DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – A new piece of legislation could mean free fares on Detroit’s QLine street car, but taxpayers would foot the bill, an $85 million budget total over the next 17 years. 

The bill headed to Governor Gretchen Whitmer will be signed according to her office, and thus commit $5 million of the state’s budget to subsidizing the Woodward Avenue street car through the year 2039.  When in the throes of the pandemic and rapidly losing revenue, the 2020 legislature approved a three year subsidy of $5 million annually to help the public service; a newly approved bill by the House and Senate containing the subsidy would extend nearly two more decades.  

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With the financial support of taxpayers, the 3.3 mile circulating streetcar would remain free indefinitely, according to Lisa Nuzkowski, President of M-1 Rail Inc., an organization tasked with constructing and operating the line since 2007.  The $5 million taxpayer subsidy for the QLine would come from hotel and liquor taxes according to the Detroit News. 

Daily ridership in September, October, and November was 2,463, a slight increase from the same time frame of fall 2019 when the service was charging customers $1.50 for a single ride or $3 for rides in the street car all day.  

“Removing any barriers in terms of payment is a big help,” Nuzkowski said. “… We’re feeling very good about the direction where we’re heading.”

After the QLine was shut down in March of 2020, it did not reopen until September 2021, and not without heavy government subsidies.  The state’s $5 million subsidy makes up a little more than half of QLine’s $9.9 million operating cost in the 2022 fiscal year. 

The QLine subsidy was placed in a two bill package allowing the Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority that governs Huntington Place, formerly TCF Center, to expand the riverfront convention center which supporters advocate are necessary to bring in larger events and larger hotel construction.  

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State Senator Wayne Schmidt (R) Traverse City sponsored the bills and believes the return of more office workers to downtown Detroit needs more assistance from taxpayers to make a “good asset for downtown.”  

“We need a healthy downtown Detroit or the state as a whole suffers,” Schmidt said. “We do know if we don’t work together — northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula helping Detroit — they’ll never be in a position to help us.”

Critics of the QLine have pointed to the reality of poor ridership, slow services, and safety concerns.  Initial projections of the line forecasted 5,000 to 8,000 daily riders according to the Metro Times (MT), but ridership has plummeted drastically after the inaugural four months shuttling 2,490 riders a day in the first two months of 2019, before the pandemic shutdown.  

The MT also reported that “streetcars are often delayed, blocked by illegally parked cars, emergency vehicles, car crashes, snarled traffic, delivery trucks, and roadwork,” additionally, “The QLine is much slower than advertised, averaging 8.3 mph.” 

Funding has continued to be a challenge for the QLine, but the city of Detroit views it as not their business.  

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan says the QLine’s funding source is a matter that does not concern him: “The QLine is a private operation, a private business,” Duggan told a Detroit News reporter. “Talk to Matt Cullen at the QLine board. This is not a city function.”