Who Really Cares About City?

Buses standing idle, diesel engines running, on St. Aubin

One of my pet peeves in our neighborhood is the buses that stand all day with engines running on St. Aubin between East Lafayette and Larned streets next to the Dequindre Cut (the old below-street-level railroad right-of-way). The Martin Luther King townhouse apartments, a low-to-moderate income community, are also across the street. The buses come and go all day, the drivers sit and wait until they're ready to be dispatched. Usually a supervisor stops by in an SUV to kibitz with the drivers and perhaps give them orders. Occasionally, a mechanic with his truck will stop by and make on-the-spot-repairs. Rarely, a disabled bus will sit until a tow truck can remove it.

The bus drivers keep their engines running, spewing pollution and a constant grumble from their diesel engines. Worst of all, this practice has created a long constant slur of oil leakage on the street that runs the entire length from East Lafayette to Larned. When no buses are parked there, you see this long black, wide nonstop oil leak.

This is another example of how Detroit gets treated by some private and public entities that do business in Detroit but whose people don't live here (Few SMART drivers, personnel and executives live in Detroit; some D-DOT folks probably do.) Neither bus authority cares about the quality of life or the aesthetics of this particular little piece of Detroit. They don't live here, so they can turn it into a bus yard. What do they care whether their exhaust emissions and noise drift all day accross the street where people live, or whether those of us who live nearby have to experience this every day? This would never happen in Grosse Pointe or Bloomfield Hills. I have lived in this city all of my life and grown weary of how some outsiders come into Detroit, make their money, and leave a mess. Many service providers and contractors send workers into the city who are not residents thus have little interest in its well being. Detroiters have been subjected to abuse so long that they have aquired a tolerance for it.

There are a thousand little stories like this in Detroit. You've just read one of them.