Here is some information about bus detours on TheRide because of student move-in (Aug 31-Sept 3, 2010):

TheRide to detour routes on UM Central/Medical Campuses during student move-in; Route 36 to resume regular routing

The University of Michigan’s (UM) student move-in will close or redirect parts of several streets in the UM Central and Medical Campus areas. The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (TheRide) will detour routes around the area in an attempt to avoid traffic congestion and maintain timely service.

Detours around the Central Campus Transit Center project will remain in effect for most routes. As a result, TheRide is advising passengers to plan their trips in advance and allow extra time for traveling on the affected routes.

Route 36 will end its detour on Monday, August 30. The route will access the new Central Campus Transit Center and return to its regular routing on that date.

Click here to view all of the information on Route Detours for Student Move-In

Route and schedule information is available at www.TheRide.org and at 734.996.0400.

TheRide also offers e-mail and text message updates on bus routes, schedules, detours and other news from TheRide by free subscription to MyRide at www.TheRide.org.

Visit TheRide at www.facebook.com/CatchTheRide or www.twitter.com/CatchTheRide.

Our updated guide to commuting into downtown Ann Arbor during the Art Fairs is now up on our website!

This year there is a new shuttle from the West Side leaving from Maple Village Shopping Center, a trolley that circulates around the downtown, as well as the other Art Fair shuttles that run from Pioneer High School Park & Ride Lot and Briarwood Mall.  This information plus great maps, biking information and more are all found here.

If you have questions or need more information, please contact us at 734-214-0100!

According to IBM’s Commuter Pain Survey, driving in many large metropolitan cities is pretty unpleasant.

What is causing all of this pain?  IBM looked at 10 different factors:

1) commuting time, 2) time stuck in traffic, agreement that: 3) price of gas is already too high, 4) traffic has gotten worse, 5) start-stop traffic is a problem, 6) driving causes stress, 7) driving causes anger, 8. traffic affects work, 9) traffic so bad driving stopped, and 10) decided not to make trip due to traffic.

Whoah.  Not good stuff.  Cities ranking high on the commuter pain index include Beijing, Toronto, London, Paris, New York, and of course, Los Angeles.

Interestingly, some of the countries with high commuter pain also have high rates of transit, biking and walking (I am thinking of Toronto and New York in particular).

While IBM looks at commuter pain, I’d love to switch this around to check out a commuter happiness index.  What sort of things could measure commuter happiness?  Short commuting time would definitely be one of them.  But how about some of the things that make biking, walking and busing so great?  Like stronger connection to community, better personal fitness, and lower stress.  Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what cities rank high on the Commuter Happiness Index and what makes those cities work so well?  It might help understand the reasons behind the pain of these other places.

Slate.com has an interesting series exploring transportation, thriving cities, and how to solve an impending transportation crisis called “Nimble Cities” From the first article:

The world is moving to cities for the reasons they always have: because cities are centers of opportunity, of social connection, of innovation. But social mobility requires real mobility, and the cities that will succeed will be those with the fastest flow of ideas and the most efficient and robust links between people.

This is an exercise after my own heart – lets put our nerdy urban planning, transportation and economics thinking caps on and think about what could make Ann Arbor a nimble city. Is it already?

Light Rail

So let’s read and discuss! When thinking about parking, questions discussed are: does more parking encourage more driving and congestion? Would eliminating those parking requirements allow for more dense development, development that’s friendlier to transit? Would bicycle superhighways, or more bike lanes encourage bicyclists? Ideas like minimum parking requirements and congestion pricing, transportation demand management, light rail, improving infrastructure – are all represented. Locally, we have shared cars (Zipcar), rail could be a possibility in the near future, and parking is always a topic of  discussion. Read the suggested solutions – which ones could Ann Arbor take advantage of?

AnnArbor.Com posted two articles on the two Commuter Rail projects pending to Ann Arbor.  And as usual, it’s all about the money.  In my opinion, I would say both projects are still viable, but funding is definitely an issue.

• SEMCOG officials say $40 million to $50 million still needed for Ann Arbor-to-Detroit rail project.
• WALLY isn’t dead but needs $10 million more for demonstration rail service, officials say.

FYI from the Main Street Area Association:

Undoubtedly you have heard that the University of Michigan is honored to have President Barack Obama as its May 1 commencement speaker. Hosting such a prestigious guest means some changes to the normal commencement plans to accommodate increased security.

Among these changes is the closing of all lanes of Main Street from south of Pauline to Stadium, from about midnight Friday April 30 to about 2 pm Saturday May 1.

View other Commencement details at www.commencement.umich.edu

Ann Arbor has once again made it on one of those lists.  This time we were ranked #14 out of the 50 top Bike Friendly Cities by Bicycling Magazine.

Here’s the slide with a picture of Ann Arbor and some other info

So who are the cities that came in ahead of us?  Here are the top 5 bike friendly cities, according the Bicycling Magazine:

1. Minneapolis, MN
2. Portland, OR
3. Boulder, CO
4. Seattle, OR
5. Eugene, OR

The getDowntown.org website is down as a result of an issue with the servers where the website is hosted.  They are working on the problem and hopefully we should be back up soon.  I’ll post when the site is back up.

I’m very excited that our anniversary reception is happening tonight at the Michigan Theater Screening Room from 4:30-6:30pm.  We’ll have refreshments from Sava’s State Street Cafe and lots of good conversation.

About 65 people have RSVPed including Mayor John Hieftje, Rich Sheridan from Menlo Innovations, several City Council Members, and lots more!

Susan Pollay, Executive Director of the DDA will provide an overview of our past and Nancy Shore, getDowntown Program Director, will give us a peak into the future.  After that, Employee Services Coordinator Moira Branigan will present businesses with special appreciation awards for being part of the getDowntown Program and purchasing go!passes for the past 10 years.

Should be a blast!  Hope to have pictures up soon.

The AATA announced that it plans to continue the A2Express Bus service to Chelsea that began two year’s ago.  The service starts at Arctic Coliseum in Chelsea with stops in downtown Ann Arbor and onto the Uof M campus.  People who use A2 Express really love it.

In order to lower the cost for a monthly pass, the AATA is going to be running the service in house rather that contracting it out.  This will allow them to offer monthly passes for $99/month rather than the current price of $125/month.

As we have been doing in the past, the getDowntown Program will pay 1/2 the cost of a monthly pass for this service for employees with a go!pass.  That means you could ride the A2Express for just $50/month, which is about $2.50 a day.  We can offer this price because of a generous grant from the Ann Arbor DDA.

For more information on A2 Express or the go!pass discount for this service, please contact getDowntown.