FYI:

Due to a construction project, Route 15 Scio Church W. Stadium will be detoured beginning March 1st, 2010 until further notice.

Buses will use the following detour: regular route to intersection of Pauline/Stadium – east on Pauline – resume regular route on Seventh.

The AATA has a couple of service alerts out because of the snow.  If you want to get these send directly to your email inbox, subscribe to MyRide.  Many AATA buses are running about 10 minutes behind.

To check on the status of your bus, you can go to AATA’s Routes and Schedules page and select a route, or you can go to the Mobile RideTrak, which works better for mobile devices.

Here are the alerts that most impact downtown Ann Arbor Commuters:

• Route 17: Due to road conditions, Route 17 cannot serve Fifth Ave from Beakes to Depot via the Blake Transit Center.
• Route 13: Due to road conditions, there is no service north of Sunset.
• Route 14: Due to road conditions, Route 14 cannot serve Overridge.

Keep in mind that all AATA buses are still running, despite the bad weather.

Some benefits for choosing to ride the bus instead of driving your car on days like this:

• If you take the bus, you don’t have to shovel your car out and deal with residential streets.
• If you take the bus, you don’t have to warm your car up.   AATA buses are heated already.
• Buses are a lot bigger than small cars, which can feel comforting on a snowy day when your car might not handle as well.
• You don’t have to stress out about driving in the snow–leave the driving to an experienced bus driver.
• You can enjoy the snow rather than cursing it.
• Rides are free on all AATA buses with your go!pass.

We just got a call from someone wondering where the new AATA Plymouth Road Park and Ride Lot is located.

For a map of this location, please click here.

For more info on this and other Park & Ride Lots, you can visit getDowntown’s Park and Ride Lot page.

FYI from the AATA:

AATA to open new Park & Ride Lot

Commuters will soon have yet another option for accessing popular Ann Arbor destinations. On January 25, 2010, Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, AATA will begin service to the new Plymouth Road Park & Ride Lot. Located within the US-23/Plymouth Road interchange in Northeast Ann Arbor, the lot is ideally located for commuters using the heavily traveled M-14/US-23 corridor.

Commuters can enter the lot directly from Plymouth Rd. In addition to 260 free, paved parking spaces, the lot features a number of amenities: passenger shelters, lighting, security cameras to provide digital video recording, a signalized entrance/exit, enhanced storm water detention and designated areas for passenger drop-off and carpool/vanpool parking. Bike-and-bus commuters will find a covered parking area for 20 bicycles.

With the opening of the lot, AATA will implement transit service improvements in northeast Ann Arbor. AATA’s Route 2 Plymouth will serve the Plymouth Road Park & Ride lot on weekdays. Buses will operate throughout the day, with trips as frequent as every 10 minutes during peak times.

The Plymouth Road Park & Ride Lot joins four other facilities as part of AATA’s growing network of Park & Ride lots.

The lot represents AATA’s first independently constructed park and ride facility and is located on the public right of way owned by the Michigan Department of Transportation. The lot was developed in cooperation with Michigan Department of Transportation, City of Ann Arbor and the Federal Highway Administration.

In coordinating the project, AATA involved numerous Michigan-based companies. The primary contractors include D&R Earthmoving of Howell, OHM Engineering of Livonia, Beckett & Raeder of Ann Arbor, Nagle Paving Company of Novi, Rauhorn Electric of Macomb, Goretski Construction Company, Inc. of Milford, Cut-N-Care, Inc. of Wixom, Huron Sign Company of Ypsilanti.

Construction of the lot is funded entirely through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The total estimated cost will be $1.56 million. Substantial completion of the lot allows AATA to open it to the public, as scheduled, on January 25, 2010. This spring final pavement and striping as well as landscaping will complete the project.

A grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Park & Ride lot will take place in May during the annual Commuter Challenge. The Commuter Challenge is a month-long competition during the month of May between Ann Arbor Area organizations that encourages individuals to use sustainable transportation options to get to work.

