as a first-time guest on the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast, uh give a little bit about yourself and how you came to be the executive director at the Regional Transit Authority for Southeast Michigan, and then we'll delve more into what's ahead for the RTA.
• 1:44
  Ben Stupka: Great.
• 1:44
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, no problem.
• 1:45
  Ben Stupka: Thank you for having me.
• 1:46
  Ben Stupka: I'm really excited to be on the podcast.
• 1:49
  Ben Stupka: Um, so my background, I'm I'm from Southeast Michigan originally.
• 1:53
  Ben Stupka: Um, I went to Michigan State and University of Michigan.
• 1:57
  Ben Stupka: So I'm I'm uh one of the few that's gone to both.
• 1:59
  Ben Stupka: Got my uh my master's degree at U of M and Urban Regional Planning.
• 2:03
  Ben Stupka: Um I went out to the Bay Area uh for a few years after I graduated and worked at an agency that actually managed uh local transportation funding for projects as big as light rail and BRT and as small as city current programs and street trees.
• 2:20
  Ben Stupka: Um so I got a lot of exposure to delivering capital projects, to funding capital projects, and how to connect planning ideas to delivering projects.
• 2:30
  Ben Stupka: Um my dream was always to help uh put regional transit together in Southeast Michigan and bring some of those types of capital projects and interventions to Southeast Michigan.
• 2:40
  Ben Stupka: Um so the opportunity to work at the RTA uh came about in about 2014.
• 2:44
  Ben Stupka: Um I happily came back with my family, and my and my family's here anyway, so I was uh doubly happy um to work at the RTA.
• 2:54
  Ben Stupka: And I spent uh the first uh first few years back here working directly with the RTA.
• 3:00
  Ben Stupka: Um then I supported them as a consultant for for many, many years.
• 3:03
  Ben Stupka: Um and about three years ago, and coming back about three years ago, uh they uh gave me the honor of being the executive director.
• 3:12
  Ben Stupka: So it's uh it's been a ride with them in in many capacities, but I've seen every part of the RTA.
• 3:17
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah.
• 3:18
  Jeff Cranson: So um let's talk about establishing the RTA.
• 3:22
  Jeff Cranson: Um, I was actually pretty new in the job at MDOT when we got it over the finish line in 2012.
• 3:28
  Jeff Cranson: It was, I think, kind of clouded out by so many other things going on during that same legislative session, lame duck 2012, I'm sure you remember.
• 3:37
  Jeff Cranson: Um, but it was a big deal.
• 3:38
  Jeff Cranson: And Bill Rustum, who was Governor Snyder's policy director and had done a similar job 40 years earlier for Governor Milliken, uh, remarked at the time that, you know, we've been trying to do this for 40 years, try to consolidate and have some kind of central planning for regional transit in Southeast Michigan.
• 3:56
  Jeff Cranson: And sounds easier than it is, right?
• 3:58
  Jeff Cranson: So and you weren't involved then in that effort legislatively, but I'm sure you were following it closely.
• 4:05
  Jeff Cranson: So just I guess talk about just how important it was, even though there was a ways to go and still is, just to get it established in legislation.
• 4:14
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, I mean, the the the history, I uh um I think 40 years is probably right.
• 4:19
  Ben Stupka: And I know actually one of the first efforts I was involved in um when back when I was at Michigan State as an undergrad, and then and then my uh first position after that was actually some early establishment of the DARTA legislation.
• 4:32
  Ben Stupka: Um, so that was legislation to consolidate agencies and look at um um actually doing regional transit that ended up dying uh right at the end of Governor Engler's term.
• 4:43
  Ben Stupka: There was another effort after that that I kind of sat through as a more of an advocate to see if they could get um better coordination between Smart and D dot.
• 4:52
  Ben Stupka: That was probably the early, early 2000s, like 2003, four, five range.
• 4:58
  Ben Stupka: Um, and then it kind of died out again.
• 5:01
  Ben Stupka: And then uh finally we, I think got the right kind of the right size and scale and partnership together in terms of the four counties that we represent, Wayne, Washington, Macomb, and Oakland, um, you know, including the city of Detroit, kind of got all those leaders together um to say, hey, let's let's kind of put this, let's stitch this together at the county level so that it can it can be, well, it's about coordinating the transit providers, it's also about kind of coordinating at that county level um and city of Detroit level.
• 5:33
  Ben Stupka: And with those leaders coming together, um, what we've seen over the last 10 years is uh being able to use the mechanism of the RTA to continue to kind of evolve the improvement of transit through through those kind of county and city of Detroit relationships.
