Even if you don't know me, this photo is a dead give-away that I am not a car guy. I deliberately shot that photo from an angle that would include Suburban Chevrolet's sign in the background, And I thought I'd nailed it – because the sign said "Suburban." (Photos by the writer.)

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.

Test Riding the Volt with a German

On the phone with Nic, I pitched the idea that I did not want to drive the car myself. Rather, I wanted simply to ride along in the Chevy Volt with someone who is actually passionate about cars, really loves cars, lives cars, breathes cars, likes nothing better than to drive a car – a car guy. Nic did not hesitate in answering: “That’s me!”

If the name Allebrodt looks and sounds German to you, you’re right. Nic’s light accent signals his German origins, but does not betray that he moved to the U.S. just last year. I’ve written about my friends Hans and Walter before – two characters from my eighth grade German textbook who taught me various stereotypes of Germans, among them that Germans love cars. The first German dialogue I ever had to memorize concluded with Hans showing off his car to Walter: “Dort ist mein Wagen!” [There is my car!]

Nic lived up to that stereotype. He told me that in Germany, he’d worked for a rental car company, thus had a chance to drive a vast range of cars on a regular basis, including the Audi RS6. This meant nothing to me, of course, but a bit of rummaging on the Internet revealed that if you need to go 150 m.p.h., that’s the car for you.

The yellow ball on the righthand side of the dash display is an indicator of less efficient driving style.

As Nic put the Chevy Volt through its paces for me, and I rode along in the passenger seat, we didn’t come anywhere close to 150 m.p.h. But as he navigated onto I-94 west, using the entrance ramp at Zeeb Road, the acceleration pressed me back into the seat. The dashboard also knew we were accelerating – the green ball that provides feedback on driving style floated upwards and turned yellow. That indicated less efficient driving. But efficiency is not exactly a priority when entering the freeway.

I asked Nic to drive us through downtown Ann Arbor. I wanted to see if the car would draw stares – it didn’t. Nic’s colleague Michael Jackson, who rode along in the back seat, offered a theory that the Volt had been test driven during its development phase in this area, so people were familiar with it. Also, he said, it’s a fairly normal-looking car.

We got to downtown by getting off I-94 at the Weber’s Inn exit and heading east straight down Huron Street, south onto Fifth Avenue to Liberty, where we turned west towards Main Street.

Parking, Charging Underground

At Fifth and Liberty, we had no choice but to turn, because the construction site of the new underground parking garage blocks southbound traffic.

When I mentioned that the garage will offer some spots with electric vehicle charging stations, Nic pointed out a feature of the Volt that might allay concerns about drivers who use those public stations – what if someone comes along and unplugs the car while it’s parked?

The OnStar mobile app for iPhone or Android monitors charging, so a driver would be alerted if it got unplugged. Likewise, the mobile app lets a driver know when the battery is fully charged. So a driver who wanted to time their visit to the downtown just until the battery was topped off could do that pretty easily.

The Volt's navigation screen as we rolled into downtown Ann Arbor. I guess we could have been treated to the strains of "On the Road Again" if we had actually turned on the XM radio station displayed at the top of the screen.

According to Chevrolet’s standard data on the Volt, that topped-off battery would get you around 35 miles with no extra assist from the Volt’s gasoline engine. Even without charging during the day, based on a 2009 survey of downtown Ann Arbor workers, 35 miles of range would get 77% of them to and from work each day. [.pdf of getDowntown survey]

The gasoline engine would give you an additional 340 miles of range. During our test ride, we didn’t turn on the Volt’s gasoline engine. It’s not actually hooked to the drive train – it just works as a generator for the electric battery.

When I think about the Volt’s gasoline engine and its electric battery, I imagine that many drivers will treat the two options the same way I treat my Zipcar membership and my bicycle: The gasoline engine will work like an insurance policy that rarely, if ever, gets used.

Other drivers might build the Volt’s gasoline engine into their expected normal use of the car. That’s how my wife treats the Zipcar membership. If the trip would require her to navigate her scooter on roads she perceives as too dangerous, she reserves a Zipcar. We make different personal transportation choices within the same set of options.

The public parking system can also be seen as serving a variety of different personal choices. And I think our investment in that system should take the range of personal choices into account when we’re budgeting for its continued maintenance.

Even though the talks between the city of Ann Arbor and the Downtown Development Authority were supposed to have concluded by the end of October 2010, discussion continues about how much revenue the city of Ann Arbor should withdraw from the public parking system to shore up the general fund.

That conversation has not included the possibility that it’s not just basic maintenance activity that could be jeopardized by the city’s revenue expectations. What could also be threatened is the ability to meet possible future demands placed on the public parking system – not for more spaces, but for a different kind of space, one that allows you to charge your electric vehicle while it’s parked.

When the bonds for the Fifth Avenue parking garage were approved, part of the argument included rhetoric along the lines that this would be the last parking deck Ann Arbor would ever build, because the future belongs to public transportation – we won’t need more spaces. But what if we need different kinds of spaces – spaces that allow you to charge your personal electric vehicle? Where would the funding be sourced for the capital investment required to retrofit parking structures with charging stations? A natural place to look would be to fees paid by parkers – which would be unavailable if they’re allocated instead to the city’s general fund activities.

John Mouat, who chairs the DDA board’s transportation committee, has kept the issue of alternate vehicles in front of the DDA over the last several months at committee meetings and board meetings. His scope includes all manner of two-wheeled vehicles, very small four-wheeled vehicles, and electric cars as well. But Mouat’s perspective does not seem to have percolated up to the level of the Ann Arbor city council, which seems to see public parking system revenue as simply that – another revenue source that can be tapped.

Of course, it might be that massive investment in public infrastructure to support electric vehicles is not actually necessary – even if electric vehicles become a significant part of the U.S. automobile fleet. In a phone interview with Joe Malcoun, an associate with DTE Energy Resources, he offered the perspective that in largest part, the owners of electric vehicles will probably charge them at home. DTE offers a special program for electric vehicles that includes incentives for investing in a home charging station and a discounted rate, through separate metering, for the electricity used.

Malcoun did allow that the availability of at least some charging stations as part of public infrastructure might be driven by another factor: A psychological need for some drivers to have access to charging stations. But 22 stations in the new underground parking garage might be sufficient to address that need, he said.

