Standard disclaimers: I’m not employed by SMART, I wasn’t paid to write this article, views are my own, etc etc. You know the drill.

For the past thirty years, public transit advocates in Oakland County have been fighting for one thing: County-wide service. No more opt-outs; no more Swiss cheese. And on November 8th, 2022, after months of heavy campaigning, voters made their feelings about you clear, SMART: “We want more.”

Corey on Twitter: "🗺️ The final #OaklandTransit vote map. YES votes expanded further into the northeast corner of the county than most of us expected, including a striking tie vote in downtown Lake Orion. Troy was heavily canvassed by oppo but still voted in favor. And s/o to Rochester Hills!! pic.twitter.com/Uo000QQRvV / Twitter"

🗺️ The final #OaklandTransit vote map. YES votes expanded further into the northeast corner of the county than most of us expected, including a striking tie vote in downtown Lake Orion. Troy was heavily canvassed by oppo but still voted in favor. And s/o to Rochester Hills!! pic.twitter.com/Uo000QQRvV

It was a tremendous victory not just for Oakland County, but all of Metro Detroit as Wayne and Macomb voters also showed you strong continued support. But now, as we shift from imagination to implementation, you must ensure a solid foundation is laid for what will be your largest expansion in post-SEMTA history.

SMART, there are two things you must do to make this happen: Secure the personnel necessary to run service at acceptable levels, and maintain an internal vision aligned with the needs of future riders.

It’s Not a Driver Shortage. It’s a Wage Shortage.

Transit agencies nationwide are struggling to recruit operators as they emerge from deep service cuts enacted earlier in the pandemic. You’re no exception, SMART, with cancelled runs and multi-hour waits becoming a regular occurrence as you search for over 100 new drivers.

Meanwhile, just an hour west in Ann Arbor, TheRide has no open positions and is running most routes at pre-pandemic frequencies.

Call this what it is — a wage shortage. Anything under $25/hr is no longer enough and that goes for agencies across America.

That’s it. That’s my ask. Pay your drivers more as part of a fairly negotiated union contract.

Transit Provider or “Mobility Manager?”

It seems like you’ve been going through another crisis over the past several months, SMART: An identity crisis.

At the end of August, you launched a comprehensive rebranding campaign. New logo, new bus design, new commercials, the debut of the LIFE | SMART | YOU motto — the works. In your own words, this new marketing represents a “shift in focus to be the leader in mobility management in southeast Michigan.”

If you continue down this road, your new focus will cause more harm than good.

It is imperative that your marketing is educational.

The best way to explain why is to show, not tell. Let’s compare two commercials: Your old marketing strategy versus new.

From 2018 when you first launched FAST, your beloved limited-stop service:

This commercial has:

• Shots of a bus
• Shots of people on a bus
• Shots showing the locations where you can take the bus
• Educational narration which touches on the benefits of riding the bus: “Get on with whatever you’d rather do than drive!”

Now, this commercial from your rebrand in 2022:

The cinematography is better, but the message? This commercial has:

• Mostly generic footage entirely unrelated to transit
• No mention of what the commercial is about until the very end
• No explanation of what SMART actually is or what services you offer

See the issue?

SMART, you are not a household name in Metro Detroit. As much as I wish you were, that’s the fact of the matter. Our region is the very epicenter of American car dependency, and as transit advocates we’ve made a commitment to swim against this powerful current with you from day one. Ask a random student in the suburbs if they have a DART pass and chances are good they won’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.

It is imperative that your marketing is educational. It needs to show people what services you offer. Five years ago you had this down, but with this rebrand you seem to have left your teaching efforts behind in favor of a corporate persona that tries too hard to be inoffensive. Questions we’ve asked you on social media — which you once replied to with enthusiasm and sincerity — have gone unanswered for months. You’re showing your new ads inside buses instead of to future riders, the proper audience. It gives off the perception that you’re afraid to promote your services for fear of drawing unwanted attention from municipalities hostile to transit.

Let me tell you a secret, SMART: You’re going to have detractors in our region no matter what you do. Instead of quietly rolling over when communities and business owners want you out of the picture, stand up for us and for yourself. Be proud of who you are and the benefits you provide to the region!

Want some inspiration? Take it from CATA, your peer in Lansing. This was the Chair’s official response when a prominent shopping center attempted to forcibly remove bus service from the premises.

Nathan Triplett ⚖️🚌 🏕🥾 on Twitter: ".@RideCATA strongly disagrees with the decision made by Lansing Retail Center to remove highly-utilized bus stops from the Frandor shopping center. It's the wrong call for our community, transit riders, seniors, people with disabilities, and these businesses. 1/2 https://t.co/6SFHNaWUCD / Twitter"

@RideCATA strongly disagrees with the decision made by Lansing Retail Center to remove highly-utilized bus stops from the Frandor shopping center. It's the wrong call for our community, transit riders, seniors, people with disabilities, and these businesses. 1/2 https://t.co/6SFHNaWUCD

The community response this spurred was so powerful, the shopping center partially backpedaled the next day. You can foster this power too, SMART! Lots of advocates across Metro Detroit are in your corner — you need only activate us, and we’ll fight for you as we always have on our own.

The amazing transportation services that you run are fully capable of selling themselves, so long as your public outreach actually shows how they work. FAST. Connector. ADA curbside service.

And even your newest service, Flex… but we have to talk about this one.

Micromobility Creep: Too Much of a Good Thing

Listen, I get it: Metro Detroit is absolutely massive, and no, your current spread of fixed routes doesn’t get people everywhere they want to go. You turned to Via in search of a last-mile solution to fill these gaps.

Flex is your answer to an increased demand for curb-to-curb transit. It’s a powerful tool; however, I urge you not to fall into the trap of over-reliance.

“Contrary to almost all “microtransit” marketing, ridership is the death of flexible service.”

-Jarrett Walker, Human Transit

Flex is capable of inflicting irreversible parasitic damage upon your service network if misused. If rumblings of your plans to eliminate low-frequency fixed routes in favor of Flex come to fruition, we could see the beginning of a death spiral in which you no longer offer regularly scheduled service to most suburban destinations. You might say that this won’t happen, but it’s exactly what’s happening elsewhere. Other transit advocates have warned of the dangers.

I don’t think it’s wise for us to view microtransit as the solution to our transit woes. It’s time to stop thinking it’s the solution to declining ridership and a lack of transit coverage. If we want transit to thrive, we need to stop looking for flashy tech solutions and get back to the basics.
- Monica Mallon, transit advocate and rider in Santa Clara County, California

Demand-response transit will never be capable of scaling to meet increased demand like a fixed-route. See this article by Jarrett Walker of Human Transit for a full explanation. We’re already close to hitting the service ceiling in your more popular zones such as Pontiac / Auburn Hills, where wait times are regularly skyrocketing to 30 minutes or more as demand far outpaces vehicle availability.

Even when Flex works as intended, it has shortcomings.

• It’s unpredictable. It won’t come until it’s called, and we have no idea how long we’ll wait. Connecting between a fixed route and Flex is effectively impossible.
• It’s unreliable. Flex drivers are not your own employees; they’re non-union contractors, most of whom are not locals. The algorithm snaps our pickup locations to the closest intersection which regularly forces us to call the driver, explain where we’re actually waiting, and hope they understand. If a driver’s never been in our neighborhood before, it can lead to unnecessary delays and stress.
• It’s unsafe. As mentioned above, the algorithm favors driver convenience; in an area as overbuilt as Metro Detroit, this also means it has a reckless disregard for our safety while on foot. Are we waiting at the entrance to a store? Guess what, the van is across a six-lane road without a protected crosswalk and leaves in two minutes. Carrying an armful of groceries because you weren’t expecting that? Good luck!

When you write a schedule for your fixed-route buses, you’re making a promise — a bus will be here, at this precise purpose-built location, at this time. Microtransit solutions like Flex offer no such promise.

Via often tries to take the social equity angle. But if they didn’t have a pool of low-wage, non-union drivers to rely upon, their entire service model would crumble. That isn’t equity. It’s exploitation, and it’s unsustainable.

The proper use for Flex? Don’t use it as a replacement for low-frequency routes; use it to determine where fixed routes should go and then adjust your service patterns to match that demand. Frequency is the true driver of ridership and the hallmark of a reliable fixed-route system. Frequency is freedom; build your system around this ideal.

That Flex ridership milestone you just reached? It’s not a sign of a healthy network that your last-mile solution is this popular. Drill into this data, because I’m confident you’ll see some clear destination pairs emerge. Mold your fixed-route network to match where people want to go. Reconstruct it, if you have to. This is how you will ensure ridership increases in a sustainable fashion, not just in the short term.

smartmovesus on Twitter: "Congratulations, SMART Flex and riders! A new record was achieved on January 27, 2023; Flex completed 1,001 rides. In the January board meeting, Flex was granted additional service hours and SMART looks forward to a bright future to improve the quality of service. #flexsmart pic.twitter.com/ZWfCAObv7d / Twitter"

Congratulations, SMART Flex and riders! A new record was achieved on January 27, 2023; Flex completed 1,001 rides. In the January board meeting, Flex was granted additional service hours and SMART looks forward to a bright future to improve the quality of service. #flexsmart pic.twitter.com/ZWfCAObv7d

The Bottom Line: Help Us Help You

We want you to succeed, SMART. Many Metro Detroiters rely on you today, but many more still have yet to learn about you. It’s a turbulent time, there’s no question — but to wrap up my thoughts in one line, please look to current and future riders for guidance during this expansion. And do listen to a variety of voices. Listen to workers. Listen to students and tourists. Listen to disabled riders telling you about accessibility shortcomings in your system, and be sure past mistakes aren’t repeated. If you work with us and show you value us, we will continue to work with you.

We’re looking to the future with excitement. We’ve got one shot to build the system that riders will use for decades — let’s get it done right.

Update, July 2023: Oakland County has finalized plans to purchase the Phoenix Center complex, including Ottawa Towers, and redevelop it into a public downtown campus. This has the potential to drastically elevate levels of foot traffic in the area and restore the Phoenix Center site as downtown Pontiac’s anchor.

