CLOSE Detroit resident James Robertson, 56, of Detroit talks about his journey walking 21 miles a day to work and back. Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press 
 
 A story about a Detroit man who commutes about 21 miles a day on foot to and from work has spurred donations from across the nation. 
 
 Buy Photo James Robertson, 56, of Detroit. (Photo: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo 
 
 A story about a Detroit man who commutes about 21 miles a day on foot to and from work has spurred reaction from across the nation, including social media fund-raisers that have netted more than $80,000 in donations as of 6:30 p.m. Monday. 
 
 Because buses don't cover the full distance between James Robertson's home in Detroit and his job in Rochester Hills, he walks about eight miles headed to work and about 13 miles home, five days a week. His story — told by Bill Laitner in Sunday's Detroit Free Press — has inspired hundreds to offer money to buy him a car, pay his insurance and to provide professional help in managing the donations. 
 
 Robertson said Sunday he was flattered by the attention he'd gotten for his arduous commutes after the Free Press published a front-page story about him -- and amazed that complete strangers would respond so generously, some by offering to buy him a new car and others offering to give him one. 
 
 "Are you serious?" he said to a reporter after hearing of one crowd-funding effort alone that, by early Sunday night, had raised $30,000 — $25,000 more than the goal of the originator, a Wayne State University student. 
 
 Evan Leedy, 19, of Macomb Township, a WSU student studying computer science, said he was struck by the article and by the sudden torrent of people commenting online, many of them asking how they could help Robertson. Leedy said he decided to act. 
 
 "I just used my phone. I created the go-funding site and within an hour we had $2,000," he said. 
 
 "I set the goal at the beginning of $5,000. Right now my page has more than $30,000" as of 6 p.m. Sunday, Leedy said. 
 
 Two other people created GoFundMe sites, "so I contacted them so we could coordinate this, and they've raised $3,000," he added. 
 
 Leedy said he wanted to take steps that would ensure that the money goes directly to Robertson and that publicity about it doesn't put him at risk of being pressured to share it. 
 
 "And I think some of it should be set aside for his insurance and gas and maintenance," Leedy said. 
 
 A Downriver car dealership offered to give him a 2014 Chevrolet Cruz or Sonic. "He gets to choose," said Angela Osborne, customer service specialist at Rodgers Chevrolet in Woodhaven. 
 
 "We were just impressed with his determination," Osborne said. 
 
 Sales manager Darwin Filey said he read about Robertson after a fellow Facebook friend shared the story with him. 
 
 "When I saw the story I said 'wow.' Some people said you guys have got to do something. Then I called my owner and she read the story and said put something together," Filey said. 
 
 He said Robertson would have to pay the tax on the car, which would be about $900. 
 
 "We've never done anything like this at all. We've given to various causes but nothing at this magnitude," said Filey, who has been with the dealership for 2 1/2 years. 
 
 More than a hundred others offered cash for a car, or their own cars, as well as bus tickets, bicycles and even daily chauffeur service for Robertson. 
 
 "Monday is gonna be some bad weather and I don't want him making that trek," said Stuart Sutherland, a student at Oakland University who offered to donate cash in an e-mail. 
 
 Joe Coppola, a technical recruiter for Optomi, wrote: "I want to give him my 2004 Chevy Cavalier. It runs well and is certainly better than not having a car." 
 
 Honda North America, and David Fischer – owner of the Suburban Collection – offered "to keep Mr. Robertson in the Honda family by donating a vehicle to him." 
 
 A man in Evanston, Ill., said he wanted to pay for a car and several years' worth of insurance. A self-employed man in Madison Heights said he would drive Robertson to work and home, each day, for free. 
 
 Meanwhile, the modest Detroiter who walks an amazing 21 miles on his daily commutes to work in suburban Detroit said not even Sunday's snowstorm would keep him from getting to his job Monday. Eyeing the snow piling up around his white-frame house in Detroit, Robertson sounded not a bit worried. 
 
 "I've had worse. This is reminiscent of those snowstorms last year, and I made it then," said the man with a perfect attendance record in more than a dozen years at Schain Mold & Engineering in Rochester Hills. 
 
 Robertson said he likes walking and being outdoors, and prizes his job and coworkers, but he knows he can't keep up his arduous commuting forever. 
 
 Robertson's aging Honda Accord quit on him in 2005, and after repeated cutbacks in bus service the walking segments of his daily commutes grew years ago to take more time than he spends in his eight-hour factory shifts molding parts. 
 
 As for the possibility that a new federal program, available from Detroit's bus system, might provide a small-bus service that would pick Robertson up at home and deliver him directly to his job temporarily, he said: "I'd rather they spent that money on a 24-hour bus system, not on some little bus for me. This city needs buses going 24/7. You can tell the city council and mayor I said that." 
 