As a side note, I had originally contacted Malcoun not for this column, but rather to track down some information about the charging stations in the Edison building parking lot at Main and William. Whether widespread availability of charging stations is a requirement to support a large U.S. electric vehicle fleet, will, I think, be a matter of how many actual individual people are willing to make a personal choice for an electric car in the absence of that infrastructure.

Public Transit: Making It Personal

The idea that individual, personal choices are at stake was a central theme that emerged at a sparsely-attended forum held on Tuesday, May 10 on the topic of countywide transit. The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority is hosting another series of meetings to get additional public input on its draft transportation master plan (TMP), which AATA has been developing over the last year. [Most recent Chronicle coverage: "AATA Speaks Volumes on Draft Transit Plan"]

The half-dozen attendees at Tuesday’s forum, held at SPARK East on Michigan Avenue in Ypsilanti, had ample opportunity to weigh in with their own reactions to the draft plan. The plan was presented by AATA’s Michael Benham, who’s leading the TMP project. Also on hand were AATA manager of community relations, Mary Stasiak, and AATA chief executive officer, Michael Ford.

The advice offered to the AATA by attendee Bob Van Bemmelen was to make it personal for people. [Van Bemmelen might be familiar to Chronicle readers as the Republican candidate in November 2o10 for the District 4 seat on the Washtenaw County board of commissioners, which was won by Wes Prater. Or they might remember him from his attendance at a forum hosted by Think Local First last year on local currencies. ]

Bob Van Bemmelen at the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority forum held on May 10 at SPARK East in Ypsilanti. Standing is Michael Ford, AATA's CEO.

At the transit forum, Van Bemmelen was encouraged to hear another attendee, Larry Krieg, make the same point that Krieg has made during public commentary at AATA board meetings: The American Public Transit Association (APTA) has calculated that a family using public transit would save around $10,000 per year, compared to owning a car. Van Bemmelen said you’d need to prove that number, but that was the kind of thing the AATA should be talking about, to bring the discussion down to a personal level of how much money residents might save.

Van Bemmelen also wanted a more persistent transit sales pitch on a personal level. He described how someone selling lawn service might send a mailing or put a flyer in the door, not just one time, but on a repeated basis. After a while, it might begin to stick. The lawn care guy might then pay a personal visit and say, “Look, I see you out struggling on that lawn trying to push the mower – I can do that for you and here’s my rate, you’ll see it’s competitive.” Van Bemmelen wanted to see the equivalent sales pitch for transit. He said that he does not use the bus now, but he might. [Given the job he took recently with the VA hospital in Ann Arbor, he might be able to commute from Ypsilanti by bus.]

Responding to Van Bemmelen, Stasiak said she agreed with him: You have to sell transit one person at a time – it requires a face-to-face conversation. Sometimes it takes holding someone’s hand to make them feel like it’s not difficult, she said.

One of those face-to-face conversations took place at the forum – with John Dawson, who in addition to advocating for a particular bus route, wanted to know how to get his ADA card for the AATA renewed. Stasiak took his information so that she could follow up. [As a side note, Dawson told The Chronicle that his grandfather previously owned the building where the meeting was held.]

My Personal View

Part of the reason that Van Bemmelen was interested in the idea of “selling” public transit is that he’s looking down the road to the point when county residents might be asked to support a countywide system with a countywide tax – public transit would require some kind of additional support beyond fares. A countywide transit tax is something that will likely not be put before voters for another year at least.

A first step would be to create a kind of placeholder organization that would serve as a countywide governing body, in the event that such a tax were approved by voters. The AATA itself is a local, Ann Arbor authority. At the forum, Michael Ford presented some of the alternatives, including what the countywide membership on a board might look like. [Previous Chronicle coverage: "Concerns Raised Over Transit Governance"]

You don’t have to sell me very hard on the importance of public transit. I’m willing to continue to pay at least the roughly 2 mill Ann Arbor tax that is passed through to the AATA and generates roughly $9 million in revenue for use on public transit. While I understand the public policy issues – like land use, environmental impact, access for seniors and the disabled – if I reduce it to a personal level, the reason I value public transit is that I want it as my backup plan.

That’s reflected in my transit choice for the evening of the transit forum – my bicycle. I did mull over the choice of a bus – it’s roughly a nine-mile trip each way from Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti, and it was threatening rain. But I figured if was raining when it was time to return, or if I felt too tired to pedal back home, I could take the return trip by bus, and take advantage of the bike racks mounted on the front of every AATA bus.

The fact is, my current personal choice is for private transportation. I want the freedom to go exactly where I want to go – which in most cases is a bike rack or a vertical pole near the entrance of my destination – and I want the flexibility to travel when I like. I noted that Larry Krieg had to leave a few minutes before the meeting ended, because he had to catch a bus. I was able to stay until the end. Bicycles beat buses on that metric.

Even so, I’m willing to pay to support the public transit system. Not because Larry Krieg wants to ride the bus. Not because it’s better for the environment. Not because it will lead to better land use and reduce sprawl. Not because it provides mobility to seniors and disabled people.

For me, the public transit system is like the gasoline engine is for some drivers of the Chevy Volt: I’m willing to pay for it to be there, just in case I personally need it.

About the writer: Dave Askins is editor and co-founder of The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

Sol Castell was asked to the podium by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) to give an alternate view on the need for a runway extension at the Ann Arbor municipal airport. The topic came up during discussion of the city's capital improvements plan, which wound up being postponed. (Photos by the writer.)

But trains weren’t the only transit-related thread. The city’s bicycle ordinances were updated after having been postponed for a couple of meetings, and a revision to the city’s bicycle registration procedure was tabled and now appears to be on indefinite hold.

The council also approved on first reading a revision to its taxicab ordinance, designed to enforce expectations of larger cab companies.

Also related to transportation was discussion of an item in the capital improvements plan (CIP) for a runway extension at the Ann Arbor municipal airport. After Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) got his colleagues’ support to amend the CIP to delete the item, the council then voted, with some grumbles of dissent, to postpone consideration of the CIP.

Times and dates for upcoming meetings on the budget were also reviewed, with city administrator Roger Fraser telling councilmembers that the list of possible areas for cuts that city staff had generated were not the only items that could be considered. He challenged councilmembers to come up with their own ideas as well. The council received specific recommendations for budget strategies for the senior center and Mack Pool.

In Part I of the report, we restrict our focus to transportation and budget issues. In Part II, we’ll cover land use issues – including the resolution on 415 W. Washington, which we previewed in our report on the Sunday night caucus, plus a postponement on a greenbelt acquisition.