This news effectively nullifies what I made a case for in this article, but consider it a study in the importance of planning a bus stop’s location.

Additionally, note that this is a retrospective on an issue from June 2022. There is currently no imminent plan to close the Phoenix Center bus stop.

On with the show.

TL;DR The best approach to improving service is the simplest: Move the bus shelters from the Phoenix Center three blocks north to Saginaw and Huron while keeping the existing connections between routes intact at the new location. Read on if you want to understand why.

Standard disclaimers: I'm not employed by SMART, I wasn't paid to write this article, views are my own, etc etc. You know the drill.

Over the past five years I’ve been a frequent flyer at the Phoenix Center bus stop in Pontiac, a city in Metro Detroit at the north end of Woodward Avenue. It’s the most direct access point to FAST Woodward, one of our express bus lines, from the local bus route that runs closest to where I live near Oakland University. See my previous write-up on that topic.

SMART, Metro Detroit’s suburban transit provider, published its regularly scheduled quarterly service update earlier this summer. Per the plans, the Phoenix Center would be temporarily replaced with five separate stops located throughout downtown Pontiac. This generated some buzz — enough so to delay the change to September while further discussions take place. So, what’s going on?

First off, let’s get our story straight: This is a planned service adjustment, not a service reduction. No routes or runs are being eliminated. The service hours for each route remain unchanged. Under this plan Pontiac would still be served by the same five routes as usual, just at different locations. Keep that in mind if local media continues to report on these “service cuts.”

With that out of the way, we can still do better than the current plan. Let’s dive into the details.

Why changes are needed, and how to do them right

Bus riders making a connection in downtown Pontiac were intentionally separated from the rest of the area’s foot traffic. We have an opportunity to correct this mistake.

The Phoenix Center is a parking garage with an elevated green space and amphitheater constructed in the 1980s at the south end of downtown. The site is no longer an active venue and currently functions only as legally required parking for Ottawa Towers, the office buildings on the east and west sides of the center.

While various efforts have attempted to revitalize the structure in recent years, in its current state it sees little to no foot traffic on a typical day. All of downtown’s businesses are blocks away, mainly along Saginaw Street north of Pike.

SMART based their redesigned plan around improving “safety, access, and reliability,” all of which have been concerns voiced by riders at this stop over the years.

SMART Bus on Twitter: "We're postponing closure of Phoenix Center bus stop until at least Sept to allow more public discussion of changes, issues & impacts. Closure was based on input & comments over several years - safety, access & reliability for riders & residents will continue to guide decisions. / Twitter"

We're postponing closure of Phoenix Center bus stop until at least Sept to allow more public discussion of changes, issues & impacts. Closure was based on input & comments over several years - safety, access & reliability for riders & residents will continue to guide decisions.

But here’s the thing: All of these issues are a function of the stop’s location, not the people waiting there.

Let’s take these one at a time.

Improving safety

The Phoenix Center isn’t a pretty bus stop. Quite the opposite, if we’re being honest. And before anyone says “but people use it and need it, you can’t say that” — of course people do! I use it too! But that doesn’t mean we should ignore a critical piece of infrastructure being unsightly, because that leads to riders feeling unsafe. A decision to split this stop into five would seemingly imply that its issues stem from bus riders waiting in a single large group. But they don't — the environment is the problem.

You don’t feel welcome when you’re waiting for a bus at the Phoenix Center. You feel like you were kicked into a shadowy corner because nobody wanted to see you on foot in the city. It’s two shelters in front of a huge, disused concrete staircase with no lighting underneath, and when you’re sitting in those shelters you’re looking right at the dumpsters in the alleyway between Pike and Perry.

For safety in a city, you need eyes on the street. Someone is much less likely to cause a problem if they’re being watched by shoppers, business owners, residents on front porches — whoever. Moving the stop to a visible area would be more effective than splitting up riders across random street corners.

Improving access

The planned redesign would address safety by moving the location, but the implementation of the redesign fails to improve access by failing to preserve the Phoenix Center’s strength: The connections it provides to riders.

The Phoenix Center is what SMART refers to as a “Major Transit Hub” on the system map. It’s up there with the Royal Oak Transit Center, SMART’s only brick-and-mortar “station” with full customer service, and the State Fairgrounds on Woodward. The Phoenix Center is the only location where riders in the Pontiac area can transfer between every route that serves the city at a single point.

The function of this bus stop is more important than its location. As long as the single transfer point is preserved, it can be moved to any visible area downtown.

Improving reliability

In the transit-planning world, it’s important to understand a simple fact: People naturally want to travel in straight lines. Bus routes that offer a direct connection between two busy areas (or “trip generators" in planning parlance) perform best. But we don’t live on a perfect grid, so you often have to introduce “deviations” into routes: Several minutes of winding twists and turns to reach locations that aren’t on a straight-line path between two anchor points. Think malls, college campuses, and other destinations with large parking lots and long access roads.

Let’s focus in on the segment of Route 375 which runs between Telegraph / Huron and Amazon’s distribution center at the former Silverdome site. If you were driving that, it’s about as close as you can get to a straight line across Pontiac’s street grid. That’s why Huron Street was designated M-59: It’s the main east-west thoroughfare through the city.

But on the 375’s current routing, SMART has to deviate to the Phoenix Center to connect to all those other routes. This takes time, and on concert days at the Crofoot it can take a LOT of time or involve a messy detour. When summer events are in full swing, downtown Pontiac quickly becomes congested.

If you look back at the proposed reroute, the 375 stays on Huron. Yay… kind of? Because this comes at the expense of an easy transfer to FAST. Walking along Saginaw from Huron down to Pike takes 3 to 5 minutes which is manageable for many, but if someone’s using a mobility device or has a tight connection they’ll have a bad time with the new configuration.

The Solution: X Marks the Spot

So, we need to move the Phoenix Center transfer point to somewhere that’s visible, near businesses, and minimizes route deviations as much as possible. To better explore this I’ve redrawn the official detour diagram as simplified, Metro-style transfer map.

The answer looks pretty clear now, doesn’t it? Huron and Saginaw is the spot to pick (and you can keep the new temporary stops in service along some of the routes too). In the redesign, four out of the five routes pass through this intersection already. Route 450, the Woodward local, does currently, so all five routes are capable of doing so.

Here’s what service could look like with Huron and Saginaw employed as our new Pontiac transfer point (with added service to the Amtrak station sprinkled in for good measure).

Looks nice, yeah? Saginaw and Huron is right next to a courthouse and a short walk from Liberty Bar, one of Pontiac’s busiest late-night venues. If you head out there, you’ll notice that the sidewalk on the southwest corner of the intersection is unusually wide and even has a curb bulb-out.

It’s almost as if… this intersection was designed to be a bus stop?

Oh, wait. It WAS.

The Real Challenge: Undoing Past Mistakes

The people at SMART are… well, smart. If I can understand all this as a rider and advocate, surely the folks who are paid to design this stuff can as well. And they did — the route configuration in Pontiac 15 years ago was exactly this! Huron and Saginaw was the transfer point as recently as 2006, complete with a shelter.

Bus riders making a connection in downtown Pontiac were intentionally separated from the rest of the area’s foot traffic. I’m still searching for solid documentation on the conversations leading to this change between 2005 and 2007, but confirmed through a visit to the Oakland History Center that the shelter was present as this street corner for more than 40 years.

We have an opportunity to correct this mistake. Times have changed; we now understand that the healthiest cities prioritize people, not cars. MDOT recently committed to deconstructing the harmful Woodward Loop, which currently cuts off downtown from the rest of the city and prioritizes Pontiac as a place to travel through rather than a place to travel to. We have city and county leadership that values transit riders and the economic benefits a properly designed bus system brings to a community. Now that Pontiac’s bus service is in the spotlight, we have a golden opportunity to undo the damage of years past once and for all.

Let’s get to it.

Want more info?

SMART: https://www.smartbus.org/

Local non-profit advocates

Transportation Riders United: https://www.detroittransit.org/

David Gifford from TRU has written excellent articles on all things related to navigating public transit in Detroit. Go check them out!

Motor City Freedom Riders: https://motorcityfreedomriders.org/

Rochester Riders: https://rochesterriders.org/

In partnership with MCFR and TRU, Rochester Riders is working to promote improved public transportation throughout Oakland County.

I grew up in Grand Blanc, a suburb of Flint in Genesee County, Michigan. Living just outside the Vehicle City meant my family’s life largely revolved around cars; my dad worked at a molding plant that sold parts to GM, and much of our home was decorated in Michigan automotive memorabilia.

But like most other kids, there came a time when my sister and I were taught how to bike. Eventually, after countless wobbly circles around our local junior high parking lot, the training wheels came off and we first asked our parents: “Can we go on a bike trip?”

“Sure!” They said. “This weekend we’ll load them up in the car and drive to the park.”

Just for fun?

This shaped my view on bicycling as a kid. It was purely recreational, never spontaneous or a means of transportation. Biking trips were planned days in advance, and aside from rail-trails in distant cities such as Midland, never with a specific destination in mind. We were just “on a ride.”

Why was this? Because there was no safe way for us to get anywhere worth going unless we were in a car.

My childhood home is on the Grand Blanc Township border off of Fenton Road, a major four-lane thoroughfare with heavy traffic traveling between three major expressways: I-75, I-475, and US-23. The road has no sidewalks. Even riding around in our subdivisions — the only streets we could safely reach on foot — meant walking our bikes through grass along the side of the road, which would often stay damp days after a heavy rain due to stormwater runoff. It wasn’t designed with pedestrians in mind.

Actually reaching downtown Grand Blanc by bike was impossible. My stretch of Fenton was bounded on three sides by the expressways: Try to travel south along Fenton or east along Hill and you reach an impassable bridge. We were “landlocked.”

A “Landlocked” Neighborhood

Fast forward to eighth grade. The Bicentennial Park Pathway, originally paved along Grand Blanc Road to connect the park to downtown, was extended to great fanfare north of the park, around West Middle School, and all the way to GMSPO, a large corporate office building on the north side of the township. I was quite familiar with this building; it was two minutes from my house, and visible out the window from some of my classrooms at GBWMS.

