Left to right: DDA board chair Joan Lowenstein, and board members Gary Boren and Roger Hewitt. (Photo by the writer.)

Another main topic of discussion was transportation, which came in the context of recent transportation committee talks with the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority. The discussion with AATA dealt with the possible return of a downtown circulator service [formerly The LINK] and improved service to Ypsilanti, as well as an initial study of bicyclist habits in the downtown area. Related to bicyclists, the board heard from one downtown merchant during public commentary about dissatisfaction with the “art” bicycle hoops, as one example of the DDA’s lack of success in considering the end user in some of its decisions.

The board also mulled over a possible restructuring of its committee structure – currently the board has a transportation committee, a partnerships committee, an operations committee, and a capital improvements committee.

Restructuring those committees is being considered in the context of the possibility that the DDA could begin to take a more active role in development of city-owned surface parking lots downtown. That more active role is one possible outcome of the ongoing city-DDA discussions about the parking agreement under which the DDA operates the city’s parking system. The new structure under discussion would add an economic development and communications committee, while merging the operations and capital improvements committees.

Shelter Association Grant

During the time allotted for public commentary, Diane Neering of The Shelter Association of Washtenaw County told the board that she was available to answer any questions about the grant that the board would be considering.

The grant is for $218,050 to be awarded from the DDA’s housing fund to The Shelter Association of Washtenaw County for improvements at the Delonis Center on Huron Street. By board policy, the DDA housing fund receives an annual $100,000 transfer from TIF. The money awarded to the shelter will pay for new washers and dryers, lockers and chairs, an emergency generator, energy conservation measures, medical equipment and software. The recommendation to award the grant came from the DDA’s partnerships committee, which discussed the issue at its last meeting.

At the partnerships committee meeting, the consensus reached by members was that they should proceed with the recommendation for the $218,050 worth of improvements, while holding in abeyance the approval of more than $113,210 for installation of solar panels and for computer hardware at the shelter.

Committee members had concerns about the length of the payback period for the solar panels, which appeared to be much longer than the kind of payback on investments the DDA is familiar with in connection with its energy saving grant program. That’s a program to help fund energy audits for downtown property owners, as well as various energy improvements. In his update on the energy saving grant program at Wednesday’s meeting, Russ Collins summarized the program as 64 energy audits completed, with another 27 underway. He said 21 buildings having implemented improvements as part of the second phase of the program. The average payback on those improvements, Collins said, is 3.1 years.

During deliberations on the grant, mayor John Hieftje noted that the grant was in keeping with past practice, and noted that the DDA had awarded additional money to the shelter last year to allow the purchase of additional beds to add spaces to the shelter’s warming center.

Joan Lowenstein stressed that the money being allocated was to fund infrastructure improvements, not operations. In response to a question from DDA board member Bob Guenzel, about whether Washtenaw County had been apprised of the grant request, Ellen Schulmeister, executive director of the shelter association, rose to the podium and told Guenzel that the county had been consulted. Lowenstein quipped that “You can take the boy outta the county, but you can’t take the county outta the boy” – an allusion to Guenzel’s longtime service, until earlier this year, as Washtenaw County administrator.

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to approve the grant for the shelter for $218,050 worth of improvements.

Economic Development

The theme of economic development serves to tie together three separate meeting items.

Economic Development: Library Lot

Part of every DDA meeting includes a report from DDA board members who are representing the DDA on other task forces and committees.

At Wednesday’s meeting, John Splitt told told the board that the Library Lot RFP review committee had not met since the last board meeting. At the September DDA board meeting, Splitt had reported that the committee had not met since the spring, but that the recent hire of a consultant meant that the two proposals were still being considered – out of six that were submitted. From September’s Chronicle meeting report:

[Carsten] Hohnke’s suggestion, made at a Democratic primary election forum, was that consideration of the Library Lot be restarted as a blank slate, with no preconceptions. An underground parking garage is currently under construction on the parcel, and a city-led committee is handling the review of proposals that were submitted for the lot last year. [Chronicle coverage: "Hotel/Conference Center Proposals Go Forward"]

At Wednesday’s DDA board meeting, John Splitt reported out from the committee that’s reviewing proposals for development of the parcel above the underground parking garage – he represents the DDA on the committee, which includes city staff as well as councilmembers Margie Teall and Stephen Rapundalo. Rapundalo chairs that committee.

Splitt gave essentially the same kind of update on the committee that Rapundalo has given his city council colleagues at recent meetings. The committee has not met in about four months, Splitt said. A consultant [Roxbury Group] has been hired and is doing due diligence on the two proposals that are still under consideration. The consultant’s meetings with the proposers should be concluded in time for the committee to meet sometime towards the end of September, Splitt said.

Economic Development: City-DDA Mutually Beneficial Discussions

Roger Hewitt reported out from the ongoing conversations between the city and the DDA about the parking agreement under which the DDA manages the city’s parking system. Hewitt’s remarks were parallel to those of Ward 3 councilmember Christopher Taylor, at the council’s Oct. 4 meeting two days prior. Hewitt said that executive director Susan Pollay and the DDA’s legal counsel, Jerry Lax, would begin drafting amendments to the current parking agreement. There is general agreement on the idea of the DDA playing a more active role in the development of downtown city-owned parking lots, Hewitt said. Taylor’s remarks, as reported in The Chronicle:

At Monday’s council meeting, Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) who serves on the council’s committee that is engaged in the negotiations, gave an update on their status. He said the conversations have moved away from the idea of the DDA taking responsibility for enforcement of parking regulations to focus on reworking the language of the existing agreement and the idea that the DDA would become the implementation engine for development of city-owned surface parking lots in the downtown. He alerted his colleagues to the likelihood of a city council work session when the DDA would present their concept for implementation of DDA-led development.

On the DDA’s side, the idea of DDA-led development has increasingly included some notion of “economic development.” [Recent Chronicle coverage of the ongoing city-DDA negotiations: "DDA: Dogged Enough for Development?"] As the DDA prepares for the possibility of taking a more active role in the redevelopment of downtown Ann Arbor, the board has also begun to consider how to accommodate that role in its committee structure.

Economic Development: Committee Structure

Board chair Joan Lowenstein presented for initial discussion – not for any kind of final decision – a possible restructuring of the board’s committees. Currently the board has a transportation committee, a partnerships committee, an operations committee, and a capital improvements committee.

Out of the board’s retreat held last month came the idea of including an economic development committee in the mix. But Lowenstein drew an analogy to her household’s approach to purchases made at the Ann Arbor art fairs – if you buy something, something else has to go. So adding an economic development committee is intended to be offset by a merger of the operations and capital improvements committees.

There has also been recent discussion of adding a communications committee, so the idea is to charge the new committee with the responsibility of economic development as well as communications issues. The resulting committee configuration would be:

• merged operations/capital improvements committee: review financial statements; formulate budget; oversee parking operations; oversee parking agreement with the city; oversee construction.
• transportation committee: review getDowntown projects; personal transportation issues (bicycle parking, scooter parking, walkability); mass transit projects (coordination with the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority).
• partnerships committee: oversee DDA projects involving other entities like the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan; housing fund expenditures; energy saving grant program; coordination with city council and the city’s planning commission.
• economic development/communications: background research for downtown redevelopment; inventory of city-owned sites; hiring of real estate experts and other consultants; facilitate process for development (public process and with the city council); assemble information on downtown’s assets for inclusion in promotional efforts of Ann Arbor SPARK.

Board member Russ Collins said the sketch of the committee structure Lowenstein had provided sounded reasonable. He cautioned that the committee structure needs to match the resources of staff. John Mouat stated that he was “thrilled” with it, and echoed Collins sentiment that there needs to be adequate staff support for that structure and it needs to be implemented step by step.

A merger of the capital improvements committee and the operations committee would mean that the chairs of the two committees – John Splitt and Roger Hewitt, respectively – would need to work something out. The idea of using co-chairs was discussed, which is parallel to the practice of the current partnerships committee, which is co-chaired by Sandi Smith and Russ Collins. Hewitt quipped that he’d like to name the merged committees the “bricks and money” committee.

In connection to the function of the communications committee, John Hieftje asked what the publicity efforts had been like for the “early bird special” parking deal on the very top of the Fourth and William parking deck. [After the meeting, Mark Lyons, general manager of Republic Parking, explained to The Chronicle that the rate for the deal is $5 if someone comes in before 9 a.m., with a departure between 3-6 p.m.] Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, indicated that the DDA had not increased publicity efforts for the deal, but rather was anticipating that the DDA would engage the city council more fully on the topic of parking strategies after submission of its parking report at the council’s April 19, 2010 meeting.

The conversation on the “early bird special” had actually begun during the report out from the operations committee, when Mouat had also inquired about how it had been publicized. Hewitt indicated that it was being promoted through the getDowntown program, and through handouts at the payment booths at other parking structures. Splitt quipped that the program was also being promoted by their board meeting, alluding to “the thousands of people who are watching this.” [The DDA board meetings are not broadcast live, but are taped and can be viewed online via CTN's video-on-demand service.]