• 5:46
  Ben Stupka: I think that's been a really powerful glue that's held us together in this effort that's a little bit different than the ones in the past.
• 5:53
  Jeff Cranson: So you knew growing up in Michigan and going to to college in Michigan about the the divide, the historical divide between the city of Detroit and the suburbs.
• 6:03
  Jeff Cranson: Um, but you really saw it in stark relief as as this moved forward.
• 6:08
  Jeff Cranson: Um and so after getting the RTA established in 2012, a ballot issue went forward in 2016 that would have provided funding uh across, you know, the whole region.
• 6:20
  Jeff Cranson: Um and it narrowly missed, I think uh maybe not even one percent, very close.
• 6:25
  Jeff Cranson: You know, a lot of people could have just thrown up their hands then and said, look, we tried, we gave it our all.
• 6:30
  Jeff Cranson: You know, this is never gonna happen.
• 6:31
  Jeff Cranson: Um you came along a few years later to take over.
• 6:35
  Jeff Cranson: You were working there then, but to take over executive director.
• 6:38
  Jeff Cranson: How do you keep your your faith and your optimism that uh things can things can still happen?
• 6:45
  Ben Stupka: Um that's a great question.
• 6:47
  Ben Stupka: It's uh yeah.
• 6:48
  Ben Stupka: Um you know, it's the it's the people we it's the people we work with, it's the it's the um it's the issue itself.
• 6:56
  Ben Stupka: I I you know the reason I'm so passionate about it, and I I really love the issue and what I say to people is um, you know, when I grew up and I went went to school and I was trying to decide what I wanted to do, and I kind of got in this idea of urban planning, and I started thinking about things like affordable housing, and I started thinking about things like sustainability, and I started thinking about things like education and you know, all these different pieces of kind of creating better communities.
• 7:21
  Ben Stupka: And all the conversations I was in um transit, in particular in Southeast Michigan, transit and transportation came up in every single one of those conversations.
• 7:30
  Ben Stupka: Every time I talked about a different issue, healthcare, whatever you name, it always came up as something that was important.
• 7:36
  Ben Stupka: And it just kind of struck me that this is an issue that could unlock so much opportunity for so many people, um, that uh it just it just kind of was something that I I wanted to see.
• 7:47
  Ben Stupka: And then um just growing up in in Southeast Michigan and kind of having that idea of like, yeah, I didn't really taking the bus is not, I mean taking the bus to school, and you know, obviously not something we did, but it just it wasn't something that that we grew up with, even though they're all around us, and it just wasn't something we grew up with.
• 8:04
  Ben Stupka: Like, why is that?
• 8:04
  Ben Stupka: What's like you know, why why culturally are we here?
• 8:08
  Jeff Cranson: So I'm sure it came up for myriad reasons in those conversations.
• 8:12
  Jeff Cranson: You heard, you know, everybody had kind of their own reason, but what were the overall themes?
• 8:16
  Jeff Cranson: Was it a was it a social justice thing, or was it uh this is how I'm gonna keep my kids here after they graduate and come back, or was it just all of that?
• 8:25
  Ben Stupka: Uh in terms of uh why like the benefit of transit?
• 8:28
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:29
  Ben Stupka: When you yeah, um, so there I would say that there's there's a uh it's almost always j jobs and connectivity to jobs.
• 8:39
  Ben Stupka: Um, and that comes from I I'd say two perspectives.
• 8:42
  Ben Stupka: So we hear it and kind of very obviously from people who are job seekers um and want to be able to, you know, get a reliable way to get their job without owning a car.
• 8:51
  Ben Stupka: As we all well know, it's very, very expensive, if not the most expensive, to own a car in Southeast Michigan, particularly in the city of Detroit.
• 8:59
  Ben Stupka: So there's a there's a large kind of that sort of that perspective.
• 9:02
  Ben Stupka: The other perspective that we don't really think about as much, but is but is just as um salient is the small business owners, right?
• 9:10
  Ben Stupka: It's the people who need people to get to their jobs and and be able to have reliable transportation and the idea of um having to retrain somebody and and all those all those costs that go in with that.
• 9:22
  Ben Stupka: Um so that that's another piece that we've heard about, and I'd say even more and more and more as businesses expand um and business opportunities.
• 9:29
  Ben Stupka: Um, so this is kind of the third piece, it's that business attraction.
• 9:33
  Ben Stupka: So another big thing that um really uh we weren't able to get everything done the way we wanted to, but I remember uh in 2019, 18, 19 when Amazon was looking for headquarters, and we all kind of tried to get together.