At the end of the year, our teachers held a special event for us. We all walked down this new pathway and celebrated the end of junior high with a picnic lunch and friendly sports. Some students who lived nearby brought their bikes and rolled alongside us. They talked about how they watched the township pave the trail, and often used it to ride into the park from their homes after school.

My house was just over a mile away from the school. I would’ve loved to do this, but there was a snag: West Middle School is on Reid Road east of 475, and its intersection with Fenton Road is west of the expressway. When Reid was bisected by 475 in the 1970s, no bridge was built — all that was placed was a big “Road Ends” sign with a view of traffic whizzing by at 70 miles per hour. Any possible alternative route would’ve meant biking several miles out of the way.

This was the moment I started to realize what I was missing. Why could they get someplace useful while I was trapped?

A means of transportation

The first step in creating a more connected community is recognizing where the missing links are. The Reid Road example from my own childhood is just one of many. Take another from my high school years: the short mile walk between Grand Blanc High School and NCG Trillium, our movie theater.

It’s a similar story. You‘re walking on grass along a busy road. But students do it. The desire is there; most high schoolers don’t have their driver’s licenses yet, and even if they do, a paid permit is required to park at the school.

Creating a fully walkable and bikeable community will help future generations of kids feels more connected to each other and their communities. They’ll see walking and cycling as viable ways to get around their own neighborhood, not just something you travel to another city to do for fun.

Moving Forward

I don’t believe Grand Blanc is a community with an intention of being hostile to those getting around without driving. We have beautiful trails like Bicentennial and the Physicians Park loop downtown. The Saginaw Street corridor itself is already walkable with new small-footprint businesses opening every year. We have fixed-route public transportation connections to Flint and Metro Detroit. We just have to do a better job of connecting all of the city and township’s residents to the areas that are already built well.

We have to reconnect the grid. If that means a grassroots campaign pushing for sidewalks along every major road, then let’s band together and get it done. The Grand Blanc Grid is doing just that.

While I may have grown up and started living on my own as a college student in Metro Detroit, Grand Blanc is my home. It’s where I’ve spent most of my life, and I want to see it improve for current residents and future generations of kids. Strengthen those non-motorized connections and make my childhood community the strong town I know it can be.

This article is an expansion of a Twitter thread from February 2020.

Gather ‘round and let me tell you a tale from the final month of the Beforetimes.

’Twas a chilly Tuesday afternoon in February 2020 after a busy morning of classes and labs at Wayne State. My school day ended at 2:30pm, and I had a meeting at TechTown in New Center to attend at 6. Too long to stay in the building, not enough time to get home and back. It happens — just find a coffee shop, right?

But this wasn’t any old Tuesday. It was Fat Tuesday, which in Metro Detroit means one thing: Pączki. Lots of pączki. Especially in Hamtramck, a largely Polish community about five miles north of campus. And I wasn’t going to pass up my chance to get some.

What turned this into an adventure was the means of getting there. I don’t have my car with me when I’m on campus. And such began the planning of my most spontaneous (and delicious!) trip on public transportation to date.

Get Outta Midtown

There are no direct routes between Midtown and Hamtramck. MoGo, Detroit’s bikeshare system, has no docking stations in the area. For most of the day, riders need to reach DDOT Routes 12 or 52, which run north and south through Detroit’s east side, or Route 38, which runs east and west along Caniff through the North End neighborhood.

In my case, the timing was lucky. I was starting this trip at the head of rush hour, which meant I had access to DDOT’s six “Part-Time” express routes between downtown and various city neighborhoods. One of these routes, the Ryan Express, connects the city center to the Farwell neighborhood near the northern city limits.

On its way to Outer Drive the 95 stops along Caniff thanks to an agreement between DDOT and the city, which meant getting to Hamtramck was as easy as getting downtown. And for me, the trip to Spirit Plaza from Wayne State was a journey well traveled.

Hit the Road, DDOT

Larned and Woodward, adjacent to Spirit Plaza, serves as a satellite hub of sorts for DDOT routes traveling into and out of downtown. It’s easily accessible from the end of the QLINE and the Financial District People Mover station. In some capacity, this stop serves 21 routes between DDOT and SMART during peak weekday hours.

Similar to SMART’s Park and Ride routes, DDOT’s express routes use the highway whenever possible. Downtown to Hamtramck via I-75 rivals driving time, and without the need to park it’s actually faster — ask anyone who lives in Hamtramck how much time and tight maneuvering it takes to find a spot along the street.

Ten minutes after leaving downtown, I was in line at a Hamtramck bakery.

Right at the corner of Caniff and Joseph Campau is New Martha Washington Bakery, one of several which were churning out enough pączki to feed the whole city in one day, let alone one meeting. And feed my meeting they did: One quick text of “Hey I’m in Hamtramck for paczki” later and next thing I knew, I was out the door with a baker’s dozen in hand.

Only one snag: That ride on the 95 up to Hamtramck was a one-way trip. The express routes don’t run into downtown during the evening commute.

I had to travel back into town the long way.

The State of Transit: A system designed for a specific type of commuter

What can we learn from this quick diversion?

As with most cities in the United States, Metro Detroit’s existing transit network is primarily designed to serve downtown commuters. Our highest priority routes follow a hub-and-spoke model along the major arterials, boosting service into the city during mornings and out of the city in the evenings.

In the age of COVID-19, this model has been turned inside out. More people than ever are working downtown office jobs from their own homes, and it’s questionable whether we’ll see a full return to shared office spaces even after the pandemic fades into memory.

To be successful, future transit developments must focus towards getting people wherever they need to go, between any two points in a metro region. This has always been true, but now it is absolutely critical. The reverse commute. Suburb to suburb. Across town at night. Transit advocates often point to Toronto as an example of a city that has this design pattern on lock.

This is the greatest challenge transit in Metro Detroit must overcome, and it will take immense planning. After over 50 years of sprawl and auto-oriented development we no longer have a single center of population and work, and this must be considered when drafting future regional transit plans.

I should’ve been able to get out of Hamtramck as easily as I got there. Building a transportation network that is truly attractive to all residents. To attract residents from across the metro, especially suburban choice riders — those with personal vehicles who ride transit out of convenience — requires enabling fast downtown travel and fast inter-suburban travel.

The Regional Transit Authority is expected to announce a new Master Plan in early 2021. It’s possible for us to have a system with everyone in mind, but it’ll take all of us working as advocates to make this a possibility.

Oh, and if you were wondering: The pączki arrived safely.

Want more info?

SMART: https://www.smartbus.org/

DDOT: https://detroitmi.gov/departments/detroit-department-transportation/bus-schedules

Detroit Transportation Riders United: https://www.detroittransit.org/

View the original thread on Twitter here.

Please note: The television show covered by this article is intended for mature audiences due to language / violence. Reader discretion advised.

Also, Spoiler Warning: I’m delving into the filming locations for each episode, so naturally this will contain spoilers for the entirety of the show.

Additional disclaimer: I am not affiliated with nor speaking on behalf of the producers of Most Dangerous Game or any businesses, locations, or services mentioned in this analysis, or Quibi, the streaming platform which hosts the show. I’m just a Metro Detroit resident with time on his hands due to current events who thought it would be fun to write about a show set in his city.

Most Dangerous Game is directed by Phil Abraham and produced by Blackjack Films, Mayhem Pictures, Silver Reel, and CBS Television Studios.

Last November, Liam Hemsworth was spotted filming inside the Renaissance Center downtown for Most Dangerous Game, a short series very loosely based upon the book of the same name. The premise is straightforward: Hemsworth’s character must survive a 24-hour pursuit by skilled “hunters” within the city limits of Detroit.

Randy Walker on Twitter

😍😍😍 Liam Hemsworth is filming in Detroit! Looks to be the same outfit he wore in Toronto while filming for his new show Dodge and Miles #LiamHemsworth #Detroit #DodgeAndMiles

The show premiered on April 6th and ran for 15 short episodes for a complete runtime of a little over two hours.

My hot take: While the show puts spectacle and cinematography before stellar writing, it’s a fun watch with decent performances from an A-list cast. But this isn’t a review of the story; this is an investigation into where it was filmed.

The entirety of this show takes place in Detroit, but only portions were filmed here. We knew prior to release that Hemsworth was seen filming in the Toronto area. I was determined to figure out exactly which streets, buildings, and venues were standing in for the Motor City.

Episode 1: The Offer

The show begins with Dodge Tynes (Liam Hemsworth) and Miles Sellars (Christoph Waltz) having an intense discussion over the nature of the Game from a cold, dark skyscraper office. Right away, Miles firmly establishes that we’re in Detroit, making reference to a framed picture on the wall of Steve Yzerman hoisting the Stanley Cup.

Our first clue as to where we actually are is seen by looking out the window behind Miles’s desk.

In a close-up, the logo on the building directly behind Miles appears to be the Citi logo. Citibank doesn’t have a corporate office in Detroit, but it does have one in Toronto.

The skyline isn’t in focus, so it’s difficult to distinguish other buildings in the shot to orient ourselves.

But then, our characters step onto a balcony to continue their conversation.

On a large screen, a building name is visible: Northbridge. This is an insurance company headquartered in Toronto, and the short, square building beneath it is distinct enough to pin down the exact location of this balcony.

Bingo. Our skyscraper is 150 King West, with Miles’s evil office somewhere on the south side of the building overlooking University Avenue. The balcony in particular is called the King York Terrace, part of a shared working space.

So, downtown Toronto is loaning a few buildings to the Detroit skyline.

Next up is the second episode, where we see our first scenes that were actually shot in downtown Detroit.

Episode 2: The Motivation

It’s a few days earlier. The episode opens with a few shots of Dodge jogging through downtown.

But then we travel down a Canadian street to reach The Carrington, the fictional building Dodge owns.

I couldn’t find this building or anything close to it in the Greater Toronto Area. In the episode the building is revealed by a vertical pan on this image, so it’s possible it’s a stock photo or a detailed artistic rendering (this show has the budget for that; we’ll see a lot of chroma keying and CGI in coming episodes).