In making the case for an economic development committee, Lowenstein said the idea had been reinforced for board members who had attended a recent International Downtown Association convention in Fort Worth.

IDA Convention

In past years, the DDA has budgeted $30,000 for attendance at the International Downtown Association convention. This year, it reduced the allocation to $15,000, by not funding attendance by city councilmembers or representatives of downtown merchant associations. Those who attended the conference in Fort Worth from Oct. 1-5, funded by the DDA, were executive director Susan Pollay and board members Gary Boren, Joan Lowenstein, Keith Orr and Sandi Smith. According to an email sent by Pollay in response to a Chronicle question, cost estimates per person, including conference fees, hotel, and flight were $2,400 each, for a total of $12,000.

Separately, the State Street Area Association paid to send a staff member and three SSAA board members to the IDA conferance: Tom Heywood, Bob Livingston, Rich Bellas and John Splitt. Splitt is a DDA board member, but his costs were covered by the SSAA, not the DDA.

Transportation

The conversation on transportation included discussion of partnerships with the AATA, as well as a study of bicyclist habits.

Transportation: AATA – Ypsi and The LINK

In his report out from the transportation committee, John Mouat said that the transportation committee had had conversations with the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority on two specific initiatives.

The first is enhanced service between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. The AATA has developed a set of different service enhancements, ranging from more frequent service on existing routes, to express service that would reduce travel times on existing routes. Mouat described the challenge of enhancing service as “very complex.” What would the DDA be trying to accomplish – more frequent service, service on weekends, service later in the evening?

Mouat said that Ypsilanti Township has more residents who work in Ann Arbor than does the city of Ypsilanti – that has an impact on how you approach creating a hub, Mouat said. He also stressed that it was important to work with partners on the service enhancements – Eastern Michigan University, Washtenaw Community College, and the University of Michigan. Mouat noted that UM is the AATA’s biggest customer.

Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, noted that the ridership on Route #4 between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti indicated that there is a clear demand – twice the demand on any other route. Mouat added that service enhancement between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti would be viewed by the AATA in the context of the countywide transit master plan it is currently developing.

Mayor John Hieftje noted that there is a ballot initiative on the city of Ypsilanti ballot on Nov. 2 for a millage to support transit. [The city of Ann Arbor has a transit tax levied at roughly 2 mills. Service to other communities is provided by AATA through purchase of service agreements (POSAs). Shortages in the city of Ypsilanti budget resulted in the AATA's use of federal money to make up the difference in what Ypsilanti paid and the cost of operating the service.] Hieftje expressed an interest in seeing transit speeded up for individuals between the two communities.

Hieftje also expressed his optimism about the future of east-west commuter rail. He gave essentially the same update he’d given at the city council’s meeting two days prior. From The Chronicle’s meeting report of the Oct. 4, 2010 city council meeting:

Hieftje expressed his optimism about the project eventually becoming a reality, based on the amount of money the federal government is investing in rail transportation through the ARRA stimulus program. At SEMCOG’s Oct. 28 meeting – to be held at 4:30 p.m. at the Henry Ford, Hieftje announced, the refurbished railcars to be used for the service will be on display. They’re double-decker stainless steel cars.An excursion service would be offered to Detroit’s Thanksgiving Day parade, as well as to the Big Chill, a hockey game at Michigan Stadium between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, scheduled for Dec. 11. Hieftje also mentioned the possibility of excursion trains scheduled for the Ann Arbor art fairs. He cautioned, though, that there would not suddenly be commuter rail service – it would be built layer by layer.

Mouat also reported that Roger Hewitt and Keith Orr had sketched out a concept for a fairly robust service for a reconstituted LINK – a circulator service that previously was operated in the downtown area. That service was funded in a collaboration between the DDA, the University of Michigan, and the AATA. [Chronicle readers may remember the purple vehicles that provided the service.] The robust concept sketched by Hewitt and Orr, Mouat said, included service at 5-minute intervals, 12 months a year, 18 hours a day, and the cost estimates that had come back from the AATA were equally robust. They are now thinking about what modifications to the concept could be made.

Transportation: Bicyclist Study

Mouat also reported out from a study done during the spring and fall of 2010 by a DDA intern on bicycle use in the downtown. Among the findings of that study:

Far more bikes were counted on hoops/racks than on other street features – 1,249 of 1, 565 bikes counted (80%).

When asked how much do you plan on spending today – the average response was $21.43.

When asked how often in the last month have you ridden your bike – 88% reported riding multiple times a week or daily downtown.

When asked why they use their bikes instead of another mode and why they choose bike parking locations – the majority of respondents reported convenience.

When asked how often do you ride on the sidewalks – 80% reported riding only sometimes (for example, when on the Diag), rarely, or never. Those who reported riding always or frequently cited fear of riding in the roads due to cars traveling at high speeds, poor bike lanes, and a lack of confidence in their own abilities.

Russ Collins took the occasion of Mouat’s report on the bicycling study to note that the DDA tried to approach things in a statistical way, not relying only on anecdotal reports. He noted that decisions are based not on the “whim of a board” but rather on data and research.

Collins was responding to some comments that came during public commentary that had criticized the “art” bike hoop initiative, among other DDA projects. Collins said he appreciated the speaker’s point of view, and it’s taken very seriously by the board. He concluded that it is not only the statistical or only the anecdotal reports that are important.

Critique of DDA Initiatives

During public commentary at the start of the meeting, Ali Ramlawi, the owner of Jerusalem Garden, gave the board his perspective as a downtown business owner and a Ward 5 resident of the city, on some of the DDA’s work. Noting the “civil engineering project” that was going on next to his restaurant – the Fifth Avenue underground parking garage – he said he felt a little slighted about the process. He told the board that he and many others he talks to are increasingly unhappy with the direction downtown Ann Arbor is going. He told the board he thought they had the best intentions, but that they were not always successful.

Ali Ramlawi, owner of Jerusalem Garden, leafs through his notes before addressing the DDA board.

As examples, Ramlawi gave the “art” bike hoops, saying that they are not practical. People lock their bikes to trees, poles, and sign posts, instead of the new bike hoops, he said. The new ePark stations are another example of an unsuccessful project, he said. He’s on the street, he said, and hears from hundreds of customers every day – the new ePark stations are confusing, he said. With the old meters, it was simple – you pop a few quarters in the meter, then go do what you need to do. Now there’s typically one person who’s never used the new stations before and you have to wait in line to use the station.

Ramlawi’s four minutes of speaking time expired as he was critiquing the new bump-out on the northwest corner of Liberty and Division streets. He reiterated his feeling that the board has the best intentions, but the result is not necessarily successful.

Ramlawi’s Jerusalem Garden was a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed in August 2009 about the Fifth Avenue underground parking garage, which is now under construction. That suit was settled without going to trial, with the city committing to the completion of an environmental study.

Operations: Parking

The main event for the operations committee report each month is typically the set of parking numbers. [.pdf of parking numbers extracted from the board's meeting packet] The board reviewed August 2010 compared to August 2009. System-wide this year for the month of August showed revenues of $1,142,086, compared with $1,155,723 last year, for a decrease of $13,638. The number of hourly patrons decreased to 178,940 from 188,373 for a drop of 9,433.

The fact that the Library Lot, with its 192 spaces, is not currently available for parking accounts for some of the decreases. The Fifth Avenue underground parking garage is currently under construction on that lot. Last August those spaces accounted for $37,741 in revenue and 20,780 hourly patrons.

Hewitt attributed the decrease in revenue from meter bags to the completion of construction on the university’s North Quad dormitory at Huron and State. Meter bags – which are literal bags placed over the heads of parking meters, preventing parking there – are commonly paid for in conjunction with construction projects, which need guaranteed open parking spaces for construction site deliveries and the like.

John Mouat inquired whether it is now possible to track usage of on-street meters by the length of stay and the hours they are in use, and Hewitt confirmed that is the case. Asked what percentage of ePark users paid with a credit card, Mark Lyons, general manager of Republic Parking, indicated it’s roughly 50% who pay with a credit card.

In response to a graph depicting increasing revenues for the parking system from just under $12 million in 2005 to more than $14 million in 2010, board member Gary Boren asked how much of the increase can be attributed to the rate increases compared to increased patronage. Hewitt replied that it’s important to note that the initial rate increases during that period for street parking were offset with decreases in the structure. In response to Boren’s question, Hewitt said if he had to guess he’d say it was 50-50 – half the revenue increase could be attributed to rate increases, and half to increased patronage.

Another graph included in the packet showed an increase in hourly patrons from 214,218 in 2008, to 392,412 in 2009, to 486,204 in 2010. Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, pointed out that this trend, together with the increased number of bus rides taken into the downtown by users of go!passes – a program that subsidizes bus rides for downtown workers – showed an overall increasing demand for people to be downtown.

Capital Improvements: Update on the Hole

John Splitt reported out from the capital improvements committee that the earth retention work for the Fifth Avenue underground parking garage is now complete. That means that the giant auger used for drilling the holes for the vertical steel is now offsite, he said. The “mass excavation” is now 85% complete, he reported. De-watering of the site has been “somewhat of an issue,” he said, but that’s being worked on with the city.

