SMART Park and Ride Design

Design for Express Transportation Park and Rides Will Serve Riders of Today and Tomorrow

Southeast Michigan suburban transit provider, SMART, engaged our Transportation Planning team at OHM Advisors to conduct a study to help enhance its FAST express service routes along three major regional roadways. FAST express buses serve travelers along Gratiot, Woodward and Michigan Avenues, all of which extend from downtown Detroit far into the region’s suburbs. SMART saw immediate, significant growth of the service after its introduction and desired to expand the utility of these three routes by adding dedicated park and ride facilities to these corridors. Prior to embarking on this project, SMART had experienced riders using nearby parking lots as informal park and rides and wanted to capitalize on that momentum.

Our team began the Park and Ride Design project by identifying preferred sites that would be best utilized by riders and provide space for SMART vehicles to layover. We also studied the feasibility of SMART’s idea to design the facilities as "mobility hubs" which provide connections to other transportation options, including bicycle and pedestrian facilities, ride share, ride hailing, microtransit and emerging mobility options.

Following SMART’s selection of its preferred sites along each corridor, our team created designs for each which included amenities preferred by the public and stakeholders discovered through our targeted interviews and a community survey. We also conducted economic, environmental and transportation analyses alongside the facility designs to determine the impact of construction of the Park and Rides and allow SMART to apply for federal funding. Finally, our team developed concepts for community “mobility hubs” that could be installed along other SMART routes to help better connect residents to the transit system.

Both the Park and Rides and Mobility Hubs help maximize the utility of the transit system and add opportunities for multimodal connections in Southeast Michigan.

Project highlights: transportation planning, transit planning, land use planning, public engagement, site design