What transit lessons did Detroit learn from the ‘06 Super Bowl to prepare for NFL draft

The City of Detroit is preparing for what has been billed as “the largest and most inclusive sporting event the state of Michigan has ever hosted” or, as most of us know it, the NFL draft.

When hundreds of thousands of anticipated guests come to town, our region’s lack of public transportation stands out.

Entire parking structures are booked . There are strict limitations to on-street parking around downtown. The city is encouraging football fans to use the transit options it has, including the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) “Park and Ride” options in the suburbs.

The draft is not the first major football event hosted in Detroit, nor the first parking headache. Metro Detroit has hosted two Super Bowl events — one at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1982 and one in 2006 at Ford Field. The 1980s are too long ago for a fair comparison, but it’s worth asking if the region’s transit could hold up to the crowds of 2006.

Planners pitched the Park and Ride system as an efficient way to get fans in and out of downtown during that event. There were six pickup locations across the metro area, including Wayne State University, Macomb Mall and the Detroit Zoo. Shuttles ran all weekend.

Issues emerged from the start. More than 100,000 people used the shuttle system on the Friday before the Super Bowl alone, quickly overwhelming the bus system. By Saturday, planners added 80 buses to the 150 already in rotation to accommodate about 150,000 riders that day, but wait times were long.

Things got worse on the night of the Super Bowl. The Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) added more than 200 buses to the shuttle system during peak hours, but it still couldn’t keep up with the high demand of 68,206 fans leaving the game around the same time.

The traffic downtown was intense, making it impossible for the buses to arrive at pickup areas promptly. Those who left early had better luck, but the thousands who stayed in the city past 11 p.m. were left waiting as their cars sat at the Park and Ride lots .

Fans, who were told shuttles would make their Super Bowl experience more efficient, were disappointed to find the system did not meet their expectations.

The Detroit Free Press graded the shuttles an F on a Super Bowl report card.

In the aftermath, transit advocates argued that a stronger transit system , including light rail and more buses, would attract more major events to the city.

A week after the Super Bowl, Detroit and suburban residents filled the Free Press opinion page with requests to use the Super Bowl as a cautionary tale on why the city needed to prioritize improving transit.

“We can all agree from the Super Bowl experience that if any kind of reliable transportation were offered up and down Woodward Avenue from the suburbs to downtown it would be fully utilized daily. Let’s stop wasting money on studies and spend the same money on construction,” Detroit resident John M. Leidlein wrote in the Free Press.

Detroit Regional Chamber President Richard Blouse said he tried moving the needle on light rail transportation , which would improve transit operations. Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, an infamous opponent of regional cooperation on transit, disagreed with Blouse’s light rail solution, only suggesting that DDOT and SMART improve coordination with transportation between the city and its suburbs.

Lawmakers had made several attempts to improve transit before the big game. In 2002, Gov. John Engel vetoed the Detroit Area Regional Transportation Authority (DARTA), which then-state Rep. Kwame Kilpatrick had introduced. Legislators introduced a new plan in 2003, but a federal judge shut it down after a lawsuit from a public employee union .

State Sen. Buzz Thomas said if given the opportunity, more people would use public transportation as long as it was reliable .

“This weekend demonstrated clearly that there is demand (for better public transportation) and there should be a debate,” Thomas said.

Plans to manage the influx of traffic during the NFL draft are similar to Super Bowl plans. The City of Detroit said officials have spent months planning to ensure residents and visitors can easily access the draft.

This year, the QLine is available to offset the demand of DDOT and SMART buses. Four parking locations are available to make it easier for people to use the QLine. Eleven Park and Ride locations — five more than available during the 2006 Super Bowl — will extend to more suburbs, including Auburn Hills, Farmington Hills, Westland and Mount Clemens. SMART buses are scheduled to run once an hour from 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Buses will return to Park and Ride locations from downtown from 1-11:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, and 1-7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Other shuttle systems are available as well. Fan shuttles will be available at Wayne State’s Parking Structures 1, 2 and 5; the Bagley Mobility Hub on near Michigan Central, and River East Garage on Rivard Street. Shuttles from the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport also will be available.

Outlier Media · What transit lessons did Detroit learn from the ‘06 Super Bowl to prepare for NFL draft