We begin this portion of the report with some public commentary on Ann Arbor’s bus system.

Buses

Jim Mogensen: During public commentary reserved time at the beginning of the meeting, Jim Mogensen asked why we keep encouraging sprawl.

He alluded to a photo of Ypsilanti mayor Paul Schreiber in the newspaper, standing in Depot Town next to the rail station. Mogensen contended that when the 21-month purchase-of-service agreement between the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority and Ypsilanti runs out, Ypsilanti would lose its bus service, despite the planned east-west commuter rail service. [See Chronicle coverage: "Buses for Ypsi and a budget for AATA"] Why? Because Ypsilanti is not a part of anybody’s plan, Mogensen contended. “Not even a lunch-counter moment would change it,” he said.

Mogensen noted that since the new park-and-ride lot at Plymouth Road and US-23 had opened, bus service on the Green-Baxter bus line had been reduced to once an hour. Further, he said there was an asterisk (*) indicating that it was only available when the University of Michigan was in session. What other urban service would need to be reallocated, Mogensen wondered, in order to make the Fuller Road transit station service work? The city is encouraging people to live in the suburbs, Mogensen said, and our community continues to chip away at the benefits that exist in urban areas. It’s going to cause us trouble, he concluded, and it’s wrong.

Tim Hull: During the time for public commentary at the end of the meeting, Tim Hull, a masters student at the University of Michigan, spoke on the issue of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority. Hull said he hoped to stay in Ann Arbor after graduating, and described the AATA’s service as “pretty good, but falls short on weekends and at night.” He criticized service changes for the bus system as being made largely by bureaucrats. He asked that in future appointments to the AATA board, consideration be given to people who actually ride the bus. Currently AATA board members did not ride the bus – he compared it to executives at Ford Motor Co. driving Toyotas instead.

Bicycles

A substantial revision to the city’s bicycling ordinances had been postponed from the previous meeting amid concerns expressed by Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) that the relevant laws that would now apply from the Michigan Vehicle Code were not explicitly referenced in Ann Arbor’s city code. [See previous Chronicle coverage of the Jan. 19, 2010 city council meeting, and the Jan. 4, 2010 city council meeting.]

From left: Tom Crawford, the city's chief financial officer, and Eli Cooper, the city's transportation program manager.

At Monday’s meeting, city attorney Stephen Postema clarified that the best way to present the information was to link to the Michigan Vehicle Code, and in that way there would be no lag time between the updating of the city’s code, if the state statute were to be changed.

Also postponed from a previous meeting had been a revision to the city’s procedure for registering bicycles.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) reported that some additional data called the actual value of the registration program into some question, and he convinced his colleagues to table the measure. The additional information was this: From September of 2007 to the present, 39 stolen bikes had been recovered and returned to their owners – but in none of those cases had the bicycle registration program been instrumental. The return of those bicycles had been the result, Hohnke reported, of regular police work. There was also some question in the bicycling community, Hohnke said, of the perceived value of registering one’s bicycle. He wondered if it was not simply a holdover from years gone by.

Outcome: The revision to the bicycle ordinances (which repealed city ordinances in favor of allowing the prevailing Michigan Vehicle Code to apply) was approved on second reading. Bicycle registration procedures were tabled.

Taxicabs

The city revised its taxicab ordinance with an eye towards making sure that basic taxi service would continue to be provided. The city’s CFO, Tom Crawford, explained that the ordinance revision was meant to guard against the possibility that a large company could come in and provide service only on the most profitable routes – for example, from the city to the airport – and put smaller companies out of business that provided a full range of services within the city.

What the ordinance does, Crawford explained, was require that large companies – operating more than 10 cabs – be full-service. Here, “full service” means that service needs to be provided 24 hours round-the-clock, that a lost-and-found be available, and that it be possible to file a complaint with someone other than the driver during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Crawford said that the new ordinance would affect three or four companies.

Outcome: The taxicab ordinance was unanimously approved on its first reading.

East-West Commuter Rail

A presentation to the council at the start of the meeting on the east-west commuter rail project was followed up by discussion by councilmembers

East-West Commuter Rail: Presentation

Carmine Polombo, transportation planner with the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG), gave the council a presentation on proposed commuter rail service between Detroit and Ann Arbor.

Polombo pointed the council to SEMCOG’s website, where monthly updates on the east-west Detroit-to-Ann Arbor commuter rail project could be found. He described the project as a partnership among various government entities including SEMCOG, the Michigan Department of Transportation and the governor’s office. Certain elements of the project had started to become concrete, he reported, which include the leasing of locomotives and the award of a contract to refurbish nine train cars for the east-west project, plus an additional six cars for WALLY – a separate north-south commuter rail project. Refurbished cars, Polombo said, would start rolling off the line by June of this year: “That’s a go,” he said.

Two additional stations, he reported, would need to be constructed – one in Depot Town in Ypsilanti, and the other in Westland. Of the six environmental documents required by the Federal Railroad Administration, Polombo reported that four had been completed. He described how computer simulations that had been run – in order to minimize potential conflicts between the commuter service and other existing service – had shown that even a five-minute window adjusted in one direction or another could mean the difference between needing to add more track and not.

He stressed the importance of the need to coordinate with other transit agencies so that passengers could get access to the stations, and from the stations to their final destination. He described it as needing to make sure that we can “feed this beast.” The linchpin to the system, he said, is in Detroit – there is a section of track that goes from two tracks down to one track, and back to two tracks again – that would need around $12 million worth of improvements, he said.

As far as next steps, he said, finding more money to fund the project was crucial. The Federal Railroad Administration had awarded through the stimulus package some money to construct two new stations. But Polombo said that they were “sort of hoping for a few more dollars.” They would, therefore, be exploring plans B, C, D, and F. He alluded to the federal TIGER grants (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) that involved the awarding of $1.5 billion nationally – announcement of those grants is expected by Feb. 14. In addition, he said they were preparing for the possibility of yet another stimulus package being offered by the federal government.

They have secured a request for proposals to select an operator for the service – the contract cannot just be given to Amtrak, he said. Because of the federal dollars being used, a bidding process for the service was necessary. Later, in response to questions from council members, Polombo said that the Detroit railroads might have issues if anyone other than Amtrak were awarded the contract to operate the service.

