Jack Stryker/photos by the author
It’s 7:15am on a quiet July morning in Detroit. While the city is still getting its day started, at the Roger Penske Technical Center (RPTC), the morning operations supervisor (acting as dispatcher for the day) is getting things in motion as the first streetcar pulls out of the terminal. The streetcar operator radios the dispatcher for clearance out of the wash bay out to the battery charge bar located at the intersection of Woodward Avenue and Lothrop Street, confirming tracks are aligned, doors are open, and flaggers are in place.
Minutes later, at exactly 7:30am, SC 287 pulls down to West Grand Boulevard at the official north end of the QLine main line and boards passengers. “Carmen,” the automated female voice that does the PA announcements, greets the boarding passengers — “Grand Boulevard… Welcome to the QLine.”
Origins and Construction
The first street railways appeared in Detroit following an 1862 city ordinance allowing lines to be built along the main routes of the city including East Jefferson, Woodward, Michigan, Gratiot, Grand River, and West Fort. After a number of mergers and consolidations creating Detroit United Railway, the city took control in 1922 and formed Detroit Department of Street Railways (DSR). During the postwar era, the city began converting streetcar lines to bus operation as ridership declined. The formal end of streetcar operation in Detroit was marked with a special parade along Woodward Avenue on April 8, 1956. The slow-moving PCC streetcars all carried banners advertising the new bus service that would replace them.
ABOVE: QLine car 291 rests at one of the five parking setups in the storage yard behind the Roger Penske Technical Center in August 2021.
Trolleys made a brief return in 1976 with the opening of the Detroit Downtown Trolley. Originally planned to be a standard gauge line, the tracks were ultimately built to narrow gauge to take advantage of vintage cars available from Lisbon. Built along Washington Boulevard, the three-quarter-mile line was operated by Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT). In 1980, the line was extended another quarter mile to connect to the new Renaissance Center. By 2001, only one car out of seven remained in service, which resulted in slower hourly service; the trolley line closed in 2003.
In 2006, DDOT conducted a study of expanding mass transit options for Woodward Avenue. Meanwhile, a group of business leaders decided to provide matching private funds to develop a $125 million, 3.3-mile line through downtown Detroit that would be called the “M-1 Rail Line.” After extensive discussion between the investors and DDOT, the two groups adapted DDOT’s plan for a 9.3-mile line connecting the Rosa Parks Transit Center and Eight Mile Road where the State Fairgrounds are, using the Woodward Avenue route.
There would have been 19 stops served by 10 trains, with each train envisioned having two cars to carry up to 150 passengers. The trains would operate in a dedicated right-of-way in the median of Woodward Avenue between Adams Street at the north edge of Grand Circus Park north to Eight Mile Road. South of Adams Street, the trains would run with traffic along the sides of Woodward Avenue through the rest of downtown.
To cover the roughly $500 million projected cost, The Kresge Foundation provided $35 million in March 2009, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) would provide $25 million in February 2010, and Detroit City Council approved the sale of $125 million in bonds on April 11, 2011. The Federal Transit Administration and the city of Detroit signed the environmental impact statement on July 1, 2011; the record of decision was signed on August 31, giving the project the green light.
ABOVE: With the ad-wrap color palette matching the sky above almost perfectly, streetcar 288 passes in front of the Detroit Institute of the Arts in the Midtown District in May 2025.
However, in December 2011, the federal government withdrew its support of the line in favor of a bus rapid transit system to serve the city and suburbs. Coupled with economic damage the recession had inflicted on Detroit and its industries, a determined group of corporate and philanthropic leaders stated it would continue developing the 3.3-mile line under their nonprofit M-1 RAIL Consortium.
With the new Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan created in 2012, the USDOT released the $25 million to M-1 RAIL. The project received its final environmental clearance from the federal government on April 26, 2013, with the construction contract awarded to Stacy & Witbeck on July 31 of the same year. Construction officially started on July 28, 2014, with USDOT kicking in an additional $12.2 million to complete the financing of the project.
At the same time right-of-way infrastructure construction was taking place, work began February 15, 2015, on the $6.9 million, 20,000-square-foot RPTC, which would be the center of operations and maintenance for the M-1 RAIL system. The system was later renamed “QLine” after Quicken Loans purchased the naming rights for $5 million on March 24, 2016; the actual operating organization would still be called M-1 RAIL, however, with Transdev North America hired under a five-year, $15.5 million contract on June 30, 2016, to handle the actual day-to-day functions of the streetcar system, including hiring and training of staff, managing and dispatching streetcar operations, maintenance of both vehicle and infrastructure, and more…
