The Detroit Bus Company Putting the "pub" in "public transportation"

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Detroit's standard public transit system raises lots of questions, like "why isn't the bus here?", and "what is that smell coming from the bus?", and "how much would I have to pay the driver to just take me far, far away, to a city with better public transit?".

None of those questions will be answered below. What will, though, are questions about the just-launched Detroit Bus Company, an alternative (both in terms of their youthful, edgy style, and in that they present a second choice) people-mover, offering things like bus tracking, customized routing, special pick-ups/drop-offs, and, gloriously, on-board drinking. So:

First off: how much?
$5 gets you a wrist band that'll let you hop on and off as many times as you want in a single day, and also gives you a neat conversation piece that's not as formal as a watch or anything. Wrist bands are still cool!

Do their two set routes really double as bar crawls?
Excellent question. And yes. The colorfully named "Downtown Party Party" and "Suburbanite Express" routes pretty much exclusively stop at bars (The Imperial, PJ's Lager House, The Well, Green Dot, etc.) That is, unless you request a special stop somewhere within reason, in which case they'll gladly swing mildly out of the way for you.

If this bus company is so "hip" and "youth-oriented" and "into the new, even younger Spider-Man", then why don't they sext?
Actually, they sort of do: they're all teched out with the social media, and you can tweet or text them pickup/drop-off requests whenever. Awesomely, each bus also has a mobile tracker that'll let you see exactly where it is and how fast it's going at any time.

What's that smell coming from the bus?
The smell of awesome. Also, beer, because they'll totally let you bring that stuff on board.

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The Detroit Bus Company

Published: July 19, 2012 at 4:00am EDT

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