Evening star., 1942-04-20
Bomber Plant Raises
Big Housing and
Traffic Problems
Vast Detroit Project
To Employ 80, 900
To l00. 900 Persons
BY DAVID ]. WILKIE,
Wide World Automotiye Editor.


job in the bomber plant.
You hear that remark with in
creasing frequency in the Detroit
area these days; it comes from wait
reSSeS, stenographerS, department
store clerks, hotel bellboys. hat cheek
girls and railroad station redcapS.
The bomber plant, some 30 miles
west of Detroit. is getting ready to
roll out its first giant .B-24D Con-
solidated bomber, ahead of sched-
ule," like everything else in the war
production effort of the one-time
automobile manufacturers.
The thousands of privately owned
passenger automobiles in the park
ing lots of the Willow Run factory
disclose that employment within the
plant is stepping up. When peak
production is reached between 3d.
900 and 100000 workers will be on
the payroll. About 25 per cent of
them will be women, according to
present estimates.
The cars jammed into the park
ing lots give hint, also, of a prob
lem that promises to take on crisis
proportions within few weeks. 1t
is the problem of transporting the
steadily increasing number of work
ers from homes and lodgings in
Detroit and small nearby commu-
mites to the factory gates.
Staggered Hours Talked.
Staggered factory hours, increased
bus and rail transportation and
housing projects have been pro-
posed and debated for several
months. Most tangible of the latter
are seven developments that would
total s35 900 900 and provide homes
for about 1900 families. The pro-
posed sites are in and near existing
communities in the general area OF
the bomber plant. They would be
so located that existing water mains,
sewers and roads may be used.
1t is fairly well agreed among
most authorities concerned in the
worker phase of the Willow Run
project that regardless of presen@
housing projects, transportation to
and from the plant will present a
major problem. 1t is agreed also
that there are not now enough
buses available to attempt the
transportation of the workers who
will be needed by midsummer.
Detroit's department of street
railways, looking to the transporta-
ton crisis, is planning the purchase
of 500 additional buses, but even
these will not be sufficient to main
tain the increased service expected
to be needed within Detroit and to
handle the entire Willow Run load
Plans have been offered for the
conversion of hundreds of automo-
bile haulaway trucks now idle, into
emergency buses. Scores of these
vehicles, no longer needed to haul
passenger cars from factory to dis
tributors in other States, would be
capable of carrying go passengers
each.
Model City Proposed.
Aside from the $35, 900 900 housing
project, which contemplates the
completion of 1000 homes by next
October l, proposals have been ad-
vanced for the creation of model
city" and the setting up of huge
dormitorieS, trailer camps. pre-
fabricated houses and other tenn
porary shelters.
Any or all of these, however, would
not eliminate the transportation
problem. So gigantic is the plant in
size that its boundaries are not
within comfortable walking distance
of the half-mile- long assembly lines
or the engineering Laboratories and
Offices.
Nevertheless, the slender, youth
ful-appearing Roscoe Smith, who
manages the big factory, smiles con-
fidently as he strides each day
through the mass of machinery that
has been installed. In just a year
since ground was broken for the
factory it has come to the produc-
ton stage.
Smith, former manager of Henry
Ford'S small-town industries,
series of factories located in various
small villages, is as certain as he
ever has been about anything that
he will keep it ahead of schedule"