• 9:48
  Ben Stupka: And that was one of the things we heard uh back from them was that they weren't interested in Southeast Michigan because we didn't have a comprehensive regional transit system.
• 9:57
  Ben Stupka: So it it it's it's not only the person getting to the job, the small business who needs a person at their job, but it's also uh an economic competitiveness issue.
• 10:05
  Ben Stupka: And it in in some ways it's cost us um, you know, the opportunity for uh attracting large, large businesses and large headquarters and those types of things.
• 10:14
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, I saw it in in committee meetings in the legislature when talking about transit, when transit operators would come to make their case for, you know, local bus operating funds and what they needed.
• 10:24
  Jeff Cranson: And it was surprising at the number of lawmakers who didn't think about the large retailers in their districts.
• 10:31
  Jeff Cranson: They were in the suburbs, and that's where the malls are, and that's where the big shopping centers are.
• 10:35
  Jeff Cranson: And those are the workers that the the people who run those businesses need to get there.
• 10:40
  Jeff Cranson: So it seems like a no-brainer, but you really have to spell it out, don't you?
• 10:44
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:45
  Ben Stupka: And I'll I'll never forget uh, you know, one of the early things the RTA did with uh Smart and D D Dot was we worked to establish what is now called the FAST service.
• 10:53
  Ben Stupka: So on Woodward, Grash, and in Michigan, Smart operates a service called FAST, which basically is a limited stop service, stops every two or three miles.
• 11:01
  Ben Stupka: Um, but it's been in uh the RTA helped get that started back in 20 uh 2016-17, uh using using some LBO money and some kind of our coordination authority to do that.
• 11:12
  Ben Stupka: And I remember early on getting on that service, maybe after it'd been running about six months, I wrote it.
• 11:17
  Ben Stupka: I think I was running down to a Tigers game.
• 11:19
  Ben Stupka: It was on the weekend.
• 11:20
  Ben Stupka: I got on maybe at three in the afternoon.
• 11:23
  Ben Stupka: Every single person on there had a uniform from a job.
• 11:27
  Jeff Cranson: Interesting.
• 11:27
  Ben Stupka: Every single it was fulls, packed fulls, the middle of the middle of a weekend, you know, early early afternoon on a weekend.
• 11:33
  Ben Stupka: Every single person was coming or going to a job.
• 11:36
  Ben Stupka: Except for me, I was going to the Tigers.
• 11:37
  Ben Stupka: But maybe some other folks too go to the Tigers game.
• 11:39
  Ben Stupka: But but I was like, this is exactly what we're talking about here.
• 11:43
  Ben Stupka: Like, there's people and then people go to jobs at mall, different types of jobs, all kinds of stuff.
• 11:47
  Ben Stupka: I was like, this is exactly what we're doing here.
• 11:50
  Ben Stupka: This is the point of getting good quality service up and running, is to buy provide those connections to jobs, let alone connections to healthcare and other community resources.
• 11:59
  Ben Stupka: I mean, you can kind of spread the gamut, um, but it's really that it's that job and opportunity connection that you know keeps me coming back.
• 12:07
  Ben Stupka: Um, when you get to see someone like that and be on the boss seat, and it just makes you makes you want to keep doing it, you know.
• 12:13
  Jeff Cranson: Well, you know what?
• 12:13
  Jeff Cranson: I want to talk about that a little bit.
• 12:15
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, there was a really interesting story in Axios Detroit this week.
• 12:19
  Jeff Cranson: Uh, and I thought it was probably you thought really good news for you to hear that Mayor Sheffield is very invested in this.
• 12:26
  Jeff Cranson: She sees it as a as an important uh priority for the things that she wants to do on the city and her agenda.
• 12:32
  Jeff Cranson: And I wanted to get your take on the discussion about maybe making some improvements to the people mover, which with the success of the Lions and the Tigers the last few years, that's had to have made a huge difference in their ridership, right?
• 12:46
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:47
  Ben Stupka: Um so both the people mover and in the in the Q-line streetcar have um actually really rebounded very nicely out out of the pandemic um in terms of ridership numbers, um, getting close to, if not exceeding, pre-pandemic numbers.
• 13:02
  Ben Stupka: Um so and and no small part is that dude, you know, it's good.
• 13:06
  Ben Stupka: It's uh it's nice to have really competitive sports teams in a, you know, in the sports town where all the all the arenas are next to each other.
• 13:13
  Ben Stupka: And uh it's great to have a great convention and visitors bureau and tracting all the you know all the different events that we have downtown um for those services.