East-West Commuter Rail: Deliberations

Mayor John Hieftje led off conversation among councilmembers by stating that he had been receiving regular updates from SEMCOG. Hieftje then prodded Polombo to express some confidence that the service would actually begin this year. Polombo confirmed that something would be rolling, but seemed interested in lowering expectations of what the early service might look like.

Polombo described it as involving individual day trips – University of Michigan football games, events like Restaurant Week in Ann Arbor, Thanksgiving day, or trips to the Henry Ford Museum. Polombo also stressed that the Norfolk Southern part of the route needs track work. What is really important, Polombo said, is reliable, safe, on-time service.

Hieftje then stated that he had been part of those conversations for a long time, whereas some people have not. Hieftje said he appreciated the idea that the strategy would be to grow into the service, not start it all at once.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) asked about a $3.5 million federal earmark for the project, which required a 20% match. She asked where the match would come from. Polombo explained that one possibility would be that the Michigan Department of Transportation would provide cash for the match – that would be the best possible situation. However, another strategy would be to use a “soft match” – the construction of stations in Westland and Ypsilanti, which would not be done with federal funds, could be used as soft match money.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) asked about some preliminary awards for high-speed rail links that had recently gone to other parts of the country – were we now excluded? Polombo said no, there was still a possibility for that.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) asked if the proposed Fuller Road transit station would qualify as a soft match. Polombo’s answer was that the station had been submitted as part of a TIGER grant and that it would all depend on the timing. The point is, Polombo said, we have a station now [the Amtrak station], we can use it, and make it work. If the new station were to be built, he said, the service can be made to work there, too.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) asked Polombo about the challenge of getting people the last mile to their destination – Ann Arbor had a plan that involved construction of the Fuller Road station. What are other communities doing, wondered Hohnke. Polombo described how SMART, the metro Detroit transit agency, was mapping their services – in Dearborn for example.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) asked what discussions with Amtrak had been like. Polombo said that Amtrak had been a partner from the start of the project and that they would like to be a service provider for the project. But because the project was using a substantial number of federal dollars, the contract for operation of the service would need to be bid out. One potential problem, he said, was that the Detroit railroads say that if the service provider is not Amtrak, they might have a problem.

Airport Runway Extension and the CIP

Consideration of the city’s capital improvements plan (CIP) generated much discussion about one item in the plan – a project to extend the runway at the Ann Arbor municipal airport. Discussion of that project resulted in postponement of the plan, and elicited discussion among councilmembers about the role of the CIP.

Public Comment

Andrew McGill: During public commentary reserved time at the start of the meeting, Andrew McGill urged the council to act against the $37,250 item in the capital improvements plan (CIP), which represented the city’s portion for funding a runway extension at the Ann Arbor municipal airport. He told the council that they had previously said they had approved only an environmental assessment, and were not considering a runway extension.

McGill also reminded them that some of their recent election campaigns had relied on stated opposition to a runway extension. If they were neither considering such an extension and would oppose one if it were considered, McGill wondered why the money was included in the capital improvements plan to add 800 feet to the runway, making it 4,300 feet long.

Council Deliberations on CIP

The city’s capital improvements plan had been postponed from consideration at the council’s previous meeting. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) led off deliberations on Monday by proposing an amendment that deleted the 800-foot runway extension project at the city’s municipal airport.

After Kunselman had made the proposal, mayor John Hieftje remarked that he had been planning to ask someone to move that amendment from the floor.

In response to a request from Tony Derezinski (Ward 2), Cresson Slotten, who’s a senior project manager with the city, described what had been approved and programmed with respect to the municipal airport runway.

In the last capital improvements plan, Slotten said, the environmental assessment had been included as part of an airport layout plan – which he described as similar to other master plans that the city used, like the central area plan. The environmental assessment, he reported, has begun. Part two of the program, he said, would be to move forward with the runway extension, if the environmental assessment indicated it would be appropriate. And that is why the project is in the 2011 CIP. Slotten clarified for Derezinski that the project was for implementation and not merely for a study.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) weighed in by saying that the capital improvements plan is a set of placeholders – it’s a needs analysis, and does not compel the city to follow through on anything in the plan. Slotten confirmed that Rapundalo’s understanding of the CIP was correct.

Mark Perry, chair of the airport advisory committee, was asked to explain what exactly had been approved to date. Perry said that in January of 2007, the city council adopted the airport layout plan. Perry described three problems that the airport layout plan was meant to correct: (i) problems with the “Obstacle Clearance Surface” [cf. FAA Part 77] associated with the possible widening of State Street, which runs north-south on the east side of the airport, (ii) line-of-sight issues between the control tower and one of the runways, and (iii) an abnormal number of runway overruns.

On the question of runway overruns, five had been identified in FAA records, Perry said, but further investigation had revealed that there had actually been 11. That compared with only one other such incident in all of the rest of Michigan. Sabra Briere (Ward 1) elicited the fact that the overrun incidents had happened over the period from 1998-2008.

Hieftje asked Slotten if there would be a problem to put the project back into the CIP after deleting it. Slotten said it be possible – it would depend on the proper needs assessment. Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) seemed somewhat surprised that the $37,000 would be able to address all three of the problems identified, saying “it seems like a bigger project.” It was clarified that this was only the city’s portion of the project, which amounted to 2.5% of the whole project. The rest would be funded by the state and the FAA.

In light of the complexity of the problem, Sandi Smith (Ward 1) suggested the possibility of postponing consideration of the CIP.

An Alternate View on Runway Overruns

Kunselman asked Sol Castell to the podium, who is a former member of airport advisory committee member of the citizens advisory committee to the environmental assessment process. Castell introduced himself as a pilot for a major airline and stated that none of the 11 incidents cited as runway overruns were in fact runway overruns. Instead, he said, they were simply pilot error. Four of the incidents, he said, were so blatantly pilot errors that they were not even reported to the FAA, because the pilots did not want the FAA to know about them. He said that there was plenty of runway for landing and taking off. He felt that the environmental assessment would pass as a rubber stamp, which was not a wise spending of $300,000. He said he was prepared to go through the incidents described as runway overruns one by one with the council.

In a  follow-up phone conversation with The Chronicle, Andrew McGill said that with respect to the “runway overruns” it was worth distinguishing between significant incidents and insignificant events. As insignificant, he described a situation where a student pilot and an instructor were in a plane unequipped with a set of brake pedals for the instructor. After the plane landed and slowed, the student did not brake properly, and the resulting tangle of legs trying for the brake pedal had resulted in a runway light getting hit.

