FYI:

Dear Friends,

As you know, City Council requested that the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (DDA) develop a public parking plan. We have begun a series of outreach methods to inform this plan, and as part of this, we will be holding several focus group meetings to hear from community representatives.

All are welcome to attend. We have scheduled two meetings at different times, in an effort to meet a variety of schedules.

When: Monday, March 8th

4:30pm – 6:00pm
7:00pm-8:30pm

Where: DDA Board Room, 150 S. Fifth Ave Suite 301, Ann Arbor MI, 48104

At these sessions, I will give a brief overview of our assignment and what we’ve done so far. Most of the meeting will be designed to hear your thoughts, ideas, concerns, and recommendations.

To give us a sense of how many we can expect, please RSVP by clicking this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ParkingPlanRSVP. We greatly appreciate you taking the time.

Many thanks,

Susan Pollay

Executive Director | Ann Arbor DDA

(734) 994-6697

if you find yourself biking, busing or walking in the wintertime, congratulations!  You, my friend, are a Winter Warrior.

Come celebrate your Winter Warrior-ness with other like-minded folks during Downtown Ann Arbor’s Winter Warrior event!

Winter Warrior will be happening on Saturday, Feb 6th from 12-6pm.

Restaurants and cafes will have outdoor seating and there will be discounts to downtown stores.  Restaurants and cafes will be bringing out their sidewalk furniture, and those guests who sit outside will enjoy specials such as $2 draught beers and $1 hot drinks (tea, coffee, soda, etc.).  Restaurants and cafes will be bringing out their sidewalk furniture, and those guests who sit outside will enjoy specials such as $2 draught beers and $1 hot drinks (tea, coffee, soda, etc.). All you have to do is grab a drink, get your receipt stickered and then visit one of the following stores for your discount.  These stores should have balloons outside them to let you know they are participating.

Winter Warrior Discounts:

Here is a list of our participating retailers and the discounts they are offering:

Salon XL – 20% off products
Moosejaw – 20% off any one, regular priced item
Salon Vox – 20% off products
Schakolad – discounts on hot drinks and prebooked Valentine’s orders
Sole Sisters – an additional 10% off sale items, 15% off regularly priced items.
Cupcake Station – free regular coffee with a $2 purchase
Crazy Wisdom – 15% off one item
Acme Mercantile – 20% off regularly priced merchandise (Saturday Only)
Elmo’s T-Shirts – a FREE Michigan bumper sticker($4.95 value) with the purchase of any t-shirt at regular price (not already on sale) and a FREE tin lunch box ($9.95 value) with the purchase of a second t-shirt. 1 shirt, 1 sticker . 2 shirts, sticker and lunch box, a $14.90 value. Saturday and Sunday, Feb.6,7
Carillon Chocolates – BOGO ice cream cones or BOGO coffee (Saturday & Sunday)
Ann Arbor Art Center – 10% off in gift shop, 20% off for members

Also, there will be on-street bike parking in front of Mighty Good Coffee and Schakolad!

One of the great things about working in downtown Ann Arbor is that great restaurants are around every corner.  There’s no need to get into your car to get a tasty lunch.

So why not grab a group of co-workers and sample some of the yummy offerings during Ann Arbor Restaurant Week?

Restaurant Week runs from Jan 17th-22nd.  Click here to check out the menus.

From Frank S., RAT organizer:

To all you die-hards who ride through the winter and only occasionally
complain,  Friday is another opportunity to gather with other
winter bicycle commuters and Ride Around Town!  Gather at Liberty
Plaza Park, corner of Division and Liberty, for a ride of relatively
short duration through the city of A2’s business districts as we
establish that, indeed, Bikes Belong!

Lights are a definite requirement as the ride will start and end in
the dark.  If you haven’t seen my MagicShine 900 Lumen Chinese-made
headlamp this is your chance!  I’ll demonstrate the SOS mode and you
can decide if it’s SOS or OSO.  And if we are lucky Pete will be on
duty with his bike of many lights, although I don’t think the
Christmas tree will be gracing his rack in January.

The after ride gathering (RAT! hole) will be at Tios where you can get
a Dos Equis or similar libation.  I highly recommend a hit of their
extra-hot salsa before riding home … who needs toe-warmers?!?!

As always, please consider joining us at the RAT! hole about 7 even if
you don’t ride.  Hope to see you all there!

Just in time for winter, Wheels in Motion is organizing the 2nd Annual Winter Commuter Challenge.  Log bike commutes during the winter months (12/21/09-03/20/10) and win!

Click here to learn more and to register.

From Frank Schwende, RAT organizer:

RAT. Friday, December 11, 6PM @ Liberty and Division.

So … 350 Rats?  We wish!  No, that’d be unexpected.  But we are teaming up with local environmental activists who are not distracted by the global warming-gate e-mail thing and who understand the validity of the preponderance of the data.  Here’s the plan.

Make a tree ornament from recycled materials and containing the message “350″ on it.  Be creative!  Or just do what I plan on doing – painting a 350 on a can lid, poking a hole for a hanger and bow, and, ta-da!  350 ornament!
At the start of the RAT! as we wait for late arrivals, we’ll have a little tree decorating thing right in Liberty Plaza Park.