Splitt reported that 16 additional on-street parking spaces had now been created on Fifth Avenue in connection with the Fifth-Division streetscape improvement project. Construction work on that project would be complete for the season on Nov. 15, he said.

Downtown Citizens Advisory Council Report: Panhandling and Peace Corps

Ray Detter reported out for the Downtown Citizens Advisory Council. The group meets on the Tuesday evening before the monthly board meeting of the DDA, which falls on the first Wednesday of the month.

CAC: Panhandling

Detter told the board that the CAC was pleased with the re-establishment of the panhandling task force by the city council. [The council established the task force at its Sept. 20, 2010 meeting and added two additional members at its Oct. 4, 2010 meeting. The task force is charged with working for six months to identify cost-effective ways of enforcing the existing ordinance and of providing appropriate assistance to those who are panhandling.]

Detter said that the creation of the task force had already started discussion in the community. He noted that much of the issue involves perception, but pointed out that perception usually has an element of reality. He said that the task force would not be starting with the assumption that the solution is to have more police. He reported some discussion at the meeting of the possibility that the state law had changed with respect to panhandling and that it might be possible to ban it outright.

By way of background, Ann Arbor’s ordinance restricts locations – it’s not allowed near ATMs, for example – and the manner in which people can be approached:

9:70. Solicitation.
Except as otherwise provided in Chapters 79 and 81 of this Code, it shall be unlawful for any person to solicit the immediate payment of money or goods from another person, whether or not in exchange for goods, services, or other consideration, under any of the following circumstances:
1. On private property, except as otherwise permitted by Chapters 79 and 81, unless the solicitor has permission from the owner or occupant;
2. In any public transportation vehicle or public transportation facility;
3. In any public parking structure and within 12 feet of any entrance or exit to any public parking structure;
4. From a person who is in any vehicle on the street;
5. By obstructing the free passage of pedestrian or vehicle traffic;
6. Within 12 feet of a bank or automated teller machine;
7. By moving to within 2 feet of the person solicited, unless that person has indicated that he/she wishes to be solicited;
8. By following and continuing to solicit a person who walks away from the solicitor;
9. By knowingly making a false or misleading representation in the course of a solicitation;
10. In a manner that appears likely to cause a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities to feel intimidated, threatened or harassed;
11. Within 12 feet of the entrance to or exit from the Nickels Arcade, located between State Street and Maynard Street; the Galleria, located between S. University and the Forest Street parking structure; and the Pratt Building, located between Main Street and the Ashley parking lot; or
12. From a person who is a patron at any outdoor cafe or restaurant.

Before the start of the Thursday, Oct. 7 meeting of the Main Street Area Association, in conversation with The Chronicle, MSAA executive director Maura Thomson and Ward 2 city councilmember Tony Derezinski indicated they were looking at what other cities are doing with respect to panhandling. Derezinski said he didn’t think the state law had changed anywhere at the statutory level, but that perhaps there’d been new court cases that potentially had a bearing on the issue. He said that mayor John Hieftje had asked him to do some background research on the question – Dereziski’s professional background is in municipal law.

Thomson has gathered some other communities’ ordinances on panhandling: East Lansing, Petoskey, Birmingham, Royal Oak in Michigan, as well as Madison, Wisc. Excerpts from those ordinances:

[E. Lansing]
Sec. 26-52. Prohibited acts.
No person shall: …
(5) Beg in any public place.

[Petoskey]
Sec. 12-2. Begging.
Any person who wanders about and begs in the streets, or from house to house or sits, stands or takes a position in any place and begs from passerby, either by words gestures or by the exhibiting of a sign shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

[Birmingham]
74-2. Begging
It shall be unlawful for any person within the city to beg in a public place from passersby, either by words, gestures or by the exhibiting of a sign.

[Royal Oak]
§ 278-45 Loitering.
A person commits the offense of loitering if he or she:
A. Loiters, remains or wanders about in a public place for the purpose of begging;

[Madison, Wisc.]
H.12 MENACING OR AGGRESSIVE PANHANDLING PROHIBITED.
(4) In or near any thoroughfare or place open to the public, no person either individually or as part of a group shall procure or attempt to procure a handout from another in an aggressive or intimidating manner. Among the circumstances which may be considered in determining whether such purpose or behavior is manifested are the following: that such person is a known panhandler; that such person continues to beckon to, accost or follow or ask passer(s)-by for a handout after the passer(s)-by has failed to respond or has told the person “no”; that such person engages in a course of conduct or commits any act which harasses or intimidates the passer(s)-by: or that such person utilizes or attempts to utilize bodily gestures or physical contact to impede the path of any passer(s)-by, including but not limited to unwanted touching or blocking the path or impeding the free movement of the passer(s)-by. The violator’s conduct must be such as to demonstrate a specific intent to induce, solicit, or procure from another goods or money by aggressive or intimidating behavior. No arrest shall be made for a violation of this subsection unless the arresting officer first affords such person an opportunity to explain such conduct, and no one shall be convicted of violating this subsection if it appears at trial that the explanation given was true and disclosed a lawful purpose.

[A "known panhandler" is defined by the city code as: "a person who within one year previous to the date of arrest for violation of this section has been convicted in a court of competent jurisdiction of any civil or criminal offense involving panhandling."]

In his remarks before the DDA board on Wednesday, Detter said that based on conversations with organizations responsible for meeting the needs of homeless people, and for providing food to those who need it, he didn’t think that anyone needed to go hungry in the community. Soliciting money on the street based on hunger, he concluded, is a misrepresentation. He concluded his remarks on the topic by saying, “We’re not out to get anybody.”

CAC: Peace Corps

Detter also called the board’s attention to an event on Oct. 14 at 10:30 a.m. – a 15-minute program in front of the University of Michigan Union to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a speech given by John F. Kennedy in the early morning hours of Oct. 14 in 1960. The speech is pointed to as outlining the basic concept behind the Peace Corps. [The university is also planning a 1 a.m. event, one at 2 a.m. as well as one at 11 a.m.] Detter noted that the event would be receiving national attention, and that Gov. Granholm would be in attendance.

The 10:30 event will be a dedication of the installation of a new historical street exhibit on the east side of State Street, across from the Michigan Union, commemorating Kennedy’s speech. Ann Arbor’s historical street exhibits are coordinated by Detter – new exhibits are installed on an ongoing basis. Some of the exhibits are affixed to building walls, while others are constructed of etched glass panels mounted between poles.

In a phone interview with The Chronicle a few days after the DDA board meeting, Detter estimated the cost of a single street exhibit at $15,000. He noted that the DDA had provided $30,000 several years ago to help get the program started and that the county had contributed around $6,000 in connection with one of the exhibits involving the county government – county commissioner Leah Gunn and then county administrator Bob Guenzel had been instrumental in that, Detter said.

Present: Gary Boren, Bob Guenzel, Roger Hewitt, John Hieftje, John Splitt, Leah Gunn, Russ Collins, Keith Orr, Joan Lowenstein, John Mouat

Absent: Newcombe Clark, Sandi Smith

Next board meeting: Noon on Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2010, at the DDA offices, 150 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 301. [confirm date]

AATA board members Ted Annis, left, and Charles Griffith. (Photo by the writer.)

Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board meeting (August 19, 2009): Looming on a six-week horizon for Ypsilanti is the renewal of its Purchase of Service Agreement with the AATA – at a price slated for 10% higher each year over the next three years to make the agreement match actual costs. That’s the context in which three out of seven Ypsilanti city councilmembers appeared at the AATA board meeting on Wednesday.

Their collective message: Recognize the fiscal constraints on Ypsilanti, focus on the 30 years of a positive AATA-Ypsilanti partnership, and find ways to cut costs of the service without cutting service levels. Their message resonated with AATA board members, who seemed more inclined to find creative ways to cut costs than to use federal stimulus dollars to simply make up the gap. Part of that creative approach could include closing the Ypsilanti Transit Station.

The longer-term solution of supporting the AATA bus service through a dedicated countywide funding source was a theme that ran through the comments made by Ypsilanti councilmembers, as well as others at the meeting.

In other business, the board approved the construction contract for the Plymouth Road and US-23 park-and-ride, and formally discontinued the LINK service – a decision that came as no surprise given that the other two funding partners – the University of Michigan and the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority – had discontinued their funding for the downtown circulator bus.

Countywide Funding

The theme of a countywide funding source for the AATA was woven into several conversational threads. During public speaking time, the idea of establishing a countywide funding source for bus service – likely through a dedicated millage – came up multiple times. Three Ypsilanti city councilmembers addressed the board, in part to argue for a countywide system as a longer-term way to think about service they currently get through a Purchase of Service Agreement (POSA). They thus echoed the sentiments of Ypsilanti mayor Paul Schreiber, who had appeared before the AATA board in May. Ypsilanti’s POSA comes up for renewal soon and AATA is asking Ypsilanti to increase the payment to match the actual cost of the service.

The theme of funding Ypsilanti bus service continued in the board’s consideration of a resolution that would use American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (federal stimulus) dollars to fund the gap in Ypsilanti’s POSA on a one-time basis.