An incident described as significant by McGill was one where a student pilot with less than 200 hours of flying time had made his first touchdown halfway down the runway and wound up going 20 feet off the end of the runway – he should have gone around and tried again, said McGill.

Even with the “significant” events, said McGill, the primary cause of overshooting the runway was not the length of the runway.

Preliminary outcome: The roll call vote on Kunselman’s amendment deleting the runway extension project was opposed by Smith, Derezinski and Rapundalo, but still passed.

What’s the Role of the CIP?

After Kunselman’s amendment passed, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) then suggested it might be time to look at each line in the CIP one by one if they were going to pull out the airport runway extension, and moved to postpone consideration of the CIP.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) supported Higgins’ motion, saying that he had voted no on Kunselman’s amendment, not as a matter of the commitment of dollars but rather on the point of process. The CIP items, he stressed, were meant simply to put items on the radar of the council. He echoed Higgins sentiment that if the council considered one item like the airport extension, then all items should be handled in the same way. He said he felt it set a bad precedent. He felt strongly enough about it, he said, that he would contemplate not voting for the entire CIP based on that principle.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) also objected to the idea of pulling out a single line item in the CIP. He used a similar analogy to the one he had adduced in describing his colleagues’ attempts to amend a recent major rezoning initiative: It’s like pulling strings off of a tightly wound ball, with the risk that it would all unravel.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) said he appreciated his colleagues’ concerns about process. He also said that based on his experience training and flying out of the Ann Arbor municipal airport, he felt that if pilots were going off the end of the runway, that truly meant they had simply been making bad decisions. He also pointed to the fact that the council had heard from significant parts of the community that there was a concern. Sabra Briere (Ward 1) then called the question on the vote of the postponement.

Outcome: The vote on the CIP was for postponement, with dissent from Derezinksi, Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), and Margie Teall (Ward 4).

Budget

The looming budget was again front and center in council business on Monday. Councilmembers received an update from Colin Smith, the city’s parks and recreation manager, on two city task forces.

From left: Colin Smith, the city's manager of parks and recreation, and Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) chat before the start of the meeting.

And city administrator Roger Fraser gave the council an update on the upcoming process.

Mack Pool and Ann Arbor Senior Center

The council heard presentations on the city’s park advisory commission recommendation about Mack Pool and the Ann Arbor Senior Center. The recommendations have grown out of work over the last six months by two task forces, one for each facility. The task forces had been established after the facilities closure had been called for in the fiscal year 2011 budget plan. Although budget plans are not the same as the adopted budget, it establishes a probability of what will likely happen, unless some other means of cost savings can be found. Hence, the establishment of the task forces. [See Chronicle coverage from the park advisory commission: "Also, proposals for Mack Pool, senior center approved"]

Budget Process

Roger Fraser made some extended remarks on the budget process for the year. He clarified a concept that he has introduced on a few occasions before – budget preparation would proceed along two tracks. The two tracks were: (i) consideration of big ideas, and (ii) the regular budget preparation.

Regular budget preparation was typically done, Fraser said, by specifying percentage targets to hit and simply trimming to hit those targets. The basic premise for that process is that the city would continue to do the same things but with less money. Considering the fact that the July 2012 budget was expected to be 30% less than the July 2009 budget, Fraser said that the typical process of trimming a few percent would not work.

Roger Fraser, city administrator.

The question the city needed to ask itself was this: “What services can we do without?” He told the council that he believed that voters valued everything that the city did, but that it was a matter of tolerance. He then challenged the council to do their part by saying that staff had come up with an extensive list of ideas, putting everything on the table. Now, he said, “We expect you to come up with other ideas.”

Fraser said he recognized that many of the decisions would be politically difficult and at that six councilmembers were up for reelection this year. However, he warned that the city could become so thin on certain services that they simply would not be able to do them well. He said he did not think they wanted the city to be an organization that provided half-baked services. Fraser warned that even with an anticipated recovery, there would be a 2-3 year lag before property values started to bounce back.

When he solicited questions, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) raised her hand, and Fraser indicated he’d expected a question from her. She wanted to know if budget impact sheets would be available before the Feb. 8 city council meeting on the budget. Fraser said they’d try to get them prepared as soon as possible.

Present: Stephen Rapundalo, Mike Anglin, Margie Teall, Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Tony Derezinski, Stephen Kunselman, Marcia Higgins, John Hieftje, Christopher Taylor, Carsten Hohnke.

Next regular council meeting: Tues., Feb. 16 , 2010 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

A clipping from the April 3, 1973 Ann Arbor News newspaper. Headline was: "Bus System Linking City With Ypsilanti Gets Push"

At a meeting of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority’s planning and development committee on Wednesday evening – attended by some members of Ypsilanti’s city council, plus the mayor – the possible elimination of Ypsilanti’s bus Route #5 became far less likely.

The committee recommended that federal stimulus money be used to cover a shortfall between the amount that Ypsilanti’s city council allocated to transportation, and the cost of the city’s purchase of service agreement (POSA) with the AATA through June 2011. If the recommendation to use federal dollars is approved by the full AATA board at its Sept.23 meeting, the elimination of Route #5, plus reductions in service on Routes #10 and #11, would not be necessary.

On Sept. 8, Ypsilanti’s city council had voted 5-1 (with dissent from Mayor Paul Schreiber) to propose the service reductions – chosen from a “menu” of options provided by the AATA. The Ypsilanti council resolution also included a request that the POSA rate not increase, and that about $100,000 in federal stimulus dollars – part of a $6.45 million grant to the AATA – be used to make up the remaining difference.

The willingness of the AATA’s planning and development committee to increase the federal dollars allotted to around $200,000 was based on a key condition, which is actually built into the language of the Ypsilanti council resolution: either there will be progress towards a dedicated countywide funding mechanism for mass transportation, or else the city of Ypsilanti will put a millage proposal (a Headlee override) on the November 2010 ballot.

Currently, the AATA’s basic local funding – aside from service agreements with surrounding communities – comes from a 2.5 mill transportation tax passed by Ann Arbor voters on April 2, 1973. The 2.5 mill tax is now levied at a rate of just over 2 mills, due to the effect of the Headlee Amendment, which rolls back the millage to prevent property tax revenues from increasing faster than the rate of inflation.

