It’s that time of year again.  The Ann Arbor Art Fairs will descend upon downtown Ann Arbor from Weds. July 16-Sat. July 19th.

Because the Art Fair’s close many downtown streets and parking prices increasing during this time, you might be looking for other commuting options during this time.

getDowntown has created a page on our website with info on Art Fair Commuting, from which streets will be closed, to what you need to know to get around.

Check it out here: www.getdowntown.org/resources/Commuting_during_Art_Fair.html

All I can say is . . . wow.

We just meet the Commuter Challenge goal of logging 200,000 sustainable miles for May.

Driving 200,000 miles is the equivalent to burning 317 barrels of oil!

That’s enough energy to power 12 homes for an entire year!

Again, wow.

FYI, I got this info through this Environmental Impact Calculator

When gas hits $4.00 a gallon, people start to change their behavior.

And yes, it can even happen in the Motor City, as this Detroit News article reports.

According to the article:

• SMART, Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, which transports riders throughout Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties, saw a 10 percent increase in customers this April compared to last, from an average daily ridership of 40,000 to 44,000. That’s the highest average since the bus system started in 1967. Year-to-date, SMART ridership is up 6.5 percent over the same period last year.

• Detroit city buses transported 7.7 percent more riders from July 2007 through March 2008 than it did the same period a year ago. Average daily ridership went from 130,000 to 140,000.

• The number boarding Amtrak trains between Pontiac, Detroit and Chicago from October 2007 to April 2008 increased 5.2 percent over the same period a year ago, to 260,000 riders.

• The number of passengers nationwide taking the 2-year-old Megabus — which has a route from Detroit to Chicago — more than doubled from 2006 to 2007, to 650,000 riders last year. The service expects to exceed that this year.

FYI, the Megabus stops at State Street in Ann Arbor. More info here.

• Carpooling also is attracting converts. The RideShare carpool program sponsored by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments had 3,456 riders in its database last year. This year, it’s grown to 3,657.

FYI the AATA just created some awesome new carpool software. More info here.

I am working on getting some stats from the AATA. I’ll post them if and when I get them.

Last week the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority began running the A2 Chelsea Express

This is an awesome service, because they are using Coach Buses, with nice padded seats and the bus goes on the highway, so it doesn’t take that long.

This Commuter Bus service departs the Arctic Coliseum (501 Coliseum Dr.) in Chelsea at 6:14 and 7:11am and arrives in downtown Ann Arbor around 6:30 and 7:30am.  The service leaves downtown Ann Arbor at around 3:50 and 5:19pm and gets back to Chelsea at 4:15 and 5:44pm.  View the schedule here.

The service costs just $125 a month, which is cheaper than paying for gas for the same distance!

And the bus has a guaranteed ride home program, so if you need to get home or somewhere else in a emergency, AATA will pay to get you there.

Don’t believe it’s cheaper?  Take the MDOT Cost Calculator and see for yourself.   I plugged into the calculator that I:

• work full time (21 days a month)
• commute 32 miles roundtrip daily (the distance from Chelsea to A2)
• pay $3.49 a gallon for gas (which is cheap these days)
• my car gets 30 miles to the gallon
• and I am not paying for parking

With just those numbers, the calculator estimates my cost for driving at $367.14 a month!

So consider taking this bus so you can save money on gas and parking.

Learn more about the A2 Chelsea Bus by clicking here

Ann Arbor Googler Ashley Schubert, 24, is an AdWords Account Coordinator who works on supporting  Google’s growing base of advertisers. After graduating from Wake Forest University in May 2007, she moved to Ann Arbor and has been working for Google since December.

Ashley is an avid supporter of sustainable transportation. She shares her thoughts below.

Why should you walk, bike or bus to work instead of driving?

There are so many answers to that question- it’s hard to know where to begin. As a young 24 year old that has just started her first job at Google after many years of schooling, it is a simple answer: money. Don’t get me wrong- I’m a hippy at heart and I try my best to help the environment, but I also need to be fiscally responsible right now. And have you seen the price of gas lately?? Taking the bus or biking to work everyday for two weeks will save me over 40 dollars in gas. And that’s not even adding on the cost of car maintenance and insurance.