Transit Riders United (TRU) is  “seeking a passionate motivated people-person to join our staff as the Organizer / Assistant Director, leading public engagement and organizing efforts.”

Learn more about this position by clicking here.

FYI from the AATA.  I signed up for these alerts and received my first one recently.   See more below:

Interested in receiving AATA e-mail alerts?

E-mail alerts on bus service changes, service disruptions and other local transit information are now available from the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (AATA) with its new service – MyRide.

Interested subscribers can receive e-mail alerts on bus route and schedule changes, detours, delays, press releases, board meeting notices and meeting minutes as soon as the information can be made available.

MyRide alerts are sent to subscribers on only the topics they choose. Subscriptions can be changed or cancelled at any time.

To sign up for MyRide, go to http://www.theride.org/EmailAlertSubscriptions.asp and complete the New Subscriber form, which asks for a primary e-mail address. A secondary e-mail address can be entered and there is an option to add password protection.

AATA wants to assure subscribers that TheRide will use e-mail addresses only to deliver the requested information and will never share e-mail addresses with anyone, for any reason.

In a recent post, I discussed some cool new transportation apps that might make your commute easier.  Now there is a site that tries to aggregate those apps in one place.  It’s called City-Go-Round and you can use it to search for transportation apps in your community.  It’s from the makers of Walkscore.  The goal of City-G0-Round is to “help make public transit more convenient” by doing three different things as noted by T4America:

. . . cataloging the hundreds of smartphone/web applications people have created to make riding public transit easier, putting pressure on agencies across the country that have not released their public data, and raising awareness of the need for government agencies to open up their data.

Check out City-Go-Round here.

After working downtown for many years, you get used to common sights and sounds. Things like the white twinkle lights glowing from the trees on Main Street in the winter, the sidewalks filling with café tables in the spring, and the return of the LINK in the fall after its summer hiatus. Not this year.

After five years, the AATA and DDA suspended funding for the Link. The DDA Board voted back in July to suspend funding because they felt that the LINK was not doing what they had intended. The topic of the LINK has been re-visited in subsequent DDA Transportation Advisory Committee Meetings: whether to fund again or not. The issue is complex, as the LINK has become many things to many people, and it leads to the ultimate question: what makes a successful downtown bus circulator?

What other communities have a service similar to the LINK? One example of many is Boulder Colorado’s The Hop. Boulder is a similarly sized community and a college town, which makes it a worthy comparison. I have also been to Boulder and ridden The Hop so I have first hand experience with its ease of use. The City of Boulder attributes the success of The Hop to convenience. The trips are frequent (7-10 minutes) and thus the riders don’t need to consult a schedule. In addition, the buses are fun (they play XM radio to riders and plus they’re named the Hop…how cute is that?) and are affordable (just $2.00 per ride or free if you have a pass that’s similar to our go!pass.)

As a long-time downtown worker, and a former LINK rider, I can say that the LINK was successful by many of the same standards and our bus was free. However, the schedule was not often regular or clear. It changed from year to year, and didn’t run during the summer months. If a bus came every 7-10 minutes throughout the day, even summers (and maybe Saturdays!) I would expect ridership would increase.

What did you like about the LINK? Are you going to miss it when the wind starts to blow and the snow drifts and you’ve got to walk all the way to State Street or Main Street loaded down with a laptop and a briefcase? Tell us what you think and we’ll keep you posted as this issue is discussed.

(Special thanks to Amber Miller of the DDA for her analysis of downtown circulators)

Come one, come all, it’s the Fall Commuting Fair at Kerrytown Shops

When: Thurs. October 22nd, 3-5pm

What:

–Free bike tune ups to go!pass holders (compliments of Wheels in Motion)
–Free apples and cider
–Check out a Zipcar
–Other fun stuff!

Stop by and say hi!  We’ll be over by the Sweetwaters entrance.  Inside if the weather is rainy.