A Bit of Historical Perspective

The years 1972-73 were not so awfully different from 2008-09.

In 2008, Ann Arbor’s Ward 5 was remarkable because a two-party race for city council (between Carsten Hohnke-D and John Floyd-R) took place there. No other ward enjoyed a choice between two candidates in the general election. And in 1973, The Ann Arbor News reported there was a ward enjoying the same distinction: Ward 3. It was, remarkably, the only ward where actual two-party politics were being practiced, with a Democrat and a Republican running for city council. One small difference. In 1973, Ward 3 was the odd ward – because in the other four wards, three candidates (Democrat, Republican, Human Rights Party) contested each seat.

Until early 2009, Ethel Potts was active in civic life as a planning commissioner. She continues to attend public meetings as a rank-and-file citizen. Back in 1973, Ethel Lewis, who’d not yet married Mr. Potts, was active in civic life as the Democratic candidate for the Ward 4 city council seat. (A volunteer for her ultimately unsuccessful campaign was current city councilmember Sabra Briere.) Lewis got votes 2,925 against Republican Richard Hadler’s 3,290 and Human Rights Party candidate Philip Carroll’s 1,216.

The city council of 2009 faced some similar problems to those confronted by the council of 1973. Ann Arbor residents in early 2009 began to hear increasingly dire reports about the condition of the Stadium Boulevard bridges over State Street and the railroad tracks. There’s a chance that a large chunk of the money for the $22 million bridge replacement project could come from federal funds. [Previous Chronicle coverage in "Council Gets Update on Stadium Bridges."] If not, the city would need to use money from its street repair millage, or possibly follow the example of the 1973 city council, which was also faced with a Stadium bridges repair problem.

In 1973, the council asked voters to approve a bond sale specifically to repair the Stadium bridges – voters said yes. Of the proposed bond sale on the ballot, $800,000 was for creation of a citywide bicycle system using existing streets and new pathways, and $360,000 was designated for repair of the Stadium bridges.

In 1973, one of the arguments for repairing the Stadium bridges, but not widening State Street to accommodate four lanes of traffic, was that the city’s expanded bus system would reduce the need for such a widening. That expanded bus system was called “Teltran” due its planned heavy reliance on a dial-a-ride approach – riders would call and a mini-bus would appear, delivering people door-to-door.

What was going to fund that Teltran system? A transportation tax in the amount of 2.5 mills. That tax was also on the ballot in 1973, along with the bond sale. The transportation tax was approved by voters with no expiration date. In contrast,  the greenbelt millage, passed by Ann Arbor voters in 1999, expires in 2034. Street repair millages are typically passed for a shorter period – most recently in 2006 for the period 2007-11.

Part of the 2009 thinking on the Ypsilanti bus situation – from the perspective of Ann Arbor – is reflected in remarks made by Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board member Newcombe Clark at the DDA’s last board meeting. Clark suggested that an express bus route between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor should be contemplated as part of the general approach to link surrounding communities like Chelsea and Canton.

The day after Ann Arbor’s transportation millage passed in 1973, The Ann Arbor News reported that the county board of commissioners’ planning, recreation and transportation committee had recommended hiring a transportation coordinator to establish a trial bus system between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti:

The request for the establishment of the position was the result of meetings between the commissioners, Ypsilanti area governments and Pittsfield Township to discuss a possible mass transit system between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti.

In their “state of the county” message, the Democrats gave top priority to the establishment of an express bus route [emphasis added] between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. [George] Goodman, in his first term as Ypsilanti mayor, also said he would work toward the establishment of such a system. The exact date of the initial bus runs has not yet been worked out due to the uncertain nature of the funding for the program.

Certainly a lot has happened in the intervening 36 years. Over much of that period, there’s been bus service between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, which reflects that the community found a way to fund it. When Ypsilanti city councilmember S.A. Trudy Swanson appeared before the AATA board at its Aug. 21 meeting, she asked board members to see the current situation in light of 30 years of a successful partnership between AATA and Ypsilanti.

So what is the current situation?

Dedicated Funding of Ypsilanti’s POSA

At Wednesday’s meeting, planning and development committee member Rich Robben wanted to make sure that Ypsilanti was on a path that would lead to a fully-funded purchase of service agreement (POSA). It was a concern echoed by committee chair Ted Annis.

Already in 2006 the prospect of reduced service to Ypsilanti had been contemplated. But the AATA agreed in October of that year to subsidize the bus service by not charging the full cost of the service. [See the Ann Arbor District library's Ann Arbor News archive, which can be accessed with free registration: "Ypsilanti accepts AATA bus subsidy to keep full service."] In a 2006 Ann Arbor News article, then resident and former mayor – and current city councilmember – Peter Murdock is quoted:

Resident Peter Murdock said he is pleased that bus service will not be affected for a year, but that council ought to start thinking about a long-term solution. “What is going to happen next year?” Murdock said. “We need a real solution.”

One possible solution that Murdock did not favor that following year, in November 2007, was the idea of generating additional general fund revenue with a city income tax. Murdock worked with the group Stop the City Income Tax in a campaign against the tax, based partly on the argument that such a tax merely “kicked the can down the road.” A large majority of Ypsianti citizens voted to reject the tax.

A city income tax would have generated additional general fund revenues, not specifically designated for bus funding. And it’s the general fund out of which Ypsilanti pays its POSA with the AATA. That means that in any given budget year, the funding for transportation provided through the AATA is subject to the discretion of the city council, which must operate under prevailing fiscal constraints.

The possible longer-term solution now contemplated is for the Ypsilanti city council to place a ballot question before voters in November 2010 that would override the Headlee Amendment and provide transportation-dedicated funds. Based on current property values, Murdock estimated Wednesday evening that such a millage would generate around $320,000 per year dedicated to fund transportation for Ypsilanti.

Given the $280,000 that AATA wants Ypsilanti to pay in 2010, that sounded initially like Robben’s concern for fully funding the POSA was completely met. But Murdock cautioned that property values were projected to continue to fall, and that the $320,000 might actually be lower. And AATA controller Phil Webb cautioned that the $280,000 figure for 2010 reflected the start of an incremented path to Ypsilanti’s fully funding the POSA, which would reach $340,000 by 2012.

Still, it was close enough to convince the planning and development committee to make a recommendation to use federal money in the interim.