A small render of how the finished building will look is printed next to the construction entrance, which makes the building being computer generated more plausible.

And speaking of chroma keying: The next shot shows Dodge looking over downtown Detroit from the top of his tower.

Holy green screen.

So. Where is the Carrington supposed to be? That’s Fort Street looking west. The only building that would offer this vantage point is the First National Building, the 26-story skyscraper at the southeast corner of Campus Martius. The green screen image is likely a panorama taken from the top of that building (or a drone) that was stitched together. Either way, Hemsworth absolutely filmed this shot in Canada and the image of downtown was added in post.

Then he goes home for most of the episode. This house shows up throughout the show and could be anywhere in the Toronto area if not elsewhere, so we’ll disregard it. I’m not that good.

Next up, Dodge meets up with his pals at a bar in the city. A streetcar passes outside the window. That’s a TTC streetcar, so we’re back in Toronto.

Put a pin in this. We’ll find out where this bar is before the series is over.

We’re then introduced to another fictional setting: Van Buren Motors, likely named after the Metro Detroit township of the same name as an Easter egg.

We’ll see this car plant close-up later on, but the setting is a nondescript warehouse. The rooftop sign is entirely CG.

Before the episode wraps up we get one more quick shot in the real Detroit. That’s Chase Tower, and Dodge is headed north on Griswold.

In the last minute we see Dodge hop off a city bus, presumably heading to work.

This isn’t a Detroit city bus, we don’t have any buses here with blue stripes. It’s not a downtown Toronto bus either, they’re red and white.

A scene in an upcoming episode makes it clear that this bus was a prop brought on set for filming; the U.S. flag on the back window was added for continuity. Coming up we’ll see a full streetfront which gives away this new, third filming location.

Episode 3: The Rules

We start off this episode in a hospital — “Jefferson Lafayette” hospital, according to the nametags the staff are wearing, with an attending physician visiting from “Sloan Kettering.”

Neither are real hospitals in Michigan, but the names are Easter eggs. Jefferson and Lafayette are streets in Detroit. Sloan-Kettering may be a reference to the New York cancer center; fittingly, Alfred P. Sloan was a former president of General Motors, and Kettering is a public university in Flint, which is about an hour north of Detroit.

Take note of the “EMERGENCY” sign in this shot. Notice how it appears to be covering up a black sign beneath it? This is a building standing in for a hospital.

Also take note of the blocky font on the sign, we’ll see it a lot. The editors used it for almost everything they changed for location continuity.

A hospital worker hands Dodge a business card for the Tiro Fund, the company run by Sellars from the first episode. The contact info on the card is listed as 1001 Woodward Avenue Suite 500, Detroit, MI 48226, (313) 555–0132. (We know where Miles’s office really is, though.)

In real life, 1001 Woodward is an office building adjacent to Campus Martius downtown, and Suite 500 is a WeWork. I’ve been up there. And while the phone number is obviously phony because it’s a show, they got the area code right.

Definitely less evil-looking than Miles’s office. Maybe Miles can offer Dodge a snack before sending him out to be hunted down?

We jump back to the end of Episode 1 and pick up where that conversation left off. The episode ends on King York Terrace with Dodge formally accepting Miles’s offer to participate in the hunt.

Episode 4: The Acceptance

There’s only one new location in this episode, a cafe where Dodge meets Miles to start the hunt.

We never see the cafe from the outside or any open windows, so this one is tricky. I don’t recognize it as a restaurant in downtown Detroit, so it’s probably safe to say it’s in the Toronto area.

Episode 5: The Start

Dodge darts out of the cafe, and now we start some rapid-fire location switching.

After the titles, we cut back to real-life downtown Detroit. Dodge is running south down Griswold at State Avenue (the same location from an earlier shot). The tall brown building to the right is the Stott.

Then we cut to an alleyway off Grand River Avenue, just south of Capitol Park.

And then, we’re out of the city with what might be the most important shot in this entire writeup:

A clear view of a streetfront.

This shot has multiple unique, easily searchable business names in plain sight.

It’s not Detroit. It’s not downtown Toronto either.

It’s King Street in Hamilton, Ontario.

Hamilton is a city about 35 miles southwest of Toronto. If you’ve ever driven through Canada to get to Niagara Falls from Michigan, you’ve driven around this city.

For reference, that’s about the same as the distance between Detroit and Ann Arbor.

This also confirms that bus is a prop since Hamilton Street Railway buses have a yellow stripe. So, transportation clues are not to be trusted.

Dodge flags down a bus to try to escape his pursuers. An interesting aside: The showrunners invented their own logo for Detroit transportation, likely to avoid any rights issues.

A commotion ensues as Dodge believes one of the hunters is onboard with him, and he ends up bailing. Apparently this was an international route because now we’re back near State Street in Detroit, barreling down the sidewalk underneath the parking structure for The Griswold.

There’s a scene back at Dodge’s house where his wife starts to realize something is wrong. Then, we cut to Miles’s true evil office: The command center for the hunt.

There are maps on these screens supposedly tracking Dodge and all of the hunters. The screens show up in multiple episodes.

I value my sanity, so I’m not going to scrutinize all these maps. Just certain ones.

In the last moments of the episode, we see a hunter closing in on Dodge by car.

Here’s one of the tiny edits for continuity that cracks me up. This is a Hamilton shot, as made clear by MacNab Street and the “AGH” signpost near the traffic light for the Art Gallery of Hamilton. But see that airport sign in the top right corner that says “DTW”? That’s the code for Detroit’s airport, put there to cover up the fact that in real life, “Hamilton” is plainly written on that sign.

Guess that one was a little too obvious.

Episode 6: Wash Hands After Using

Dodge escapes the car in pursuit, then “turns a corner” and ends up on Jefferson Avenue in downtown Detroit.

He remembers a piece of advice Miles gave him: “Crowds are your friend.” This leads him through the lower levels of the Renaissance Center…

until he climbs a flight of stairs and ends up somewhere else entirely, where he spends the rest of the episode.

This is the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, and we’ll spend this episode and the next ping-ponging between shots filmed here and in the actual RenCen.

Episode 7: No Running on the Platform

This is probably my favorite of the episodes. Dodge escapes one of the hunters down a staircase, emerges in the lower level of the RenCen, and tries to hide amongst the tourists and workers.

Another hunter corners Dodge, and attempts to walk him out of the building at knifepoint.

Then we jump back to the MTCC for the rest of the sequence, until Dodge manages to escape once again.

He races down another street. For a split second we’re back in Detroit in an alleyway behind Sid Gold’s Request Room, a piano bar near Broadway and John R.

Then we’re back in Toronto where Dodge finds a way to escape yet again, as he does.

“PAI” gives this location away: That’s a Thai restaurant on Duncan Street.

An interesting note: There are blue banners for a “Detroit Music Festival” very briefly seen in this shot. They’re nearly unreadable regardless of resolution, so kudos to the set designers for putting that small detail in anyway. The closest thing we have to a “Detroit Music Festival” is Movement or Detroit Music Weekend.

Dodge turns another magical corner and finds himself on Broadway Avenue in Detroit chasing the People Mover, our downtown circulator train…

…then jumps the turnstiles at Times Square Station to board, which, while only about a 3–5 minute run, is twelve stations ahead of where the People Mover was in the previous shot (as it was running clockwise at the time). There’s only thirteen on the whole loop.

And he gets on the same train. There are usually three out on the loop at once, so if Dodge did run straight to this station from Broadway, he would’ve had to let at least one train pass to board the same one he saw earlier.

The editors added in an overhead announcement for immersion, but got it wrong: Fort/Cass is a station, but from Times Square the next stop would either be Michigan Avenue or Grand Circus, depending on direction of travel. Fort/Cass is at best two stops away.

Dodge rides off, leaving his pursuer on the platform.

Episode 8: Please Whisper in Church

The entirety of this episode takes place inside a bank set in what’s likely a Toronto skyscraper, Dodge’s house, and a church…

Episode 9: Return Tools to Their Place

…the exterior of which is revealed in this shot.

A hunter calls the church St. Jerome’s, a fictional name, but the sign says St. Marigold’s, which is also not a real church.

Remember back when I said to make note of the signage font? Same font here. The set designers put that sign there to cover up the actual name. (As for why the internal naming is inconsistent, that’s beyond me.)

To find this building, I had to get creative. To start I knew we were likely in Hamilton near the King Street filming location, as Dodge sees the same car that was following him earlier.

Searching for “church” didn’t turn up a match. But see the skyscraper to the left?

By this point I’d spent some time exploring downtown Hamilton in Google Earth, so I recognized it. It’s St. John Place, a building off King about a half mile east of where we were earlier.

We’re seeing either the north or south side, so I headed south on Tisdale, the next street to the east, and north on Emerald, the next street to the west.

I found the church a block north at Emerald and Wilson. It’s the Revival Centre.

This also confirms that, at least sometimes, the control room maps are fudged.

Dodge sustains wounds, and limps to an alleyway to tend to them. We briefly see “663” painted on a brick wall. 663 King Street, a few more blocks east, is a match.

Episode 10: Five for Fighting

In this episode, Dodge blends into a Wings crowd at Little Caesars Arena.

Or at least, we’re supposed to think so.

At the start of the episode, a hunter notes that he’s been heading “closer to downtown.”

First off, this is an improvement: That’s actually a street map of Detroit, and one with a lot of detail.

What happened here is the actor tapped out a path that made it look like Dodge was approaching the hockey arena, and the vis team just added effects where his finger landed. Even if it’s just for show, I’ll have fun with it.

According to this, Dodge was tracked at:

• Dazelle and Wabash, just east of Michigan Central Station in Corktown, at 11:46am: labeled as “Michigan Avenue” (not far off)
• Michigan Avenue and 11th, on the bricks, at 12:46pm: labeled as “3rd Ave” (nope)
• An empty lot at Michigan and 8th, behind McShane’s and Nemo’s, at 1:46pm: labeled as “Cass Ave” (still no)
• Literally inside the MGM Grand parking garage at 2:46pm: hard to read, but label looks like “Park Ave” (nope, that’s right at the arena)
• Grand River and Elizabeth Street near Beacon Park at 3:46pm: labeled as “West Elizabeth St” (hey they got one right)

This hunter is tracking Dodge’s approach from atop the Griswold parking deck at Griswold and Grand River. The brown building is the Detroit Institute of Music.

