Planning and work for north-south commuter rail between Ann Arbor and Howell in Livingston County has been going on for several years in a project that has been called WALLY (Washtenaw and Livingston Railway). The AAATA appears to be transitioning to a project label that incorporates “N-S Rail” as part of the description.

About two years ago, at its  Aug. 16, 2012 meeting, the AAATA board approved the award of a $105,200 contract to SmithGroupJJR for “station location and design services” in connection with the WALLY project. The board’s authorization included an option to increase the contract scope at a later date. That’s what the board’s July 24, 2014 action did – increasing the total amount of the contract from $105,200 to $800,000.

Of that $800,000, a significant portion will be covered with a federal grant received by the AAATA in 2012 under the federal Transportation, Community and System Preservation (TCSP) program. The federal grant award of $640,000 requires a $160,000 local match, which will be made by the Howell Downtown Development Authority, the Ann Arbor DDA and Washtenaw County – equaling a total of $143,000, with the remaining $17,000 to come from the AAATA.

The initial $105,200 contract with SmithGroupJJR was focused on a station location study and is now largely complete. The conclusion of that station location study was to identify a segment of the Ann Arbor Railroad right-of-way, between Liberty and Washington streets, as a preferred location for a downtown station.

The scope of the additional work under the contract approved by the AAATA board on July 24, 2014 will:

• Thoroughly examine alternatives/supplements to N-S Rail service such as express bus, bus-on-shoulder and HOV options
• Complete the evaluation of boarding areas (stations) in terms of locations, costs and required features.
• Estimate operating and capital costs at a much finer level of detail, taking into account new service concepts, rail right-of-way work, ownership changes, and railcar acquisition that has taken place since 2008.
• Undertake a more rigorous approach to demands estimates in full compliance with FTA New Starts / Small Starts requirements.
• Incorporate “green” concepts and operating principles.
• Be accompanied by a robust public involvement effort aimed at informing stakeholders and testing public support for the service, governance and funding elements of the plan as they evolve.

The timeframe for the second phase of the study is about 18 months.

This brief was filed from the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library at 343 S. Fifth Ave., where the AAATA board holds its meetings.

Taking advantage of the grant award, as well as other funds that the AATA had allocated at its June 21, 2012 for such work, the AATA board voted at its Aug. 16, 2012 meeting to award a $105,200 contract to SmithGroup JJR for “station location and design services” in connection with the WALLY project. The board’s authorization includes an option to increase the contract scope at a later date.

Based on the staff memo included in the AATA’s performance monitoring and external relations committee minutes, the initial phase of the project will focus on station location studies for five communities: Ann Arbor, Whitmore Lake, Hamburg Township, Genoa Township and Howell. In Ann Arbor, attention will be focused on the Barton Road location and how a station can be designed that overcomes the constraints imposed by a large drainage culvert. Future phases would also include detailed designs of each site selected in the initial phase, with additional station sites in Ann Arbor – a downtown location (probably between Liberty and Washington streets, according to the memo) and one near the University of Michigan football stadium.

The track from the Barton Road location southward is owned by the Ann Arbor Railroad, which has historically been uninterested in passenger rail use on it tracks. But in the fall of 2011, AARR indicated at least a willingness to entertain a “business proposition” on such use. Some kind of arrangement would be necessary in order to contemplate stations south of Barton Road – like downtown or the football stadium.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

However, the one “resolved” clause requires that funds allocated for WALLY in the 2012 budget ($50,000) cannot be spent, except with the explicit consent of the AATA board.

At the meeting, the board received a status report on the WALLY project from Michael Benham, a special assistant for strategic planning at AATA. Benham was hired in 2009 to handle the WALLY project. Since then, he’s become responsible for directing the development of the countywide transit master plan, which the AATA has developed over the course of the last year.

Highlights from Benham’s report included the fact that starting in 2008, AATA has spent a total of $102,853 on the WALLY project, while other partners have spent a total of $225,000. That money has been spent primarily on a study and public education efforts. As a part of the AATA FY 2012 budget, the AATA has included another $50,000 for the project, which requires the explicit approval of the board before it is spent. That money would be put towards station design.

Benham’s report identifies $16 million already invested by the Michigan Dept. of Transportation in track improvements, with $19 million worth of work still needed. Another $6 million in optional capital improvements is also identified.

Benham’s report projects that after the necessary capital improvements are completed to operate the commuter service, annual operating costs would amount to $5.4 million. Fares would be expected to cover $2.1 million of that, with another $1.4 million coming from the state’s Comprehensive Transportation Fund. That would leave another $1.9 million of local funding still to be identified.