If approved by the full AATA board, there would be no need to eliminate Route #5 into Ypsilanti or end service one hour earlier on Routes #10 and #11, which the Ypsilanti city council voted on Sept. 8 to propose to AATA.

In Ypsilanti, the  campaign for or against a Headlee override with dedicated funds for transportation could include the question of whether that approach really represents a longer-term solution. Based on the projections and costs discussed at the planning and development committee meeting, there is likely to be a shortfall of dedicated revenue for transportation against the cost of the POSA as soon as 2012.

The Chronicle followed up by phone with Paul Schreiber, mayor of Ypsilanti. He suggested that part of the campaign for a Headlee override should include a commitment to use general fund money to make up shortfalls between the dedicated funding and the cost of the POSA. Schreiber’s dissent on the Sept. 8 vote had reflected a desire to use Ypsilanti general fund dollars to pay the POSA – instead of requesting service reductions –  in order to establish a high-priority commitment to funding transportation.

A Countywide Millage?

Whether there’s even a campaign in Ypsilanti for a Headlee override will depend in part on whether there is a proposal to put a countywide transportation millage on the ballot in November 2010. In the fall 2008, there were active discussions by the AATA board about reconstituting the AATA as an Act 196 countywide transportation authority and putting a countywide transportation millage on the ballot as soon as the fall of 2009.

No ballot proposal will appear on this November’s ballot.

But the AATA document prepared for Ypsilanti city council, which outlined the “menu” of service cuts available to them, indicates that the AATA has not forgotten about the idea:

The AATA will be conducting market research in September 2009 to determine voter attitudes toward a millage vote to provide dedicated funding for transit. Based on these results, the AATA Board of Directors will consider whether to proceed with a ballot initiative.

One issue to contemplate is whether Ann Arbor voters will support a countywide millage in sufficient numbers, if the countywide millage is not accompanied with a possibility of reducing the roughly 2 mill transportation tax that Ann Arbor property owners already pay.

The Federal Stimulus Money

At several points during Wednesday’s planning and development committee meeting, Ted Annis made a point of emphasis for his committee colleagues, AATA staff present, and members of the audience: It’s not the AATA that is providing the help to the city of Ypsilanti, it’s the federal government.

It’s also worth pointing out that the resolution likely to be considered by the full AATA board next week would include around $18,000 to bridge a POSA gap for Ypsilanti Township as well as the roughly $200,000 for the city of Ypsilanti.

The planning and development committee is recommending that a total of $220,000 of federal stimulus money (from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) be allocated to cover the POSA gaps.

The total amount of stimulus money allocated to the AATA is $6.45 million. How is the AATA planning to spend the money? Here’s what the list looks like in round numbers: $2.5 million for four new hybrid buses; $1.5 million for the Plymouth Road park-and-ride lot, $1 million for facilities expansion at the AATA’s South Industrial location for bus storage; $0.75 million for partial funding of a Central Campus Transit Center with the University of Michigan; $0.46 million for improvements to shelters and sidewalks to address accessibility issues.

Phil Webb, the  AATA’s controller, summarizing the numbers, said at Wednesday’s committee meeting that what’s left over from those capital outlays is $240,000.

That leaves a small buffer as those numbers firm up. For example, the costs associated with the facilities expansion – which have only received a rough estimate and have not been put out to bid – might be higher than expected.

The majority of federal stimulus dollars must be allocated only to capital projects, not to cover operating expenses. The AATA plan to apply them to operating costs in the case of funding the Ypsilanti POSA agreement takes advantage of a provision that up to 10% of the federal funds can be applied to operating costs.

AATA's manager of community relations, Mary Stasiak, talks with a frequent passenger on route No. 2.

On Tuesday afternoon, representatives of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority were on hand at the downtown branch of the Ann Arbor District Library to meet with members of the public to talk about a proposed fare increase. The AATA board will likely consider the proposal at its March 18 meeting. If passed by the AATA board, the first phase of the two-phase plan would take effect in May 2009, raising the basic fare from $1 to $1.25.  In May 2010, it would climb another 25 cents to $1.50 [details on the proposed fare increases].

The lower level multipurpose room at the library can accommodate more than a hundred people, but in the course of the two-hour meeting, only around ten members of the public stopped by – some arriving well after the meeting started, and some leaving somewhere in the middle. In that regard, the meeting was like a public bus: it left the station at its scheduled time with some passengers, took additional riders on board along the way, and let some of them off before the route was finished. But one could ask the same question about the meeting that is frequently asked about the bus system: Why does the AATA run some buses that appear to be mostly empty?

In the course of the mostly informal conversation that unfolded Tuesday afternoon, Phil Webb, who is the controller at AATA, provided part of the answer to the empty buses question: Passengers need to be able to rely on the bus showing up every day and every time it’s scheduled to be there, even if on some days at some times the ridership is reduced. As for the public meetings, they’ve been scheduled as well, and the public relies on the AATA keeping to that schedule.

A second  meeting will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 17 from 6-8 p.m., also in the multipurpose room of the downtown Ann Arbor library, 343 S. Fifth Ave. In Ypsilanti, hearings will be held at the City of Ypsilanti Council Chambers, One S. Huron St., Ypsilanti on Thursday, Feb. 19 from 4-7 p.m. and Thursday, Feb. 26 from 1-3 p.m. [confirm dates].

Phil Webb, controller for AATA.

If the meeting was like a public bus, then it left the station with Mary Stasiak, manager of community relations for AATA, at the wheel.  She gave some background on the proposed fare increase. Simply put, without it the AATA would face a structural deficit. That is, expenses would begin to exceed revenues. So where does the AATA get its revenue?  Stasiak explained that  79% of AATA revenue comes from a combination of federal, state, and local taxes.  Fares account for the remaining 21%. But fares for door-to-door paratransit services, which the AATA is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide wherever it operates fixed-route service, cover only 12.8% of the cost of operating the service, said Stasiak.

Free Bus Rides for Seniors?

Part of the AATA paratransit service offerings includes the senior taxi program (Good as Gold), which currently offers $2 taxi rides with advance notice ($3 same day) to those 65 and older.  The current fare proposal is to make rides for seniors free on fixed-route service (the regular bus). But the idea that senior citizens could ride the bus for free was not met with support from one senior attending the meeting on Tuesday. From a woman who retired to Ann Arbor and does not own a car: “To me it seems completely outrageous that I could ride a bus all over the place and not pay anything for it! I think you’re too cheap!”

