IN 2009, DAWN Gabay, then interim executive director of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (AATA) sent a letter to an MDOT official urging MDOT not to lease 23 outdated rail cars from a company owned by Louis Ferris, Jr. Ferris had purchased over 50 of the outdated double decker rail cars in 2006. That same year, John Hieftje, the city’s former mayor, announced a plan for a $27 million commuter rail service between Ann Arbor and Howell, the so-called “WALLY.” Ferris and Hieftje then began selling the proposed commuter line to the public. It has been revealed that MDOT paid a company headed by Louis Ferris, Jr. over $12 million for train cars that have never been used and are, by all accounts, unsuitable for commuter rail use.

The AAATA Board members have continued to spend taxpayer funds on developing the WALLY, despite Gabay’s 2009 letter to MDOT stating “the cars were not suitable for proposed commuter rail services because they didn’t meet federal requirements and tried to steer state officials toward other cars available for sale at a much lower price,” according to reporting in The Detroit Free Press.

Yet, in 2013, The Ann Arbor News reported that a WALLY commuter rail car made a “special appearance” at the Mayor’s Green Fair. The city of Ann Arbor, in partnership with MDOT, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority and the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority worked to bring the passenger car to the Green Fair—four years after Gabay’s letter to MDOT.

In 2012, there was a demonstration ride using a WALLY commuter rail car with Hieftje as the host. Opponents of WALLY have been excoriated and smeared in the press as “anti-transit.” Local media now have an obligation to investigate Ann Arbor elected and appointed officials involved in what The Free Press is calling a “$12 million rail debacle.”