Last December, TRU and our allies in the Double DDOT Coalition put forward a bold transit funding ask to Mayor Duggan and Detroit City Council: boost Detroit’s bus system with a $150 million contribution from the City’s General Fund in the coming fiscal year, up from $114 million this past year.
We didn’t make that goal – but we got about two-thirds of the way there.
The Mayor’s budget proposal, released in late February, included a $20 million boost for DDOT – more than for any other City department.
After the budget proposal went to City Council, we continued to advocate for the additional $16 million, which was moved to executive session by Council’s Gabriela Santiago-Romero, along with some additional transit funding priorities from Fred Durhal III.
Unfortunately, DDOT director Robert Cramer told Council he wouldn’t be able to use the extra dollars. In executive session, the $16 million got cut back to $2.7 million, including money for replacing fabric bus seats (sometimes suspected of serving as bedbug habitat) and a study of bringing paratransit operations in-house, as well as for drivers and shelters.
We’re disappointed the full $150 million didn’t go through, but an additional $22.7 million – bringing the General Fund contribution to $137 million – is nothing to sneeze at. It will help bring on more drivers and get us on the way to doubling DDOT service over 2024 levels, as called for in the DDOT Reimagined plan, by 2030. (In the near term, the Mayor says we’ll be at pre-pandemic levels of service by January 2026.) We’ll be back next year to make sure we stay on track.
Our campaign also lifted up the importance of transit in the public arena: we received coverage from Channel 2, Channel 4, Channel 7, Outlier Media, the Detroit News, and Bridge Detroit, which remarked that “transit is becoming a top issue in the 2025 elections.”
Thanks to everyone who sent e-mails (over 300!), made phone calls, and turned out to rallies to make this win possible! We’d also like to thank our core coalition partners: Amalgamated Transit Union Local 26, Detroit Disability Power, Detroit People’s Platform, MOSES, and the Sierra Club.