Stories indexed with the term ‘Ann Arbor Transportation Authority’

At its Aug. 24, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board authorized a three-year contract with with CJI Research Corporation to conduct survey research. The contract has two additional one-year options.

Of the three respondents to the AATA’s RFP, the one from CJI was the top-rated proposal with respect the criteria: price, experience, and technical approach. CJI was the firm that conducted the AATA’s most recent on-board and telephone surveys in 2009.

CJI has experience with polling for ballot initiatives. That experience is significant, because at some point it’s expected that a proposal will be put before voters across Washtenaw County that would levy a transit tax. The draft fiscal year 2012 budget for AATA includes $75,000 for an on-board survey of riders and a telephone survey of Washtenaw County voters.

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

Ann Arbor Transportation Authority special board meeting (July 19, 2011): The four members who attended Tuesday’s special meeting of the AATA board voted unanimously on a raft of resolutions, ranging from infrastructure projects to more action toward a countywide transit authority.

The latter item – authorizing AATA resources to support formation of an unincorporated Act 196 board (U196) – was approved without discussion. The resolution also authorized the board chair, Jesse Bernstein, to appoint three members to the U196 board.

In a related item, board members approved a $193,317 extension of AATA’s contract with Steer Davies Gleave (SDG), the London-based consultant hired last year to work on developing AATA’s transit master plan. SDG will work on implementing the plan – some board members indicated they’d like to see the consultant include more local resources as the process moves forward. The original contract with SDG was for $399,805. It was previously extended and increased at the AATA board’s Nov. 18, 2010 meeting by an amount not to exceed $32,500.

The infrastructure projects approved at the July 19 meeting include an expansion of AATA’s bus storage facility – in part to accommodate growth if a countywide transit entity is formed. Other projects entail replacement of bus hoists, a blanket contract for concrete work, and detention pond and landscaping improvements.

AATA board meetings are typically held on the third Thursday of the month, starting at 6:30 p.m. at the Ann Arbor District Library’s downtown boardroom, where the meetings are televised by Community Television Network (CTN). Tuesday’s special meeting, called in order to move ahead on some of these projects, began at 1 p.m. at the AATA headquarters on South Industrial, and was not videotaped. It was attended by more than a half-dozen AATA staff members, but not by CEO Michael Ford. Only four of the board’s seven members attended – it takes four members to make a quorum. [Full Story]

At a special meeting held on July 19, 2011, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board authorized appointment of three of its board members to serve on an unincorporated Act 196 board (U196), with the direction to move towards creation of an active Act 196 transit authority for countywide transportation. There was no discussion among board members on this item prior to their vote.

Act 196 of 1986 is a state statute that provides for creation of transit authorities that encompass wider geographic areas than just cities. It’s the legislation on which a countywide authority for Washtenaw County would likely be based. Under one proposal that has been presented by the AATA to various public bodies, a fully incorporated Act 196 board would have 15 members countywide, with seven of them coming from Ann Arbor.

The rationale for appointing only three members of the current AATA board to the U196 board is to avoid the possibility that the actions of four or more members of the AATA board (a quorum of its members) as a part of the U196 would be understood as the action of the AATA board.

The same resolution authorized the AATA’s CEO to use AATA resources to support an unincorporated Act 196 board. The language of the resolution differed in a subtle but significant way from a draft resolution considered but not voted on by the AATA board at a meeting held on June 3 in a retreat-style format at Weber’s Inn. The draft language from that meeting read “… the AATA Chief Executive Officer shall use the resources of the Authority as needed and as appropriate …” The version of the resolution approved by the board at its July 19 meeting read “… the AATA Chief Executive Officer shall use the resources of the Authority as budgeted by the AATA Board.”

Recent Chronicle coverage: “AATA Finalizes Transit Plan for Washtenaw”

This brief was filed shortly after the July 19 AATA board meeting, which took place at the AATA headquarters at 2700 South Industrial Highway. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

At a special meeting held on July 19, 2011, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board authorized a $193,317 extension of its contract with Steer Davies Gleave (SDG), a consultant hired last year to work on developing AATA’s transit master plan. The contract extension will provide for services from SDG through December 2012.

The original contract with SDG was for $399,805. It was previously extended and increased at the AATA board’s Nov. 18, 2010 meeting by an amount not to exceed $32,500.

The services that the additional contract award is expected to cover includes (1) providing support to an ad hoc countywide transit funding task force; (2) developing “District Recommendations” for services; (3) creating “service development plans” for specific services; (4) creating a fares and ticketing plan with two components: a near‐term component aimed at rationalizing the current AATA fare structure, and a longer‐term component designed to create a countywide fare policy and structure; and (5) doing other studies and planning activities to support ongoing countywide transit development efforts.

