While  almost all of the coverage of the DDA’s Parking and Transportation Plan has focused on extending meter enforcement to 9pm, that’s not the whole story.

As someone who contributed to that plan, I’d like to shed some light on the other details.

First of all, the plan itself is called a Parking AND Transportation Plan.  And for good reason.  The plan outlines strategies to encourage better parking and sustainable transportation options.

You can see the dual role of this plan clearly by looking at the goal of the plan (found on page 15 ):

To expand upon an integrated set of transportation and parking approaches that support a strong,
attractive, vital, and diverse downtown and core area.

Integration.  What that means is that implementing only one strategy does not a plan make.  In other words, if all the City does is extend the parking meters, they are missing the point, which is that if enforcement times are extended, other measures need to be put in place as well.  In many ways, parking and transportation downtown exist as an ecosystem.  Change one thing, and you need to consider how it impacts the rest.

So what are some other strategies outlined in the plan?  They include:

• Extending AATA bus service later into the evening so employees and residents can choose to ride the bus instead of park.
• Increase evening transit service between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti.
• Providing low cost parking at the top levels of parking structures for employees and others.
• Create more parking options for bikes and other alternative energy vehicles.
• Make it easier for people to catch a taxi by strategically placing taxi stands.
• Looking at ways to adjust parking rates so that it costs more to park in higher demand areas than it does in lower demand areas.

These strategies take into consideration the fact that employees, visitors and residents desire many parking and transportation choices in the evening.  These options must be multi-faceted because the needs of these different groups are mutli-faceted.

And it’s clear to me as I went around talking to evening employees that increasing bus service in the evenings is very desirable.  Many more employees would consider the bus if it ran later.  And if evening employees are less able to find free parking, it’s essential to give them other options, just as we do daytime employees.

So again, I would argue that extending meter enforcement times is just one part of the puzzle.  Without adding the other puzzle pieces you don’t have a complete picture.

There are a lot more strategies outlined in this plan.  The point I want to make is that there is much more to what the DDA is proposing than you might think by reading AnnArbor.Com.

What ultimately happens with the plan is anyone’s guess.   I encourage you to check out the plan yourself and get a sense of all of the ideas within it.  If there is something in the plan that you support, please let your City Council Member know.  If there is something in the plan you oppose, also make sure you tell your Council Member.

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

FYI from the DDA:

Dear Friend,

The Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (DDA) is undertaking a comprehensive public parking plan following a request from City Council. The DDA seeks to understand the parking needs, priorities and preferences of community members so it can shape this plan.

Would you please take five minutes to complete this survey? It will help the DDA planning team understand more about your parking patterns, values and priorities in order to inform the parking plan.

• Survey Link: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22A8683SDVB
• Survey link for the visually impaired: www.surveymonkey.com/s/ParkingPlan2010

We appreciate the time you will spend completing this survey and would like to express our thanks with the chance to win a $25 gift certificate for 2 respondents drawn from this survey. Please continue to check your local news source and our website www.a2dda.org for project updates. This survey is open to all members of the public and we welcome a variety of input – please feel free to forward it along.

Again, thank you for your time and thoughts.

Susan Pollay

Executive Director | Ann Arbor DDA
734-994-6697 | www.a2dda.org

In the olden days, if you had a suggestion for bike parking in downtown Ann Arbor, it wasn’t very easy to figure out how to get that request considered.   Starting today, the DDA is making is easier for anyone to request bike parking downtown.  The DDA now has an online bicycle parking request form.

According to the DDA, you can use this form for the following reasons:

If you know of a downtown location that could benefit from additional bicycle parking, you have noticed a hoop in need of repair, or an abandoned bicycle – we want to hear from you. Please use the following form to make requests related to bicycle parking in the DDA area.

So consider yourself empowered to request more downtown bike parking.

Click here to check out the bicycle parking request form.

I’ve recently been working on a blog post about Liz and Curtis over at Vault of Midnight.  One of the things I learned while researching the article is that we have a skateboard law in downtown Ann Arbor.  You might know this, but I didn’t.  Apparently skateboarders were a real issue in the 80′s and 90′s so City Council put forward a resolution banning skateboards from certain sidewalks in downtown Ann Arbor.

This issue is relevant to the work that I do because some of the employees at Vault of Midnight (and probably other downtown stores) use skateboards as a way to get to work.  So effectively if they do decide to skateboard to work and are caught on certain sidewalks (such as Main from Huron to William) they could get a ticket.  Currently this law doesn’t apply to bikes or rollerblades or other things with wheels.  However, I have been at meetings where people talk about banning bikes from downtown sidewalks as well.

I think this is a tricky issue.  In an ideal world, we’d all use the sidewalks with the same degree of care, regardless of if we were on a bike or skateboard or wheelchair.  But as I’m sure many of you know, this isn’t an ideal world and there are people who bike on sidewalks so fast they end up crashing into pedestrians.  I’m sure the same goes for skateboards, although I’ve never seen this happen.  At the same time, I’m not sure making certain types of sidewalk traffic illegal is the way to go.  When I hear people talk about banning bikes from sidewalks, I am quick to point out that if we decide to do something like this, we must also find ways to show where bikes do belong.   The same goes for skateboards and other things with wheels.  Only right now if someone wanted to skateboard to work downtown they might get a ticket for doing so.  I know this isn’t the intention of the ordinance, but it does happen.