• 13:22
  Ben Stupka: But um I think both the Q-line and the People Mover are are you know looking to uh figure out how we can continue to take advantage of it, how we can work together to take advantage of those things.
• 13:33
  Ben Stupka: Um and they've been doing, particularly the People Mover, uh, they've been doing some really cool branding stuff and events and really activating the space.
• 13:40
  Ben Stupka: I mean, all their stations are in like these really cool old buildings and artwork.
• 13:44
  Ben Stupka: They're really trying to kind of explore like what are the other positive aspects of this service?
• 13:49
  Ben Stupka: How is it a cultural community asset beyond just the loop that you can ride?
• 13:54
  Ben Stupka: Um and I think they've done a really good job the last uh last several years um kind of figuring out how do we rebrand ourselves a little bit.
• 14:02
  Ben Stupka: Um doesn't hurt that they have a sponsorship to make it free.
• 14:05
  Ben Stupka: The QIN is also free.
• 14:07
  Ben Stupka: Um, that just you know makes it that much easier.
• 14:10
  Ben Stupka: Free.
• 14:10
  Ben Stupka: Well, free to the rider.
• 14:12
  Ben Stupka: Free to the rider.
• 14:14
  Ben Stupka: It is, it is, you know, there's some public money that goes to support it.
• 14:17
  Ben Stupka: Um, but uh, you know, we often say both for both services, I kind of think of them as like the front door to regional transit.
• 14:26
  Ben Stupka: So I think about a region where not a lot of people, particularly people within the region, take transit.
• 14:32
  Ben Stupka: Um, and if the first opportunity they may have to take it or they may want to take it could be the is often the QI or the people mover.
• 14:40
  Ben Stupka: So we can make those experiences as easy, as pleasant, and as fun as possible, it gets them, you know, kind of comfortable uh trying out something.
• 14:51
  Ben Stupka: Maybe then they try a fast bus, maybe they try one of our express buses, and we kind of just kind of can let bring them into it's okay, you can get on a transit vehicle.
• 15:00
  Ben Stupka: You know, it's it's it's fine.
• 15:03
  Jeff Cranson: Um no, I think you're right.
• 15:04
  Jeff Cranson: I think that that that gets them comfortable with the the concept.
• 15:08
  Jeff Cranson: And then the more you do something successfully, the more you're willing to try something related.
• 15:12
  Jeff Cranson: But I wanted to comment on your when you talk about the stadiums all being downtown.
• 15:17
  Jeff Cranson: Um, you probably don't remember this, but there was a sports illustrated story shortly after uh the palace opened.
• 15:23
  Jeff Cranson: And uh Coleman Young was quoted at the time because somebody for the Pistons, I don't know if it was Davison or somebody else, said, you know, hey, you can define the city in myriad ways, and certainly Auburn Hills is part of the city, you know, writ large.
• 15:38
  Jeff Cranson: And Coleman Young said Poppycock, the city is where the freeways merge.
• 15:42
  Ben Stupka: Yeah.
• 15:43
  Jeff Cranson: If he had lived to see these stadiums all come back downtown and be centrally located and have LCA and Ford Field and Comerica Park, which I assume will be changing its name soon because of the bank merger, um, all in the same place.
• 15:57
  Jeff Cranson: That's just that that that kind of you know synergy, um, overlap is great for lots of things.
• 16:04
  Jeff Cranson: And you guys are doing the stuff you're doing at just the right time to capitalize on that, I think.
• 16:08
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
• 16:10
  Ben Stupka: So I and I would say and uh we've certainly had a lot of success even with uh we have our new express, newer express bus services.
• 16:18
  Ben Stupka: They're a couple of years old.
• 16:19
  Ben Stupka: One connects downtown Detroit to downtown Ann Arbor.
• 16:21
  Ben Stupka: That's called D2A2.
• 16:23
  Ben Stupka: Uh, we have another one that connects uh downtown Detroit to the airport express, just one stop, you know, one stop stops at both terminals in downtown.
• 16:30
  Ben Stupka: Um both of those airport expresses is almost three years old.
• 16:34
  Ben Stupka: D2H is about four years old.
• 16:37
  Ben Stupka: And we've seen uh just ridership every year, up and up and up and up and up.
• 16:42
  Ben Stupka: Um it just continues to go really, really well.
• 16:45
  Ben Stupka: And the more events we have, um, not only for the regional traveler, but now we're seeing people you know from out of town coming in and using the service.
• 16:51
  Ben Stupka: It's uh it's really great.
• 16:53
  Ben Stupka: Um, and just another way to kind of get people out there.
• 16:56
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah.
