(bright music) - I wanna start with a discussion about DDOT, which for those of us who live in the city, is our public transportation system, the bus system.

It certainly is not what many people, who live in our city, need to get, consistently and reliably, to the places that they need to go each day.

If you were elected mayor, what kind of things do you think it needs and how, specifically, would you make those changes?

I'm gonna start to my immediate right, we're gonna go down the row, Jonathan.

- The experience that I bring to this race and to this position is just different.

It's just so extensive and so diverse.

You will never hear of a candidate that says they rode DDOT this year.

(chuckles) You will never hear another candidate say, when the car was given to their younger sister, him and his mom had to ride the bus from down river, up Fourth Street, all the way to get to Wayne State, just for a few semesters just to save up a few more dollars.

So I've seen DDOT through and through.

DDOT right now, currently still has lag times.

There is still the need to clean up the atmosphere.

Rosa Parks Terminal has a number of different homeless individuals down there.

When it's cold, they use it as a warming shelter.

There has to be a comprehensive strategy, and I'm the only candidate here with an 11 page plan that brings money, jobs, and homes, and brings that comprehensive intent to reaching every family and every individual.

And so right now, DDOT is just part of the equation, and can be surrounded with other resources, and that's what I intend to do.

- You talked about money and other things.

Talk more specifically about money, where you would get it, how you'd spend it.

- So I'm looking at filling in the gaps right now, and I am again looking at creating a citizen dashboard, which is one of the first that will ever be created, in order to really wrap the services around each and every individual to be able to support organizations, like United Way, Jobs for Progress, and others that just came to us.

We have to be able to intentionally hold everyone's hand.

And so when you talk about the money and where it's gonna come from, I'm looking at the budget right now.

I'm looking at all the shortages.

I see what they did for homeless, but I don't see a comprehensive transportation anchor in all the strategies that they're putting together.

So my first day in office, besides meeting with the superintendent of schools to make sure that those 5,000 families that are categorized as homeless are getting our arms wrapped around them, it's also to make sure that every last partner that could be at the table is at the table to see really where our assets and infrastructure are so that we can put the money where it needs.

And I believe that with the council that is coming in, that I have the most relationships with everyone in the races, that I'll be able to pass something that totally satisfied their needs.

- Saunteel, give us your assessment of DDOT.

- First I want to give kudos to my colleague, to my right, Fred Durhal, because City Council did increase DDOT's budget by $20 million this year.

So we'll start there, and I'll also say that I was actually on DDOT two weeks ago, Jonathan.

So, you're not the only one.

- Which one?

- I was on the Warren bus.

It was about 40 minutes late.

- 40 minutes?

- Yeah, it was about 40 minutes late.

We waited for about 40 minutes.

So I took the bus to CASTECH every day.

I took two buses, the Plymouth bus to Grand River, Grand River to CASTECH.

I don't know how you can take the bus to school every day and get to school on time every day, one if the routes are running every 40 minutes, which is the case for the majority of routes in Detroit right now, and then if it only comes every 40 minutes, and it breaks down or is late, then you're talking about an hour and a half, two hours, being late to your destination, whether it's school or work.

You can't get fired from school, but you can get fired from your job if you can't make it to and from work.

So first of all, we need to increase the routes.

Secondly, we need to increase the number of buses on routes, as well as the number of actual routes.

The dollars that were put into the budget, I hope, will be used in large part for salaries of bus drivers and salaries of mechanics.

Right now, our bus drivers make, on average, about $7 less than bus drivers for SMART, which makes it really hard to keep good bus drivers, right?

Our mechanics make less than SMART mechanics.

Even if we have the right number of drivers, but we don't have people to fix the buses when they break down, it becomes a service issue.

So those basic issues we have to address.

In addition to that, we should have a combination of traditional buses, and shuttles that go shorter, smaller routes.

We need transportation hubs around the city, not just Rosa Parks.

There should be a hub in each of the seven districts.

So that's where I would start.

- Quickly, that sounds expensive.

Where would the money come from?

- So a couple things, one, the dollars that are in DDOT now, it's great that we got an additional 20 million, but we also know that more years than not, DDOT returns funding, and usually, that is because of the shortage of staff, right?

So the first thing we have to do is if we spend the money that's there, that will fill a lot of the gaps.

Secondly, if the traditional buses that currently are half full, are replaced with shuttles, that in itself would save money, and it would allow us to serve more routes with a smaller number of people.

- Okay, Fred, you're next.

- I do wanna first say, I have rode the bus a few times.

As well, being a council member, we engaged frequently on this issue in the city of Detroit.

Big shout out to Transportation's Riders United and all the many other advocacy groups that push for transit change here in the city.

I rode the Joy Row bus, by the way.

And thank you again for mentioning how we added an additional $20 million for DDOT in this year's city budget.

And of that allocation, council again, added an additional $2.8 million into the DDOT budget.

I sponsored some of that funding.

