However, the process of establishing a new passenger rail survice is a long, difficult process – nationwide, I believe the “typical” process takes 8-12 years of planning work.

While we work through it, though (and we’re in the home stretch at this point), we’ve got needs now. I’m not a daily rider, but do use all of the A2-Ypsi routes for various trips (3, 4, 5, 6), and the AATA ridership numbers certainly match what I see on the routes – the #4 at standing-room capacity, and the others filling most of the seats for hours a day. This while many people along those routes continue to say they don’t ride because the routes’ speed, timing, etc don’t fit their travel needs.

Enhancements to the bus service can be done relatively quickly and easily (and cheaply) while we continue to work down the rail path – and should not be considering a competing option. It’s not an “or” so much as “in order to” – by continuing to build the travel options available to people, and particularly by demonstrating the unmet demand by surfacing it with enhanced service, the bus system helps support the implementation of the rail service.

And what about the bike survey? What are the next steps? What is the data used for?

Is an hourly patron a car that doesn’t park in a space rented monthly? Whatever it is, it’s hard to see that any sort of parking has increased by a factor of five during the last few years.