As well as helping to kick off the 350.org Blitz in Ann Arbor, we’ll be festooning our own bicycles with as many lights and/or decorations as we can muster.  At the very least, since this ride starts and stops in the dark, you’ll need a headlight and tail reflector/blinky light.

Come see my 900 lumen Chinese made headlight!  It even has an SOS mode (blinks Morse Code dit-dit-dit….dah-dah-dah….dit-dit-dit, for those of you who never tried to get your amateur’s license).

Can’t make the ride?  Don’t WANT to ride in 20 F temperatures?  Then join us at the RAT! hole about 7pm.  For the second month in a row we’ll be at the Monkey Bar, aka Full Moon.  Maybe we’ll be celebrating passage of a state-wide ban on smoking in public places.  At any rate, this RAT! hole has been non-smoking for almost a year, and is one of the few places where a group can sit at a table and talk to each other (quiet).    Hope to see you there!

FYI this should be a really interesting conference.  I’ll be presenting at a couple of sessions.

MOVING MINDS: The Next Transportation Infrastructure

November 9 – 12, 2009

Primary Location: Michigan League, U of M Campus Ann Arbor. 911 N. University Ave. 734-764-0446.

It’s a pivotal time for transportation — in the U.S., in Southeast Michigan, and worldwide. Half the world now lives in city regions. By 2020 that figure will rise to 2/3, challenging current transportation models and policies while at the same time opening exciting new opportunities for business and innovation.

Moving Minds: The Next Transportation Infrastructure will bring top researchers together with business leaders, entrepreneurs, practitioners and policy makers from around the world and across the U.S. to advance new thinking and to accelerate implementation of systems-based New Mobility solutions and infrastructures.

Special focus: “Moving Minds” — understanding the cultural, psychological, and aspirational underpinnings of our relationship to transportation (for both users and leaders), and responding with innovative systems, policies, and business models that address these values sustainably, equitably and compellingly. Primary Sponsor: Ford Motor Company.

Highlights:

• Llew Wells, former West Wing producer – on “moving minds”
• Scott Page, world-renowned systems scholar on diversity, resilience, and national security
• Florencia Serrania, former head of Mexico City’s transit system – on connectivity
• Amit Kapoor, Chair of India Competitiveness Institute and Harvard Business School
• Joint sessions with UM Urban Land Institute on the transport & real estate revolutions
• Naveen Lamba, IBM Global Industry Leader for Intelligent Transportation Systems
• Robin Chase, Founder & Former CEO, ZipCar
• Focused sessions on: business opportunities, pilots, research, and capacity building

The SMART Summit provides a platform for collaboration among leaders from private sector, public sector, non-governmental organizations and academia, who undertake pilot projects, research, education, and global learning exchange on a range of pressing issues and opportunities related to the future of transportation in city regions around the world. For background on SMART: http://um-smart.org

Video footage of last year’s summit:    http://um-smart.org/resources/conference/video.html

2009 SMART Moving Minds Summit:    http://um-smart.org/resources/conference09/overview.html

FYI from Jimmy Rigged, Night of the Living Tread Organizer:

night of the living tread is happening today night rain or shine, thunder or lightning. for the last three years we have had perfect weather, so, it was bound to happen eventually. if the weather is terrible i’m simply going to shorten the course. basically it’s going to be a big game of tag. everyone starts out as zombie killers, but, once tagged you must infect another mortal before continuing on to your checkpoints. there is also a moving checkpoint which will be roaming about a certain area. oh, and we just added a professional zombie killer who will be sniping zombies throughout the night. should be interesting.

Stop into Sweetwaters on Washington Street in downtown Ann Arbor this Friday, Oct 30 from 7-9:30am to chat with Zipcar reps about Zipcar Ann Arbor.  They will be handing out Zipcar info and also have some free coffee.  So stop by, say hi, and learn more about Zipcar Ann Arbor!

MOVING MINDS: THE NEXT TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE is coming up fast -
 November 9 – 12 in Ann Arbor. Hotel blocks are filling up and the early-
bird rate ends October 22 (this Thursday) end of day.

For more information go to
 http://um-smart.org and click on the SMART summit link in the left margin.

Special Highlights Include:

•       The world (and the country) at your doorstep. Urban transportation thought leaders, practitioners, business leaders 
and policy makers from the U.S. and around the world

•       New Mobility Primer Salon – Mon. Nov 9, 6:30 pm – free & open to
 the public

•       New Mobility Entrepreneurs forum, also Monday night

•       Moving Minds public event – The psychology of our transportation 
choices and new visions for the next generation of transportation

•       Special working luncheon to connect SE Michigan transportation 
initiatives – Tues. Nov 10. (SMART’s Connect & Prosper Initiative
 celebrates its new supporting partner, the Mott Foundation).

•       Design in Motion Breakfast – forging the link between design, mobility
 & accessibility (at Angelo’s – delicious) – Wed. Nov. 11

•       Special working luncheon on New Mobility, resilience, and national 
security (Wed. Nov 11)

•       New Mobility Means Business – a panel focused on the emerging
 business opportunities of innovative transportation in an urbanizing world

•       Hands-on mapping session linking real estate and New Mobility – in 
partnership with the UM-ULI Real Estate Forum (see 
http://www.umuliforum.com/)

•       Policy & Research panel Wed Nov 11, setting the stage for a focused all-
afternoon collaborative research workshop geared to accelerating
 sustainable transportation implementation – Thurs. Nov. 12