Comments on: AATA Taps Berriz, Guenzel to Review Plan

By: Rod Johnson

Rod Johnson — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:26:51 +0000

Remember, you only half to cross half of Jackson there. However, I understand some of you are not as young and spry as me (joke) and may not want to attempt even that.

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:54:41 +0000

The city should put in a crosswalk. But it would probably have to be signalized to be safe.

By: Anna Ercoli Schnitzer

Anna Ercoli Schnitzer — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:49:55 +0000

Sometimes I have a meeting at Weber’s, and since I am a frequent bus rider, I would LIKE to take the bus; however, racing across Jackson without a crosswalk is not something I would ever want to do, and I would not recommend that anyone else do so.

By: Rod Johnson

Rod Johnson — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:45:25 +0000

Ed, the subtext here is that the bus stops on the wrong side of Jackson, and there’s no crosswalk. Some people feel that means Weber’s is not accessible.

By: Edward Vielmetti

Edward Vielmetti — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 04:22:23 +0000

Jim (#14), Weber's is readily accessible by the bus - route 9 stops there every 30 minutes during the day. [link]

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 21:59:15 +0000

The AATA board meetings are now being held (with some exceptions) in the AADL meeting room downtown. The retreats are usually at Weber’s, as you note.

Mr. Berriz and Mr. Guenzel will not be devising a service (transit) plan, but instead reviewing the financial options for supporting an ambitious countywide organization. They should both be well-qualified to do that,even if they’ve never set foot on a bus. However, Mr. Berriz’ business interests might affect his perspective somewhat. For example, some of the options include a local sales tax and a payroll tax (i.e. income tax). On the other hand, he should have a very good understanding of how well local business interests would respond to some of the more exotic options.

By: Jim Rees

Jim Rees — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:28:00 +0000

I’ll give Al Berriz the benefit of the doubt. He claims his opposition to the school millage was about the spending process, not the money, and he has been generally good for the community. Look at his work with the Neutral Zone for example.

But I’ll agree with the rest of you about AATA’s disconnection from its ridership. They just held a retreat and a special meeting in June at Weber’s, a place that’s inaccessible by bus. Other meetings are sometimes held at AATA HQ in the evening, when the no. 6 bus only runs once an hour.

In all my years of riding the bus I’ve never run into either Mr. Berriz or Mr. Guenzel but I’ll watch for them.

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:19:17 +0000

I don’t know what happened. I’ve noticed a couple of times lately that the order of comments gets changed. I responded to John Floyd’s comment. When I wrote my comment, his was #11.

By: Rod Johnson

Rod Johnson — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:36:57 +0000

Vivienne, was that a response to itself? How recursive. :)

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:34:10 +0000

Regarding (11): there has been an ongoing program, sponsored by the county (dating from Mr. Guenzel's tenure there) called Ann Arbor Success [link]. The concept is that the entire region (i.e. Washtenaw County) is "Ann Arbor" (note that SPARK is also branded "annarborUSA" [link]). They found that Ann Arbor had a positive image across the country and adopted this branding for the region in order to promote business opportunities. Part of the "success strategy" is a countywide transit system. Among other things, this promotes ease of commuting into the region and also transit-oriented development (TOD). You'll note that TOD is a major emphasis of the TMP. As a developer and businessperson, it is obvious why Mr. Berriz would find this attractive.