Other entities that have contributed money to the WALLY project include: Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority ($50,000); Washtenaw County ($50,000); city of Howell DDA ($37,000); and a federal grant ($48,000). The planned expenditures are for station design work and for other consulting work on railroad operations and liability issues.

Ordinarily, the expenditure of funds from the budget would not necessarily need an explicit board authorization. However, in the case of the WALLY project, the board stipulated in a Sept. 15, 2011 resolution that the money designated for WALLY in the FY 2012 budget would not be expended without the explicit consent of the board. [See Chronicle coverage: "AATA on WALLY Rail: Forward with Caution"]

At its April 19, 2012 meeting, the AATA board had already received a written report in its board packet with an eight-page update on the status of WALLY, which is envisioned to provide north-south commuter rail service between Howell and Ann Arbor.

The conclusion of the report is a staff recommendation to expend funds already included in the FY 2012 budget that are designated for the WALLY project.

One of the challenges for WALLY is the cooperation of the Ann Arbor Railroad in the use of the tracks south of roughly Barton and Plymouth roads on the north side of Ann Arbor. Ideally, the commuter service would extend farther south into Ann Arbor. The report contains a description of an Oct. 12, 2011 meeting between Ann Arbor Railroad president Jim Erickson and AATA CEO Michael Ford, when Ann Arbor Railroad expressed continued general opposition to passenger service on its property. However, the meeting offered some possibility that Ann Arbor Railroad would at least work with the AATA on the issue of railcar storage immediately south of a WALLY station. And the report describes Ann Arbor Railroad as willing to entertain a “business proposition.” [.pdf of April 2012 WALLY update]

The resolution passed by the AATA board on June 21, 2012 indicates that the expenditure of the funds for station design should not be analyzed as a commitment to future capital expenses or funding for operations: “AATA makes no commitment to providing either capital or operating funding at this time, and AATA currently takes no position regarding the start date of service due to the uncertainty with respect to funding. AATA will continue to work with MDOT and the local communities to seek and apply for federal funding of the project. Once funding issues are fully resolved, AATA will commit to a service start‐up date.”

This brief was filed from the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library at 343 S. Fifth Ave., where the AATA board holds its meetings. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Let's get this straight. Ann Arbor Railroad track gets measured out for straightening work next week.

“Left, a skosh!” the guy behind the transit radioed his colleagues about a half mile away along the rails. He was sighting northward up the track from where it crosses Traver Road up to Barton Drive. The guys up the track were almost as invisible to the naked eye in real life as they are in The Chronicle’s photo accompanying this story.

The late morning temperatures were in the low 70s, but without a cloud in the sky, the heat absorbed by the rails from the sun was causing the hotter, less dense air swirling up off the rails to bend the light so that the image through his transit was affected by shimmer. He declared into the radio receiver at one point, “The heat waves are starting to mess me up!”

Asked what he was up to, he invited The Chronicle to just look down the track with a naked eye and asked, “See that?” Readily apparent was the very slight curve in what should have been a perfectly straight track. The originally straight track had been gradually shifted by the weight of trains headed downhill along the stretch. Their mission this morning was to lay out where the track needed to be moved. Later next week (Sept 17 – Sept 19) a tamper will be brought out to actually move the track back into alignment.

Readers who have followed the Washtenaw and Livingston Line project (WALLY) will recognize the significance of this particular stretch of track near Barton Drive southwards. WALLY, currently proposed as a commuter rail line from Howell to Ann Arbor along Great Lakes Central Railroad tracks, might need to terminate near Barton Drive, instead of continuing southwards into town, because, as explained in the last report available on the county’s website:

Two key issues must be resolved for the extension to be implemented: … (2) gaining access to approximately three miles of the AARR [Chronicle note: Ann Arbor Railroad - a different entity from Great Lakes Central Railroad] between its northern-most point at a connection with the Great Lakes Central Railroad at MP 47.5, [Chronicle note: at Plymouth Road just north of Barton Drive] and a location between Hoover Street (MP 44.64) and Stadium Street.

… the AARR is not interested in granting access to the commuter trains because of concern that the potential liability costs of a catastrophic accident, such as derailing a commuter train into the Huron River, would cause the owners to lose the railroad.

As the guy sighting down the track confirmed, these were Ann Arbor Railroad tracks that they were straightening. In addition to the track-straightening work between Barton Drive and Traver Road, AARR has recently installed 750 new railroad ties between State Street and Barton Drive.

More on the Ann Arbor Railroad from ArborWiki.

View Map of stretch to be straightened