Richard Zmijewski

Dreaming of a Detroit Metro Commuter Rail

When I moved to Southeast Michigan five years ago one of the first things I noticed was the lack of a viable public transportation system.  Mainly there was no rail system connecting Ann Arbor with Detroit.  After a while I began to understand that this was in large part due to the mindset of the region.  Everyone drives — it’s a God given right (this is the home of the auto industry mind you).  Despite the prevailing mentality that every person in the region must own a car (the metro consists roughly of over 5 million people), there has been a modest effort to create a commuter rail system. At one point I looked at taking the bus but discovered it would have more than doubled the time it already took me to drive to Detroit.

AnnArbor.com ran a story this weekend that the SEMCOG commuter rail that is to connect Ann Arbor and Detroit.  The surprising news is that the rail system could be running in some capacity by year-end.  If this project ever becomes a reality, I will be one of the first people taking advantage of the commuter rail.  Driving in the metro can be summed up as nothing less than drudgery.  To reclaim an hour and a half of my day would be priceless (1 1/2 x 5 days x 52 weeks  = about 2 weeks).  With the hour and half I could make business calls, prepare or recap from the day’s work, or just relax and unwind.  I’m a bit pessimistic the project will ever come to fruition but here’s to hoping.

Here’s a video from SEMCOG that provides a good overview of the proposed commuter train including proposed stops.

About

About Richard

Originally from Erie, Pennsylvania, I now live in Southeast Michigan with my wife and son.  We made the move in 2004 so that I could attend law school and ultimately deciding to stick around Michigan and the Detroit Metro.  Although not as scenic as Pennsylvania with rolling hills and thick forests, Michigan certainly has its own charm including the Upper Peninsula and Mackinac Island.

I’m an attorney with the Detroit law firm Berry Moorman P.C. and my practice involves a number of legal areas including business law, intellectual property, technology law, estate planning, and litigation.  My current interests include improving my practice by increasing efficiency and productivity through the use of software and user tweaks as well as utilizing the Getting Things Done (GTD) task management system, and capitalizing on internet networking trends including LinkedIn and Twitter.

About RichardZ.com

RichardZ.com has been around since 2001 but I’ve had some sort of web presence going back as far as 1998 (those were the frontier days) with a Penn State “personal web space” account and a Geocities account for my band.  My first official “blog” post appeared November 24, 2002 using Movable Type. I’m also one of the co-owners of ErieBlogs.com, a community based, hyper-local news site serving Erie, Pennslyvania. I think I can say “been there, done that” — at least as far as publishing on the internet is concerned.

The newest incarnation of RichardZ.com uses the tumblr blogging system.  It’s free and refreshingly simple.  Although some coding and design was involved in creating this website, the work was no where near as involved as starting a site from scratch and hosting it. This iteration of RichardZ.com is the result of a decision to focus on content and building relationships rather than spending time monkeying with code and software updates.