This brief was filed shortly after the AATA board met at its headquarters on 2700 South Industrial Highway. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

At a special meeting held on July 19, 2011, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board authorized a policy establishing a goal that 3.4% of U.S. Dept. of Transportation contracting opportunities be given to disadvantaged businesses.

The U.S. DOT requires that entities receiving federal funds have a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program and that the program include the kind of goals the board approved. The AATA policy approved by the board specifies that of the 3.4%, 2% is to be achieved through “race conscious” methods and the remaining 1.4% through “race neutral” methods.

This brief was filed shortly after the AATA board met at its headquarters on 2700 South Industrial Highway. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]

At a special meeting held on July 19, 2011, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board authorized expenditures for a range of different capital projects at the site of its headquarters on South Industrial Highway. They included an expansion of the bus storage facility, replacement of bus hoists, a blanket contract for concrete work, and detention pond and landscaping improvements.

The $2.4 million cost of the bus storage facility project will be financed using a combination of roughly $1 million in ARRA (federal stimulus) funds and $1.4 million in existing federal formula funds. The $980,500 bus hoist replacement will be financed by a combination of existing grants and from federal formula funds. The blanket concrete contract lasts for five years for up to $250,000 worth of concrete work for the contract period. The detention pond work will cost $98,500 and will be financed through a combination of Federal Transit Authority funds and federal formula funds.

This brief was filed shortly after the AATA board meeting, which took place at the AATA headquarters at 2700 South Industrial Highway: [link] [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board meetings (June 3 and June 16, 2011): The AATA board met twice in June – first at a special morning retreat held at Weber’s Inn on  June 3 June 6, and again 10 days later for its regular monthly meeting.

On both occasions, a significant focus was the AATA’s countywide transit master plan. At the June 16 meeting, the board approved the final version of the first two volumes of the plan, which had previously been released in draft form. The two volumes cover a vision and an implementation strategy. A third volume, on funding options, is not yet complete.

The plan is the culmination of over a year of work by AATA staff and a consulting firm to perform a technical analysis and gather public input. The goal was to create a document to guide transit planning in the county over the next 30 years. The timing of the next step – beginning to translate a neatly formatted document into reality – will depend in part on a third volume of the plan, which has not yet been finalized. The third volume will describe options for how to fund expanded transit service in the county. Countywide transit funding will ultimately be tied to the governance structure of some entity to administer transit throughout Washtenaw County.

And governance is a topic that’s ultimately reflected in the actual wording of the resolution that the board adopted at its June 16 meeting on the transit master plan. The resolution authorizes transmittal of the documents not just to the public, but also to an unincorporated board, described as an “ad hoc committee” that will work to incorporate a formal transit authority under Michigan’s Act 196 of 1986. [AATA is currently incorporated under Act 55 of 1963.]

For the last few months, CEO Michael Ford’s regular monthly reports to the AATA board about his activities have included his efforts to meet with individuals and representatives of government units throughout the county to discuss participation in the governance of a countywide transportation authority. June continued that trend. So wrapped into this combined report of the AATA board’s last two meetings is a description of the June 2 visit that Ford and board chair Jesse Bernstein made to the Washtenaw County board of commissioners.

At its June 3 retreat, the board also voted to shift some funding to the AATA staff’s work associated with the countywide transit master plan.

At its June 16 meeting, the board handled some business not specifically related to the transit master plan. The board adopted two policies that it has previously discussed: one on the rotation of auditors, and the other on a living wage for AATA vendors. They also received updates on the expansion of service to the University of Michigan’s East Ann Arbor Health Center and to the Detroit Metro airport.

Progress on those two fronts led board member David Nacht to suggest that the kind of movement and progress the AATA was demonstrating, even without additional money that could come from a countywide funding source, showed that the agency’s future plans deserved support from the community. [Full Story]

At its June 16, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board unanimously approved a new auditor rotation policy. The policy would entail that the AATA not use the same auditor for longer than two four-year terms – a total of eight years.

Sue McCormick, who also serves as the city of Ann Arbor’s public services area administrator, was the board member who originally suggested looking into the issue of implementing an auditor rotation policy. She had raised the issue at the board’s Sept. 16, 2010 meeting, when board members approved a contract with Rehman as its auditor, but only for one year.