Thomas Partridge: Board chair David Nacht read Partidge’s name off the sign-up sheet and looked up scanning the room, asking where Partridge was. Partridge then rose from the third row of seats and delivered a self-deprecating deadpan: “Perhaps you didn’t notice me because of my great height!” Moving quickly to the serious side, Partridge pointed out that in August 2008 the AATA board had been presented with three different avenues they could pursue that would transition the AATA to a countywide transportation authority for Washtenaw County. He also reminded Nacht that Nacht had appeared before the Washtenaw County board of commissioners and the Ann Arbor city council, and had presented the idea of a countywide authority to those bodies. Yet there had been no progress, Partridge said, towards getting a proposal put on the ballot that would establish a countywide funding source. Partridge also criticized the proposal in one of the agenda items that explored the possibility of using federal stimulus money for operating assistance for Ypsilanti. That proposal did not, he said, explore the possibility of expanding service westward.

Said Nacht in reply: “I happen to agree with Tom Partridge – it’s been a long time.”

Carolyn Grawi: Grawi reported that she’d just come back from Toronto, where the public transportation was, she said, “amazing.” There were trolleys, buses, ferries, para-transit – everywhere you looked there was public transportation. Addressing the elimination of the LINK service, she said that if the city keeps cutting service, she was concerned for the future development of the city, for the POSA agreements, and for the future of countywide service. She suggested looking at Genesee County and asking how they managed to fund countywide service.

S.A. Trudy Swanson: The Ypsilanti city councilmember said she was there to speak about the proposed 30% increase in the Purchase of Service Agreement (POSA) with the city of Ypsilanti that the AATA was seeking. She asked for a “decrease in the increase.” She stressed that Ypsilanti had riders who depended on the service.

In response, AATA board member Ted Annis said that the reason for the increase was to stop having Ann Arbor taxpayers subsidize Ypsilanti bus service. As an AATA board member, Annis said, he objected to Ann Arbor subsidizing its neighbors and said that Ann Arbor’s neighbors needed to pay the freight. He invited Swanson to the Aug. 31 meeting of the planning and development committee, where they’d be working on the size of the required increase to Ypsilanti’s POSA.

David Nacht, AATA board chair. (Photo by the writer.)

Michael Bodary: Bodary introduced himself as a Ward 2 Ypsilanti councilmember. He was there to speak to the issue of the increase in the POSA for Ypsilanti. The 10% increase per year, for a total of 30% over three years, had been explained by Dawn Gabay and Chris White of the AATA at an Ypsilanti city council meeting, he said, so he understood the issues behind the increase. For Ypsilanti, however, revenues were down due to decreases in taxable value as well as drops in state shared revenue. He pointed out that some of the costs incorporated into the POSA are infrastructure costs, for example for the Ypsilanti Transit Center, as opposed to operations. He reported that 1/4 of police calls in downtown Ypsilanti were to the YTC. The AATA itself, he said, paid for a security guard there. He reported that some Ypsilanti citizens had suggested closing the YTC – he was not necessarily advocating that himself. He emphasized that Ypsilanti and the AATA needed to work together on solving the problem, because the Number 4, 5 and 6 buses were lifelines between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. He pointed out that it’s only been the last three out of 30 years that Ypsilanti had been afforded a reduced rate for its POSA.

Nacht responded by saying, “We share almost all your views,” but noted that it was a matter of working out the details. Referring to the YTC security issues Bodary had raised, Nacht said the last thing the AATA wanted to do was cause a public safety problem.

Annis noted that the cost data on the YTC showed that $110,000 was spent on security, so he’d like to “explore” closing it down. Nacht interjected to say that the board was not at this meeting in any way taking a position on the issue of closing down the YTC. Michael Ford, CEO of the AATA, also said that whenever he heard talk of something “getting closed down,” it gave him pause.

Pete Murdock: Murdock is also a member of the Ypsilanti city council. He began by saying that they understood the AATA’s situation. The problem, he said, was that they had “flat out no ability to raise taxes.” He said that their view was that the survival of the transit system depends on a regional system with a dedicated source of revenue. Someone other than them, he reminded the board, needed to put a measure on the ballot.

Nacht responded by saying that it was good to hear there’d be support for such a measure. “We’re a regional economy,” Nacht said, “and we need a regional transit system.” Nacht confirmed that the board shared that view philosophically.

At several points Annis invited Ypsilanti councilmembers to come to the planning and development committee meeting on Aug. 31 at 5:30 p.m.

The board considered a resolution involving the use of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds – otherwise known as federal stimulus money – to bridge the gap in funding for the Ypsilanti Purchase of Service Agreement.

Board members expressed hesitation about using stimulus money in this way, when there might be other longer-term solutions available. Annis said he’d like to consider the matter in the planning and development committee. Board member Charles Griffith indicated that he didn’t want to see stimulus funds used if it meant that it was a way of not implementing other, longer-lasting solutions.

So board member Jesse Bernstein moved to table the resolution so that it could be available as a back-up plan.

The board voted to table it, which flummoxed the staff. “Now we can’t talk about it!” said Chris White. The resulting discussion revealed that the wording of the resolution didn’t authorize spending the money, but rather authorized AATA staff to talk to Ypsilanti about using ARRA funds to bridge the gap:

Now, Therefore, be it resolved that the AATA CEO is hereby authorized to discuss using a portion of the ARRA funds allocated to the AATA to bridge the gap between the beginning of the fiscal year and the implementation of service reductions.

It puzzled board member Rich Robben that a resolution had been brought seeking nothing more than an authorization to talk: “Why did you bring this to us at all??” Dawn Gabay, deputy CEO, explained that staff didn’t want to get out ahead of the board on a policy issue. Board chair Nacht traced the inclination of staff to proceed cautiously to an episode with former AATA director Greg Cook, who had arranged a deal to raise fares to cover the POSA gap, but didn’t have board approval to do so. Nacht recalled that he’d led the charge against those fare increases. The message that had been sent to staff at the time, said Nacht, was that staff needed board approval before going to POSA partners to talk about policy matters.

Robben, who’d voted for tabling the resolution, brought it back for reconsideration. It was not crystal clear to The Chronicle what happened from a parliamentary point of view, but the board did not seem to revote the tabling motion, instead opting to vote on another motion that expressly gave staff permission to talk to Ypsilanti about possible use of ARRA funds.

Outcome: Unclear from a parliamentary point of view. The board did, however, express its will that staff could talk to Ypsilanti about use of ARRA funds to bridge the POSA gap, among other solutions that might be longer lasting.

Report from Planning and Development Committee

In his update on the planning and development committee’s work, Ted Annis said that there were two main items they’d be focusing on: (i) the Ypsilanti Purchase of Service Agreement, and (ii) hammering out an AATA budget that met their goal of $96 per service hour in cost.

The LINK: Discontinued

The AATA board considered a resolution to discontinue the LINK service. The LINK is a downtown circulator service that does not charge a fare to ride. The LINK buses are painted purple.

The issue of the LINK was addressed by Tim Hull during public time in the context of public input on service changes.

Tim Hull: Hull identified himself as an AATA bus rider for the last six years, and suggested that the board reflect on the various avenues available for public input. It seemed to him, Hull said, that the public was often involved only at the last step. The Local Advisory Council, he said, was more of an advocacy group for seniors and disabled people, and met at a time inconvenient for people who worked a regular daytime schedule. He suggested that the public be engaged on matters such as schedule and service changes before they are set in stone. The discontinuation of the LINK, he said, felt like it was already a done deal at the time of a public meeting held over the summer.

In response, Nacht said that the last time that schedule changes had been contemplated, it had been a multi-month process and that originally, the Number 13 route to Newport Road had been targeted: “We were going to kill it!” But people spoke out, Nacht said, and the route was retained. So, Nacht said, he took Hull’s concerns very seriously and suggested that particular concerns could be conveyed to the director of community relations for the AATA, Mary Stasiak.

In his communications at the beginning of the meeting, board chair Nacht had already alluded to the item on the agenda that would discontinue the LINK. He described it as a “painful, difficult” decision, but that the AATA could not take on the funding of the service without the help of the two partners who’d bowed out – the University of Michigan and the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority.

AATA CEO Michael Ford, who’s been on the job for a month, said that in the future, when the AATA embarked on a project involving partners, he hoped the authority could plan for a way to continue that project, even if the partners bowed out.

Board member Ted Annis quipped that his wife was going to be disappointed, because she takes the grandkids to ride the purple buses, which they enjoy.

Nacht said that philosophically he thought that a free downtown circulator was something that was important, and he was sorry the board was discontinuing the LINK.

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to discontinue the LINK service.

Goals and Objectives

A document called “Goals and Objectives” generated some animated discussion between Ted Annis and David Nacht. Nacht was concerned that the document would constrain the new CEO, Michael Ford, from putting his own stamp on the organization, if the goals and objectives were provided to him with no room for flexibility.

Annis wanted to make explicit how Ford would provide his input on the goals and objectives: “Let’s nail it down!” To which Nacht responded: “I think it’s too early to nail it down – the man has been on the job for a month.”

