Wayne County Executive Warren Evans says he’s lobbying community leaders to help pass a countywide public transportation millage that will fund and expand the SMART bus service. 

“The transit system is so important to Wayne County — to have a good, solid transit system,” Evans said during an interview Saturday on the videocast/podcast Detroit in Black and White. “Macomb’s overcome their obstacles. Oakland’s overcome their obstacles, and we’re still the ones sitting here trying to decide whether we should be in or whether we should be out.”

Evans said even if some people choose not to use public transportation, it’s important to their communities — to students, seniors, and hospital workers trying to get to work. He realizes there’s resistance in some Wayne County communities that don’t favor paying for public transportation.

“For the last 6, 8, 10 months, we’ve gone to every community in Wayne County, sat with the leadership in those communities, and asked them what they’d like to see the transit system do for their communities,” he said.

Until this election, cities in the county could opt out of participating in the approximately 1-mill property tax for SMART bus funding. In 2024, state lawmakers in Lansing passed a bill prohibiting the county’s communities from opting out.

In the past, 17 communities in the county opted out of the millage. The 26 other municipalities that are already in the SMART system wouldn’t see an increase in their millage rate.

If approved, revenues would be distributed to Wayne County, SMART, DDOT and other community and regional transit providers. If the measure fails, communities served by SMART would lose those services. 

Evans said the millage would cost each household an average of about $8 a month.

“We want to call ourselves a region,” he said, noting, “we’re not a region until we act like one.”