A look at metro Detroit's mass transit shortfall

If it wasn’t clear before Detroit’s failed bid to draw Amazon’s new headquarters to Michigan, it is now: metro Detroit is behind other major American cities when it comes to mass transit. Elected leaders are at odds over how to fix the problem, or whether it’s even a top priority. That was never more obvious than late January when leaders from Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties shared a stage at the Detroit Economic Club and discussed transit. Two weeks later, as hope for a 2018 ballot initiative to fund mass transit in Metro Detroit was dwindling, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson gave a State of the County address that may have signaled the train — or bus — is leaving the station: “They’re asking me to betray my constituents, violate my oath of office and overnight become a regional taxing icon. I can’t do it, I won’t do it and I’ll never, ever.”