One concern cited by Nacht in the exchange was that among the goals and objectives there was nothing about expanding the AATA to include countywide service.

For his part, Annis was somewhat frustrated that Nacht was not attaching adequate significance to the document – which had come out of the planning and development committee, chaired by Annis: “What do you want to do with this – ignore it?”

In the end, a consensus seemed to be reached that would have Ford delivering his input on the goals and objectives, with the planning and development committee, as well as the performance monitoring and external relations committee, “getting a shot at dealing with the goals as proposed by Michael Ford,” Annis said.

Questions for Michael Ford, CEO

Board member Charles Griffith thanked Michael Ford for his weekly updates. Annis said that he’d been having fun with Ford, and that he’d been putting pressure on Ford to control costs. Nacht followed Annis’ comment with, “Michael is still here!”

Plymouth Road Park-and-Ride Lot

Before the AATA board was a resolution authorizing the CEO to execute a contract with D&R Earthmoving for $1.144 million to construct the park-and-ride lot at Plymouth Road and US-23. The Ann Arbor city council had approved the site plan for the 245-space park-and-ride lot at its July 20 meeting. Board chair Nacht wanted to know what exactly D&R’s work would entail, besides digging a hole in the ground. “What are they doing?”

In response, Chris White, manager of service development for the AATA, joked, “Stimulating the economy!” He went on to elaborate with Phil Webb, AATA controller, chiming in: earthmoving, paving, drainage construction, traffic signals, lighting, trees, signage. There will be a sign acknowledging the work was supported with federal stimulus funds.

White confirmed for Nacht that D&R was the low bidder, with the highest bidder coming in at around $300,000 more.

Annis confirmed with White that the “funny little” Green Road park-and-ride would remain open.

Outcome: The resolution authorizing the execution of the park-and-ride lot construction was unanimously approved.

Public Time: FITS and WALLY

LuAnne Bullington: Nacht greeted Bullington by congratulating her on the race she ran in the recent Ward 3 city council elections, though she did not prevail. Bullington stressed that if WALLY (the Washtenaw-Livingston Rail Line, a north-south commuter rail) was going to be built, it was important to identify sources of funding for operations, not just construction. She expressed concern that the Ann Arbor city council’s recent approval of design work on the Fuller Intermodal Transit Station (FITS) meant that city council was moving ahead as if the AATA board had made a decision to close the Blake Transit Center downtown.

Board member Jesse Bernstein responded to Bullington by clarifying that the approval for FITS was a study and siting phase on a parcel of land owned by the city and currently leased to UM. As far as Blake Transit Center was concerned, Bernstein said that there’d been no discussion of moving it, and that the board was instead discussing funding improvements and repairs to it. [Renovating BTC is a part of the goals and objectives document that provoked much discussion later in the meeting.] Regarding FITS and BTC, Bernstein said, “It’s not one or the other, it’s both.”

Communications: More on WALLY

Board chair David Nacht described a meeting he’d had with representatives of the University of Michigan along with Chris White, who’s manager of service development for the AATA, as a way to “open doors with that relationship.” Nacht also described “a lot of activity” to try to find capital funds for construction of the north-south commuter rail line known as WALLY. That included a multi-agency application for a TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant. Nacht said the AATA continues to remain open to the concept of WALLY, but expressed concern that there’d been a lack of interest thus far from Livingston County for the funding of operations. “We’d like to see more support,” he said. However, Nacht concluded, “We’re doing our best to push the project forward.”

Nominations

In his communications at the beginning of the meeting, board chair Nacht had said that he was impressed with the committee work that was getting done and how the board’s committees were able to process a tremendous amount of information.

Board member Jesse Bernstein was appointed the sole member and chair of the nominating committee for board officer elections, which will take place at the board’s September meeting.

Present: Charles Griffith, David Nacht, Rich Robben, Ted Annis, Jesse Bernstein.

Absent: Sue McCormick, Paul Ajegba

Next regular meeting: Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009 at 1:00 p.m. [note the unusual time] at AATA headquarters, 2700 S. Industrial Ave. [confirm date]

Other positive news coming out of the meeting was scant, compared to three disappointments. First, Arborland management seems committed to not allowing AATA to use a bus stop located on its property inside the shopping plaza. Second, the LINK downtown circulator bus, which the Downtown Development Authority recently elected not to fund in the fall, won’t be supported by the University of Michigan, either. Finally, the north-south connector feasibility study, which appeared finally to  have all four partners on board with their funding, was postponed by the AATA board when questions were raised about the price tag on AATA’s share – $320,000.

Arborland

Dawn Gabay, interim director of the AATA, reported on the latest status of negotiations about the Arborland bus stop location. She said that discussions have taken place with the management company, on behalf of the property owner AmCap, Inc., which is headquartered in Stamford, Conn. Gabay said, “The management company says the owner is adamant that they will not change their decision.” Contacted by The Chronicle by phone on Friday, a representative from AmCap declined comment.

AmCap’s decision was for the AATA to cease using the Arborland parking lot as a bus stop location. Gabay noted that customers are beginning to respond. She said that Borders, a tenant in the Arborland plaza, had issued a statement of support for continuing the bus stop at the Arborland location. In part, that statement reads:

Borders supports the work of the AATA and is disappointed with Arborland’s decision to remove this park-and-ride stop. While the stop and resulting parking needs of riders did at times present challenges to patrons of our store looking for parking near our location, these challenges were not insurmountable … Unfortunately, we were informed that the decision to remove the stop was final, and that Borders had no opportunity to influence or change it, despite our attempts to work out viable alternatives.

The section of Washtenaw Avenue near the intersection of Washtenaw Avenue and Pittsfield Boulevard has been identified as the most likely place to put in new bus stops.

But complicating matters, said Gabay, is the fact that a construction project along Washtenaw Avenue is scheduled to start immediately following the art fairs, which end July 18. That construction project involves a water main replacement.

Board chair David Nacht suggested that the AATA entertain the idea that “we pay some money.” He noted that the owners of the property were in business and had some interest in making money. If the park-and-ride stop was perceived to have a negative economic impact on their business, he reasoned, they might reasonably be interested in adequate compensation for their losses at some price.

Gabay indicated that the owners had no interest in a financial arrangement of the kind that Nacht was describing. Nacht pointed out that eviction from Arborland represented a significant inconvenience to AATA bus riders as well as a considerable expense, anyway. Based on that consideration, he said, he was comfortable with payment of some kind of reasonable rent. He said he recognized that it’s private property and that the AATA was not in a position to demand access, but he hoped that, in the interest of public spiritedness, the owner might be receptive to some good-faith willingness on the part of the AATA to pay some rent.

Gabay replied that the landlord had said that money was not currently an issue and it had never been an issue.

Board member Rich Robben – noting that the arrangement to use the Arborland parking lot for a bus stop had been in place for 30 years – wondered if there was perhaps some principle of de facto possession. Board member Sue McCormick supplied the relevant legal term: adverse possession. But she indicated that the principle would not apply, because the ATAA had been operating under the terms of an agreement, not under a casual or implicit arrangement.

Nacht said that, based on what he knew from the first year of law school, an adverse possession case had to be based on a property use that was open, notorious, hostile, and continuous. None of those elements seem to apply here, he concluded.

“What’s the game plan if they stick to their guns?” Nacht wanted to know. Gabay indicated that detouring buses through neighborhoods (during the road construction period) would generate complaints from neighbors. Nacht asked if the anticipated challenges would require communications with the city of Ann Arbor at the level of the city council and the mayor. Board member Sue McCormick, who is director of public services for the city, indicated that staff-level communications would be adequate.

Noting that the AATA had recently been kicked out of another shopping center – Maple Village – Nacht wondered, “Is this a trend?” Gabay indicated that it was not a trend. Prior to the board meeting, Mary Stasiak, manager of community relations for AATA, told The Chronicle that the AATA enjoyed good working relationships with other shopping centers, highlighting the Briarwood Mall and the two Meijer locations. During the art fairs, Briarwood serves as a park-and-ride location for a special AATA shuttle to bring art fair visitors into downtown Ann Arbor.

North-South Connector Feasibility Study

The board considered a resolution to approve $320,000 of funding for the north-south connector study.

The north-south connector feasibility study will determine whether the Plymouth Road and State Street corridors could be enhanced as a “signature corridor” in terms of the Transportation Master Plan Update, using either existing buses, bus rapid transit, or streetcar systems. The study includes four partners: the AATA, the University of Michigan, the DDA, and the city of Ann Arbor.

The study has a history of nearly a year at this point. The current cost-sharing arrangement evolved from a $250,000 estimate for the project cost and the following cost-sharing arrangement:

• AATA – $100,000
• University Of Michigan – $50,000
• DDA – $50,000
• City of Ann Arbor – $50,000.

When the bids came back from contractors, it was apparent that the $250,000 estimate was too low, and the price tag grew to $640,00. The respective contributions from each of the four partners were then adjusted in a way that split the cost equally:

• AATA – $160,000
• University Of Michigan – $160,000
• DDA – $160,000
• City of Ann Arbor – $160,000.

