The Regional Transit Proposal was defeated Friday, Nov. 11 by Oakland and Macomb counties.

“What we are bringing forward is a plan that connects the region, the four-county region, and in order to do that, we need to build on the existing system to make it more effective,” Regional Transit Authority (RTA) Chief Executive Officer Michael Ford said.

It was a proposed millage to help improve and build the regional transit systems, in the counties of Wayne, Washtenaw, Oakland and Macomb said Jean Redfield, the President and CEO of NextEnergy, a non profit company that helps accelerate energy and transportation technologies based in Detroit.

“If it would’ve passed it would’ve been creating a regular annual funding mechanism for the regional transit authority to do it’s work,” Redfield said. “They will have funds to do pay fast public planning and management and then the funds to start implementing some of the projects part of the plan.”

The money that would be put into the transit system in order to make it more reliable would create better access to jobs, health care, entertainment and food because of the limited grocers in the Detroit area, Amanda Roraff, vice president of marketing and communications at NextEnergy said. She is also a resident of Grosse Pointe.

The millage would cost 1.2 dollars for every 1,000 taxable value of a home, according to the RTA website. The millage in total was expected to raise around three billion.

“The design and system has to be built by more participation from the four counties instead of just an independent group,” Roraff said  “From collaborating better from the start to create a system that works for everybody, we can definitely get something designed and passed moving forward.”