• 16:56
  Jeff Cranson: So as that momentum builds, it eventually creates the case for uh a BRT, a dedicated lane to the airport, or uh possibly commuter rail, right?
• 17:06
  Jeff Cranson: That's uh that's all stuff that we aspire to.
• 17:09
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:10
  Ben Stupka: And that's and I think that's really the approach we've taken.
• 17:13
  Ben Stupka: You know, we talked earlier about the 2016 ballot initiative.
• 17:16
  Ben Stupka: I often say, you know, the if you look at that, we we tried to kind of uh w e kind of tried to hit a home run in one swing, right?
• 17:24
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, um, and we got it out.
• 17:26
  Ben Stupka: I mean, it we got out there.
• 17:27
  Ben Stupka: It went out, it hit kind of hit the top of the fence and bounced into someone's glove, unfortunately.
• 17:31
  Ben Stupka: But um, since that time, we've taken a little bit more of a deliberate of deliberate approach and tried to kind of hit some hit some singles, hit some doubles, you know, like just get on baits, take a walk if you have to.
• 17:42
  Ben Stupka: Just keep keep getting things out there, keep getting keep making improvements, keep positive stories up, keep working with different communities.
• 17:51
  Ben Stupka: Uh, one of the things we often talk to the legislators about that's been a really successful model in the last several years is uh making investments and supporting what we call community services.
• 18:02
  Ben Stupka: So these are the services in kind of the more suburban and rural areas in our region.
• 18:07
  Ben Stupka: Uh, you know, think of places like Lake Orion, places like Highland Township, places like Chelsea, places like Richmond, uh, where they have, they're working together with a couple of surrounding townships.
• 18:18
  Ben Stupka: They have their own community service.
• 18:20
  Ben Stupka: Um, and those services have been growing and growing, growing, as particularly as people are aging in place and the demographics are shifting even more there.
• 18:27
  Ben Stupka: Um, we've seen tons of ridership increases there.
• 18:30
  Ben Stupka: Um, and it's just given us the opportunity to continue to work with them and kind of bring them into the regional system.
• 18:37
  Ben Stupka: And how do we kind of just grow those partnerships to really maintain that, like it's so maintains a community ownership model.
• 18:44
  Ben Stupka: Um, but we're starting to bring a little bit more regional resource and focus to them.
• 18:48
  Ben Stupka: So we're growing that part of it as well, which has been really good.
• 18:51
  Jeff Cranson: That's yeah, that's great.
• 18:52
  Jeff Cranson: And uh you'll never go wrong with baseball metaphors on my podcast.
• 18:55
  Jeff Cranson: So I figured stay with us.
• 18:58
  Jeff Cranson: We'll have more on the other side of this important message.
• 19:03
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• 19:11
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• 19:17
  Jeff Cranson: Talk a little bit about the future.
• 19:19
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, I think a lot of people probably don't know uh what you're already doing.
• 19:24
  Jeff Cranson: I think after that 2016 ballot issue, many people, especially out state, kind of tuned out to the RTA and what it's doing.
• 19:30
  Jeff Cranson: And like you said, in the meantime, you were playing small ball and and picking away at what you could do.
• 19:36
  Jeff Cranson: So you've got to roll with the Q line and some other things.
• 19:40
  Jeff Cranson: You talked about SMART a little bit, you talked about D dot, but kind of lay out what all of those services are and how you work to interweave them.
• 19:49
  Ben Stupka: Sure.
• 19:49
  Ben Stupka: So uh so at a at a very high level, the um there's kind of five larger services in our region.
• 19:57
  Ben Stupka: So there's D Dot, which is in the city of Detroit, there's SMART, which is basically the suburban metro Detroit area.
• 20:02
  Ben Stupka: Um, and they do serve within the city on a couple of routes as well.
• 20:06
  Ben Stupka: There's the Ride, which covers most of Ann Arbor, uh, Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township.
• 20:11
  Ben Stupka: And then there's the Q line and the People Mover, which are kind of in the downtown.
• 20:14
  Ben Stupka: And then outside of that, there's kind of community, small community providers, townships, partnerships, Q partnerships at um at city level, you know, maybe like the city of Sterling Heights Senior Center has a couple of buses.
• 20:26
  Ben Stupka: So we have a pretty large ECUP system.
• 20:28
  Ben Stupka: Um so a couple of the key things that we've done recently to work, so what we do is we all work together and we talk about what makes sense for us to coordinate on, what's the best thing we can do.
• 20:40
  Ben Stupka: We, you know, and it might not be everything, but so we when we kind of come up with that idea and that concept collectively, um, that's what we use our master planning process to do.