Among the risks cited by the AATA in adopting the rotation policy were the potential for needing to hire … [Full Story]

At its June 16, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board unanimously approved a living wage policy that is roughly parallel to the living wage policy expressed in the city of Ann Arbor’s city code. It applies to the wages paid by AATA contractors to their employees. The AATA living wage policy would apply to contractors who have a contract worth more than $10,000 per year and employ or contract with more than five people. It would apply to nonprofit contractors only if they employ or contract with 20 or more people.

The minimum wage to be paid to their employees by AATA contractors would be at the same level stipulated by the city of Ann Arbor. In May 2011, the city … [Full Story]

At its June 16, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board passed a resolution endorsing Volumes 1 and 2 of its countywide transit master plan (TMP) as revised and amended. The plans had been previously released to the public at its April 21, 2011 meeting.

A “whereas” clause in the board’s resolution provided some additional description of a transitional governance structure, which could lead to an eventual countywide authority established under Michigan’s Act 196 of 1986. The transitional structure would be “an interim and  ’unincorporated’ Act 196 Authority Board (‘U196 Board’) which will act as an ad hoc committee to establish an organizational framework and funding base for an expanded transit system, and to work toward formally creating and incorporating a … [Full Story]

At its regular partnerships committee meeting on June 8, 2011, members of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board continued their discussion, begun a month earlier, about how to implement the city council “parcel-by-parcel” resolution passed on April 4, 2011. That resolution gives the DDA responsibility for leading a process to explore alternative uses for downtown city-owned parcels: the Library Lot, old YMCA Lot, Palio Lot, Kline’s Lot, and the Fourth & William parking structure.

The parcels are currently used for parking – except for the Library Lot. It’s the construction site for an underground garage that, when completed, will offer around 640 parking spaces. The structure is engineered to bear the weight of a building on top of it that’s as tall as 180 feet.

The main event of the June partnerships meeting was a formal proposal to lead a public engagement process that would take place starting this fall. The proposal came from Doug Kelbaugh, former dean of the University of Michigan’s college of architecture and urban planning, and Kit McCullough, who teaches at the college.

The two had attended the May partnerships meeting and given a more conversational, informal version of the proposal. As laid out by Kelbaugh and McCullough this month, the process would include three phases: (1) a data gathering phase; (2) a public meeting phase – one in October to solicit input, and one in November to present two or three concepts for the public’s response; and (3) a presentational phase – in January 2012, they’d consolidate feedback into a final concept plan, which would describe massing, ground floor uses, public/civic uses and pre-schematic site design.

Before Kelbaugh and McCullough presented their proposal, the conversation among committee members and other attendees ranged across several topics – the nature of suburban versus urban, the conceptual compared to the real, and the contrast between consensus and unanimity. The attendees, both at the table and in the audience, were a formidable group. They included local developer Peter Allen, who with his brother Lane presented a more elaborate version of the “four corners” concept that Allen had briefly sketched for the DDA board at their June 1 meeting. Those corners are the Allen Creek greenway (Ann Arbor downtown); the riverfront of the Huron River; the proposed Fuller Road Station near the University of Michigan’s medical complex; and the university’s central campus.

Also in attendance was Albert Berriz, CEO of McKinley Inc., a real estate development and property management firm. When asked for his advice, Berriz emphasized dealing with real people who had real capital and real ideas. He pointed to the McKinley Towne Centre renovation at Liberty and Division streets as an example of the kind of capital and commitment that’s required. Now eight years into that project, Berriz said, it’s really only just beginning. He anticipated it would take 20 years altogether to bring the project to full fruition.

Jesse Bernstein – chair of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board, and former head of the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce (now the Ypsilanti-Ann Arbor Regional Chamber) – drew on the AATA’s experience over the last year or more in transit master planning. That had included a significant investment in educating the public as well as the AATA board, he said, simply in terms of what transit options are available. He also stressed that for him, “consensus is a special word.” It’s not about unanimity, he said, but rather about what you can live with.

DDA board member Russ Collins, executive director of the Michigan Theater, revisited a theme he’s highlighted before at DDA board meetings over at least the last year: Suburban versus urban development. The U.S. has seen 70 years of investment in suburban development, he said, and part of the idea of a downtown development authority is to direct at least a trickle of reinvestment in the existing infrastructure of urban centers.

Collins summed up his view of a path forward, based on the morning’s discussion, by saying, “We need to facilitate, educate and get real.” Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, suggested that the next partnerships meeting in July should be treated more like a retreat. The committee could settle in and figure out exactly how the DDA would meet the city council’s directive to facilitate a public engagement process to find alternate uses for downtown city-owned property. [Full Story]

At a special session held in a meeting room at Weber’s Inn on June 3, 2011, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board heard extensive staff presentations on its budget and the future of the organization as it relates to a possible expansion of its service countywide. The board passed one resolution at its meeting, which decreased the budget for administrative salaries and benefits by a total of $200,000 and made a corresponding increase in line items supporting the effort of transportation master planning – for agency design fees, consulting fees, printing and production and media.

