Plans for the new M1 Woodward light rail project took a big leap forward today and the Free Press has all the deets.

It appears that city officials and the feds were able to come to a consensus on one of the major issues holding the project back: where exactly to place the tracks. And now it appears the rail system will have the best of both worlds with center-running tracks from 8 Mile south to New Center. From Grand Blvd the tracks will diverge and run along the sidewalks all the way into the downtown area where the rails will meet up with the Rosa Parks Transportation Center west of Woodward.

The trains would serve 19 stops along the 9-mile route, including 10 on Woodward between Campus Martius downtown and Grand Boulevard in the New Center — prime locations where the city is banking on transit to stimulate promising clusters of commercial and residential redevelopment.

Those crucial design and route decisions are part of an agreement the city said it has reached with the federal government, a major step forward on the $500-million project to build light rail on Woodward.

The new route will also apparently have more stops than initially planned and will stop within blocks of many of the downtown major attractions including Hart Plaza and the sporting stadiums.

Read the full article here.

Map courtesy of Freep