I take the bus most days to and from my office in downtown Ann Arbor. If it is a particularly beautiful day, I’ll bike or walk. In addition to money, it actually saves me time by taking the bus because then I don’t have to walk to and from the parking garage, the bus picks me up right outside my office door! And in the winter you quickly realize after spending 10 minutes scraping snow off the car and defrosting it, that if you’d just taken the bus, you’d be in transit by now- and be significantly warmer. I also hate driving in the rain. And who wouldn’t want to walk to the bus stop on a beautiful day?

My favorite days are the ones when I can bike downtown and complete all my errands without ever having to park. I especially like being able to get places faster, like Kerrytown, because I don’t have to follow all the one-way streets on my bike. The Farmer’s Market, my Pilates class above Café Zola, and the Dawn Treader bookstore are my three most common places to commute to-… but it would be a shame to miss all the stuff in between. Ann Arbor is full of great people, but you can’t appreciate its diversity and how unique it is from inside your car.

So just to recap why YOU should bike, bus, or walk:

- Save MONEY (and we love to do that)

- Feel good about curbing CO2 emissions

- Save time and worry over driving in snow and rain (which we have a lot of)

- And connect with the city- really appreciate all the great people and opportunities we have in Ann Arbor. You miss so many great restaurants and little unique shops when you are cruising past them at 30 mph.

I hope to see you on the bus or sidewalk soon!

–Ashley

An article appeared in the Detroit News today detailing plans to bring Zipcars to downtown Ann Arbor.  getDowntown has been working hard (I think since November) to make this happen.  I am really excited about Zipcars because I really do see it as a way to ease people into the idea of biking, walking, and busing to work, because should they need a car, it’s there.

I look forward to presenting a funding proposal to the DDA tomorrow and seeing how it goes from there!

Last week I did a commuter choices presentation at JJR. At these presentations I give staff information and resources to help them walk, bike, bus, carpool, etc. to work. Since JJR is participating in the Commuter Challenge, this was a great time to come and talk to them.

Ron was at the presentation. He just started working at JJR a couple of weeks ago, so didn’t know all of the ins and outs of commuting to the downtown.

Since he doesn’t live in Ann Arbor, I encouraged him to think about parking at the Miller Road Park and Ride Lot and taking the 12UM AATA bus into town. The 12UM goes right past JJR, so it works out really well. And since JJR participates in the go!pass program, Ron gets a go!pass and can park at the Park and Ride Lot and ride the bus for free.

Ron sent me an email describing his experience using the Park and Ride Lot and bus for the first time. He had a great experience that I wanted to share with you:

I actually got to the Park & Ride Lot on Miller and M-14 by 6:25 a.m. and rode the bus to town!

My normal commute is 18.2 miles (36.4 miles roundtrip) and this saves me 2.5 miles (5.0 miles roundtrip) one way. Time wise it takes maybe 5 more minutes, waiting at the Lot for the Bus and the number of stops, no big deal. The stop close to JJR is on the SW Corner of Huron and Ashley.

I up’ed my [Commuter Challenge] goal of 4 Sustainable Commutes to 16 for next month’s, “Curb Your Car Month”. Last night we put over $60 in a tank of gas. At these prices this little 5.0 mile savings/commute will allow me not to purchase another $400 in gas over the course of the year.

I think Ron’s words speak for themselves! Do you want to save more money? Get more out of your commute by participating in the Curb Your Car Month Commuter Challenge. Take the Challenge by clicking here.

Want to know how much (or how little) your business is polluting the environment when people drive to work?

Find out with this Environmental Impact Calculator 

For those of you who are numbers people, you might be interested in this.  As you can see in the table below, go!pass use is the highest it has been in the last 7 years.  The table below shows the number of people showing their go!pass on the buses each month.  As you can see, about 6,000 more people used their go!pass this March compared to last March.

At the same time, the AATA itself just hit a record for the number of riders they have per service hour.  So it’s clear that people are changing their behavior.  And I bet high gas prices have something to do with it.

This is what frustrates me about McCain’s idea of cutting the gas tax.