The city of Ann Arbor and the DDA then raised concerns about the relative proportions of the price to be paid by city tax dollars compared to the University of Michigan, and their shares were reduced so that combined, the total city and DDA shares equaled the UM share:

• AATA – $320,000
• University Of Michigan – $160,000
• DDA – $80,000
• City of Ann Arbor – $80,000.

Under this latest arrangement, the Ann Arbor city council and the DDA had authorized their funding of $80,000 at their most recent board meetings. The University of Michigan had already authorized its share.

Deliberations began with board chair David Nacht asking some clarificational questions about who was involved with the project. From Chris White, who is AATA’s manager of service development, Nacht elicited several pieces of information. The consulting company that is to undertake a study is URS. The office they’d be operating out of was Minneapolis. URS is used frequently by the University Michigan and had personnel in town frequently for that work. However, AATA has never contracted with URS before. Asked specifically what “human being would be leading the study,” White indicated that Eli Cooper, who is the transportation program manager for the city of Ann Arbor, would be heading up the project locally. The project manager from URS for the study would be Rick Nau.

Nacht then moved to table the resolution, saying he was “completely uncomfortable” with the allocation of that amount of stimulus money to a nonlocal company – noting also the uneven burden assigned to the AATA – and stated that the board should have been alerted more clearly in a memo from staff about what was being requested.

Board member Charles Griffith said that he wanted to offer a slightly different view, saying it shouldn’t matter whether the split among partners was even. If the project itself was a problem, he said, that’s what they should focus on.

The use of stimulus money was a quick way to get the project done, Griffith said.

Nacht confirmed with board member Ted Annis that the planning and development committee had not voted on the matter. Nacht said that if the committee had voted on it he would be somewhat more comfortable. Annis, for his part, said “I’ve seen a lot of money fly out the door for studies.” He said that he wanted a clearer statement of what the study was for, what outcomes were expected, and what the AATA planned to do with the study “besides put it on the shelf.”

Griffith then produced a copy of a document from the performance monitoring and external relations committee showing the $320,000 allocation on a list of projects it had considered, but noted it had not been singled out for discussion. Here’s a link to a scan of the relevant page of that committee’s February notes: $320,000 for north-south connector.

On revelation of that document, Nacht noted that because the stimulus money is on the list, that made him feel a lot better. Still, Nacht said, “I’m offended that a public board that I chair would spend stimulus dollars on a bunch of Minneapolis consultants. I want every one of those dollars spent here in Michigan.”

Sue McCormick noted that it was not actually stimulus money that would be spent. Rather, by using the stimulus money for other projects, the AATA had freed up other money to use for the north-south connector study.

Griffith then suggested that the study itself might well have no direct economic impact, but that once they got a project built that it would mean a tremendous amount of investment in the area. To get the economic stimulus of building the project, he said, it was necessary to undertake a study of this quality.

The board then explored the consequences of postponing, given that the board does not have a regularly scheduled monthly meeting in July. Chris White said that he would need to inquire whether URS would honor the pricing in their initial proposal.

Outcome: The board tabled the resolution. If the board does not convene a special meeting, the next opportunity to approve the allocation would come on August 19, 2009.

The LINK

As we reported previously, the Ann Arbor DDA chose not to renew its part of the grant funding that supports the LINK, which is a downtown circulator bus.

The AATA board did not have a resolution before it on the LINK, but news that the DDA had chosen not to renew funding was a matter of concern.

At the AATA board meeting, Dawn Gabay indicated that the University Michigan, which had previously been a partner in supporting the LINK, would continue to operate the transportation service as a shuttle, using its own buses between Oxford Housing – which houses more than 300 UM students – and central campus. [It's worth noting that the UM buses are free for anyone to board and ride – whether an affiliate of the university or not. Their exact location at any time can be tracked online with the Magic Bus system.]

Nacht wanted to know why the DDA had “killed the LINK.” Nacht pointed to a June 14, 2009 Michigan Daily editorial on the subject, which he described as “unbelievably thoughtful and coherent.”

Chris White indicated that the DDA’s transportation committee, which had been formed at the beginning of the year, had been handling the DDA’s analysis on the question. White indicated that the DDA did not feel that the LINK was meeting the DDA’s goals for the service and was not serving the demographic that it wanted to target. Nacht said, “I don’t want to see this thing disappear. It’s a core function of what we provide.” He asked if it might not be possible to find the $80,000 it would take to make up for the DDA funding so that the AATA could do the thing it was supposed to as an agency, namely, actually run a bus.

Annis wondered if this was not perhaps a case of having too many cooks in the transportation kitchen. Nacht expressed his interest in seeing the LINK continued.

If the LINK were to be continued, then it would likely also be without funding that the University of Michigan has provided historically.

To get an idea of what that funding has been, here’s the cost of service funding for the LINK circulator from September 2008 to April 2009:

$145,385  University of Michigan
$131,267  State operating assistance
$ 10,000  AATA advertising revenues
$ 71,023  AATA operating subsidy
$ 71,023  Downtown Development Authority

-

On news of the DDA’s decision not to renew funding, the University of Michigan has already made plans to replace the service that the purple LINK buses provided as a way for students to get to class on Central Campus. Speaking with The Chronicle by phone, David Miller, who is executive director for parking and transportation services at the university, confirmed that plans had been put into place to use its own buses – modifying existing routes – to provide the same service previously provided by the LINK. Miller said that it was more cost effective to integrate that service into its already-existing routes than to pay the AATA to provide it with the LINK.

The fact that the LINK went into the downtown area as well didn’t contribute directly on the university’s educational mission, Miller said. Also a consideration, said Miller, was that The Courtyards – a new student housing development on Broadway near Plymouth – would be coming more fully online next year, and there would be increased demand for service to that location. And in a tough budget environment, Miller said, it meant that his department needed to be as efficient as possible in allocating transportation resources.

CEO Search: Michael Ford’s Contract Offer

Board chair David Nacht opened the meeting by entertaining a motion from board member Sue McCormick to alter the agenda so that the board could go into an executive session immediately following the period allotted for public comment.

The purpose of the closed executive session would be to discuss details of the contract with Michael Ford, with whom the board is currently in negotiations to hire as its CEO. Nacht noted that an exception to the Open Meetings Act in this case could be allowed only to review the contents of an employment application when the applicant explicitly requests that the meeting not be open. “He has done so?” asked Nacht. “He has,” replied McCormick.

So the board then went into closed session.

Emerging from closed session, the board passed a motion setting forth the terms of a contract for Michael Ford, supporting his appointment as the chief executive officer of the AATA, with the expectation that he would assume responsibilities on July 6, 2009 or soon thereafter. The motion passed unanimously. Nacht said that this was the final written offer to Michael Ford, concluding, “We hope he’ll accept.” Board member Paul Ajegba participated in the meeting via conference call, but recused himself from the vote on the resolution.

The Chronicle has observed that on occasion, Ajegba has recused himself from certain votes tied in some way to the Michigan Department of Transportation – he’s manager for the Oakland County Transportation Service Center for MDOT. It’s not obvious why the recusal took place in this case, so we’ll follow up with a clarification.

American Civil Liberties Union: Surveillance on Buses?

In his general communications at the start of the meeting, Nacht indicated that he had been contacted by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington County with an inquiry about the nature of audio and video taping on AATA buses. Nacht said that later in the meeting he wanted there to be a discussion, held in public, about the topic.

When that point in the meeting came, Nacht wanted to know, “Are we spying on people?”

Dawn Gabay, interim director of AATA, clarified that the AATA was not, in fact, spying on people. She said that there was audio and video taping equipment aboard buses that was used exclusively for the review of incidents and accidents. The material that was recorded, she said, was not downloaded or archived or otherwise examined.

If there was no specific reason to view the material or listen to it due to an incident or an accident, she said, that material was taped over – typically every 35-40 days. It was clarified that no one is watching the material in real time, and that it was not used by law enforcement who simply wanted to listen to what people were saying to each other aboard the bus. Gabay stressed that there had to be a specific reason to retrieve the footage to watch it based on some incident or accident.

Jim Mogensen: Speaking during the public commentary time at the conclusion of the meeting, Mogensen noted that he was not associated with the request from the ACLU about surveillance on the AATA buses. But he drew a connection between the video surveillance that is done on AATA buses and a Department of Justice grant allocation made the previous Monday night (June 15) at the meeting of Ann Arbor’s city council. For that grant, digital recording equipment is being installed in patrol cars. Mogensen made the point that eventual strings could be attached by the federal government to a grant paid for the digital recording equipment that would require the city of Ann Arbor to provide the information recorded with it. So he suggested that the AATA contemplate the possibility that any municipality using federal funds could be required to turn over its security tapes. He concluded by simply saying it was be a good idea to think it through.

WALLY

Ted Annis reported out from the planning and development committee that they’re now at the point where they’re looking to spend around $500,000 on hiring a consultant for the WALLY project. (This is a proposed north-south commuter rail between Ann Arbor and points north – it’s a different project from the north-south connector inside Ann Arbor.) It was a bit disconcerting to him, Annis said, to hear some of the updates from project coordinator Tom Cornillie. The estimated 1,000 riders a day, he said, might be high, while the capital expenditure of $33 million might be low. Said Annis, “The numbers don’t make sense to me, yet.” David Nacht said that he continued to have an open mind and was glad that Annis was asking that kind of question.