The board tabled a resolution that would have appointed three current AATA board members to an unincorporated board, which is expected to serve as an interim entity that could lead to the incorporation of a formal Act 196 organization. The rationale for appointing only three board members to the unincorporated board – called the U196, with the U standing for “unincorporated” – was based on the idea that appointing four members would constitute a quorum of the current AATA board any time the U196 met. The board decided to table the resolution until greater clarity could be achieved about what the role of the interim U196 would be in developing the eventual governance of a countywide transit authority.

Board chair Jesse Bernstein wrapped up the topic of a future governing body by saying he saw the issue of governance as very much still an open conversation.

This brief was filed shortly after the AATA board’s retreat, held at Weber’s Inn. A more complete report of the meeting will follow: [link] [Full Story]

Last week The Chronicle received a cold-call from Suburban Chevrolet out at Wagner and Jackson roads with an offer to test-drive a Chevy Volt.

The sales consultant was keen to point out that Suburban Chevrolet was the first area dealership to have a vehicle available for test drives. But test-driving a car is pretty remote from The Chronicle’s mission, and even more remote from my personal transportation choice.

I share a membership in Zipcar with my wife, but don’t even remember the last time I’ve sat behind the wheel of a car myself. Zipcar, a car-sharing service, is like an insurance policy – a backup plan I never use. I get around by bicycle.

Still, in the Chevy Volt, I spotted a chance to write about a major public works construction project in downtown Ann Arbor – the Fifth Avenue underground parking structure, which will feature around 640 parking spaces on a lot that previously offered 192 spots.

Twenty-two of those new spots will be equipped with electric car charging stations. Dave Konkle, former energy coordinator for the city of Ann Arbor who now consults for the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority on its energy projects, identified the federal grant that’s helping to pay for the stations. The grant is worth $264,100 and will also pay for photovoltaic panels that will provide the energy for two of the spots – it was obtained through the Clean Energy Coalition’s Clean Cities Program.

That public project is closely tied to the assumption that visitors to downtown Ann Arbor will continue to make a personal choice for private transportation in the form of an automobile, and that some of those people will choose electric cars like the Volt.

The idea I want to think about in this column is that public choices depend on the sum of many private, independent choices made by actual people. It’s an idea that was driven home to me at a public transportation forum hosted earlier this week by the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority at SPARK East in Ypsilanti.

At that forum, Bob Van Bemmelen – recent Republican candidate for the Washtenaw County board of commissioners – had this advice for the AATA as it pitches to the public the idea of countywide public transit: You have to make it personal, he said.

So I’ll begin by telling you a little bit more about the Suburban Chevrolet sales guy who gave me a ride in the Chevy Volt – who is as much a car guy as I am a bicycle guy: Nic Allebrodt. [Full Story]

Washtenaw County board of commissioners working session (April 7, 2011): At their working session, county commissioners heard – most of them for the first time – a proposal on structuring the board for a possible new countywide transit authority. It was not universally well-received.

The tentative proposal includes allocating Ann Arbor seven seats on a 15-member board. While most of the other seats are based on population, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti would be given special consideration because both cities have millages dedicated to pay for public transit. [Ypsilanti – with a population of 19,435 compared to Ann Arbor's 113,934 – would be allocated one seat.] The assumption of the proposal is that those millages would remain in place, on top of another transportation millage levied on all county taxpayers. A countywide millage would require voter approval.

Commissioner Kristin Judge, whose district covers Pittsfield Township, protested the way board seats were assigned, saying it gave an unfair advantage to Ann Arbor. Commissioner Wes Prater, who represents southeast portions of the county, said he was “flabbergasted” that the governance plan had been developed so fully without consulting the county board, which under the current proposal would be asked to ratify the new transit authority’s board members. However, some individual commissioners were previously aware of the proposal, including board chair Conan Smith and Yousef Rabhi, chair of the board’s working session. Both Smith and Rabhi represent Ann Arbor districts.

Ronnie Peterson – a commissioner representing Ypsilanti and parts of Ypsilanti Township – expressed strong support for a countywide system, saying details of the proposal could be worked out. It’s important to have a board that allows for all parts of the county to take part in policy-making decisions, he said, noting that’s not the case with the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board. Both Judge and Prater said they supported public transit, but were concerned about how the system might be structured.

