Have you ever considered taking the bus in Metro Detroit but found the task of planning your route to be a bit daunting? It’s understandable considering how big the area is and how many separate transit agencies serve it, SMART for suburban Detroit, DDOT for the city of Detroit, The Ride/AATA for Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, Transit Windsor also providing cross tunnel service, and even minor service in cities like Livonia, Flint, Port Huron, etc. But there is still little interaction between all of these services, they remain separate fiefdoms in this anarchic Southeast Michigan.
Until local groups come up with a way to unify regional mass transit in southeast Michigan Google has made available a new transit planner as part of their Google Maps service. For now, however, it only covers SMART and the Google service is now SMART’s provider for their trip planner. You can see an example of how easy it is to use here.
You can double check the route by looking at the system map. For service inside the city of Detroit you will have to do a little bit more work. DDOT’s website is perpetually broken but here are the DDOT route schedules. You can also call DDOT to request a map and also tell them to fix their website and add one online. There is also an old and somewhat outdated map of SMART and DDOT service in downtown Detroit and also one of combined service in Metro Detroit both provided by Transit Riders United who also have a handy How to ride the bus page.
We need is a service that will show you how to get between any two points in the metro area that are served by transit even if one point is in the city of Detroit and the other is outside. There never should have been that distinction in the first place. But until there is a true regional public transportation organization like DARTA (Detroit Area Rapid Transit) third parties can try to fill in the gaps and may be someday soon DDOT can work with the Google to provide the necessary data so that Google Transit can provide the maps and route planners that DDOT currently doesn’t.