But then, Miles says where the hunter is… and says a different place!

(And a local tip, Miles: While you’re not wrong, nobody calls it “Chrysler.” It’s just the I-75 service drive.)

So, Miles blends into a crowd of Red Wings fans. But we aren’t at Little Caesars Arena, we’re somewhere else.

Once again, we’ve got a lucky major transit clue. Unlike previous scenes the bus in this shot is incidental and has no role in the plot, so it’s real. That’s a TTC bus, so we’re definitely in Toronto, and the terminal sign says “Exhibition Loop,” which makes things super easy: we’re at Exhibition Place.

The Maple Leafs play here at the Coca-Cola Coliseum, so we’re still at a hockey arena — just a rival team’s home base instead of our own.

Bonus shot: Remember way back in episode 2 where we couldn’t pin down that bar? They cut back to Dodge’s friend in this episode, and a new angle helps us out.

An address and a streetfront sign, my two favorite things.

A search brings up The Mezz on Queen Street, and it’s a match. Milk and Variety shop across from the bar, and a streetcar line out front.

In the last minute of the episode, Dodge stows away in the trunk of a departing family’s car, but realizes he’s made a grave mistake as they’re heading out of the city.

Don’t have to look this one up, that’s I-75 South in Detroit heading towards the Ambassador Bridge. This is a nerve-wracking exit: take that off-ramp to the far right, and you’re on the bridge to Canada whether you meant to be or not with no way to turn around. The yellow text says “NO RE-ENTRY TO USA” and it is not joking.

Here though, it would seem that Dodge is in the clear as these hockey fans aren’t heading for the bridge. Guess he won’t be going on an adventure in Canada after all.

…Oh wait.

Episode 11: You Always Remember Your First

The first few frames of this episode are a drone shot of a highway interchange. They almost fooled me with this one, but that’s not the Detroit River. We don’t have any junctions set up like this with a channel of water flowing underneath.

I’m not sure where this interchange is. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say it’s the Gardiner and Don Valley interchange in Toronto, since we end up in this area later.

We learn the family is heading back to Birmingham, and I’m assuming they mean the suburb 15 miles northwest of downtown Detroit. It would make sense with the route they’re taking: I-75 North towards Flint.

Except, for some reason, they faked that sign.

It’s another weird change made in post. I’ve been on this stretch of road, so I know that sign to the left says “Southfield /DOWNTOWN/Civic-Cobo Ctr”, which means we’re headed towards the city center, not away from it. Exit 47C is for Vernor Highway. They’re already on I-75 North.

Guess the editors just wanted to make it clear he’s heading out of the city. But let’s have a little fun with continuity: We were heading south on 75 two seconds ago, so the only way this family traveled between these two points if if they did an about-face at Fort Street.

And then, when they hear Dodge making noise inside the trunk, they pull off the road at exit 47A, which means they looped.

Anyway.

We then have a scene beneath a nondescript highway overpass (on 6 mile, according to the characters, but that’s way north at exit 57).

Dodge steals a cab from a Pioneer gas station, a Canadian chain, followed by a cool shot of him driving down Michigan Avenue back towards downtown Detroit.

We catch a glimpse of Dodge on a (again, impressively detailed) control room map, heading towards his house. Looks like the in-show location of his house is on St. Aubin north of Gratiot.

Now we’re into the night hours of the hunt, so location spotting is more difficult from here on out.

From his home, we’re led on a high-speed car chase. Brief flashes of a few streetnames are visible, including a Don Roadway. That puts us in the Port Lands of Toronto.

The final shot of the episode features the Commissioners Street Transfer Station as a backdrop.

Episode 12: A Ship is Safe Only in Port

This episode takes place on the Detroit Princess — or rather, a yacht that stands in for the real thing (which if we’re being honest is a bit of a downgrade from a steamboat, isn’t it?)

We’re along the Waterfront Trail in downtown Toronto, with some added decor.

A fight at sea ensues, but Dodge makes it ashore. We see him running along King Street in Hamilton again…

…before reaching an older neighborhood. My best guess is this is also in the Hamilton area; the broken playground equipment could be props.

Episode 13: Always Get a Second Opinion

Dodge is confronted in this neighborhood, which results in a shootout. The exterior shots are too dark to make out any useful details.

We also return to the hospital from episode 3, but any signage that would give away location has been blurred or covered up. It’s very unlikely they used a real hospital for the scenes, so there’s not much to go on.

Episode 14: What’s Old is New Again

There’s one quick new location in this episode: Allan Gardens Conservatory in Toronto.

Episode 15: Game Over

This episode is an extended battle between Dodge and every hunter inside Van Buren Motors. There’s no distinct location clues as it takes place almost entirely inside a warehouse.

At the very end of the episode, the characters return to the top of the Carrington for one final clash. Dodge is saved by the bell as the sun rises and the hunt ends.

The final shot of the series shows Miles leaving the city to find the next runner for his game. And of course, we’re ending on one final “Why’d they do that?”

This is probably some stretch of highway in Ontario between Toronto and Hamilton somewhere. The sign is completely CGI, and it’s pretty bad this time.

You won’t find a rural highway landscape like this anywhere near the Detroit city limits. In the case of the 275/96 junction, it’s quite the opposite. It’s such a poorly designed mess that it’s one of two interchanges locals have taken to calling the “mixing bowl.”

Not to mention they went to the trouble of getting the highway numbers right but then invented “North 96,” which doesn’t exist.

So, there it is.

Here’s a bonus for making it through this whole thing: You can explore every real-life filming location from in this article in a Google Earth map.

This article and that map are the product of fifteen days of stay-at-home summer. Have fun!

Update 3/13: Dr. Ora Pescovitz, medical doctor and President of Oakland University, has prepared an informative video explaining the severity of this pandemic.

Like many university students across the nation, I’ve recently learned that I will not be returning to my campus next week for classes. My program will be transitioning to online instruction.

In the past 24 hours, I’ve heard many of my peers voicing variations of a similar opinion:

“Why are they cancelling classes and banning travel? It’s just the flu, isn’t this a huge overreaction?”

No, it is not. Here’s why.

COVID-19 is not “just the flu”

“The flu,” or influenza, infects hundreds of millions of people a year, but we can treat it. Every doctor’s office and corner pharmacy in the country has the influenza vaccine and millions receive it every flu season. We also have medications that can shorten the duration and severity of flu if a person does fall ill.

For COVID-19, we have none of this. It’s a new virus. No vaccine yet, no known cure. Our only treatment is supportive, meaning this virus will place many more individuals in hospital beds than the seasonal flu.

Flattening the Curve

If this virus spreads too rapidly and many people become sick at once, we will overwhelm our healthcare system. We do not have enough beds. In Italy, where more than 12,000 have been infected, doctors are facing an impossible choice: deciding which patients will be left to die. If we are not careful, there is a very real possibility of this happening in the United States. We have been here more than once before in the past century.

“[The new guidelines begin] by likening the moral choices facing Italian doctors to the forms of wartime triage that are required in the field of ‘catastrophe medicine.’”

— Yasha Mounk, contributing writer at The Atlantic

So, what can we do? Simple: We have to run the clock on the virus. We have to flatten the curve. People may still get sick, but by practicing social distancing, cancelling large gatherings, and requiring employees to work from home where possible, we eliminate points of transmission in the chain of contagion and limit the number of people sick at any one time.

College students: Listen up. This is not about people our age getting sick. It is about who we spread the virus to if we become carriers. We have to protect those who are most vulnerable such as older persons, people who are immunosuppressed, and those with other health problems such as heart disease, diabetes, and COPD or other lung diseases.

Do not use university closures due to this virus as an excuse to travel or host large events. This is reckless, shortsighted, and likely to bring harm to your friends, family, and community as the number of COVID-19 cases in the country exponentially increases over the coming weeks.

Chad Livengood on Twitter

When a public university (MSU) cancels in-person classes to mitigate college students from being in groups together, they just go jam together in a popular East Lansing night club... https://t.co/wEz0DzCBx4

The Bottom Line

This is not about people our age getting sick. It is about who we spread the virus to if we become carriers.

Concerning as this discussion is, it is not had with the intent of sowing panic. We will make it through as long as we practice due diligence and take this seriously, but sanely. Yes, it’s a pandemic, but don’t panic buy everything at Meijer — take what you need and move on. You should only wear a mask if you have symptoms or are in direct contact with someone suspected to have the virus, as this ensures healthcare workers and those who need them most will have them. If you must wear one, use it correctly.

Do disinfect high-touch surfaces like doorknobs and elevator buttons more frequently at home and at work, and make sure you and those you care about have an adequate supply of any important medications they are taking in the event self-isolation becomes necessary.

People will say we are overreacting. All that means is our efforts are working. Proper pandemic preparedness should look and feel like an overreaction. We have to inhibit means of viral spread before the virus actually infects a large fraction of the population, or else it will be too late to flatten the curve. This is why we’re shutting everything down so quickly. We board up homes and buildings in tropical communities before a hurricane makes landfall to protect them; in much the same way, we’re cancelling school and events before this viral storm begins to protect people and prevent the collapse of our healthcare system. Only difference here being rather than evacuation, we just have to take precautions, shelter in place, and ride it out.

This week, I’ll be setting up a home study space and keeping myself distant from others while we wait out this storm. Yes, it’s tough, but it’s the right thing to do.

Take this situation seriously. Thousands of lives are in our hands right now.

(Literally. Wash them.)

This article is an expansion on my tweets from the 2019 MPA Annual Convention and Exposition.

Every year in February, the Michigan Pharmacists Association holds its Annual Convention and Exposition at the Detroit Marriott at the GM Renaissance Center — the “RenCen” among locals.

For student pharmacists at Wayne State, this is the highlight of the academic year as it’s an affordable, easily accessible conference just a short bus or streetcar ride down Woodward. Nearly every faculty member at the College of Pharmacy is at least partly involved in putting this conference on.

