I haven’t had a chance to watch this yet, but I hope to see it soon.  On Monday, PBS aired a documentary on Detroit that looked at how to bring the city back by investing in transit, biking, etc.

The preview gave me chills.

Watch the entire video here.

I don’t have a lot of time to comment on these survey results right now, but I wanted folks to be able to check out the results from this survey (conducted late last year) that assess the interest of Washtenaw County voters countywide transit.

You can download the Executive Summary here.

To get a taste of some of the results, here’s the final conclusion of the report:

At the time of the survey (October, 2009) support for a transit tax issue, though nominally at a majority of 51%, was insufficient for it to pass. Too much of the support was half-hearted, and opposition, though in the minority, was firm. However, exposure to various arguments for and against a transit tax during the survey resulted in a gain of 10% for the issue, a fact that indicates the ability of a campaign to motivate a positive vote, not by trying to change the minds of those clearly opposed to a levy, but primarily by strengthening the interest and support of those who at the present time are only weakly committed to a positive vote on the issue.

Although households with at least one transit user are heavily in favor of a transit tax issue, and are an important constituency, they are insufficient in number to pass a transit issue. Thus the issue will turn on the broader community benefit to all, transit users and non-users alike.

The promise of improvements to existing services such as extended weekend hours and more frequent service, while probably appealing to riders, and perhaps important, do not attract voters in general. On the other hand service which broaden the usefulness of transit throughout the county have some appeal. The prospects, however, of WALLY receives a very mixed response and is not advantageous to a transit tax issue. Ann Arbor – Detroit service receives better response, but neither rail issue is, at present, a significant new plus for a transit issue, and funding for WALLY may pose a serious risk for a transit issue.

The fate of the transit tax vote will depend not on a promise of any specific service or service package, but rather on the ability of a campaign and its allies to move and solidify the positive and positive-leaning voters by informing them of AATA’s existing accomplishments, its careful and productive use of public money, the county-wide nature of its future services, the need for public transit to attract jobs, and the need to expand services for seniors and those with disabilities.

In the race for energy efficiency between mass transit and single occupancy vehicles, who’s currently on the winning side?  The Straight Dope tackles this question in characteristically logical style.

The only thing I regret about this article is that he doesn’t look at bikes and traveling by foot as viable transportation option (although he does mention them in passing at the end of the article).

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.

Some great new services for downtown employees and employers from getDowntown:

If you’re a little hesitant about busing, biking or carpooling to work downtown, you’re not alone. The world of sustainable transportation can be a little daunting.

That’s where we come in.  The getDowntown Program has experience with every commuting option you could think of (except maybe a pogo stick).

To make your life easier, we’ve created this handy Commuting Question form. All you have to do is type in your commuting question and we’ll send you a personal response.  Please note, this service is only available for employees/employers  in downtown Ann Arbor.

Click here to send us a Commuting Question.

Don’t have a question now?  Our Commuting Question form is on our website whenever you need it: getdowntown.org/resources/commutingquestion.html

Attention Downtown Employees, Managers, Admin Assistants, and HR Directors:

Wish you had a packet of commuting information for your employees?  Wish you could get all of your commuting materials delivered to your door? Wish granted!

You can now request materials from the getDowntown Program for all commuting options to downtown Ann Arbor.  From AATA Ride Guides to bike maps to new employee orientation guides, we have it all.

And every order comes with a free getDowntown pen!

Please note: this service is only available to downtown Ann Arbor employers/employees

Click here to request commuting materials from getDowntown.

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.

A New York Times Blog recently posted that public transit ridership declined by 3.8% during the first nine months of 2009.  Not surprising given the lower gas prices and unemployment stats for 2009.   The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority experienced similar declines during that time.   Also of note is that transit ridership in San Francisco actually increased during this time.

One thing the blog post doesn’t consider is the change in automobile use during this time.  Were people also driving less because they didn’t have the money to go shopping etc?  Or maybe people were driving more because gas is cheap.  I am sure this stat is out there somewhere.

It would also be interesting to consider who stopped taking the bus.  Did people who always take the bus simply take the bus less?  Or did people who could choose between driving or busing choose to drive?  It’s not as if all transit riders are the same.  It would be very interesting to delve into this data as well.

For a somewhat basic breakdown of this concept, in the APTA report, it appears that ridership on Commuter Rail and Buses declined about 5% while ridership on Heavy Rail and Light Rail declined to a lesser degree (about 3% and 1% respectively) .  Trolley ridership actually increased by .6%   It would be interesting to see why the declines are different.  Any thoughts?

So I guess the take home lesson in all of this (which we’ve known here at the getDowntown Program for a while now) is that cost matters when it comes to transportation choices.  Most people will be more likely to change their commuting behavior when it starts to hit their pocketbook.  People are also more likely to change their commuting behavior when they live closer to where they work (within 4 miles or so).

As we enter a New Year and continue to have debates surrounding healthcare and global warming, how does transportation (and commuting in particular) fit into this picture?  What would our world look like if more people in Ann Arbor (and the US) used sustainable transportation?  What problems would this solve (or create)?

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.

A recent article in AnnArbor.com reports on AATA’s move toward a countywide authority as well as the preliminary results from a survey looking at voter interest in a countywide millage for transit.

The resulting comments preceding the article highlight the various opinions surrounding both ideas.  Some people will never be interested in countywide transit or a millage and don’t see the need for it.  Some people ride the buses all the time, see that they are crowded and thus see the need for more and expanded service.  Like most issues, opinions on AATA’s interest in moving to countywide are colored by the experience of the individual.

As the Director of an organization that encourages people to bus, bike, walk, carpool, etc. downtown, I clearly have an interest in seeing an expansion of transit service countywide.  I’m not going to argue with that.  However, my interest is not simply shaped by my own experience but by what I hear from the people I serve–downtown commuters.

The getDowntown Program recently conducted a survey of downtown Ann Arbor employees and found that about 50% of employees live in Ann Arbor.  That means the rest live outside of Ann Arbor.   As a center for high-quality jobs, Ann Arbor, and downtown especially, attract workers from all over the region.  As I have seen in my work, many of these people would like to have other ways to get to their jobs in addition to being able to drive.  They want options.  Also, a vibrant downtown is one filled with lots of people.  When people can bike, bus, walk, and drive to a downtown, this contributes to a vibrancy that more auto-centric parts of Ann Arbor lack.

Speaking of options, what isn’t mentioned in that article but is important to consider in this debate is the two proposed Commuter Rail lines (WALLY and Ann Arbor-Detroit).  While both of the rail lines are expected to be operating by the end of 2010 or early 2011, it’s still unclear what role they will play in shaping a countywide transit conversation.

I think the challenge we will continue to face in Washtenaw County surrounding the transit debate is that parts of the county are much more urban than others.  As a result, transit needs and interests are different depending on where you live in the county.  I think AATA recognizes this and will use this knowledge to shape their countywide plan.  At the same time, we continue to live in a region rather than in separate cities and townships.  What does transit look like if we plan it for a region rather that for separate cities and townships?

There is a lot more I could say on this subject, but I’d rather leave it at this and encourage readers to try to listen to both sides of the debate and figure out how transit factors into the future of this region.  Once a plan is put out there, there will probably be proposals for how to fund it.  And that’s when the really interesting debates will begin.

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)