It’ll be a cold day in you-know-where before a train stops at this transit center. The proposed east-west commuter line has been kept alive by the Granholm administration, working through MDOT. But it still needs tens of millions of dollars in capital costs, plus a dedicated source of operating funds.

What do you think is going to happen when the republicans take back the Governor’s office in the next election. This project is dead.

As for high-speed train travel, Amtrak’s goal is to increase speeds on the Detroit to Chicago line, but travel above 125 miles per hour is not being contemplated. This line will see some real improvements when the freight bottleneck is fixed in Indiana and suburban Chicago through stimulus funds that have already been awarded, but a wholesale reimagining of this line, complete with electrification, is not on the table. Amtrak knows it doesn’t have enough money to scrap a perfectly good station and build a new one just to satisfy the misguided dreams of Ann Arbor.

Amtrak is building two new stations on the Det-Chicago line, but neither is in Ann Arbor. Why is that?

When Amtrak was awarded Stimulous funds for developing high-speed rail, the Det-Chicago line was not a line where even study funds were to be spent. Does this tell us anything about the medium term plans for high speed railv on this line?

Someday, we might have interplanetary transit service from this parking garage. Wouldn’t it make more sense to call this parking garage what it really is, the Fuller Road Interplanitary Transit Center? Wouldn’t that title would more fully recognize the full vision for this parking garage?

Since the U is to be the major tenant of the parking garage, and the city only a minor player, why is the U not the owner of the garage? Will the U be required to make any provision for removing the garage (e.g. a bond) in the event they choose not to renew their lease?

- John Floyd
Republican Candidate for Ann Arbor City Council
5th Ward

The benefits of having the new intermodal transit station (train, bus station and parking structure) exist in the city at all is the benefit that the city residents get from this project. Fewer cars will be on the roads, more people may take the bus/train which will decrease congestion throughout the city. It is benefit to the city as a whole.

Why does the Parks Commission have to benefit specifically just because the desired location happens to be located in a parking lot on the edge of a park, an edge that really can be used for nothing else except growing grass?

Everything in life has a trade off. I resent the fact that some on the Parks commission believe that there WANTS (and I say wants and not needs intentionally) are more important than the NEEDS of planning for future transportation issues for our city. Specific wants of one unit of government do not override the need of the City as a whole.

And it is even more infuriating that these commissioners have actually stated that they would support the project as long as they benefited financially. Sure smacks of extortion to me. They will shut up as long as you pay them.

This commission is an embarrassment to our city.

It’s looks HORRIBLE, like a busload of drunken monkeys were manning the mowing machines. It’s an insult to all veterans in this city to have a Veterans ‘memorial’ that is so poorly maintained, while the city finds dollars for other ‘priorities’.