Hello all,

Looks like we will still be going ahead with the Green Fair, Bike Fest and Green Commute since the forecast is only calling for a 40% chance of rain.  So do the no rain dance and come on down!

It’s all happening between 6pm-9pm on Main Street and Liberty Street in Downtown Ann Arbor

As part of the Mayor’s Green Fair, getDowntown is helping organize a Bike Fest and Green Commute section of the Green Fair.  We will have tons or great activities, including rides on the Seven Person Conference Bike, an AATA Hybrid Bus, a Zipcar, and much much more!

Read all about Bike Fest Here

Read all about Green Commute Here

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.

A hot trip from Transit Riders United (TRU) led me to this survey being conducted by SEMCOG.

From TRU’s blog:

Every few years, SEMCOG, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, updates their long range transportation plan to decide the region’s transportation funding priorities for the next 25 years.

According to SEMCOG, the survey findings will be considered by staff and local elected officials as they “explore transportation investment choices and establish a regional investment direction. The end result will be a long-range plan serving the needs of the region’s citizens and businesses by promoting a transportation system that is accessible, safe, and reliable.”

That means if you care about transit, including busing, rail, biking and walking, you should take this survey.  You can take the survey by clicking here. 

According to the Daily, DDA Chair Roger Hewitt and Ann Arbor Mayor John Hietfje are planning on creating a trolley system in A2 in 5-7 years.  They argue that the system will be better than our current bus system and would be able to run every 10 minutes.  If this is true, and they can make it happen, that would really do a lot to get people out of their cars and onto mass transit.

Read the story here

I attended the Mass Transit Summit today hosted by Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick.

During the first part of the summit, we heard from representatives from Charlotte, Denver, and Houston about how transit has benefited their communities. All of these cities are roughly the same size as Detroit.

It was amazing to see what these cities have done in terms of public transportation systems.

Some highlights from the presentations:

• All of the cities had a wonderful connection between different transit modes. They all had express buses, some sort of rail system, and some even had streetcars.
• Each emphasized how building the transit infrastructure directly resulted in an increase in economic development. One presenter stated that every $1 in transit development results in $8.5 dollars in investment.
• The main funding source for each system was a sales tax. Of course, we can’t do that in Michigan because of some sort of constitutional issue.
• Many of the presenters emphasized that a good transit system must serve all segments of the population, from seniors to white collar workers to youth. And in order to do this, they had to create many different types of services.
• It was clear from all of the presenters that a variety of transit options is especially important to a vibrant community. This means both having good roads and good alternatives. And since roads can only be stretched so far, it makes sense to have transit alternatives that can meet demand at peak hours when congestion is the worst.
• In addition to having a variety of transit options (from express buses, to light rail, to commuter rail, etc), the presenters also emphasized the need to have transit go where people want to go. This includes vibrant downtowns, work sites, special event locations and stores. When someone is easily able to hop on a bus or rail and get to a grocery store or a baseball game then transit it really doing it’s job.
• Many of the presenters are noted how important it is to get businesspeople to help advocate and support a transit plan. Since transit inevitably brings more economic development it is in many business people’s best interest to support increasing public transportation.
• Finally,a presenter from Charlotte noted that there will always been some anti-transit people out there saying that it will never work. But time and time again those naysayers have been proven wrong.

Although the presentations focused on cities comparable to Detroit, each of those major cities created a transit system that linked the major city to outlying hubs. This is the idea behind the Ann Arbor to Detroit Rail. Since large numbers of people move from Ann Arbor to Detroit and Detroit to Ann Arbor every day this is a clear place where we need something more than just a highway system.

The next half of the summit brought together officials and decision makers from Metro Detroit to offer insight and direction into what all of this means for Detroit.

Some of the highlights from these panelists:

• A whole lot is happening in Metro Detroit to try to get a rail system as well as an expanded transit system created. Seems to be that the largest hold up is money. One panelist said that the Ann Arbor-Detroit Rail could be up and running by 2010. And a reason this is going to take so long is that there is more planning that needs to be put in place first.
• Everyone understood the need to have a more regional transit system. Right now, there is no transit authority that links Washtenaw to Wayne County. This can be an issue when trying to fund something on a more regional level.
• Obviously finding the funding for all of these transit projects is a concern. But Congresswoman Kilpatrick is working hard to get some Federal money to help Detroit expand its transit system.
• Moving forward with a more comprehensive transit system will involve making transit a priority for Metro Detroit. It will also involve continuing to engage the business community in the process.

All and all it was an interesting Summit with lots of good thoughts presented. It will be interesting to see what will come out of it.

I just wrote a post discussing the Sunday Ann Arbor News article on the possibility of streetcars in Ann Arbor.

You can check out the post and the ensuing discussion on Arbor Update.

Mark Your Calendars . . .

Gateway to the World: Mass Transit Summit
Hosted by Congresswoman Carolyn C. Kilpatrick
Moderated by Chuck Stokes (”Spotlight on the News”)

Monday, March 3, 2008
Registration from 8:00am-9:00am with Continental Breakfast
Program 9:00am-2:00pm
Wayne State University, Community Arts Center
450 Reuther Mall, Detroit, MI 48202
Parking at Structure 1 at Palmer and Cass
RSVP to Rodney Johnson at (313)965-9004 or rodney.johnson@mail.house.gov

Hear from experts who have operated systems in:

• Charlotte
• Denver
• Houston

Discuss the Transportation Hot Topics:

• Funding
• Building Economies
• Successful Rail Projects

You can view the event flyer here: Gateway to the World Mass Transit Summit

A recent article in Crain’s discusses a report recently released by Michigan Future Inc. The report describes Michigan’s drop in per-capita income rankings, a result the report ties to a lack of well-educated employees.

So beyond the obvious need for Michigan to invest in better educating its citizens, the report recommends the following strategy to attract more talent to the state:

“To attract talent, Glazer and Michigan Future advocate investments in five areas: the arts, research universities, mass transit, downtown and near downtown neighborhoods and green or outdoor spaces.”

As you can see, mass transit and a vibrant downtown are among the top ways to attract talent to this community.  Ann Arbor’s investment in good public transportation and a vibrant downtown have obviously paid off since we do seem to have a lot of good talent here. But we can do better.

Our public transportation system is good, but it could be better. We need more express routes, better connectivity between regions, stronger investment in non-motorized facilities, and some other transit service that moves beyond fixed-route bus service.

At the same time, we need to find ways to encourage workers to live in the downtown or near-downtown area.  I was reminded of this need with the recent snow storm.  It would be a lot easier for all of us to get home at night if we could walk home rather than drive 20 or more miles on an icy highway.

But often when I and others talk about these issues there is a common refrain: Where are we going to get the money to pay for this?  The AATA doesn’t have enough money to create more express routes, the City doesn’t have enough money to do all of the non-motorized enhancements it would like, and many people don’t feel like they have enough money to live close to the downtown.

So here’s the deal.  If we want to attract the talent, we need to find a way to pay for it.  If we want to remain a great place to live, we need to continue to enhance our transportation options.  Indeed, mass transportation is a vital for this area.

I know that many folks are talking about this issue right now and want to do something about it.  I am encouraged by the conversations I hear.  Let’s hope we’ll all continue to move in the right direction because good transportation + good talent = a great economy.

Metromode had an article last week providing an update to the proposed Ann Arbor-Detroit Rail line.

The good news: The needed studies should be done by April to move the project forward.

Read all about it here: Detroit-Ann Arbor commuter rail line studies look to wrap up in April