[.pdf of WALLY status report (to reduce file size, does not include scans of letters of support)]

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]

This 1895 plat map shows the Huckleberry curving from northern Ypsilanti towards Washtenaw Avenue. (Images link to higher resolution files.)

By the 1980s, the century-old train tracks had been torn up. Now occupying the former roadbed are new Eastern Michgan University buildings, the Washtenaw Avenue Kmart, the abandoned Carpenter Road mini-golf park just south of Thrifty Florist, and Pittsfield Township homes. But only a few years earlier, a sleepy southbound rail line with only one slow train rumbling by a day, was an ideal route for rural nature walks, south of the rail crossing on Washtenaw just east of Golfside.

Onetime Ypsilanti Press linotyper and history columnist Milton Barnes remembered. Barnes was blind. Yet in an early-1980s column for the Press, he helped others visualize a summer ramble.

“Strolling-just a-strolling, down these tracks in late August,” Barnes wrote, “we found a bed of wild strawberries, just a few of them, but as sweet as can be. The spring crop of polliwogs had grown into lively green frogs. There was a bit of water in the ditches along the tracks, with buttercups and cowslips … When we stroll along, and hop from tie to tie, every cow, lamb, dog, pig, and rooster watches. So do the farmers from their back doors, and some wave a cheery ‘How be ye?’ greeting.”

A century earlier, the July 4th inaugural voyage of the slow little “Detroit, Hillsdale, and Indiana” steam train from Ypsilanti to Saline and beyond was cause for citywide celebration.

The Huckleberry Line, seen here as the diagonal line between Ypsilanti and Bankers, Michigan, also stopped at Pittsfield Junction, Saline, Bridgewater, Manchester, Watkins, Brooklyn, and a few other stops before its terminus 64 miles southwest of Ypsi.

“[F]rom 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. a constant stream poured to the [Ypsilanti] Depot,” reported the July 9, 1870 Ypsilanti Commercial. “The first train carried 600 of our citizens … [t]he morning was lovely, a gentle breeze; the train went just fast enough to enable the excursionists to enjoy the ride. The Ypsilanti Tin Horn Band enlivened the occasion.”

It’s likely that more than one farmer south of Washtenaw Avenue looked up from chores at the sound of distant metallic tootling to see the small traincars creeping over the horizon, on their leisurely way to Saline.

“Arriv[ing] at Saline we found thousands waiting to welcome us,” the Commercial continued. “A beautiful arch erected over the track … was wreathed in flowers [spelling out] ‘Saline’ and ‘Ypsilanti’ clasping hands and the word ‘Welcome’.”

The attendees listened to a welcoming address, gave three cheers, enjoyed the Saline Cornet Band “discoursing soul inspiring music,” and proceeded to Risdon’s Grove for a lavish banquet under the trees, followed by ceremonial orations.

The “D. H. & I” was not the first rail line to visit either Ypsi or Saline.

The Michigan Central arrived in Ypsi in 1838, and the Michigan Southern arrived in Saline in 1843. But a rail line uniting then-remote agricultural Saline to the nearby urban markets of Ypsi and Ann Arbor was a boon to farmers. The line’s name changed in a series of buyouts. – first to the Detroit, Hillsdale, and Ypsilanti line then the Detroit, Hillsdale, and Southwestern. Finally, it became a minor branch of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern network.

The Ypsilanti Commercial’s fiery editor C. R. Pattison had led the fight (at least in his view) to secure the Ypsilanti-Hillsdale County railroad. Throughout late 1869 and early 1870, the Commercial published a series of editorials boosting the merits of the proposed line, in an era of feverish and competitive railroad-building.

Officials in Detroit and Ypsi conferred and decided to donate municipal funds. “Hillsdale subscribed $100,000 [1.7 million dollars today], Ypsilanti voted $50,000, and all the villages and townships on the proposed route voted or subscribed large sums of money,” wrote Charles Chapman in his 1881 History of Washtenaw County.

The state took note, and objected that this wasn’t a legal way to raise money for a railroad, according to the Michigan constitution. Through a series of twists and turns that included a case going to the U.S. Supreme Court, the matter was finally settled and the track began to be laid, via rights-of-way on farmland ceded by local farmers between Ypsi and Saline.

The farmers weren’t just being altruistic. Having a nearby rail line meant an easy way to quickly ship goods to market. The Hillsdale line was the single most important factor in boosting Saline into a then-primary hub of agricultural exports to southeastern Michigan. The Saline depot hummed with commerce, as livestock, logs, finished lumber, apples, wheat flour, ironwork, and wool from local sheep farmers were loaded onto cars and shipped out.