The proposal for governance has been developed separately from a 30-year transit master plan, which the AATA has been working on for more than a year – a process that has included dozens of public meetings to solicit feedback. If the current proposal stands, a countywide transit authority would be formed to operate a system that could expand bus service throughout the county, as well as bring commuter rail to the area. Capital costs for the system are an estimated $465 million over the 30-year period, with roughly $100 million in annual operating expenses. AATA would be dissolved, and its staff and assets would be transferred to the new entity.

Thursday’s working session was attended by six of the 11 commissioners. Three of the four commissioners representing Ann Arbor – Barbara Bergman, Leah Gunn and Conan Smith – were not present. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board meeting (March 17, 2011): At its regular monthly meeting, the AATA board voted unanimously to adopt a “Smart Growth” scenario as the basis for a countywide transit master plan (TMP). The transit authority has been developing the TMP over the course of a planning and public engagement process that began in the summer of 2010.

The final phase of that process included 20 public meetings in February, where three different scenarios were presented: Lifeline Plus, Accessible County, and Smart Growth. The three scenarios were nested subsets, starting with Lifeline Plus as a base, which would simply have expanded on existing services and focused on expanding services for seniors and disabled people throughout the county. Accessible County would have added fixed-route bus service to connect all the county’s urban centers. Smart Growth included all the features of Accessible County, as well as high-capacity transit along local corridors, plus regional commuter rail.

At Thursday’s meeting, board chair Jesse Bernstein characterized the TMP as a reflection of where the community wants to be 30 years from now. The entity that would be implementing the TMP, he stressed, would likely be organized under a different legal framework than the current AATA, which is an Act 55 transit authority, with a tax levied just in the city of Ann Arbor. The AATA board has actively discussed for at least the last two and a half years the idea of transforming the transit authority to a countywide funding source, possibly using Act 196.

The meeting included three other pieces of business: (1) approval of a contract for the AATA’s paratransit services; (2) acceptance of an auditor’s report on the AATA’s books from the previous fiscal year; and (3) approval of a contract for media services.

Also discussed, but not acted on, was a memorandum of understanding with the city of Ann Arbor for construction of a bus pull‐out on eastbound Washtenaw Avenue east of Pittsfield Boulevard. The bus pull-out is part of a larger project – a transfer center on the south side of Washtenaw Avenue at Pittsfield Boulevard, opposite Arborland mall – which will include a “super shelter.” The project is being funded with federal stimulus money granted to the AATA. The board was in favor of the agreement with the city, but was reluctant to vote on the memorandum absent a copy of the text of the memorandum itself. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board meeting (Jan. 20, 2011): The AATA’s first monthly board meeting of the year featured a presentation on a connector feasibility study on the Plymouth and State street corridors. The study is now nearing completion.

In their one main business item, the board approved the capital and categorical grants program for 2011-15. The program will form the basis for upcoming state and federal grant applications.

Board member David Nacht prefaced the discussion of the connector feasibility study by encouraging his colleagues to share their thoughts on it – because the board had argued a long time about whether to help fund the $640,000 study, along with the other partners: the city of Ann Arbor; the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority; and the University of Michigan.

In the course of their discussion, the board touched on another major planning initiative: the countywide transportation master planning process.

Beginning Jan. 31, the AATA is launching the final round of public engagement meetings to develop a countywide plan for transit. Currently the AATA is funded by an Ann Arbor transit millage, plus purchase of service (POS) agreements with other municipalities. Voters in the city of Ypsilanti passed a millage in November 2010 that will cover most of the cost of Ypsilanti’s POS, for example.

Twenty additional meetings on the countywide planning effort are scheduled at locations throughout the county, to get feedback on three transit scenarios developed so far. Transit options in the three scenarios – which the AATA has labeled Lifeline Plus, Accessible County, and Smart Growth – are nested subsets, starting with Lifeline Plus as a base, which expands on existing services and focuses on services for seniors and disabled people.

According to representatives of the AATA and its consultant on the project, Steer Davies Gleave (SDG), the goal of the last phrase of public interactions is not for people to appear at the meetings and simply vote for their preferred option. They’re interested in hearing what options from the various scenarios might be combined to build a “preferred scenario.” [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board meeting (Oct. 21, 2010): The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority has several major projects in the works, including remodeling the downtown transportation terminal – the Blake Transit Center – and developing a countywide master plan that calls for a series of community forums.

One of those community forums was held on Thursday, an hour prior to the AATA’s monthly board meeting. But no one from the public showed up to that particular event – several other meetings are scheduled. The board meeting that followed was over within an hour. In addition to the master plan, the board discussed the most recent quarter’s on-time trip performance, which board member David Nacht described as “abysmal.” [Full Story]