No future for the train station

The News has two stories on Michigan Central Depot today. The first gets nostalgic with old photos of the gorgeous structure. The second reports that Metro Detroit's worst citizen, Matty Moroun, the owner of the station as well as the Ambassador Bridge, will no longer permit film crews to enter the building.

The article closes with a sad quote of George Jackson, president of the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation: "The only real option for that train station is to tear it down, and I have no idea if that is going to happen anytime soon."

Detroit's most famous structure seems truly doomed:

Last week's news

Here's a quick rundown of some stories I missed from the News and the Free Press:

• A convention of 2,500 mayors won't be coming to town thanks to Kwame.

• The Free Press profiled Southwest Detroit and the Majestic Theater Complex

• A new public bridge to Canada, if built, will damage Delray

• Wayne County's TURBO program seems to be fostering development (but not without some controversy)
  

• The Kerner Commission found (as anyone from Metro Detroit should know) that we've made little progress reducing racial disparities in the past 40 years
  

The battle of the bridge

The Free Press finally takes a look at the struggle to replace the Ambassador Bridge.

On one side is Matty Moroun, the billionaire trucking magnate and current owner of the Ambassador Bridge as well as Detroit's most famous ruin, the Michigan Central Depot. Moroun, who is widely reviled in Southwest Detroit for his indifference to the community, wants to close the Ambassador Bridge and build a new six-lane bridge directly beside it. An alternative proposal is being studied by the Canadian, American, Michigan, and Ontario governments. That proposal calls for a government-operated bridge to be built a mile downriver from the Ambassador.

The latter is clearly the better choice. Although some Michigan officials like the idea of Moroun covering the costs of a new bridge, it's crazy to continue to let the most important economic crossing in the United States be controlled by one reclusive billionaire, especially when his plan will further jeopardize the neighborhoods on either side of the bridge and doing nothing to limit security risks.

For a better idea of what's at stake, see Forbes' profile of Moroun, The Troll Under the Bridge. This is a critical issue that needs more public discussion.