 Like hundreds of other Detroiters, the cost of car insurance is a factor Robertson knows he will have to deal with in acquiring his own transportation. A nationwide survey conducted last week found car insurance in Detroit to be the costliest in the nation, at an average of about $5,000 a year. 
 
 Darwin said it's not uncommon for Detroit motorists to have insurance premiums higher than car payments. 
 
 "I'm not an insurance agent, if I'm guessing it's going to be about $2,200 for six months." He added insurance companies often provide discounts for a year's payment upfront. 
 
 "I can work that insurance thing out," Robertson said. "It might be tough, but my dad used to say, tough times don't last — tough people do." 
 
 UBS banker Blake Pollock, who befriended Robertson while stopped in Oakland County and has given him dozens of rides this winter, said he was thrilled but wary about the outpouring of donations. 
 
 During his own commutes to his office in Troy, Pollock last year began noting Robertson's foot-slogging commutes, day after day, and finally offered him a ride. Now, they're fast friends. 
 
 On Sunday, Pollock said he planned to set up a board "of several professionals" to oversee the donations rolling in for Robertson. 
 
 "Putting a car in his driveway and just handing James the keys or filling his pockets with cash is not the answer. But with these resources now, we should be able to do something very positive for the guy," said Pollock, a vice president at UBS. 
 
 "I think the hundreds of donors want this to go to James and not have this go out of his hands. So, if we can set up this little board to manage his money, I think that can happen. 
 
 "When I'm with him tomorrow, I'm going to talk to him about that" — during the Monday-morning ride that Pollock planned to give Robertson after a bus gets him from Detroit to Troy. 
 
 Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com or 313-223-4485. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1BMTexd ||||| CLOSE James Robertson, 56, of Detroit has a champ's commute. He rides buses part-way but walks about 21 miles in round trips to a factory. Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press 
 
 He doesn't look athletic but James Robertson, 56, of Detroit has a champ's commute. He rides buses part-way but walks about 21 miles in round trips to a factory, unless his banker pal offers a lift. 
 
 Buy Photo James Robertson, 56, of Detroit, makes his way along Crooks Road after working his shift at Schain Mold & Engineering in Rochester Hills on Friday, Jan. 9, 2015. (Photo: Ryan Garza Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo Story Highlights Think your commute is tough? Detroiter James Robertson, 56, walks about 21 miles a day, round trip. 
 
 Robertson also takes a bus ride part-way to his hourly job in Rochester Hills, and part-way home. 
 
 He says he loves his job and bosses, buses are limited and he can't afford a car on $10.55 an hour. 
 
 Lately he catches breaks when a friendly banker heading for Troy sees him and offers frequent lifts. 
 
 Leaving home in Detroit at 8 a.m., James Robertson doesn't look like an endurance athlete. 
 
 Pudgy of form, shod in heavy work boots, Robertson trudges almost haltingly as he starts another workday. 
 
 But as he steps out into the cold, Robertson, 56, is steeled for an Olympic-sized commute. Getting to and from his factory job 23 miles away in Rochester Hills, he'll take a bus partway there and partway home. And he'll also walk an astounding 21 miles. 
 
 Five days a week. Monday through Friday. 
 
 It's the life Robertson has led for the last decade, ever since his 1988 Honda Accord quit on him. 
 
 Every trip is an ordeal of mental and physical toughness for this soft-spoken man with a perfect attendance record at work. And every day is a tribute to how much he cares about his job, his boss and his coworkers. Robertson's daunting walks and bus rides, in all kinds of weather, also reflect the challenges some metro Detroiters face in getting to work in a region of limited bus service, and where car ownership is priced beyond the reach of many. 
 
 But you won't hear Robertson complain — nor his boss. 
 
 "I set our attendance standard by this man," says Todd Wilson, plant manager at Schain Mold & Engineering. "I say, if this man can get here, walking all those miles through snow and rain, well I'll tell you, I have people in Pontiac 10 minutes away and they say they can't get here — bull!" 
 
 As he speaks of his loyal employee, Wilson leans over his desk for emphasis, in a sparse office with a view of the factory floor. Before starting his shift, Robertson stops by the office every day to talk sports, usually baseball. And during dinnertime each day, Wilson treats him to fine Southern cooking, compliments of the plant manager's wife. 
 
 "Oh, yes, she takes care of James. And he's a personal favorite of the owners because of his attendance record. He's never missed. I've seen him come in here wringing wet," says Wilson, 53, of Metamora Township. 
 
 With a full-time job and marathon commutes, Robertson is clearly sleep deprived, but powers himself by downing 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew and cans of Coke. 
 
