Comments on: AATA Approves Budget, UM Agreement

By: The Navagator

The Navagator — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:13:08 +0000

@6 This exclaims my point.

By: Ann

Ann — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 00:55:16 +0000

“gasoline prices have dropped to under the $3.00 mark since the peak ridership occurred.”

Meanwhile AATA fares have gone up 50%… Sure helps me choose exercise over a ride.

By: The Navagator

The Navagator — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 14:34:49 +0000

In attempting to clarify the 2.6% drop in U-M ridership, and 6% decline system wide that “Staff” felt was attributable to the discontinuation of the LINK route is at best questionable. While I agree that U-M ridership may have dropped 2.6% this can be directly attributable to U-M operating the OXFORD route themselves. U-M students made up almost exclusively the ridership on the LINK route. LINK ridership was nearly non existent between Central Campus and the Downtown A2 area. Other factors in AATA’s drop (and I have to question the 6% figure) more than likely is that gasoline prices have dropped to under the $3.00 mark since the peak ridership occurred.

Has any dialog been explored between AATA and U-M putting some type of transfer arrangement in place? Specifically, many times I have witnessed someone attempting to catch an AATA bus from a U-M bus. Very frustrating, you can see the bus, but there is no way for the drivers to communicate with each other.This should be part of the M-Ride agreement as well.

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:39:03 +0000

Re:[3] “Question: I had some trouble parsing this: ‘Roger Kerson, had provided a communication to the effect of his businessmen relationship with the national transit workers union organization’. Could you clarify/explain?”

It was a letter explaining that he had a business relationship with the union, so that other board members and the public would be aware of that relationship in the context of future decisions the AATA board needs to make about various issues. Probably “about” would have been a better choice than “to the effect of.” In any case Kerson owns his own public relations firm, a private entity — so that relationship would otherwise be hard to see, unless Kerson declared it. If you’re asking which part of which union exactly and the exact nature of the business relationship, that may be contained in the letter — which Jesse Berstein said at the meeting he wished had been included in the board packet, but was not.

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:21:52 +0000

A publicly supported transit system is one of the hallmarks of a civilized community. Transit must always be subsidized (even air travel is not paid wholly by fares) but it is vital to our economic system as well as crucial for economic equity (since not all persons can afford to pay for effective transportation otherwise) and for mobility (since not all persons are able to use other means of transportation). I can’t think of “a better use”.

Question: I had some trouble parsing this: “Roger Kerson, had provided a communication to the effect of his businessmen relationship with the national transit workers union organization”. Could you clarify/explain?

By: Joel Batterman

Joel Batterman — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 04:03:00 +0000

Dan, I won’t get started on population density right now. (Do note that Ann Arbor’s population density is equivalent to that of Portland, Oregon.) I’ll just suggest that we need to add a few more things to our balance sheet to consider what makes “economic sense.”

To make that judgment, we’ve got to consider the cost of global warming and the Gulf oil spill (among others). The cost of asthma from air pollution, the cost of 40,000 highway deaths each year (not to mention the injuries), and the cost of the sedentary, obesity-inducing lifestyles that our predominant mode of transport encourages. The cost of devoting vast portions of urban real estate to automobile storage. The cost of the military power necessary to secure access to petroleum. The cost of keeping the one-third of the population that doesn’t drive (the young, the elderly, the poor and the disabled) from full participation in society. The cost of the innumerable direct public subsidies bestowed on the automobile.

Then we can begin to talk about what kinds of transportation make economic sense, and which don’t.

No form of transportation pays for itself, and externalities matter.

By: Dan Romanchik

Dan Romanchik — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:22:05 +0000

This is a great article. Thanks for publishing it.

I’ve been of the opinion for a long time, that the AATA really makes no economic sense, and I believe this article supports my view. I just don’t think that the Ann Arbor area has the population density here to support this system properly.

Note that passenger revenues ($4.74 million) make up less than 20% of total revenue ($27.1 million). Most of the other 80% comes from our taxes. $9.4 million comes from local taxes, and another $11 million comes from the state or federal funding.

Let’s set aside the $11 million from the state and the feds for the sake of this argument because we don’t have total control of that money. Are we seriously saying that we can’t find a better use for that $9.4 million dollars?