It emerged during the ensuing conversation that part of the strategy behind these free rides is an attempt to brake the demand for the senior taxi program, which has risen over the last three years, and could easily triple, said Stasiak, as the population ages. Webb said that the idea was to save money by offering free fares to seniors on the regular bus. It’s less expensive for the AATA to provide a free ride on the bus than to charge $2 for door-to-door taxi service.

For the car-free retiree, it was a question of being able to use the fares that seniors paid for their bus rides to help fund expanded service times to evenings and weekends. She said that the last bus out of downtown left at 10:18 p.m., which made it difficult to take the bus home from a typical performance at Hill Auditorium.

Fare Levels and Elasticity of Demand

Although the question of the effect of fare prices on ridership was raised at Tuesday’s meeting, it was not discussed at an economist’s level of detail. Taking his turn at the wheel of the “meeting bus,” the  gentleman who raised the question (a frequent No. 2 bus rider, along with his wife) said he recalled the notion from courses in economics he took 60 years ago. The basic idea of  elasticity of  demand is that given a certain number of people riding the bus, it’s possible to calculate a fare price that would fund the bus system operations with fares alone. And based on the current percentage of operations covered by fares (20%), that fare price for AATA would need to quintuple to $5 per ride. But at $5 it wouldn’t be reasonable to take the current level of demand for bus rides as indicative of demand when rides are priced at $5. Demand at that price could reasonably expected to drop.

Transportation-themed art from Ann Arbor Public Schools students adorned one of the walls of the lower level multipurpose room at the Ann Arbor District Library's downtown location – where the fare increase proposal meeting was held.

But as Webb explained, it’s simply not expected that public transit like AATA’s bus system can be funded by fares alone. While reducing fares could increase ridership, possibly increasing revenues overall (more rides at a cheaper price could mean more revenue than fewer rides at a higher price), increased ridership can mean increased costs. If demand increases to a point where an additional bus needs to be added to a route, for example, the increased revenue from fares is balanced against the increased expense of adding an extra bus.

However,  the No. 2 bus rider noted that there was far more capacity in the system than was currently being used, and thus, what he wanted to know was this: What’s the capacity of the bus system, and at what relative capacity might the system be able to fund itself? Otherwise put, “If you filled every bus at every time, would you break even?” Webb clarified that in the transit industry, the notion of capacity isn’t what’s used so much as a statistic called the “passengers per service hour.”  System-wide, AATA operates at 31 passengers per service hour.

Aside: To get an idea of how the passengers per service hour relates to system capacity in layman’s terms, it’s useful to consider two scenarios that could reasonably be seen as “filling every bus at every time.”  Scenario A: A full bus departs Blake Transit Center, heads to its end destination at Ypsilanti Transit Center. Along the way, nobody gets off the bus. Nobody is standing at any of the stops along the way. At the final destination, everybody disembarks. Scenario B: A full bus departs Blake Transit Center, heads to its end destination at Ypsilanti Transit Center, and at the first stop everyone gets off the bus, and one busload of passengers who were waiting at that first bus stop board the bus. At each subsequent stop the same thing happens. In both cases, the whole time the bus is on the road, every seat is filled. Both have the system at “maximum capacity.” Yet in Scenario B, the passengers per service hour stat is much greater than in Scenario A – greater by a factor equal to the number of stops along the way.

Who Rides Free – Sponsored Fares

Tom Partridge, a name familiar to Chronicle readers as a frequent speaker at public meetings, boarded the “meeting bus” after it had left the main station. When he took his turn at the wheel, he steered it down a familiar road, focusing on the importance of  countywide transportation accessible to everyone. He also objected to the proposed fare increase for taxi rides for seniors and disabled people. (Under the proposal, both categories of taxi rides arranged with advance notice would rise from $2 to $3 by 2010; rides arranged the same day would rise from $3 to $4).  He called the fare increase for seniors and disabled people “inherently discriminatory.”

Partridge contrasted these fares for seniors and disabled people with the M-Card and go!pass programs, which allow University of Michigan staff and students, as well as employees of participating downtown businesses, to ride AATA buses at no cost to themselves. Stasiak and Webb pointed out that the fares for these people are not free but rather are “sponsored” – either by UM or by the Downtown Development Authority. In the case of the M-Card program, said Webb, the  2.1 million M-Card rides (drivers record each ride by pressing a button) are sponsored through a combination of a cash payment  of $700,000 per year made by UM to AATA, plus a federal grant to UM of $1.1 million. The $1.8 million works out to 87 cents paid per M-Card ride. System-wide, said Webb, the amount actually paid per ride averages 71 cents.

The arrangement between AATA and UM expires in August 2009. It’s currently being negotiated, with the first meeting between representatives of the organizations having already met, Webb said. Webb is helping to represent AATA in those negotiations.

The Expense Side of the Equation

The topic of negotiations was also a part of Tuesday’s meeting in connection with AATA’s expenses. While most of the conversation focused on fares and the revenue side of the structural deficit that Stasiak said AATA would face without increased fares, she also highlighted some ways that AATA had addressed the expense side. One major step was the recent successful negotiation of union contracts, which resulted in changing the health insurance carrier, and  higher co-pays for health insurance, with an overall savings of 14% on health insurance premiums.

The effective management of expenses, Stasiak said, was reflected in the 2009 budget, which kept the 2008 budget’s same level for operating expenses.

Waxing Poetic about AATA Buses

The handful of people who  came to the meeting and spoke were, by and large, quite enthusiastic about Ann Arbor’s buses. One woman, who was there with her walker at the start of the “meeting bus” ride and stayed to the finish, said, “I love Ann Arbor’s buses.” What’s that love based on?  She said she rode every route the AATA offers except for three of them (No. 14, No. 13, and No. 3). And even though she allowed that in the wintertime the bus sometimes runs behind, she said, “It does come. I know it’s going to come.”

Another passenger who boarded the “meeting bus” as it was nearing its final destination was Erica Dunham, who asked if the possibility of monetary assistance for AATA had been solicited from private corporations – energy companies and financial institutions. The only instance that Stasiak and Webb could recall was many years ago when someone had donated money to subsidize service in Scio Township to a housing development off Jackson Road. Dunham expressed her support by waxing literally poetic, reading aloud some stanzas she’d crafted, which concluded: “It all adds up to bringing our community/ Success, respect, equality and unity.”

In Ann Arbor, it would seem, there’s a poetry-bus connection.