 "I sleep a lot on the weekend, yes I do," he says, sounding a little amazed at his schedule. He also catches zzz's on his bus rides. Whatever it takes to get to his job, Robertson does it. 
 
 "I can't imagine not working," he says. 
 
 'Lord, keep me safe' 
 
 The sheer time and effort of getting to work has ruled Robertson's life for more than a decade, ever since his car broke down. He didn't replace it because, he says, "I haven't had a chance to save for it." His job pays $10.55 an hour, well above Michigan's minimum wage of $8.15 an hour but not enough for him to buy, maintain and insure a car in Detroit. 
 
 As hard as Robertson's morning commute is, the trip home is even harder. 
 
 At the end of his 2-10 p.m. shift as an injection molder at Schain Mold's squeaky-clean factory just south of M-59, and when his coworkers are climbing into their cars, Robertson sets off, on foot — in the dark — for the 23-mile trip to his home off Woodward near Holbrook. None of his coworkers lives anywhere near him, so catching a ride almost never happens. 
 
 Instead, he reverses the 7-mile walk he took earlier that day, a stretch between the factory and a bus stop behind Troy's Somerset Collection shopping mall. 
 
 "I keep a rhythm in my head," he says of his seemingly mechanical-like pace to the mall. 
 
 At Somerset, he catches the last SMART bus of the day, just before 1 a.m. He rides it into Detroit as far it goes, getting off at the State Fairgrounds on Woodward, just south of 8 Mile. By that time, the last inbound Woodward bus has left. So Robertson foots it the rest of the way — about 5 miles — in the cold or rain or the mild summer nights, to the home he shares with his girlfriend. 
 
 Buy Photo The daily route of "the incredible commuter" James Robertson, 56, of Detroit. (Photo: Detroit Free Press) 
 
 "I have to go through Highland Park, and you never know what you're going to run into," Robertson says. "It's pretty dangerous. Really, it is (dangerous) from 8 Mile on down. They're not the type of people you want to run into. 
 
 "But I've never had any trouble," he says. Actually, he did get mugged several years ago — "some punks tuned him up pretty good," says Wilson, the plant manager. Robertson chooses not to talk about that. 
 
 So, what gets him past dangerous streets, and through the cold and gloom of night and winter winds? 
 
 "One word — faith," Robertson says. "I'm not saying I'm a member of some church. But just before I get home, every night, I say, 'Lord, keep me safe.' " 
 
 The next day, Robertson adds, "I should've told you there's another thing: determination." 
 
 A land of no buses 
 
 Robertson's 23-mile commute from home takes four hours. It's so time-consuming because he must traverse the no-bus land of rolling Rochester Hills. It's one of scores of tri-county communities (nearly 40 in Oakland County alone) where voters opted not to pay the SMART transit millage. So it has no fixed-route bus service. 
 
 Once he gets to Troy and Detroit, Robertson is back in bus country. But even there, the bus schedules are thin in a region that is relentlessly auto-centric. 
 
 "The last five years been really tough because the buses cut back," Robertson says. Both SMART and DDOT have curtailed service over the last half decade, "and with SMART, it really affected service into Detroit," said Megan Owens, executive director of Transportation Riders United. 
 
 Detroit's director of transportation said there is a service Robertson may be able to use that's designed to help low-income workers. Job Access and Reverse Commute, paid for in part with federal dollars, provides door-to-door transportation to low-income workers, but at a cost. Robertson said he was not aware of the program. 
 
 Still, metro Detroit's lack of accessible mass transit hasn't stopped Robertson from hoofing it along sidewalks — often snow-covered — to get to a job. 
 
 At home at work 
 
 Robertson is proud of all the miles he covers each day. But it's taking a toll, and he's not getting any younger. 
 
 "He comes in here looking real tired — his legs, his knees," says coworker Janet Vallardo, 59, of Auburn Hills. 
 
 But there's a lot more than a paycheck luring him to make his weekday treks. Robertson looks forward to being around his coworkers, saying, "We're like a family." He also looks forward to the homemade dinners the plant manager's wife whips up for him each day. 
 
 "I look at her food, I always say, 'Excellent. No, not excellent. Phenomenal,' " he says, with Wilson sitting across from him, nodding and smiling with affirmation. 
 
 Although Robertson eats in a factory lunchroom, his menus sound like something from a Southern café: Turnip greens with smoked pork neck bones, black-eyed peas and carrots in a brown sugar glaze, baby-back ribs, cornbread made from scratch, pinto beans, fried taters, cheesy biscuits. They're the kind of meal that can fuel his daunting commutes back home. 
 