• 20:48
  Ben Stupka: We say, all right, the RTA is going to take you know the lead on this one.
• 20:52
  Ben Stupka: And most of them will take kind of the early lead because we're small, we can move much more quickly.
• 20:57
  Ben Stupka: Um, you know, we can kind of get things up and running.
• 20:59
  Ben Stupka: So a really good example of something we've done recently is uh the transit app.
• 21:03
  Ben Stupka: Um, so this is a uh an app anybody can download.
• 21:06
  Ben Stupka: You can actually download it for free anywhere.
• 21:09
  Ben Stupka: Um, but we have in our region, so this covers all the providers I talked about, um, an upgraded version.
• 21:17
  Ben Stupka: So you can plan trips across all the providers.
• 21:20
  Ben Stupka: You can uh book trips on a couple of the flex services that are that uh run.
• 21:24
  Ben Stupka: Uh Smart runs some and the ride run some.
• 21:27
  Ben Stupka: You can pay for services, um, and you can get real-time information.
• 21:32
  Ben Stupka: So you come into our region, download the transit app.
• 21:35
  Ben Stupka: It's an upgraded version totally for free for anybody.
• 21:38
  Ben Stupka: Uh, one way to get information about anything you want to do in transit.
• 21:42
  Ben Stupka: So that's something we launched in November.
• 21:45
  Ben Stupka: Um we're already seeing you know 20, 30% increases in usage over the last uh couple of months.
• 21:50
  Ben Stupka: So it's been going really, really well.
• 21:52
  Ben Stupka: So that's just like an example.
• 21:54
  Ben Stupka: Um, another one that uh we don't promote as much, but I always like to say is that we partner with uh Ageways, which was formerly an area agency at Aging 1B, uh kind of quasi-governmental organization.
• 22:07
  Ben Stupka: Uh, they run a service in partnership with us called My Ride 2.
• 22:11
  Ben Stupka: Um, really cool models.
• 22:12
  Ben Stupka: You can call 1855 MyRide2 in any one of our four counties.
• 22:16
  Ben Stupka: You can go to myride2.com.
• 22:19
  Ben Stupka: If you're a senior, if you're a person with disability, if you're a caregiver and you want any kind of transportation option you can think of.
• 22:25
  Ben Stupka: Anything from smart buses or like the Q-line streetcar to non-emergency medical private services and anything in between.
• 22:34
  Ben Stupka: There's basically a concierge service that you can you can call and they'll help figure out, hey, what is your issue?
• 22:42
  Ben Stupka: What can we help you?
• 22:43
  Ben Stupka: What is a mobility option for you?
• 22:45
  Ben Stupka: So yeah, that's just a couple examples.
• 22:47
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, and the big challenge is education and making the people who could benefit from that aware, right?
• 22:52
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, I Phoenix Mobility, I'm sure you're familiar with them and what they're doing in the first mile, last mile area.
• 22:57
  Jeff Cranson: Um how do you get the word out so that the people that could actually benefit from this know about it?
• 23:03
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, I mean, that's the that's the challenge.
• 23:06
  Ben Stupka: That's why we do things like this.
• 23:07
  Ben Stupka: That's why we do things like, you know, just kind of making sure we're communicating clearly about some of those entry point things, like something like the transit app is one of those things where if people just know it exists, it's really easy to use.
• 23:20
  Ben Stupka: And at the very least, if you download it, if you're in Southeast Michigan, you download it and say you live in Troy, um, and you've never thought about take, take a look.
• 23:30
  Ben Stupka: And you might you just look, be like, oh, there's actually a lot of transit options I could take from here.
• 23:34
  Ben Stupka: I just never even thought about it.
• 23:35
  Ben Stupka: Um, I just didn't come up.
• 23:37
  Ben Stupka: And just getting people over that knowledge of what's there and got to give them multiple ways to get that knowledge.
• 23:44
  Ben Stupka: And then it's one of the hardest, most challenging things to do, and it's probably like this with anything, is getting people to take that first ride.
• 23:52
  Ben Stupka: Just take that first ride, just try it once.
• 23:55
  Ben Stupka: Um, that's again where the Q line and other services help.
• 23:59
  Ben Stupka: Um, Smart has been doing a lot of really good work.
• 24:02
  Ben Stupka: They did a really cool, uh, uh cool cool programming for like Valentine's Day.
• 24:07
  Ben Stupka: They did some shuttles downtown.
• 24:09
  Ben Stupka: Uh, they called it like Smart After Dark, but just getting people that to get back and forth.