$675,000 of that funding is going to redo the seats on DDOT buses, after talking to residents here in the city of Detroit, who are tired of bringing bedbugs home from riding on the cloth seats.

And then we also put $50,000 into the DDOT budget to create a study to see what it would take to bring para-transit services in-house for members of our disabled community.

Additionally, we put another $2 million in there to increase the number of bus shelters here throughout the city of Detroit.

And through all of that, the funding is still not enough.

As we talk to our advocates, as we look at other cities and municipalities around this country, particularly in our region, we're behind on transit funding and how we create transit here in the city of Detroit.

And so one of the things that we would be focused on, right now, we have a program, called DDOT Re-Imagined, that is in the city of Detroit.

We want to try to reimagine how that's re-imagined, relative to funding.

Yes, we need increased service, right?

We've gotta put more routes throughout the city of Detroit, reexamine routes, and find out how we're connecting.

The average wait time on routes that are not main streets or corridors are close to 30 to 45 minutes.

Connected to that, you may be at a route, rain, sleet, hail, snow, there's no shelter.

And so we want to ensure that we are increasing those routes.

All of those routes that may take a little bit longer, ensure that we have bus shelters there for our residents, but what it's gonna take, as well, and one of our biggest problems here, no matter how many buses we put on the road, we need more drivers.

And so we have to become more competitive with salaries.

We just gave our drivers, not too long ago, a pay bump, but it's still not competitive to other cities and municipalities around this state.

- Where would you get the money to do those things?

- The majority of our funding comes from the federal government.

And right now, as we are looking at the funding, that has slowed down here significantly in the state of Michigan, and particularly the city of Detroit.

And so we will have to work with our state partners and our regional partners.

My grand idea for transportation here is to create a regional transit system here in the city of Detroit, like you see in D.C., like you see in Chicago, like you see in New York, or Philadelphia.

We have to partner with our surrounding communities and connect neighborhoods, and then we'll have the ability to share the cost that it takes to move our residents through these different communities.

- Rogelio, you are up next.

- This, in every aspect, is quite simply about the math.

We have lost, on average, since 1975, over the last 50 years, an average of 18,000 people a year, up until we turned the corner this year with a increase of 1500 people.

At that rate, it would take 600 years to get back to where we were 50 years ago.

That is not a plan.

So that said, what do we do, what does anybody do in terms of realizing efficiencies through economies of scale?

And that is consolidate, merge, joint operating agreements, and I mean, there's any number of characterizations, but the bottom line is this, we need to pool our resources, make them more efficient to be more effective in making our region more competitive in terms of being able to move our workforce around.

My solution, my answer, my response to this is quite simply, it's time to revisit annexation.

This is a Sankofa moment for Detroit.

We need to look at our history in order to strengthen our future, and those things that worked and are still on the books can still be brought to bear.

What does that mean for Detroit financially?

Possibly as much as 10% an increase in federal revenue sharing.

That's a start.

Plus the mix of getting back to over a million people in our region sets back, or course corrects what's been happening in this city, at least the last 25, if not the last 50 years.

Just 'cause we're out of bankruptcy does not mean we're not distressed.

We still have all of the characteristics of a distressed city.

And the only way that I see forward, in terms of a growth plan, is to work with our neighbors.

- Todd, you're up next.

- You know, let me jump to the first thing that I know you're gonna jump was money.

It's always about money.

And I don't disagree that the money that we have comes from the feds when it deals with transportation.

But I also do agree that some type of collegiality amongst the communities in some form of authority is gonna be necessary, in order to bridge what has been not only a social, ethnic, racial, and political divide that has really kept us separate.

Unfortunately, I do recall an instance in which Livonia did not want bus service with the new businesses that they had because for all intents and purposes, as a Detroiter, I felt that they didn't want Detroiters in their community.

Well, you know, hopefully, we're moving beyond that, but I don't believe the idea of annexation, or building communities and merging our communities is a reality at this point.

So let me speak from a perspective of an individual for every day, except the last day of high school, when my parents were able to rent a car so I could go to prom, I caught the bus.

And now, as an adult, I still catch the bus from time to time, but I have to be at various different courts.

So it's not really practical for me to leave downtown, and go out to Pontiac, I have to drive, 'cause we do not have a system of transportation.

So as I see it, what I've seen is the bus system that's working DDOT, that's working in the city of Detroit, I've had an opportunity to talk to the unions, and they are working to make sure that they become more competitive with SMART, and what they're doing is, even though they may not have the starting pay as SMART, but what they're trying to do is work on the benefits.

But what I think is most important in the bus system, is in the bus system, we need to market that bus systems are gonna be safe, and that people can ride those buses.

And I think if people feel safe to ride those buses, the participation will be greater, and that's most important because they've turned down money that city council, or that the city was willing to offer, 'cause they don't have the riders.

And without the marketing and telling them, "You have a safe bus system," it's all for not.