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For bar-hoppers and those living near the 3.3-mile route between Midtown and downtown, the QLine will be a very good thing. It will even help when people on the Amtrak get dropped off at the station in Midtown and want to head downtown.
But Elaine Glusac, a freeancer for The New York Times travel section, goes way too far Sunday in a roundup titled "Car-Free Vacations for the Urban Traveler," by suggesting the street car "has sparked a building boom as residences, restaurants and shops have moved in along the corridor."
You'd be hard-pressed to find many Detroiters who buy that. The corridor she writes of is along Woodward Avenue, one of the most obvious places for growth, QLINE or not.
New stores that are popping up along the Woodward corridor downtown aren't the result of the QLINE. Neither is Little Caesars Arena or much else.
QLine can't hurt and is likely to boost property values , as well as provide a location benefit for landlords and real estate agents.
But let's not give a short streetcar loop more credit than it deserves.