Now that we’re less than a week from the start of MPA-ACE 2020, I want to share the fun. Enjoy this blog of my adventures from last year’s con.

Navigating the RenCen

The RenCen is an… interestingly designed public space. Getting hopelessly lost in this spider web of gray and neon blue towers is something of a rite of passage for tourists and new people here.

I’ve gotten to know it well over the past two years.

Corey Rowe on Twitter

I'm about to spend the better part of the next three days inside the RenCen for MPA-ACE, so while I'm here I'll share some of my favorite "secret" study spots within its walls. (Note: In case it needs to be said, this isn't sponsored in any way. I just like the building.)

There are seven public levels in the RenCen: “A”, 1, 2 through 5, and 71.

Level A is where you’ll enter coming in from the Riverfront, the south side of the building. Here you’ll find the Wintergarden, home to a number of restaurants including Panera and Andiamo.

You’ll also find GM World, a small permanent display of new cars complete with video screens that placed vertically across three stories.

Corey Rowe on Twitter

Another favorite RenCen study spot is the tables along the edge of "GM World," a permanent mini auto-show of sorts on Level A. One tip: Pick up the chairs, don't slide them. Due to the hard floor and open atrium, they're quite possibly the loudest things in the universe.

Nearby is the RenCen food court, a newly remodeled space with WiFi, ample seating, and electrical outlets.

You might find me studying here during the semester.

Corey Rowe on Twitter

All right, final draft of this week's pharmacy problem-solving writeup is due at 11 tonight. Same plan as usual. I've got WiFi, an electrical outlet, a quiet spot, and a veggie burrito. Time for this semester's first study session at the RenCen. See you in a few hours.

Level 1 is where you’ll enter coming in off Jefferson, the building’s main entrance. Tucked away in a corner is a neat diorama of downtown Detroit.

On this level you’ll find Granite City and, on the south side of the building hidden away between the Wintergarden atrium and the Beaubien parking deck, Potbelly.

Corey Rowe on Twitter

One last study spot as the convention draws to a close, and I saved the best for last: Potbelly Sandwich Works on the first floor of Tower 300, open weekdays from 7:30a-7:00p. Specifically, this table. Great food, lots of Detroit memorabilia, and an awesome view of Windsor.

If you’re arriving via the People Mover (and you should be, because that’s the coolest way to get here), you’ll find yourself entering the Circulation Ring on Level 2.

This is the central hub connecting the four main towers of the RenCen to the Marriott’s central, tallest tower. It’s also where you’ll find the skywalk to the Courtyard Marriott in the Millender Center, which has a breakfast restaurant and a small shop of its own.

Levels 3 through 5 are the public areas of the Marriott, and include all of the hotel’s conference rooms and banquet halls. This is where you’ll spend most of your time when attending a convention.

Last but certainly not least, Level 71, only accessible via dedicated elevator on the south side of Level 3, is home to the RenCen’s latest signature restaurants, collectively titled The Highlands.

It’s a big place, and the layout is not intuitive. The fastest way to learn it is to let yourself get lost.

Oh, and keep an eye on the escalators. They like to break.

Convention Topics

Pretty much everything pharmacy is covered at this convention, from patient advocacy to drug safety to new medical discoveries and everything in between. A particularly big draw of this convention is the career fair and exhibition hall. Last year I had a fun chat with a few employees from an EMR company about pharmacy databases and developer jobs related to the profession. Combining pharmacy with computer science skills still seems a very real possibility, especially in research institutions.

A Slice of Detroit

A lot of attendees at this convention are from other states, and in some cases even other countries. The Marriott crew makes a point to showcase a little bit of Detroit culture. Better Made Chips, local drinks, and an evening dedicated to venturing out into downtown and having fun.

(Hey, maybe this year we can throw some Detroit-style pizza into the mix?)

Pharmacy Antiques for Sale

The Michigan Pharmacy Foundation holds a silent auction every convention. A lot of vintage pharmacy items are up for bidding — last year they had a huge collection of Mallinckrodt prescription bottles. I’m excited to see what they’ll be looking to part with this year.

Corey Rowe on Twitter

Lots of antique bottles for sale at the silent auction! I picked the one that brings back the gen chem memories. #MPAace

Mr. Speaker…

I’m a new member of SCOPA, a pharmacy advocacy group at Applebaum, so this year I’ll have a more direct role in advocating for patients and the profession during the House of Delegates session at the conference. Imagine C-SPAN on a smaller scale, and you’ve got a pretty good picture of how things go.

Learning Robert’s Rules of Order is the most interesting part of the whole thing. And in its own way, kinda fun.

Corey Rowe on Twitter

Mr. Speaker, Corey Rowe from Wayne State University, I rise in support of this bagel #MPAace

There’s More to See

That’s just a small taste of the convention, there’s a lot to see and do! Exciting speakers, new friends, and tons of new things to learn. I’m ready for another year of fun.

See you this weekend.

This article is a brief rewrite of a Twitter thread from June 2019.

I’m a pharmacy student at Wayne State University living in Rochester Hills, a suburb north of Detroit. I choose to take the bus to school. Once a month I visit Dearborn, a suburb just west of Detroit, in the evening to meet with a local pharmacy association.

I usually get there by taking another bus from downtown, but this makes the return trip long as I have to transfer back to my bus home at a late hour. I’ll drive to Dearborn if I don’t have the time or the desire to put up with that.

Just for fun on the morning of one of these meetings I looked up the afternoon Amtrak timetable between Troy, a suburb near Rochester Hills, and Dearborn. To my surprise, the trip was actually possible.

Using heavy rail to travel between two points in the same metro area felt like abusing the system, but it was tempting and wasn’t that expensive as a one-off trip.

Thus began a short adventure.

Troy Transit Center

The Troy Transit Center is one of three Amtrak stations in north Metro Detroit, the other two being Pontiac and Royal Oak. The station has a storied history that highlights some of the struggles we’ve had with regional cooperation over the years.

This station sees three heavy rail departures to Chicago daily at around 6:00am, 10:00am, and 6:00pm. Almost everyone who gets on the train here rides it all the way to Chicago, with the exception of college students who use it to travel to and from Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo.

This train does stop in Detroit, but the station is on the edge of downtown. With its limited schedule it’s not an option for a daily commute, especially when buses from the suburbs already provide more direct service for a smaller fare without the need to transfer.

The Trip

It took about an hour to reach Dearborn after a short delay due to a freight train passing through Milwaukee Junction, a busy yard in Detroit. This is par for the course on a multi-hour Amtrak route, as they share most of their track with freight traffic that has priority.

I made it on time for the meeting; however, due to the limited schedule I was stuck in Dearborn for over two hours after the meeting ended before my train home arrived.

The Return

The eastbound train returning from Chicago was running on Amtrak time, the classic 20 minutes behind. Just as I was the only person to disembark in Dearborn, I was the only person to board here heading home. Makes sense — I wasn’t using this train for its intended purpose on this trip.

What we could have

Commuter rail has re-entered regional discussion lately with talks of building a new service between Detroit and Ann Arbor, a large college town along the current Amtrak route. A smaller train running along the route as it exists today could almost be a limited-stop commuter line with no new infrastructure needed.

We’ll see what happens in the next few years. Until then, I’ll stick to what works in our area right now — peak-hour bus travel to and from class.

Update 10/5/20: As of October 5th, SMART has replaced Route 756 with Route 790 (Pontiac Crosstown). Unlike its predecessor, Route 790 runs seven days a week between Oakland University, downtown Pontiac, and the Oakland County Service Center. The new route runs from approximately 6:30am to 9:30pm Monday through Saturday, and until 6:30pm on Sundays. Additionally, OU now has route signage.

Corey Rowe on Twitter: "Check out the new sign! @smartbusorg put this up yesterday morning at Oakland University along with a brand new garbage can.A few of us suggested this change at the Pontiac hearing and they followed through! Hopefully it'll catch the eye of some @oaklandu students. #ThisIsOU pic.twitter.com/2cxvgmsncH / Twitter"

Check out the new sign! @smartbusorg put this up yesterday morning at Oakland University along with a brand new garbage can.A few of us suggested this change at the Pontiac hearing and they followed through! Hopefully it'll catch the eye of some @oaklandu students. #ThisIsOU pic.twitter.com/2cxvgmsncH

This article is unedited from its original publication in February 2020. While parts are no longer applicable, it remains a valid critique of the limitations of public transit in Metro Detroit.

Last year, I wrote about traveling to class by public transit in Metro Detroit. In short: I start my daily commute to Wayne State University by driving from my condo near Oakland University, about 30 miles north of Detroit in Rochester Hills, to a Park and Ride lot in Troy, a neighboring suburb. This follow-up is a walkthrough of an alternative route that comes close to providing door-to-door service without the need to drive, but falls short in utility. Consider it a case study that shines a light on key areas where our bus system can improve.

Come along as I travel between two of Metro Detroit’s largest public universities using solely existing bus service.

Mission Start: 9:30am, University Circle

It’s Wednesday morning, and I have class at Wayne State from 12:30pm to 4:30pm. The weather is clear, traffic is light, and the buses are running their standard weekday schedules.

The First Mile: Getting to OU

The bus stop at University Circle is about three miles by road from my house in Rochester Hills. While driving is fastest (not including parking time — that’s another story), it’s possible to walk or bike there. Rochester Hills and Auburn Hills both excel at paving dedicated paths beside main roads, and there are plenty of places to securely rack a bicycle on campus. As an undergraduate, I did this a few times when the weather allowed.

Connecting to FAST

My trip begins on the #756, Pontiac-Perry-Opdyke to the Phoenix Center. A shelter was constructed at the traffic circle a couple years ago, but there’s no other signage. Before the shelter was built, I only knew the bus served campus because I happened to see it pull in.

The 25-minute trip goes smoothly, taking me past stops at Auburn Hills City Hall and Oakland Community College. I make it to the Phoenix Center in downtown Pontiac for a short, five-minute transfer to the 10:10 southbound FAST Woodward.