Purchase of Service Agreements

Gabay reported that conversations had begun to discuss alternatives on reconfiguring routes in Ypsilanti in light of that city’s financial condition, which suggested that the new purchase of service agreements would represent a hardship.

Public Commentary

Jim Mogensen: Mogensen addressed the list of AATA goals and objectives that was available in printed form, but which was not included in the board’s electronic meeting packet. He noted that among the priorities listed were long-term downtown transit, park-and-ride lots, the situation at Arborland, and an intermodal facility on Fuller Road. Those priorities, he said, suggested a focus on commuters as users of the transportation system. He urged the board to try to reconcile the tension between serving urban area dwellers – who pay for transportation through their taxes – and commuters who drive into the area. He gave a specific example related to his own personal circumstance: Currently he can take the Number 2 bus into town, but he could imagine that a reconfiguration of routes designed specifically to make commuting more deficient could easily result in a new configuration – one  that would require him to take the Number 22 bus to the Green Road park-and-ride lot and from there take the Number 2 into town.

At the conclusion of the meeting, after the board had discussed the situation at Arborland, Mogensen suggested that the Arborland bus stop location served two purposes: (i) it was a park-and-ride, and (ii) it was a connecting location. So in coming up with alternative solutions, it’s important, he said, to consider the impact on people who use the location to make connections versus people who use the bus for commuting. The contrast is between people who use buses to get around versus people who use buses just to get to work.

Thomas Partridge: Partridge criticized the time limit of two minutes for public commentary at the start of the meeting as well as the requirement that comments be focused only on agenda items. [Public commentary at the end of board meetings is not restricted by topic.] Partridge criticized the goals and objectives document because it didn’t give enough priority to countywide bus transportation. He said that he found lacking in the set of goals and objectives any items meant to improve para-transit service.

Rebecca Burke: In her report from the Local Advisory Council, Burke said that the bus stop accessibility project was taking a case-by-case approach with reports from members about problems at particular bus stops. She also said that the LAC was continuing to work on its code of conduct. And finally, she said that a resolution from the LAC that had been proposed to the LAC executive committee to unify the two entities had been rejected.

She also said there was renewed concern that there is not a continuous LAC liaison in place, and she extended an invitation to board chair David Nacht to attend its August meeting.

Sandra Holley: Speaking at end of the meeting,  Holley addressed several of the issues that the board had considered that evening. On the subject of surveillance and buses, she said that a bus is a public space, and that you know surveillance is going to happen, just like it happens in any department store. The important thing to bear in mind, she said, was the importance of due process and handling of the tapes. With respect to the imminent hiring of Michael Ford, she expressed concern that the AATA had a lot of different projects currently going on, and he would have a lot on his plate from the very start. So she suggested that it was important that someone shadow him in order to bring him quickly up to speed. On the subject of the LINK, she said that while it might well serve the students from the University of Michigan, they are the main consumers in Ann Arbor and the service should be evaluated in that context.

Present: Charles Griffith, David Nacht, Rich Robben, Sue McCormick, Ted Annis, Paul Ajegba (by speaker phone).

Absent: Jesse Bernstein.

Next regular meeting: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. at AATA headquarters, 2700 S. Industrial Ave. [confirm date]

A 1998 Ann Arbor Observer article about the park-and-ride program, found in the Ann Arbor District Library's clipping file.

DDA Transportation Committee (Dec. 18, 2008) The Downtown Development Authority‘s transportation committee addressed the north-south connector study and had a “big picture” discussion about transportation issues before hearing from getDowntown director Nancy Shore, who gave an overview of that program. The context of her presentation was $100,000 of funding for alternative transportation authorized by the DDA in September 2008, part or all of which could be allocated to getDowntown.

The meeting ran a course that did not result in the committee hearing from two members of the public, Ed Vielmetti and Jude Yew, who had hoped to sketch out some problems and solutions related to AATA bus information. Unlike meetings of the full board, committee meetings do not include a time for public commentary.

North-South Connector Study

First up as a conversational topic was the north-south connector study. By way of background, the DDA is one of four partners on the project to study the Plymouth Road and State Street corridors as a possibility for high-capacity transit within the city of Ann Arbor. The initial funding arrangement for the study called for the DDA, the University of Michigan, and the city of Ann Arbor to contribute $50,000 each, with the AATA contributing $100,000. When cost estimates came back far in excess of the $250,000 total budget, a revised funding arrangement was proposed with each partner contributing $160,000. The full DDA board did not authorize the increased funding level, sending it instead back to its transportation committee. DDA board member Roger Hewitt had been representing the DDA on the project. Hewitt had hinted at the previous meeting of the transportation committee that he was open to someone else taking over that role.

John Mouat, chair of the transportation committee, indicated that going forward, DDA board chair Jennifer S. Hall and DDA executive director Susan Pollay will represent the DDA on the north-south connector study. He said that the mayor of the city of Ann Arbor, John Hieftje, had met with Jim Kosteva, community relations director for UM, to talk about considering the city of Ann Arbor and the DDA as a single entity for the purposes of funding the north-south connector study.

In light of the emerging issue of appropriate funding levels from each of the four partners, Hewitt expressed his concern that there be a method for figuring out who pays for what, noting that he didn’t feel it was necessarily the DDA’s job to figure it out, but that they should perhaps “figure out who should figure it out,” saying that he was concerned that “it’s just going to sit there,” and that he wanted to make sure that somebody “picked up the ball.”

Responding to Hewitt, Pollay said that she, along with Sue Gott (planner for UM), Eli Cooper (transportation program manager for the city of Ann Arbor), and Chris White (AATA manager of service development) would hash it out, and return to their respective bodies and say, “This is what we think the new deal is.”

Hewitt indicated that for funding the system itself it was fair to consider the percentage of usage of the system by each entity that had partnered on the study. He said that this relative usage should be modeled as a part of the study. If the system was projected to have two-thirds UM ridership, then their share of the funding should be commensurate with that.

Mouat echoed Hewitt’s concern, saying the DDA should bear in mind a process for the north-south connector study that would establish the right precedents and expectations from other entities with respect to other projects. Among the other projects Mouat cited were the North University Avenue bus station improvements, for which UM has asked the city of Ann Arbor and the DDA for assistance in funding.

Big Picture Discussion

Mouat led the group into a discussion of the overall purpose of the DDA’s transportation committee, beginning by considering the difference between public and personal transportation. Mouat noted that personal transportation choices had implications for the parking system and that while it’s easy to get on a public transportation bandwagon, “Americans are still Americans,” meaning that many of them will drive. Board member Sandi Smith said she thought is was really useful to look at the issue from a personal-public point of view.

Picking up on the personal-public distinction, Pollay added, “Everyone at some point is a pedestrian. At some point you get off the bus and walk to your destination. Your movement becomes personal.” With respect to pedestrians, Mouat noted that here in Michigan the weather has an impact – so shelters and sidewalks are worth talking about, along with the difficulty people have in climbing over huge piles of snow.

Hewitt said that he saw the goal of the DDA’s transportation committee as making all the options as easy as possible. Pollay encouraged the assembled board members to think in terms of how much control they had over particular issues. For example, she said, DDA controls rates for parking, but depends on AATA for transit service, and that no single entity is in charge of the north-south connector study. So, she concluded, it’s important to consider what can be done alone, and what projects require partners.

Mouat raised the topic of which downtown users they want to focus on – workers, customers, residents? They’re distinct, he suggested. Hewitt countered that there was overlap between groups, a point Mouat acknowledged, while noting it was still useful to identify possibly distinct needs among the groups. Students are huge users of downtown, said Hewitt. Mouat agreed, saying that students will increase their numbers in the immediate downtown area with the opening of North Quad (a dormitory currently under construction at the site of the old Frieze Building, at State Street between Huron and Washington).

Mouat noted that often the focus is on commuters, but he wanted to hear from retailers about what the DDA could do to help customers. Board member Rene Greff (co-owner with her husband, Matt, of the Arbor Brewing Company on East Washington) said that the worst thing is when she tries to pull into the 4th and Washington parking structure and it says “Full.” Hewitt said that the Maynard Street parking structure is so frequently full that people don’t come down for lunch, because there’s no guarantee there’ll be space.

Pollay said that the more the DDA has made alternative transportation the focus, the more usage of parking there is. “The more options you create, the stronger every part of the system gets,” she said.

Mouat asked the board members who had attended the 54th Annual International Downtown Association (IDA) Conference in early September of 2008 in Calgary if there were any lessons learned from that conference. Hewitt said he’d observed specialized mode streets that were not necessarily successful. For example, he said Calgary had a pedestrian mall that “would not hold a candle” to Ann Arbor’s State or Main streets. He noted a transit street for just light rail, with no vibrancy, just people waiting to get on and off. Sandi Smith said that in part there was amazing sprawl, even though it was transit-oriented development, with transit nodes extending out into the sprawl. She said that light rail was standing-room-only and appeared to be used a lot. Hewitt said it looked like the area had been spray-painted with houses.