It’s a bad idea for so many reasons, and I actually found an article from Fox News no less, detailing 10 reasons why suspending the federal gas tax would be bad for the economy and poor public policy.

One of the reasons this article mentions:

It would eliminate almost $9 billion that would be invested in road, bridge and public transit investments that benefit the public and American businesses–$7 billion in highway improvements; $2 billion in transit investments. This would trigger a series of negative economic consequences.

Did you read that?  $2 BILLION dollars in transit investments.  Hello?  Isn’t this the time to increase transit because gas prices are so high?  Not to mention global warming, congestion, etc.

At the same time, as you can see by the go!pass stats, people are changing their behavior.  This is good for our environment, good for individual and community health, and good for people’s pocketbooks.  It makes no sense to mess with that at this point.

While it is true that commuters who live too far away to walk,  bike or bus are the most affected, this shouldn’t be reason to cut back on taxes.  If anything, we should find ways to increase access to transit so these folks can get to work without driving.  And of course, carpooling is also an option.

And perhaps that will mean that people’s schedules need to be more consistent so they can carpool.  Or maybe that means more teleworking.  Whatever we do, I think this is a great opportunity to push some initiatives forward.  Let’s keep moving forward and give SE Michigan the transit system it deserves.

There is a nice article today in the Ann Arbor News about all of the great new services for commuters to the downtown.

We touched on these services at last night’s Commuter Choices Reception. About 40 people attended this reception and we talked about all of the great commuting choices people have to the downtown as well as some new services coming to the area.

Here are some of the great resources we discussed:

Walk

• Want to walk downtown? Check out this great Walk Map produced by the DDA.
  • You can also get a paper copy at downtown parking structures and at the Chamber of Commerce Office at 115 W. Huron 3rd Floor.
  • This map is a great resource not only for it’s info on parking lots, bus stops, and the LINK route, but also because it has info on places to eat and shop in the downtown.
• Want to know how far you have to walk? Check out the Gmaps pedometer.
  • This nifty little program lets you see how long (in miles) in takes you to get from one place to another. Simply plug in an address, zoom in click “start recording” and double click on a starting point. Then keep clicking on points in the direction you want to travel until you reach your destination. Gmaps does the rest.
  • For those of you who run to work (or run home) you can also use MapMyRun, an online social networking site for runners.

Bike

• Get you Bike Maps here. We’ve got Bike Maps over here at the Chamber that show you preferred cycling routes.
• There are tons of other resources for cyclists on our website for cyclists. Check them out here.
• Ever wanted to put your bike on the bus. We can show you how.

Bus

• 5,400 strong and growing. That’s the number of go!passes we’ve sold so far to 388 downtown businesses.
• And not only do go!passes allow you to ride all AATA buses for free and park at Park and Ride Lots for free, they also come with DISCOUNTS TO DOWNTOWN BUSINESSES!
• The AATA is staring up a new Commuter Bus from Chelsea to Ann Arbor on May 15
• getDowntown is working with AATA and the DDA to provide a NightRide van service to downtown employees at work after 11:00pm.
  • This van would arrive at Fourth and Liberty every 45 minutes from 11:15am-1:30am and drop you off at your house (if you live on the West Side of Ann Arbor) or at the Pioneer Park and Ride Lot.
  • The service will be free for awhile to encourage people to use it and tell us what they think.
  • More info to come!

Carpool/Vanpool/Share a Ride

• getDowntown and the DDA are now offering preferential parking for carpools of 3 or more or vanpools in downtown parking structures. These spaces will be $125 each (divided among 3 people that’s about $42 each) and are guaranteed to be there for you. Want one? Email me and I’ll give you more details. I hope to get this up on the website soon.
• getDowntown and the DDA are working on getting Zipcars into the downtown. And things are moving forward. I just need to write a proposal to the DDA and they need to approve it. If the DDA approves the proposal, we should have 3 Zipcars in the downtown area by around June.
• The AATA is going to be introducing some new online ridesharing software in May. This software will allow people to go right on a website and find people to carpool or vanpool with instantly. Look for it soon!

And last, but not least, Curb Your Car Month! Stop reading this right now and sign up for the Commuter Challenge and Check out all of the great events.

Whew!