The Phoenix Center: North Metro Detroit’s Busiest Transfer Point

The Phoenix Center is the northern terminus of FAST Woodward #462, one of Metro Detroit’s four express city-to-suburb bus routes, and serves five local routes including the 756. In 2012, the city narrowly avoided the demolition of this parking garage and former concert venue and is currently exploring plans for revitalization.

This busy stop is complete with two shelters, signage, and a guidemap; however, it’s a block removed from most downtown businesses, so other than the seasonal queue for a popular Halloween attraction there’s very little non-rider foot traffic passing by. Contrast that with other stops along the Woodward corridor which are directly in front of businesses and high traffic areas.

The views from Pontiac’s downtown bus stop include Lot 9, the currently vacant Phoenix Center, and the alleyway behind Pontiac’s night venues. It doesn’t share the same feeling of new growth and development as the portion of the Saginaw Street corridor a block north. The stop is functional as it is, but it can be improved to make riders feel safer and more welcome.

The Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan, our umbrella organization of transit-planning power, attempted to address this back in 2016. A proposed regional transit plan included a “Pontiac Station” concept which would’ve moved the stop from outside the Phoenix Center to the west side of the Saginaw and Pike intersection, closer to the businesses that generate downtown Pontiac’s foot traffic. Unfortunately, this plan as a whole failed due to a lack of necessary region-wide support. A new attempt at a 2020 plan is in the works using a different approach.

FAST: Pontiac to Detroit

From this point on, things are pretty much the same as the Troy route other than spending 10–15 more minutes onboard FAST. WiFi, study time, limited stops — the works. The bus is timely and, south of Birmingham, makes exactly the same stops at the #461.

The whole commute including the transfer time took me about an hour and 20 minutes. A little slower than driving, true, but it’s time better spent and money saved.

The Return Trip: Rush Hour

The 4:50pm FAST #462 is the first scheduled to arrive after my Wednesday class ends, and shows up at 4:54. Considering the buses aren’t separated from rush hour traffic in downtown Detroit, this isn’t bad at all. I make it back to Pontiac around 5:50pm, which gives me ten minutes to comfortably catch the 6:00pm Eastbound #756 back to Oakland.

I tested this a second time on a Friday, when ridership is much higher and traffic is heavier, and I’m happy to report that I still made the transfer with ease. The schedules are well coordinated.

This all sounds great… So why do you drive to Troy?

Here’s the part where I have to put my criticism cap on and talk about what doesn’t work. Chief complaint: The #756 schedule. This is an hourly bus on weekdays, and does not run at all on Sundays.

If I need to stay in Detroit after class — or if I just want to spend some of my free time downtown — I can’t leave my car at Oakland or I would be stranded.

The first departure from OU on a weekday is at 6:38am, which would get me to the Phoenix Center just before 7:10. The next scheduled FAST is 7:32, which arrives at Wayne State at or after 8:31. On days I have 8:30am classes, this is a no-go.

The last departure from the Phoenix Center on a weekday is at 6:00pm sharp. To make this transfer, I have to be on the 4:50 FAST out of Detroit. If I need to stay in Detroit after class — or if I just want to spend some of my free time downtown — I can’t leave my car at Oakland or I would be stranded. Meanwhile, by leaving my car at a stop directly serviced by FAST in Troy, I can stay downtown until nearly 2:00am Monday through Saturday and still have transit available to get me to where I parked.

I could drive directly to Pontiac instead, but the city doesn’t have a Park and Ride (and really, they shouldn’t have a free parking lot in the middle of their urban downtown). $3 to $12 for parking daily adds up very quickly and nullifies any cost-saving benefit riding the bus would offer me.

The need to transfer in and of itself is an issue when the alternative is nonstop service. Although I had a good experience, buses can end up running late the same way traffic can build up on the highway. If I miss my bus in Troy or it doesn’t show up for some reason, I can still get to Detroit because I still have my car with me. If I miss the transfer in Pontiac, best case scenario is I’m delayed for 30 minutes, worst case scenario I’m late to class. The shorter drive isn’t worth the risk.

Problems with Inclusivity

I’m a non-disabled car owner with access to a smartphone for hailing a rideshare or calling a friend if necessary. If my bus doesn’t show up or I miss a tight transfer, for the most part it’s an inconvenience rather than an emergency. I’m what fellow transit advocates call a “choice rider” — adequate bus service is not an absolute necessity for me to get where I need to from day to day, but it makes life easier and less expensive.

Instead of looking at this issue from my perspective, let’s step into the shoes of a hypothetical rider with a physical disability who has no access to a private vehicle, and let’s pretend they live about three miles from Oakland, like I do. They want to make the same trip I just did.

Getting to and from OU is a problem. It’s nearly an hour walk to go three miles, which may not be an option for them.

SMART, our suburban transportation authority, does offer paratransit service as a last-mile solution, but this has to be scheduled and requires an additional fee even if you have a monthly bus pass. It’s less inclusive than a standard fixed route. Outside the #756, we don’t have any of those in Rochester Hills.

Here’s why this is important: There are real riders in this situation across our region. There are many with disabilities who need to get to school and work in southeast Michigan communities like my own which have opted out of public transportation. Robust fixed-route service is essential to giving them equal and fair access to destinations across our region.

In Summary: Key Takeaways

More frequent service, better awareness and presentation

FAST routes are the role model; they’re high-frequency, nearly all-day express transit lines that serve multiple communities. They have their own branding and clear, informative signage at most stops that tells riders when they run and where they go. In their first three months of operation, they saw a 20% increase in ridership, and recent reports show increases as high as 90% along the Woodward corridor. We should apply this to select local routes that connect to FAST as well, especially ones that serve colleges with residence halls and students taking night classes. Parts of our region can also do a better job of bringing bus stops closer to destinations, rather than hiding them in less-traveled locations.

Service to all, not a select few

The largest hurdle to overcome in regional transit equity here in Metro Detroit is a political one; some community leaders are failing to consider the big picture, which hurts everyone. At the very least, residents should have a vote in these decisions rather than individual city governments controlling how people in our region can get around.

How to Take Action

If you’re reading this from Metro Detroit, take a moment today to learn about HB 5229, our region’s latest attempt at enabling the creation of a more inclusive transit plan that embodies these improvements. Write or call your local policymakers and share your support, or ways in which state lawmakers might improve the bill.

Together, we can work to move transportation in our region forward this year.

Want more info?

SMART: https://www.smartbus.org/

DDOT: https://detroitmi.gov/departments/detroit-department-transportation/bus-schedules

Local non-profit advocates

Motor City Freedom Riders: https://motorcityfreedomriders.org/

Transportation Riders United: https://www.detroittransit.org/

David Gifford from TRU has written excellent articles on all things related to navigating public transit in Detroit. Go check them out!

I’ve lived in Rochester Hills for close to three years, but I wasn’t raised in Metro Detroit. In this just-for-fun article, I look north and share some memories from conversations, restaurants, shops, and places to visit in and around Genesee County that were part of my life growing up.

I’m not affiliated with nor speaking on behalf of any businesses mentioned here; all views are my own.

Flint or Grand Blanc? A tale of two townships

I went to Grand Blanc Schools, but telling people what side of town I lived on often lead to a common question: “Wait, are you from Flint or Grand Blanc?” I had something of a unique situation growing up due to some municipal boundary weirdness.

According to my address I’m from Flint, but I didn’t live in the city. Socially speaking, I grew up in Grand Blanc — that’s where most of my friends are from and where I spent most of my time outside the house.

My childhood neighborhood straddles the border between two charter townships: Mundy Township and Grand Blanc Township, both of which are about four miles south of downtown Flint. I lived on the Mundy side.

There’s no post office in Mundy Township, so building addresses are listed according to the location of the post office that serves the zip code they’re in. Zip code 48507, which covers the northeast corner of the township, is bizarrely plotted and also includes Flint’s southernmost neighborhoods and Bishop International Airport, which was partially built on land the city annexed from Mundy.

Addresses within 48507 have their mail delivered from Cody Branch, a post office within Flint city limits. All residences that fall within this zip code are, as such, listed as part of Flint, so I had a Flint address and a Flint landline despite residing outside the city. If you pick up an old phone book and flip to an entry in my neighborhood, you’ll see a lot of addresses prefixed with a “G-”. This used to signify “Greater Flint Area,” but most places have dropped it in recent years.

The Grand Blanc school district boundary was drawn to cover a portion of northern Mundy Township that Carman-Ainsworth, the next closest district, didn’t pull from. That included my house, so the result was me being assigned to the Grand Blanc school system by default despite not having a Grand Blanc address.

Fun fact: See the small, discontinuous patch of 48507 east of my neighborhood, just north of the City of Grand Blanc? That’s the only other neighborhood with Flint addresses that’s part of Grand Blanc Schools, and it’s also where the Grand Blanc Township offices are. Yep — that means the Township office buildings and the giant water tower that says “Grand Blanc Township” on it actually have Flint addresses. Isn’t that something?

So, according to my address I’m from Flint, but I didn’t live in the city. Socially speaking, I grew up in Grand Blanc — that’s where most of my friends are from and where I spent most of my time outside the house.

It’s like another version of the “I’m from Detroit” thing. People from out of the area haven’t heard of Grand Blanc just like they haven’t heard of Rochester Hills, but saying “I’m from Flint” isn’t really the right thing to do if you’re not from the city neighborhoods. I usually go with “south of Flint” or just “Mid-Michigan.”

But enough about cartographic boundaries. Let’s talk about some of the great places in the community.

The neighborhood tour

I’ve compiled all of the locations below into a map. Have fun exploring the area!

Venus Family Restaurant

Venus, now called Antonio’s after an ownership change, was my local coney. All of the staff there knew me and my family by name. Like any good coney in the Flint area, they served food on paper placemats with a crossword puzzle and ads from local businesses printed on them.

Personal confession: I’m not a fan of coney dogs, I like coney islands for their breakfast specials instead. But if you want to try a Flint Style Coney, this is a great place to do it.

