Detroit Bus Protests
– Bing Backs Off

Aug 31, 2009

In the face of protests, the Detroit mayor and his cronies backed off – for now – on slated cuts in bus schedules and drivers. Dave Bing said, “We listened to the people.”

He heard all right! And what he heard were the resounding chants at four days of public hearings, especially “Dave Bing has got to go!” Thousands of Detroiters showed up to one or more of the eight public hearings.

People in wheelchairs, blind people, students, senior citizens and all those people who ride the bus to go back and forth to work gave passionate and angry testimony. At one of the hearings, a Detroit resident decried cuts that would mean “No church. No Belle Isle. No Hart Plaza. No malls. No jobs.”

Another worker who rides the bus said of this hearing: “It was nice and nasty and I enjoyed it.”

The politicians, who had said there was no money, found some, quick. When people are massed in the street, their hearing improves.