 Though his job is clearly part of his social life, when it's time to work this graduate of Northern High School is methodical. He runs an injection-molding machine the size of a small garage, carefully slicing and drilling away waste after removing each finished part, and noting his production in detail on a clipboard. 
 
 Strangers crossing paths 
 
 Robertson has walked the walk so often that drivers wonder: Who is that guy? UBS banker Blake Pollock, 47, of Rochester, wondered. About a year ago, he found out. 
 
 Pollock tools up and down Crooks each day in his shiny black 2014 Chrysler 300. 
 
 "I saw him so many times, climbing through snow banks. I saw him at all different places on Crooks," Pollock recalls. 
 
 Last year, Pollock had just parked at his office space in Troy as Robertson passed. The banker in a suit couldn't keep from asking the factory guy in sweats, what the heck are you doing, walking out here every day? They talked a bit. Robertson walked off and Pollock ruminated. 
 
 From then on, Pollock began watching for the factory guy. At first, he'd pick him up occasionally, when he could swing the time. But the generosity became more frequent as winter swept in. Lately, it's several times a week, especially when metro Detroit sees single-digit temperatures and windchills. 
 
 "Knowing what I know, I can't drive past him now. I'm in my car with the heat blasting and even then my feet are cold," Pollock says. 
 
 Other times, it's 10:30 or 11 p.m., even after midnight, when Pollock, who is divorced, is sitting at home alone or rolling home from a night out, and wondering how the man he knows only as "James" is doing in the frigid darkness. 
 
 On those nights, Pollock runs Robertson all the way to his house in Detroit. 
 
 "I asked him, why don't you move closer" to work. "He said his girlfriend inherited their house so it's easy to stay there," Pollock said. 
 
 On a recent night run, Pollock got his passenger home at 11 p.m. They sat together in the car for a minute, outside Robertson's house. 
 
 "So, normally you'd be getting here at 4 o'clock (in the morning), right?" the banker asks. "Yeah," Robertson replies. Pollock flashes a wry smile. "So, you're pretty early, aren't you?" he says. Robertson catches the drift. 
 
 "Oh, I'm grateful for the time, believe me," Robertson says, then adds in a voice rising with anticipation: "I'm going to take me a bath!" 
 
 After the door shuts and Pollock pulls away, he admits that Robertson mystifies him, yet leaves him stunned with admiration for the man's uncanny work ethic and determination. 
 
 "I always say to my friends, I'm not a nice guy. But I find myself helping James," Pollock says with a sheepish laugh. He said he's picked up Robertson several dozen times this winter alone. 
 
 Has a routine 
 
 At the plant, coworkers feel odd seeing one of their team numbers always walking, says Charlie Hollis, 63, of Pontiac. "I keep telling him to get him a nice little car," says Hollis, also a machine operator. 
 
 Echoes the plant manager Wilson, "We are very much trying to get James a vehicle." But Robertson has a routine now, and he seems to like it, his coworkers say. 
 
 "If I can get away, I'll pick him up. But James won't get in just anybody's car. He likes his independence," Wilson says. 
 
 Robertson has simple words for why he is what he is, and does what he does. He speaks with pride of his parents, including his father's military service. 
 
 "I just get it from my family. It's a lot of walking, I know." 
 
 Robertson's commute by the miles 
 
 Detroit City Hall to Metro Airport: What he walks each day 
 
 Detroit to Lansing: What he walks each week 
 
 Detroit to Louisville, Ky.: What he walks each month 
 
 Detroit to Los Angeles – and back: What he walks each year 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1CNbtXf
– At 8am, it's time for James Robertson, 56, to leave for work—for a job that starts at 2pm. That's because he makes much of the 23-mile journey on foot, resulting in a 21-mile round-trip walk every day, the Detroit Free Press reports. His car broke down about a decade ago and he's been walking ever since, combining the slog with bus rides in the few areas where buses are available. Once he's worked from 2pm to 10pm, he heads home again in the dark, normally arriving around 4am. With some buses shut down for the day by that point, he walks a total of 13 miles, the Free Press notes. Faith and determination keep him going, he says. He was mugged once, his boss says, though Robertson himself only mentions that he walks through some dangerous areas. But the many miles have their benefits: He loves his co-workers, and his boss's wife cooks him dinner every night. "She takes care of James. And he's a personal favorite of the owners because of his attendance record," says the plant manager at Schain Mold & Engineering. That record is perfect. "I set our attendance standard by this man," the manager says. And this story has a happy ending. Now that Robertson's story is known, people are coming to his aid. Yesterday's front-page Free Press story spurred a number of crowdfunding efforts, which as of last night had brought in more than $30,000, the paper reports. Others offered him rides. Robertson's reaction when the paper told him: "Are you serious?"