5516 Fenton Road

I’m referring to this one by address rather than name because the space is currently on its fourth restaurant. It struggles to hold tenants as it shares a parking lot with the ever-overcrowded Secretary of State Supercenter for Genesee County and is barely visible from the road. Two dollar stores, Oriental Buffet, El Potrero, and Mint Cuisine of India (later Tulsi) each only lasted for a year or two there. The Burger Bar And Tap is the current restaurant, and they’re about a year in. Here’s hoping they can buck the trend and stick around.

The space was originally a Mammoth Video, which was special to me because the staff there let locals take new release posters off their hands when they were done with them. They found a new home in my bedroom for many years.

El Potrero was fortunate enough to move into its own building down the street and is still serving up fajitas today.

Burger Street

A cute little triangle-shaped drive-thru burger place. They do one thing and they do it well. Best burger in town.

Oliver T’s

This is a classy family-owned store that does a little bit of everything. Deli, bakery, sweets, a wine tasting room, and a huge selection of pop (including Vernors in glass bottles). When the Flying Cauldron “butterscotch beer” first took off because of Universal, this was the only place you could find it.

Canton Chinese Restaurant

Pronounced CantON, not like the Metro Detroit township, their chicken and duck sauce with hot tea was a childhood staple. The owners lost the original 1995 building to a devastating fire in 2014, but they rebuilt just before I graduated high school in 2015 and have been going strong ever since.

Around Christmas, their kitchen staff and the local Jet’s Pizza have been known to trade meals to help one another survive the busiest business time of the year.

Mario’s Pizzeria and the US-23 Drive-in Theater

Mario’s is the first of several Italian restaurants that will appear on this list. My favorite dish of theirs were their baked stuffed shells. Located directly across from the drive in theater (which still operates!), they’re a great place to grab dinner before showtime.

Just north of the drive in is where our local Kessel-turned-Kroger used to be. They were smaller than a typical Kroger, much to the preference of many area shoppers, but closed in 2018. Some residents wonder if the drive-in will try to purchase the space. Time will tell.

Honorable Mention: Jellybean’s (Closed)

Jellybean’s was an old-timey vinyl record store where my parents bought me some of my first books. Sadly, it burned down in 2014 after being struck by lightning during a thunderstorm. Our neighborhood lost a lot of history that day.

Fortunately another Jellybean’s location lives on in Corunna, a small city about 25 miles west of Flint.

Places a little farther away

Ziggy’s and The Hot Dog Stand

You’d be hard-pressed to find a Grand Blanc grad who hasn’t gotten ice cream from Ziggy’s or tried the Hot Dog Stand’s Red Sauce. Located within walking distance of one another and Physician’s Park in downtown Grand Blanc, these were the places to be during a lazy summer vacation afternoon.

NCG Trillium Cinema

Showcase West (now Flint West 14) at I-75 and Corunna in Flint Township was our go-to theater until 2006, when the state-of-the-art NCG Trillium opened in Grand Blanc Township. Its construction proved to be an interesting case study of a failed commercial development plan.

Before Trillium, the only business in the area was a grocery store called Colony Market. They ended up downsizing into a deli-only downtown Grand Blanc location and rebranding themselves as Colony Meats, leaving behind an empty commercial zone.

Trillium was built a ways back from the road, and a huge clearing of land was prepared to be developed into Trillium Circle, a bustling retail district that would become a “dinner and a movie” destination.

This never happened, and I’d imagine the 2008 crash is partially to blame. As of now, only a Buffalo Wild Wings, a Bagger Dave’s, a Froyo, and a credit union have taken up residence in Trillium Circle.

The theater isn’t struggling by any means — it’s flooded with students every summer and holiday break. I know some students who’ve walked there from the high school in a large group, and that’s nearly a mile.

Big John Steak & Onion

This is the one that everyone from the area knows. Big John was the first sub sandwich business in Flint and retains a fiercely loyal following to this day with several locations in the area. Can’t go wrong with the original.

Donna’s Donuts

Heading northwest into Flint Township you’ll find this donut shop, home of the cinnamon twist and the baker’s dozen that would often find its way onto our kitchen counter when we had people over. Very cozy interior.

Little Joe’s, Latina, Italia Gardens, and Pesto’s

There are a LOT of Italian restaurants in Flint and Grand Blanc, so I’m putting my favorites in one spot.

Little Joe’s is a tavern in downtown Grand Blanc that’s been a community favorite for years. Baked pastas are their strong suit, but their menu is pretty diverse. It’s a great place to meet up with friends, and it’s packed on weekends.

Latina is a family-owned restaurant in Flint Township that had free kids meals on Wednesdays (and sometimes, a clown that would tie classic balloon animals for the kids to take home). Lasagna, ravioli, and their signature stromboli are their claims to fame.

Jumping west of Flint Assembly from Latina gets you to Miller Road, the area’s largest commercial strip and home of Genesee Valley Mall. Along this road you’ll find Italia Gardens tucked away between chain restaurants. They also just opened a new location in downtown Grand Blanc over the holidays. Both restaurants cook up the sweet marinara sauce the community knows and loves.

Further west on Miller at the Flint Township boundary is Pesto’s, a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that lives up to its name with great pesto.

Honorable Mention: Salvatore Scallopini (Closed)

This closed a while back. The Flint IHOP took its place, which is something I have… feelings about. Salvatore had free kids meals on Sundays and amazing homemade pistachio gelato. The founder passed away last May, but his legacy lives on at a number of Metro Detroit locations.

Places in Flint proper

Capitol Coney Island

This shop-traffic-powered 24-hour coney right at the city line was known to little me as “The Airport Restaurant” because it’s where you go when you have an early flight out of Bishop. It’s roughly under the final approach glideslope for Runway 27, so you can get some cool pictures if you’re so inclined.

At one point, the owners of Capitol were the same people that ran a family restaurant called Shaps down in my neighborhood. Shaps opened and closed a couple of times before a new restaurant took its spot.

Westside Diner

At one point, this diner on the west boundary of the city (hence the name) served food in little promotional paper cars. We saved a bunch of them, they make cool decorations.

The Block (or The Rock)

There’s a big painted concrete block at the intersection of 12th and Hammerberg that graffiti artists have used as a community bulletin board of sorts for decades. Political statements, memorials, birthdays, local events, or just awesome works of art have shown up here.

The IMA Sports Arena

Later known as Perani Arena and now the Dort Federal Event Center, this is where Flint’s hockey team plays and where stage shows and events are held, such as the Shrine Circus. My high school graduation was held here in 2015.

Applewood Estate and the Flint Cultural Center

The estate is a lot like Meadowbrook at Oakland University; C.S. Mott’s wife Ruth Mott lived here, adjacent to what would become Mott Community College. Here, the focus is more on the grounds and flower gardens rather than the house, although the home was recently opened to public tours. You can also take a virtual tour on their website.

Directly west of the estate is the Flint Cultural Center, the destination of many elementary school field trips. The Flint Institute of Arts (FIA), Flint Institute of Music (FIM), Whiting Auditorium, Bower Theater, Longway Planetarium, and Sloan Museum can all be found here.

White Horse Tavern

I’ve only been here once or twice, but this is Flint’s gathering spot. Located a few blocks west of Saginaw Street on Court and Ann Arbor, they’re your usual tavern with pub food and Club Keno.

The tavern is marked by a statue of a white horse that was the topic of many community jokes when high winds knocked it down in 2016.

Halo Burger

“Seven days without a Halo Burger makes one weak” is the pun you’d find on your cup of Vernors at this Flint area fast food chain founded by Bill Thomas.

The downtown location can be found inside the old Vernor’s Retail Store on South Saginaw, built in 1929. The ironwork is still original.

The Flint Farmers’ Market

In 2003, the Farmers’ Market moved from Longway Boulevard into what used to be the Flint Journal’s printing facility downtown.

If you’re visiting Flint and you have time to do only one thing, this is it. Amazing fresh produce, pulled pork sandwiches, and meals at the newly opened Steady Eddy’s Cafe.

Crossroads Village and Huckleberry Railroad

This is a Greenfield Village-style historical attraction slightly north of the city. Here you’ll find early 1900s amusement rides, a restored schoolhouse and general store, a grist mill, a paddleboat, and a restored steam locomotive that takes visitors on a 40-minute ride along the remaining portion of an old passenger rail line. The villages of Genesee, Otisville, Otter Lake, and Fostoria were connected to Flint by this same train in the late nineteeth century.

Fun fact: One of the restored buildings in the village, the Mason Tavern, was moved there from my neighborhood! It was originally located at the intersection of Fenton Road and Grand Blanc Road nearby where Cobblestone Lounge is today.

The historical marker at the original site has been removed and the location delisted, but the DNR saved its inscription:

Daniel Mason, a native of New Hartford, New York, built this structure as a stagecoach inn and tavern around 1850. It soon became a popular stagecoach stop along the route of the Flint and Fentonville Plank Road Company, which was established in 1849. From 1853 to 1871, Mundy Township’s first post office was also housed here. The tavern and post office continued to operate until shortly after the Flint and Pere Marquete Railway came to the area. In 1879 Mason sold the property and moved to Flint, where he died in 1880. The tavern later became a private residence.

Read more about the history of the railroad here.

Honorable Mention: Ron’s Ice Cream (Closed / Intermittent Business)

Ron’s Ice Cream closed a while back, but its owners have re-opened it temporarily at least once in the past few years. We would stop here on occasion when I was a kid — they had excellent hard-serve ice cream. Cody Elementary was across the street, but sat vacant from 2003 until it was demolished in 2012.

This corridor in South Flint has gone through a lot of change in the past couple years, the most notable being the complete reconstruction and road diet of Fenton between Bristol and the Grand Trunk railway bridge that brought the street down from four lanes to two lanes and a dedicated turn lane. It was sorely needed — the original lanes were dangerously narrow for modern-sized cars and speeds.

(An aside: The Amtrak Blue Water crosses this bridge once daily in each direction. That’s a photo I’d love to see someone try to capture.)

There’s more to see

So that’s a little slice of my childhood, but it’s definitely not everything! I still visit Genesee County every now and again, and I’m always looking for new things to see and do.

Consider this a living document. I‘ll come back here from time to time and add some new places.

Do you have any favorite places in the area? Reach out and I’ll add to the map!