• 24:14
  Ben Stupka: Um, we did a lot in the draft, the NFL draft.
• 24:18
  Ben Stupka: I know that was just an over weekend event, but I think we had like 200,000 transit riders in that couple of day period.
• 24:25
  Ben Stupka: There was crazy the interesting that.
• 24:28
  Ben Stupka: Yes.
• 24:28
  Ben Stupka: It was so it was, and a lot of those people were first-time riders, but it but it made sense, right?
• 24:33
  Ben Stupka: Because you couldn't really, really, really hard to access any other way.
• 24:37
  Ben Stupka: Um, and we were and we were able to put some special services again, smart, smart and d odd and others put some special services together to for that event.
• 24:45
  Ben Stupka: But it's really kind of you know, getting people, getting that first time to just just try it.
• 24:51
  Ben Stupka: Um, and then, you know, if it's just something that people start to see as a semi-viable option, maybe it's not something you do every day, but if you're like, oh, I could take the bus once or twice a week, um, you know, it's a it's a good option.
• 25:02
  Ben Stupka: If parking prices go up and all which they are, right?
• 25:06
  Ben Stupka: Um, you know, just having that option out there for people.
• 25:09
  Jeff Cranson: So they didn't really think about this 40 years ago, but going to your point about um the elderly or people with disabilities and you know the imperative of mobility for all.
• 25:20
  Jeff Cranson: Um does the RTA have a role in what the people mover is talking about and trying to make it more accessible?
• 25:28
  Ben Stupka: Uh in terms of making the people mover more accessible?
• 25:31
  Ben Stupka: Yes, yeah.
• 25:31
  Ben Stupka: Yeah.
• 25:32
  Ben Stupka: Yep, yep, yep.
• 25:33
  Ben Stupka: So we um so uh we have a we have a couple roles.
• 25:37
  Ben Stupka: One of the key things that we do is we do uh we do a regional, it's called the Mobility for All Plan, is what we brand it as.
• 25:44
  Ben Stupka: Um, but it's uh it's a mandated plan where you have to provide uh strategies to help people with disabilities and seniors.
• 25:52
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, it's a federally mandated plan.
• 25:54
  Ben Stupka: It's actually called just for your audience, because I know they may actually, it's actually called the Coordinated Human Services Transportation Plan.
• 26:01
  Ben Stupka: But we don't tell because no one no one ever that's the FTA name for it.
• 26:06
  Ben Stupka: We don't we don't call it that though, because it no one would tune out mobility for all.
• 26:10
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:11
  Ben Stupka: So we call it mobility for all.
• 26:12
  Ben Stupka: Um uh so we update that and then every two years we actually do a call for projects uh with some of the federal funding that flows through the RTA.
• 26:21
  Ben Stupka: Um, and we get that we get that funding out to community services, but also for um the people movers receive some funding to upgrade, you know, get ADA upgrades at their stations.
• 26:34
  Ben Stupka: Um uh the MyRai2 service I talked about before is funded through that.
• 26:38
  Ben Stupka: So we actually have an investment program.
• 26:41
  Ben Stupka: And I think one of the things for uh for folks who are listening that we didn't touch base on, but one of the key roles that the RTA has is that all the federal and state funding that comes to the region actually flows through the RTA.
• 26:54
  Ben Stupka: So we always are trying to balance kind of making sure we get that out to the providers and get that as close to the street as possible.
• 27:01
  Ben Stupka: That's you know job kind of job number one.
• 27:04
  Ben Stupka: But then also, you know, making sure when it's going, when it's going to the providers, what are they doing with it?
• 27:10
  Ben Stupka: Is it advancing a regional goal?
• 27:12
  Ben Stupka: Are we, you know, so we do have kind of that oversight ability um that to say, hey, look, can we make an adjustment here?
• 27:19
  Ben Stupka: Can we make an adjustment here?
• 27:21
  Ben Stupka: Could we kind of try this pilot?
• 27:23
  Ben Stupka: Can we try that pilot?
• 27:24
  Ben Stupka: Let's make sure we're working together.
• 27:26
  Ben Stupka: So we have a we have a little bit of a little bit of a stick.
• 27:28
  Ben Stupka: We don't, you know, we try and make it make it oh yeah, no, I mean as much as possible.
• 27:33
  Jeff Cranson: But yeah, yeah, it's comparable to what MDOT does with the transit agencies across the state.
• 27:38
  Jeff Cranson: So that makes a lot of sense.
• 27:39
  Jeff Cranson: So um lastly, I want you to talk about your perceptions and research and what you've learned over the years um in talking to counterparts around the country, because it's widely believed.