So what’s the solution?  The folks at Vault of Midnight would like to see the skateboard law amended.  Maybe there could be a way to show you are using your skateboard to get to work?  But this still doesn’t solve the challenge of people using all sorts of wheeled things on the sidewalks in an unsafe manner.  In some ways, this is a cultural problem as well.   In the US, it seems like some people don’t really think about how their reckless behavior (be it biking too fast or driving while drunk or texting while walking)  might endanger the lives of others.   The same is true for cars as well.  And I’m not even going to start to figure out how to change the culture.

I am sure urban areas all over the country deal with this same issue.  It would be interesing to know what happens in other communities and how they address this situation.

FYI:

Notice of Temporary Traffic Control Plan

DDA-South Division St Water Main Improvements Project

E. LIBERY ST. (Division to Thompson)

Oct. 31 to Nov. 6, 2009

Location and Limits of Affected Area:

E. Liberty St. from S.Division Street to Thompson Steet.

Description of Construction:

Placement of water main at the intersection of S. Division St and E. Liberty Street

Temporary Construction Traffic Control Plan:

At S. 5th Ave the eastbound traffic on E. Liberty Street will be directed south on Fifth Ave., east on E. William Street , north on Thompson Street, and back on Liberty Street. The Westbound traffic on E. Liberty Street at Thompson Street will be directed south to E. William Street, west to S. Division Street and north on S. Division to E. Liberty Street.

Pedestrian traffic will be maintained at all times.

During this construction the traffic may experience brief delays within the areas influenced by this work. To maintain the safety of all, please reduce speeds and drive cautiously through work zones. We thank you in advance for your patience as these necessary public infrastructure improvements are completed.

Project Contacts:

City of Ann Arbor

Randy Goldhardt, Project Manager (734) 794-6410 x43644

David Clemons, Construction Supervisor, (734) 231-6761

Chris Rachwal, Project Inspector, (734) 323-7144

E.T.Mackenzie Company

John Niemiec, Project Superintendant, (734) 216-0995

The Washtenaw Biking and Walking Coaltion will be holding a forum on pedestrian issues tonight.

Read more by clicking here.

I just received some information from the AATA about the elimination of the LINK, which I am posting below.  But first, a little background.

I was at meetings with the DDA Board (who provides funding for the LINK, as does the UM and the AATA) when they decided to not fund the LINK for this coming year.

The reasons they decided to stop funding the LINK are complex, but it mostly boil down to the fact that like most organizations, the DDA needs to be intentional about what it funds.  There was a feeling on the DDA Board that the LINK service is not quite doing what the DDA had intended it to do when the service began and the DDA started funding it.  While the DDA Board sees value in having a downtown circulator (especially for people who walk a lot and need a way to get across downtown quickly), there are challenges to the current LINK service (the fact that it only runs every 15 minutes, the route it takes, the issues with wayfinding and marketing of the service and more) that really need to be worked out.  So the DDA wants to take some time to think about these issues and didn’t want to simply fund something it didn’t fully support.

The UM also decided to stop funding the LINK, but I don’t know all of the reasons behind that.

This is my take on the issue.  Others might have other opinions.

Please read the statement below if you want to submit your thoughts about the Link.

There will also be a public meeting on August 10th (more info below) if you would like to talk to the AATA about this.

The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority is proposing the discontinuation of the Link route. The route has operated from September through April, with no service during the spring or summer. If this proposal is adopted, service will not resume on August 30, 2009.

Since 2005, local funding for the Link has been provided by the University of Michigan, the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and the AATA. After discussing the role of the Link in the downtown area, the DDA decided to discontinue funding for the downtown portion of the route. The DDA is determining whether to redesign a new circulator service at a later date.

With the loss of the connection to the downtown business districts, the University of Michigan has decided to operate service between Oxford Housing and Central Campus using their own buses.

Due to the combined actions of the DDA and UM, the AATA is proposing to discontinue Link service.

Persons or organizations having questions or wishing to comment on the proposed change may do so by August 7, 2009 by one of the following methods:

1) By computer: Comment or ask questions by email to aatainfo@theride.org (put “Service Changes” in subject line).
2) By phone: Call the service change hotline at (734) 794-1880.
3) By fax: To 734.973.6338 (put “Service Changes” in subject line).
4) By mail: AATA Service Changes, 2700 S. Industrial Hwy., Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

A copy of all written comments and a summary of verbal comments will be provided to the AATA Board of Directors before a final decision is made on the proposed change.

A public drop-in meeting will be held on Monday, August 10th from 5:00pm – 7:00pm at the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority offices (150 S. Fifth Av. – 3rd floor, Ann Arbor).

Please stop by to give us your feedback and share your thoughts about the Link service!

Pretty soon, you’ll be seeing more bike parking in downtown Ann Arbor (including on-street bike parking), thanks to the DDA.

At the April 1st DDA Meeting, the DDA approved funding for two types of bike parking downtown:

1. When the downtown parking meters are converted to paystations, the DDA will install posts at each parking space to designate the space.  Where appropriate, these posts will have a hoop attached to them to allow for secure bike parking.
2. The DDA also approved putting in temporary racks at on-street parking spaces in several locations downtown (including close to Arbor Brewing Company and the People’s Food Co-op).  These racks will have the added benefit of demonstrating that cyclists should be on the street and should free up some sidewalk space where bikes have been parking.

For complete information on these exciting developments, please check out the article in the Ann Arbor Chronicle about the DDA Meeting.

Example of on street bike parking