Equally bothersome is the question of state funding. Michigan has had difficulty raising sufficient state transit funding to meet the federally required local share minimums. Governor Snyder is unlikely to seek increased transit funding (ie: higher gas taxes).

In the short term, the state’s support of the high speed rail project may reduce the amount of state funding that is available for existing transit. Without state matching funds, we may lose a portion of the available federal funding. This is probably not a good time to be planning for expansion.

I am willing to pay for transit services. I do not support expanding service in a manner that encourages sprawl, such as the commuter rail service to Livingston County would. Let’s focus on improving the service we have before expanding beyond our ability to pay.

Also, Congressman Dingell is not as influential as he once was and with redistricting may not even be our congressman in the future. Further, the State of Michigan local match funds are already inadequate to match grants already approved. Governor Snyder is cutting many programs. We simply can’t assume that someone else is going to cover these costs.

As for a regional transit authority for metro Detroit – we’ve been through that too and the decisions made were to favor Woodward Avenue, for example, over any Detroit-Ann Arbor route. There is a long history.

I agree that bus service should be a priority. But that doesn’t need to foreclose higher-quality transit in the city (preferably bus rapid transit), or connections to the broader region (Detroit definitely takes priority over Livingston County), or vice versa. To that end, the draft AATA plan proposes dramatically improved bus frequencies (every 5-10 minutes on core routes during peak hours), and extended service hours, to 11 pm on weekdays.

Plenty of other places – including places our size – have better local transit than we do, as well as enhanced transit and regional connections. I don’t believe we should rest content with what we have.

Can you clarify what you’d like to see done? I’m confused by some of your statements, relative to the draft implementation recommendations that I looked at.

“rather than expand those trunkline routes like #3, #4, #5, and #6, it also proposes to continue the hub and spoke arrangement around the Ypsilanti Transit Center, creating new “loop routes” to funnel riders from around eastern Washtenaw County downtown to link up with cross-county routes.”

But, the implementation sketch reduces the number of loop routes, replacing most of them with out-and-back routes. Am I misunderstanding your use of the term?

“the master plan proposes to replace the #6 route in front of the Ypsilanti Senior Center with a new loop route. Unfortunately, this arrangement makes no consideration for the fact that seniors who would be served by this route would likely be very uncomfortable with hanging out at the downtown transit center”

Where are these seniors going to or coming from? Ann Arbor? As it is now, the #6 only runs one-way past the senior center, eastbound on its trip from Ann Arbor. A senior trying to get there from elsewhere in Ypsilanti would have to ride the #6 all the way to Ann Arbor and back; the #47 in the draft proposal would seem to be a much better situation. (Besides which, the #6 as it stands takes riders directly from the senior center to the transit center, so that would not be any kind of “new” stop on their route?)

“without great complication, offer flexibility and some redundancy when it comes to routing,”

The plan suggests fewer one-way loops and more out-and-backs, which seem to me to reduce complexity; as well, the suggested new routes would offer a lot more redundancy, in the form of finer-grained coverage and more options for transfer points.

So I’m genuinely confused by your criticisms–maybe you were looking at a different plan than I?

Is your real concern with the transit center itself? Wouldn’t that seem to be an issue best addressed at the transit center, rather than taking that as a given, and designing the entire system to avoid that issue?

For readers not familiar with the concepts for changes to the urban bus network mentioned in [3] ( which are included as an appendix to the TMP) I’ve extracted the TMP appendix: [link]