It’s pretty much a joke that Ann Arbor considers itself a bike town when there are very few true bike routes in the City and even where there are bike paths drives give riders no respect.

It would be interesting to hear from residents directly once work on the project has been completed or is near completion.

I’m think of setting up some sort of follow-up calendar similar to the (dishearteningly named) Wrong Tomorrow. On that site, predictions are given an expiration date, which encourages long-term responsibility.

I did not attempt to contact any residents after the meeting. I disagree with the implication that this somehow reflects a lack of appropriate balance in reporting.

FWIW, the specific reason I called Hutchinson was not to get his thoughts on the meeting, but rather to establish whether the funding mechanism for the storm water portion of the project was the same one used for the Pioneer High School project.

Based on hearing back from city officials after a number of public engagement sessions on a variety of topics over the last six months, it’s not universal that they feel like it was useful to them — a sentiment that is typically not made for attribution. So when a project manager says that a meeting resulted in useful collection of information, even when some of the commentary was simply: “We don’t care what your study says,” then I think it’s worth including in the report.

I’m sure he did.

When reached after the meeting, did residents have a similar position? Or were they still feeling agitated?

New, wider bike lanes on Miller will be much appreciated.

Dave, I recall a couple of A2 elementary schools trying to start a “walking bus” and there was some participation at the beginning but it faded quickly.

A lot of road and intersection work is payed for from other sources. The roundabout at Huron Pky. and Nixon is being paid for by the US Govt.

I have no idea but should a roundabout be considered for Miller and Newport. It would slow the traffic down and they seem to work fine for bikes.

I just took it to mean that non-road-engineering alternatives should be explored — like asking, as CarMom has, what the public schools could do to provide transportation to their magnet schools. Based on the experience described, it sounds like some pessimism is warranted. If there’s some room for optimism, though, I’d say it lies in the fact that AAPS is supposed to be a part of the design advisory committee list of stakeholders. So this could provide an opportunity to try again and get it right.

Otherwise put, I think the call was not so much for parents to just unilaterally stop driving their kids to school, but rather for reasonable alternatives to be provided, so that it wouldn’t be necessary.

I have some vague recollection of an initiative for “walking buses” here in Ann Arbor a few years ago. Here’s a link that mentions Ann Arbor as a place where they’ve been implemented successfully. Any information about which Ann Arbor neighborhoods have active WB programs would be welcome.

Obviously, that doesn’t address kids in Saline getting to Mack Open. And even a “walking bus” would benefit from crosswalks at Newport and Miller that are marked in some way that’s dramatically better than what’s there now.