Comments on: “Smart Growth” to Fuel Countywide Transit

By: jcp2

jcp2 — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 17:00:46 +0000

With the student condos comes a relative lack of demand for student housing in older homes. I expect that some of those will drop in price and start to become more affordable to nonstudents who want to live more centrally. Expect a bump in foreclosures in these types of properties in the next two years as five year commercial mortgages taken out in 2007-2008 come due.

By: Tom Whitaker

Tom Whitaker — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 13:38:04 +0000

The context was transit-oriented-development, not improving transportation efficiency. I’m fine with studying cost-effective ways to improve the flow of traffic and increase pedestrian safety, but that’s entirely different than trying to completely reinvent/rebuild this auto-centric strip as a second downtown.

I don’t think any construction of a standard is necessary to prove that Washtenaw, from Huron Parkway to Carpenter is an extremely successful business center and has been for decades. Heavy traffic is just one indicator of that success.

A dismal commute is one incentive for more people to live in or close to the real downtown. Supposedly, increasing residential density in the downtown core was the goal of all the research, discussion and planning for the last 10 years. Some say it was intended to be a complementary strategy to the Greenbelt.

Yet so far all we have is one bankrupt condo building and a bunch of student high rises. Public money is being put toward civic buildings, parking structures and potentially a hotel and conference center instead of the original goal of creating a welcoming and livable downtown core. Why not curb our ambitions for our suburban outskirts until we are a little farther along on improving downtown–a community effort we started 10 years ago?

By: cmadler

cmadler — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:33:58 +0000

“Applying it to existing healthy business strips like Washtenaw is simply a waste of resources that could be applied to other critical public needs.”

While I’m sure that a standard could be constructed under which Washtenaw Avenue is “healthy”, as a transportation corridor it’s just a hair short of being a total disaster. Driving down Washtenaw is annoying at best, but cycling or walking — both legitimate modes of transportation — on Washtenaw is downright dangerous in many places.

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 01:11:04 +0000

I hope that Mr. Ford’s meetings with various officials and staff in Washington, D.C. included some briefings on the very precarious and chaotic moment that we are experiencing in national governance. With week-to-week threats of government shutdowns and extermination of long-time programs, this does not seem to me a time to “bet the farm” on an ambitious, capital-heavy program. Certainly we should not move to dismantle the current AATA Ann Arbor transit system without most funding (both capital and operating) firmly in hand.

By: Alice Ralph

Alice Ralph — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:41:03 +0000

We all want “smart” decisions. However, with the “corridor” planning concept and the “smart growth” transit plan, this seems more like development-oriented transit (DOT) than transit-oriented development (TOD). My gut makes me recall the growth of the “inner” suburbs when highways and cheap fuel made “flight” from the inner urban areas very convenient. Now, the inner subs are getting problems that generated the first commuter orbits. So, yes, why don’t we ask why this is different from the sprawl that everyone supposedly loves to hate?
TOD is more often a “greenfield” form than revision of existing development patterns. It doesn’t always solve existing problems.

By: David Cahill

David Cahill — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 22:48:33 +0000

Any millage to fund this plan will sink like a stone.

By: Tom Whitaker

Tom Whitaker — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 18:51:00 +0000

Let no one be misled about the intent of all this, at least from the perspective of those in charge of it. It is about money, development, and expansive growth, not saving the planet or providing better transit service. This is an excerpt from Jesse Bernstein’s blog on Concentrate from May 13, 2010:

“As President of the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce, a number of developers, both local and nationwide talked with me about major projects in the area. One element that ran through these discussions was the need for public transit, whether the population to be served was young professionals or our mature citizens. And these developers were willing to talk about incorporating stations and other capital expenses for transit in their development plans. With public transit available, the projects could be larger and include more uses if centered around a transit stop.”

TOD (transit-oriented-development) might be a good idea if you are colonizing the moon or redeveloping a city like Detroit that has underutilized infrastructure in place, spread over a wide geographic area, but to apply the concept to never-developed land in the County’s hinterlands is just sprawl by another name. Applying it to existing healthy business strips like Washtenaw is simply a waste of resources that could be applied to other critical public needs.