Welcome to Wixom, SMART!
Yesterday saw the commencement of SMART’s largest expansion in five years, with the first wave of newly opted-in communities receiving service by expanding existing routes. The 305 Grand River now serves the Meijer northwest of Grand River & Wixom Rd every day, and the 740 Twelve Mile does so Monday through Saturday. Meanwhile, the 805 Grand River Park & Ride now serves the Beck Road Park & Ride Lot stop on 12 Mile to get commuters to Downtown Detroit on weekday mornings, with return trips in the mid-afternoons.1
Even though I’m personally a Macomb County resident, I grew up a lot in south-central Oakland County, and I’ve been looking forward to something like this for years. I’ve long held that I was going to ride “the first bus to Novi”, ever since around the time that going countywide became a possibility. So I knew in advance I’d be getting up pretty early for this adventure.
“Pretty early” turned out to be 03:00, so that I’d have time to get ready to leave and have enough time to bike to the bus stop before the 4:34am departure. I’ll be honest, I could’ve had a shorter bike ride to a later departure, but I live close enough that I wanted to ride it end-to-end. It was a peaceful ride, except for the one moment I decided I could get a picture of the bus saying 740 TO WIXOM RD, cause the driver was getting off for the restroom, but then he locked the door from the outside with me still onboard. That was kinda annoying.
The stop list no longer ends at 12 Mile & Haggerty!
The real excitement hit about a mile and a half before what used to be the end of the ride, when 12 MILE RD + HAGGERTY scrolled up past the bottom of the upcoming stops list, and for the first time ever, another stop was displayed below it. 12 MILE RD & CABOT.2
Since I wanted to find all the new bus stops and contribute them to OpenStreetMap, I spent a little time riding both the 740 and the 305. I should’ve done the entire route for the 305, though - I forgot about the change that was made at 7 Mile and only remembered that 9 Mile had been changed since my last visit. I’ll have to fix that later. I did contribute my findings for the 740.
A representation of the raw data I collected for OpenStreetMap.
With most of my “chores” out of the way, it’s finally time for the reason I brought my bike. I called up a couple friends on Discord and set off to the north to Wixom, where I had previously grown up on the weekends.
So much has changed since I lived there.
When I first moved there in 2004, there was a dinner train that ran through the middle of the city, and on a quiet night I could hear the train on the tracks and the horn from the house a mile away. A short walk to Maple and I could look across a big ol’ field and see the train myself.
The train closed after 2008. The tracks were removed by 2015, and a rail trail was finally completed in 2023. And now a neighborhood goes all the way from downtown Wixom up to Maple Road. It almost looks wrong these days.
The fountain’s still there, though!
I kept going further north, found the house I used to live in3, then went to a park and found a pier I used to bike to (one of the first places I’ve ever biked on my own).
Gallagher Lake looked nice.
And then I remembered there was a nearby campground to the north of that! I decided to check it out too.
I lived near this campground! Dad brought me camping here once but I’m honestly not too sure what the point of it was when I could just bike back home.
I haven’t even seen it in years, but I remember this view.
It was a fun day of chasing nostalgia for me, but then I capped it off trying out a little coffee shop kiosk while I waited for my bus home.
I’m really glad this thing has a walk-up window!
They’ve got good bagels, which I also haven’t had in quite a while.
I’ll probably make use of these new routes more. Especially if one gets added that actually goes to Wixom, because I hesitate to say that “Wixom has bus service now” when all of that bus service is in or near one border of the city and most of them are on the other side of a freeway from 93% of it.
I do have some complaints about the rollout of information for these routes, but that’s a post for another time.
Happy travels!
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There were other changes, but those are for another post. ↩
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First time this stop has ever been displayed on these screens, at least — last time Novi had bus service was far before this technology existed. ↩
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I didn’t take pictures of someone else’s house because it’s not in the family any more and that’d be rude. It would be nice if I could set up a visit, though — but I probably still won’t take pictures. ↩