Update: The Provost’s Office has agreed to fund this service through the 2015-16 academic year. Read more here.
After a careful overall analysis of the current system, the MDetroit Center Connector will cease operations following its final run June 21.
The Connector was started as a pilot program Oct. 5, 2013, by the U-M Detroit Center in partnership with the Semester in Detroit program.
Primarily funded by a Transforming Learning for the Third Century grant, the Connector was established as a transit service between the Ann Arbor campus and Detroit for U-M students, faculty and staff to support curricular, research, engaged learning and community service opportunities.
Since its inception nearly two years ago, the Connector has connected more than 2,000 individuals and 60 university programs and student groups between Ann Arbor and Detroit.
Through data analysis and feedback from riders and an advisory committee, the Connector continuously strived to enrich the relationships between Ann Arbor and Detroit while providing riders with the best transit experience possible. Grant funding has now expired and ridership did not support the operational funding required to continue the service.
James Crowfoot
So what comes next? The U of M needs a good transportation connection with Detroit if it is serious about the relevance of Detroit for the education of its students and the teaching and scholarship of its faculty. Is this again one in the long, long history of the U of M’s off again, on again but overall low priority for a substantive educational and academic relationship with Detroit our neightbor and tremendous urban resource?
Leonard Poger
How about using Uber or Lyft? They are flexible and the cost is reasonable.
Rebecca Zurier
This is a real shame. As a faculty member I relied on the connector buses. They made it possible for all students to use the resources in Detroit, including the recently threatened Detroit Institute of Arts. They allowed students to conduct serious research projects in Detroit, using archives and resources unavailable in Ann Arbor. And they made it possible for me, as instructor, to keep up with developments in Detroit and make connections there.
Without the Connector bus I will need to scale back the use of Detroit in my teaching and charge students a fee in order to charter buses for trips. This will make the trips less equitable.
Who could I write to to protest the cancellation of a very productive service that was in line with so many of the University’s missions of teaching, research, scholarship, and outreach?
David Weinreich
I used the Connector to visit Detroit, learn about it first hand, make connections there, and enhance my research. This is a real lost opportunity. Here’s a petition you can sign if you’re concerned too:
https://www.change.org/p/university-of-michigan-president-mark-schlissel-reinstate-detroit-center-connector-service?recruiter=11140154&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=share_facebook_responsive&utm_term=des-lg-no_src-custom_msg&fb_ref=Default
David Winter
Put something connected with the Athletic Department in Detroit (dorms? “academic support” personnel? ticket office?). Then watch ridership explode….
Mary Hunt
When I was in Ann Arbor pursuing my research project on why Reinhold Niebuhr’s years in Detroit (1915-1928) affected him so much, the Connector enabled me to arrive at Wayne State’s Reuther Library fresh,and unrattled by traffic. The Indian Trails bus driver liked his metro-based job because he could see more of his kids. who hadn’t had enough money for flight training to get his pilot’s license.
The last time I took public transportation to Detroit was in 1982, when the train station there was mostly empty but not the famous tourist ruin it has become.Quite a few Ann Arborites commuted to work in Detroit. At that time, most of the Ann Arbor people I knew dismissed Detroit as an uninteresting factory town with a boring, well-to-do layer of corporate executives, of whom my father-in-law was one. He had been promoted up the Bell Telephone corporate ladder from his native Texas to Detroit via my home town of St. Louis.
On my morning train trip, Hudson’s was still standing, illuminated by the morning sun. From a distance, it looked like the Motor City’s central area still functioned as it had before it was finished off by the automobiles it created, and by General Motors’ effective initiative in the 1950s to put busses out of business.
Looking out the train windows is always fun. The best parts were pulling into Ypsi’s Depot Town and entering the city, passing the old Cadillac plant.
A poignant memory. I wrote about it in a short piece in the Ann Arbor Observer., It must have been in 1982.
I’d been an interested Detroit-watcher since moving to Michigan in 1967. Fo epic drama, irony, music (will it ever stop?), and over-the-top prominent characters, Detroit’s epic story has so much to teach us.
I’ve been lucky to have been able to stay in touch with Detroit for so long. The university’s recent efforts to connect up with the city are wonderful. If only Michigan folks could remember that Detroit and Detroiters have something to teach university people, too.
Tonya Thomas
I concur with everyone here — I don’t think I could say it any better.
To boot, this loss makes UM much less diverse in its talent pool and certainly goes against any initiative to make education more accessible to a broader range of students. Personally, this was also one of the best ways I was looking to in my quest to return to UM staff from where I live in Macomb County. Will UM now become a more remote work friendly institution??? Of all the things in which UM leads/could be leading, this is certainly one of THE most fundamental.