Hewitt related how, at an IDA session a couple of years ago, he’d attended a presentation where a method was introduced for defining how vibrant a city is: take a 1-mile square in the center of the city and count the number of intersections. At the top end of the rankings was Florence, Italy, with 1,600, and at the bottom was Irvine, California, with 26. Boston and New York had around 800-900, Hewitt said. The lesson he drew from this was: don’t take out streets.

Picking up on the Italian connection introduced by Hewitt, Mouat noted that the Midwestern sensibility is different from the Italian: “We have to have order!” In that light, Mouat said that introducing new modes of transportation like rail will make things “messy,” saying that we’d already seen the reaction to “weird types of transportation” like scooters when people chain them to light poles, citing Greff’s experience. (This was an allusion to a situation where an employee of Greff’s had been ticketed for parking a scooter illegally on the sidewalk.) Mouat stressed that if they were going to encourage people to use scooters, then “we ought to figure out where to put those things.”

Responding to the need to blend new alternatives into the city, Pollay said that authentic cities are an evolution. She remarked that Adrian Iraola, who works for Washtenaw Engineering and manages many DDA projects, calls the downtown a “laboratory,” and said that much of the DDA’s work took the form of pilot programs.

As an example, she said, express buses could evolve into rail. She also cited the just-launched valet parking pilot program. (First four days of usage: 0, 1, 5, 11.) Later in the meeting, Pollay would cite the park-and-ride program as the first partnership with the AATA, undertaken as an “accidental pilot” back in 1998, when 1,200 parking spaces in structures were taken off-line for renovation and commuters had little choice except to use the park-and-ride lots. Pollay said that initially, the commuters took advantage of the lots only “kicking and screaming,” but by the end of the six-week period, they were clamoring for it to continue. (Rummaging through the Ann Arbor District Library’s clipping file turned up an Ann Arbor Observer article from that year describing the park-and-ride pilot, along with Pollay’s description of herself as the “goddess of concrete.”)

getDowntown Presentation

By way of background, the DDA transportation committee intends to invite various guests in the coming months to make presentations in order to increase its knowledge base. The first invitee was Nancy Shore of the getDowntown program. The specific background of her presentation includes the authorization by the DDA in September 2008 of a $56.4 million project budget for the Fifth Avenue underground parking garage. An amendment offered at that meeting by Sandi Smith authorized spending $100,000 to support alternative transportation.

RESOLVED, The DDA shall work to bolster its many current alternative transportation initiatives in the coming fiscal year by providing an additional $100,000 to pursue such goals as extending LINK hours to include evening and Saturday service, working in collaboration with AATA to improve services for commuters such as express buses and park and ride lots, and working in collaboration with the getDowntown office to more effectively market transportation options to downtown employees;

Although the DDA transportation committee agenda for Dec. 18 indicates that “DDA has also made a commitment of an additional $100,000 to getDowntown in 2008/09,” the getDowntown funding data Shore provided The Chronicle after the meeting includes her notation: “2008-2009 funding breakdown does not include $100,000 approved by the DDA for Alternative Transportation in the downtown. The exact amount allocated to getDowntown has not yet been determined.”

A specific question raised by Roger Hewitt at the previous meeting of the transportation committee was whether the go!pass program, which is administered by getDowntown, was causing people to ride the bus instead of driving, or if it subsidized bus trips of commuters who would ride the bus anyway.

getDowntown funding sources for the last four years. (Image links to higher resolution file). Not included in the chart are in-kind contributions from the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce, which were estimated at $15,000 and $19,400 for the last two years.

Shore led committee members through the history of the getDowntown program, which dates back to 1999. She described how Woody Holman (then president of the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce), Wendy Rampson (city of Ann Arbor planner), Dave Konkel Konkle (then city of Ann Arbor energy coordinator) and Chris White (AATA manager of service development) created the four-way partnership that continues a decade later.

This four-way partnership is reflected in the membership of the getDowntown advisory committee: Susan Pollay (DDA); Chris White and Mary Stasiak (AATA); Eli Cooper and Wendy Rampson (city of Ann Arbor); and Jesse Bernstein (Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce). Part of the impetus for the creation of getDowntown was a city survey of its employees, which identified a need for information about alternatives to cars. (Related to city employees specifically is the Lead by Example project, which Shore has targeted as a priority for getDowntown in the coming year.)

Shore summarized the current mission of getDowntown as encouraging downtown commuters in the use of sustainable transportation options. She presented getDowntown in a national context where transportation demand management – for which getDowntown is a marketing arm – is an established strategy for increasing use of the range of transportation options available to commuters.

In response to a question from Mouat about whether that national context included UM, Shore said that UM did have someone who roughly corresponded to her function for the downtown area: Grant Winston, who works under David Miller with parking and transportation services.

Shore ticked through a list of accomplishments after a little over a year on the job at getDowntown (previously, the position was held by Erica Briggs). Those achievements included 1,400 commuters who had logged at least one sustainable commute during the month of May (Curb Your Car Month) as well as 5,700 go!passes sold for 2007-08 to 422 different downtown businesses.

In its inaugural year, go!passes were free. Data provided by getDowntown. Any errors in creation of bar graph by The Ann Arbor Chronicle. (Image links to higher resolution file.)

By way of background, a go!pass is available to employees of downtown businesses that participate in the go!pass program. Participation costs $5 per full-time employee annually, and entitles all such employees to a pass. Otherwise put, it’s not possible for an employer to purchase passes for only those employees who are likely to ride the bus. However, the minimal cost per pass to the employer (the actual cost charged by AATA is $52.92 per year) is meant to facilitate employers’ participation in the program. The difference between the actual cost of $52.92 and the employer contribution of $5 is funded by the DDA. In each of the last three years, the DDA has allocated around $250,000 to fund go!passes.

After the committee meeting, Shore indicated to The Chronicle that getDowntown does not monitor whether the $5 for the go!pass comes from the employer or the employee, saying that in some isolated (and not ideal) instances, an interested employee had collected the money from colleagues, which was then conveyed by the employer to getDowntown.

[Editorial aside: For a 5-day a week bus commuter working at a 50-employee company with 49 others who resolutely refuse to ride the bus or to contribute $5 for participation in the go!pass program, the bus-commuting employee would come out $200 ahead by self-funding the whole company's participation for $250, when compared with the cost of $450 for 12 monthly Flexpasses at a cost of $37.50 per month. The 5,700 go!passes sold in the last year represents an increase of about 1,000 compared with the previous year, but the number of rides taken held steady at around 76 rides per pass per year.]

Currently, AATA bus drivers manually tally a go!pass ride when the pass is flashed by a passenger on boarding. However, Pollay indicated that as AATA transitions to more sophisticated fare boxes, the intent is to develop a swipe-able go!pass cards that would allow more detailed data collection on their usage.

Shore gave an overview of results from three different survey projects undertaken in 2000, 2001, and 2005 that explore a variety of issues, including where commuters to downtown come from (many come from Scio Township and Ypsilanti), why people don’t ride the bus (half say it doesn’t stop by their house), and suggestions for increasing frequency of walking to work (build more affordable housing closer to downtown).

Working with Survey Sciences Group, Shore indicated that she was working on a survey currently that would be completed by April of 2009, in order that the results not be colored by the commuter challenge during Curb Your Car Month in May. Compared to the previous survey efforts, the key addition to the current survey, said Shore, would be inclusion of the employer perspective. In response to a query from Mouat about what kind of data and tools she felt she needed, Shore said that the only additional data she needed was the employer side of the equation.

In describing generally the challenges she faced with getDowntown, Shore said that the lack of a centralized communication system (that is available to her counterpart at UM, for example, in the form of a umich.edu email blast) meant that she needed to cobble together the network by hand. She also indicated that to date no brochure had been developed to aid in marketing the getDowntown program, something that would take additional funding.

In response to a query from Hewitt about ideas for the go!pass, Shore said that she would like to see additional discounts enjoyed by holders of the go!pass – for example, discounts on the Chelsea bus express service, which is currently in pilot form.

Asked by Smith about where she would allocate additional money within the getDowntown program (as contrasted with additional ridership discounts), Shore said that primarily she would work on beefing up marketing for getDowntown and the Commuter Challenge. She also described the possibility of a commuter/transit station – which would provide a physical location as a resource for information about where to go and how to get there.

Smith said that she found herself somewhat surprised by the focus on commuters, even though she understood it, given the origins of the program. Smith said that in light of the big picture discussion they’d had on the variety of different downtown users, she’d like to see more dialog about other users of downtown.

Pollay suggested that she would work with Shore to shape a more specific proposal about how $100,000 might be used by getDowntown and would present the committee with something more concrete for feedback.

Present: Roger Hewitt, John Mouat, Susan Pollay, Sandi Smith, Rene Greff; Joan Lowenstein arrived during the meeting.

Next meeting: 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 28 at the DDA offices, 150 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 301. [confirm date]