42°21′ N   83°04′ WINDEPENDENT CITY GUIDE · HU / ENDETROIT + MICHIGAN
QUARTER
DETROIT
The Amsterdam Street stop (2022)
42-BRT · CC BY-SA 4.0

QLINE / Stop 10 of 12

QLINE stopAmsterdam Street

Center platform in the middle of Woodward · park-and-ride next door

The first center-platform stop in the north, next to Wayne State’s park-and-ride lot: TechTown, the Pistons’ training center and the Model T’s birthplace, Ford’s Piquette Avenue Plant, are nearby.

↑ north: 8:22
↓ south: 7:32
Platforms
one center platform
District
New Center
From Congress Street
22 min
From Grand Boulevard
2 min
Sponsor in 2017
Ford Motor Company

01 / Story

The stop’s story

New Center begins at Amsterdam Street, and here the streetcar moves to the middle of Woodward: every stop from here to Grand Boulevard has a single center platform. The stop was adopted by Ford Motor Company, whose support was announced at the rail-signing ceremony on September 15, 2014. A good nine-minute walk east is Ford’s Piquette Avenue Plant: in the 1904 brick factory the Model T was developed and first built, and the first 12,000 were made here.

Amsterdam is the line’s car park too: under the park-and-ride program with Wayne State University you can leave your car in Lot 12 (6050 Woodward, entrance off Harper Avenue) from Friday to Sunday for $5 and ride the streetcar downtown for free. During the three days of the 2024 NFL Draft, nearby lots worked as park-and-ride sites as well.

The area around the stop is a new district of research and sport: the TechTown innovation hub occupies a 1927 Albert Kahn building on Burroughs Street, the Detroit Pistons train nearby at the Henry Ford Detroit Pistons Performance Center, and Wayne State’s Integrative Biosciences Center is here too.

  1. The first center platform in the north
  2. Park-and-ride in Wayne State’s Lot 12
  3. The Model T’s birthplace a nine-minute walk away
  4. TechTown and the Pistons’ training center nearby

02 / From the window

What you see from here

From the center platform you can see down Woodward both ways: south to the I-94 bridge, north to the railway overpass, with the Fisher Building’s tower rising behind it. Look up: a short overhead wire runs above the stop, even though the north end is mostly wire-free, and city data show a traction substation right beside it.

03 / Timeline

The stop’s timeline

  1. The Piquette plant is built

    Ford’s second factory, in Milwaukee Junction.

  2. The first Model T

    The Ford Model T is built on Piquette Avenue.

  3. Ford comes aboard

    At the rail-signing ceremony Ford is announced as the sponsor of the Amsterdam Street stop.

  4. The stop opens

    The first center platform on the north end of the line.

  5. NFL Draft

    Nearby lots serve as park-and-ride sites for Draft visitors.

  6. Park-and-ride

    The QLINE and Wayne State announce their park-and-ride program.

  7. The streetcar stops here every fifteen minutes, free of charge.

04 / Did you know?

Did you know?

  • The Piquette plant was the first factory to assemble more than 100 cars in a day.

  • Several Ford models were built here before the Model T; Ford moved on to Highland Park in 1910.

  • North of Amsterdam Street every stop has a center platform: the tracks move to the middle of Woodward here.

Ford’s Piquette Avenue Plant, birthplace of the Model T (2017)
Jackdude101 · CC BY-SA 4.0
The TechTown building on Burroughs Street (2008)
Andrew Jameson ( talk ) at en.wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0
Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-26

Every fact is sourced. Where sources disagree (the number of stops, the weight of the cars or the construction cost, for example) we follow the primary, official source and say so in the text. The timetable comes from the QLINE’s official GTFS data and live positions from the RTA’s feed.

05 / Nearby

Places within walking distance

Quarter Detroit places around the stop, with straight-line distances.

Around the stop, from the official QLINE list and the map

  • Ford Piquette Avenue Plant 9 min

    The Model T’s birthplace, a 1904 brick factory, now a car museum.

  • TechTown

    An innovation hub in a 1927 Albert Kahn building on Burroughs Street.

  • Henry Ford Detroit Pistons Performance Center

    The Detroit Pistons’ training center.

  • Detroit Children’s Museum

    A children’s museum, one of the QLINE’s official destinations.

  • Detroit Amtrak station 4 min

    At the next stop, Baltimore Street.

06 / Events

Events near the stop

Upcoming events at venues around the stop.

All events ↗
The NotebookSep 27, 2026, 1:00 PM

The Notebook

Fisher Building · 10 min walkBroadway in Detroit and ATG present The Notebook at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit on Sunday, September 27, at 1 p.m. Catch this classic romance brought to life on stage.