2003 House Bill 4072 ↩

House Roll Call 11: Passed

To create a new Detroit Area Regional Transportation Authority (DARTA) including Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties, comprised of the existing City of Detroit transit system and the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART). The authority would develop, implement, and update a comprehensive regional public transportation service plan. It would eventually have taxing and borrowing authority, subject to a vote of the people, and would be the sole recipient of state and federal transit dollars that currently go directly to its component entities. The bill contains provisions which make it difficult to change the current work rules, compensation and benefits of existing transit workers, or to reduce the number of existing employees. Other provisions restrict the ability to privatize transit service. Monroe and Washtenaw counties would be allowed to opt out of the authority immediately. The House-passed version allows local communities anywhere in the region covered by DARTA to "opt out" of the system if they do so as a consortium composed of at least three contiguous communities.