Detroit — The Detroit People Mover goes around and around in an endless circle, and so does the discourse about it. For a simple elevated tram system, the debate is endless. Some love it and want to expand the network. Others want to shut it down, citing the cost and low ridership. No one seems quite sure what to do about it.
One thing’s for sure though, the People Mover is an incredible artwork. It’s the greatest kinetic sculpture in the entire state.
Forget pragmatism for a second, and think about the sublime aesthetics of the elevated tram. Rising concrete pillars and tracks two stories above street level. The cars whishing and whirring in an endless loop.
You can see the People Mover from just about anywhere downtown, and the People Mover can see you as well. The windows of the traincars peer out endlessly onto downtown Detroit as they circle around.
Inside the traincars you’ll find the best view of downtown Detroit by far. Nowhere else do you find a vantage point like this, high enough to feel like you’re part of the skyline, while also circling close to buildings.
It’s not just a way to get around; it’s a way to experience the city’s tremendous breadth of historic architecture. Views of the Guardian Building, the RenCen, Hudson’s Detroit—hundreds of years of Detroit architectural history, spanning every style imaginable.
A full loop around only takes 15 minutes or so, and it’s well worth doing on a whim if you find yourself in downtown Detroit.
You never hear the People Mover discussed like this. It’s always framed as boring public transit, as if it was a subway buried 100 feet below the ground. Yet it’s much more than that, simply because it’s up there in the open air. It exists within the city, not as a hidden network below it.
You hear a lot about tourism in Detroit these days, about the thousands of people coming into the city for big events and professional sports. The People Mover belongs on the list, next to all the big art museums, as a genuine tourist attraction. More of a carnival ride, than a simple transit system.
You’ll see commuters there as well. Regular folks just getting from point A to point B. People do use the People Mover for what it’s intended for. Fewer than the Detroit Transportation Corporation, its owners, would like, but ridership is still around a million people per year.
Yet the People Mover has its detractors, and for good reason. It costs roughly $8 million to run it every year, while fares and advertising revenue only bring in around $1 million.
Currently, the People Mover is entirely free for riders thanks to a large corporate sponsorship from Priority Waste. Otherwise, the money comes from a mix of sources: city funds, operational revenue, and donor money.
Ridership has increased since fares have been free, to no surprise. Perhaps it’s filled with joyriders like me, out for a quick thrill taking in the sights.
Essentially, the People Mover runs like any other nonprofit that loses money, another reason it belongs more in the category of artworks and museums than public transit.
Absent the scale of the initial vision, it’s not inherently useful except for a few downtown Detroiters and office workers who find themselves conveniently placed along two stops of the route.
It was supposed to be part of a larger regional rail network, first envisioned in the 1960s. Yet the rail network development became mired in the city’s decline throughout the ’70s and ’80s, and eventually lost the millions in federal funding needed to build it.
The People Mover itself wasn’t even built until the ’80s, two decades after first imagined. By then it was already a relic of a sci-fi vision from the past, something meant for a far grander and more prosperous future than it found itself in.
Yet we still run it, and the discourse rages on. Why continue to fund this thing that hemorrhages money, with a cost per rider mile nearly 10x more than any other comparable system in the country?
The debate still centers on usefulness, the utility of the system. The detractors say it’s pointless, absurd even, and should be done away with. The supporters say it’s useful for the few who do use it, and would be even more useful if the rail network was expanded as originally intended.
Both sides miss the most interesting argument: The People Mover is still, despite the decaying train cars and faded loudspeaker announcements, a beautiful thing.
It comes to us from the past, from the more civilized era of 1960s Detroit, when they still dared to imagine public infrastructure that could be both useful and beautiful. It wasn’t realized until the 1980s, and only then halfway, but the older vision is still clear.
Abandoning that vision would be a tremendous shame, a rejection of Detroit at its historical apex, a total surrender to the muck and mire of the present. It would be tantamount to saying that Detroit will never be as great as it once was, and we’ve given up trying.
If the current model of operation is untenable long term, then it’s time to find new ways to run it more cost effectively. Time for a re-imagining, or, yes, an expanded regional rail network as originally intended. It’s worth maintaining this beautiful thing.
Framing the People Mover as a piece of art is one beginning of this, a new way to look at this neglected tram system that might inspire the city to further greatness. Perhaps if we start noticing the beauty around us, we’ll find new ways to expand and grow and make the city what it’s capable of being.
Bobby Mars is art director of Michigan Enjoyer. Follow him on X @bobby_on_mars.