• 27:52
  Jeff Cranson: And I don't know if this is we've oversold this as the phenomena that that's the real reason that it was so difficult to establish transit, uh reliable transit in Detroit, is just because it's the motor city and there were powers that really wanted everybody to own their own car.
• 28:09
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, there was an economic uh imperative there, right?
• 28:12
  Jeff Cranson: And even though before it became motor city, it had a a pretty robust streetcar system with a lot of public transportation.
• 28:20
  Jeff Cranson: But you know, when you think about other cities in the Midwest, um Cleveland obviously had a lot of auto production.
• 28:27
  Jeff Cranson: Um, but when you talk to others that aren't from the Midwest, are they kind of shocked at how difficult it's been for a city that size to get this moving?
• 28:35
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, I I would say that there's some surprise.
• 28:38
  Ben Stupka: I think people, again, they ascribe the motor city label and they and they have the same kind of perception you talked about.
• 28:44
  Ben Stupka: I would say that, you know, from my perspective, the you know, the automakers and others um you know see having good transit as a quality of life and job and talent attraction issue.
• 28:57
  Ben Stupka: I mean, they get it.
• 28:58
  Ben Stupka: They're they were supportive of us in 2016.
• 29:00
  Ben Stupka: I mean, they get it.
• 29:02
  Ben Stupka: You know, that's they need to attract talent to maintain their businesses, and they're looking at evolving their businesses, right?
• 29:08
  Ben Stupka: I mean, that's a huge thing.
• 29:09
  Ben Stupka: They're looking at what's the future of mobility, you know, mobility technology and all those things.
• 29:14
  Ben Stupka: So they hey know they need the brains that want to live here to help them do that.
• 29:18
  Ben Stupka: So um I think they t absolutely understand it.
• 29:22
  Ben Stupka: I don't think they see it as a competition thing in any way, shape, or form from my perspective.
• 29:27
  Ben Stupka: Obviously, that's maybe there's rose-colored glasses there, but that's no, I think that's evolved.
• 29:32
  Jeff Cranson: I think you're right.
• 29:32
  Jeff Cranson: I think that I think that for a lot of people it's about, you know, whether it's the train or a bus, it's the ability to do something else, you know, while you're commuting, so that you, you know, you're not glued to a steering wheel.
• 29:44
  Jeff Cranson: And um, you know, everybody says their commute is 20 minutes no matter how long it really is.
• 29:49
  Jeff Cranson: So I I've thought that that would be a huge factor for a a younger set of people who are, you know, very technologically plugged in and would say, you know, I don't mind giving up my car so that I can get stuff done.
• 30:02
  Ben Stupka: Yeah, and and I would also say, I mean, there's um, you know, for younger folks, I mean, the the ability to own a home, uh, just affordability in general, we know is a is a huge issue across the board.
• 30:15
  Ben Stupka: Um, right.
• 30:16
  Ben Stupka: So more than ever.
• 30:17
  Ben Stupka: Yeah.
• 30:18
  Ben Stupka: More than ever.
• 30:18
  Ben Stupka: Uh and and uh particularly for for folks you know younger than me.
• 30:23
  Ben Stupka: Um the and and so just having those options, having them be affordable, it it's all part of you know being able to attract and retain, you know, retain people here in in this region.
• 30:35
  Ben Stupka: Yeah.
• 30:36
  Jeff Cranson: Well, we could go on forever.
• 30:37
  Jeff Cranson: You guys have a lot going on, and I'm really happy for everything that's happened and the progress.
• 30:43
  Jeff Cranson: And I I think um I think your approach has been really good in saying, you know what, we're not gonna go for the grand slam again.
• 30:50
  Jeff Cranson: We're gonna try to see what we can do on an incremental basis.
• 30:52
  Jeff Cranson: And you've made made a lot of strides.
• 30:54
  Jeff Cranson: So that's right.
• 30:55
  Jeff Cranson: You can win, you know, you can win championships that way.
• 30:58
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, well, yeah.
• 31:01
  Jeff Cranson: I mean Ty Cobb's era, that's all they did.
• 31:05
  Jeff Cranson: So, yeah, thanks, Ben.
• 31:09
  Jeff Cranson: I appreciate uh you taking time to talk about this.
• 31:11
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah.
• 31:12
  Jeff Cranson: I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Machine Transportation.
• 31:16
  Jeff Cranson: You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or BuzzSprout.
• 31:20
  Jeff Cranson: I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, and Jacke Salinas, who posts the podcast to various platforms and transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.