The line carried passengers, too. One was a family member of Superior Township Scottish immigrant farmer-poet William Lambie. In August of 1875, he noted in his diary, “Found a swarm of bees on the trunk of a small hickory tree-brushed them down to the hive and they stung fiercely. Went to the Depot with Bell. She and Willie Campbell started for Brooklyn on the Huckleberry [as the line was nicknamed].”

One favorite destination on the line was Watkins Lake, halfway to Hillsdale. One turn-of-the-century diarist, quoted by Milton Barnes in another column about the Huckleberry, detailed an end-of-school outing for 1894 Normal School [EMU] graduates.

“[T]hey started late because the class president and his partner had a hard time carrying a basket of lunch across the fields of the [Ypsi] depot.” The article went on to say that the dean of women checked each girls’ attire to make sure it was suitably modest and kept a sharp eye on the grads as they journeyed south to Watkins’ Lake. Canoes were rented and some grads wandered off hand-in-hand, the article said, to gather wild strawberries. “At the picnic tables there wasn’t enough potato salad and some of the chicken and cheese sandwiches were made by girls who got low marks in domestic science.” The canoe rides made up for that, and the happily worn-out group returned to Ypsi at sunset.

After the turn of the century, automobiles slowly grew in popularity – in 1913, one in 47 Washtenaw residents had one – and farming began to decline. The old Huckleberry Line to Saline carried less freight and fewer passengers, and the frequency of trains was cut back. A January 17, 1908 Ypsilanti Daily Press article reported, “The most serious change in the new schedule is the cancelling of two passenger trains on the Lake Shore. These are the morning train from Hillsdale which ran through to Detroit [borrowing the Michigan Central track for the run between Ypsi and Detroit], and the afternoon train from Detroit to Hillsdale. In place of this fine service a passenger coach will be attached to the local freight from Hillsdale. Its arrival and departure are more uncertain than April weather.”

By 1923, Harvey Colburn nearly mocked the residual rail line in his “Story of Ypsilanti.” “The magnificent dreams of the original promoters have vanished,” he wrote. “Today, more than fifty years after the incorporation of the road, two plug trains a day … each train composed of a short string of freight cars with an ancient passenger coach on the end, pull out of [the Ypsi depot] and gently amble down the Huckleberry Line.”

Passenger service was discontinued in the 1930s, and freight service stopped in 1961. In an era of car ownership, the old Huckleberry Line was obsolete, its tracks soon scrapped – but not its memory. Around 1972 the Huckleberry Party Store opened for business near the onetime railroad spurs that used to cross Washtenaw just east of Golfside.

In a simpler time, the tracks were nearly the stuff of poetry.

“Sometimes on our strolls,” wrote Milton Barnes, “a farmer would lean over his fence and want to talk. He would tell us just where along the tracks in June would be found the best patches of wild strawberries … [h]e would also tell us that the roots of the cattails which grew in the trackside ditches were good to eat, somewhat like a sweet onion …”

The railroad’s countrified nickname came about as it was said the train was so slow (around 20 miles per hour, according to railroad surveys) that a passenger could hop off at one of its many stops and pick huckleberries – or, as Barnes and the Saline Historical Society claim, strawberries.

Today part of the onetime line is the paved east-west bicycle path – part of the county’s Border to Border trail – between EMU’s Rynearson Stadium and Collegewood Drive. The shady forest path links the campus with Hewitt Road and the Convocation Center. About halfway down the path at an undisclosed location stands a giant thicket of blackberries – currently in season. It may be that some nostalgic bicyclist recently retraced this section of the Huckleberry Line and, hopping off the imagined train, stood in the sun, gazed down the “track,” and gorged on berries like the riders of long ago.

Thanks to Preservation Eastern director Deirdre Fortino and Saline Historical Society member Robert Lane for research assistance.

Mystery Artifact

Russ Miller and Cosmonicon correctly guessed last column’s Mystery Artifact. It’s the stump of a tree turned into a mortar for pounding corn into corn meal. “Ordinary conveniences were few in the settlement [of Woodruff's Grove]” writes Harvey Colburn in “The Story of Ypsilanti,” “and most of what was needed had to be made on the spot.

Mystery Artifact

There was one oven, that constructed by Woodruff, in his yard, built of stone plastered over with mud. A staple food was corn … [w]ith the demand for meal, two mills were fashioned by burning holes in the tops of sound oak stumps, and scraping them smooth and clean. Over these makeshift mortars hung pestles suspended from a spring pole … the noise of their thumping was heard every winter morning.”

This time we’re faced with a rather scary Mystery Artifact.

Now, I cheated a bit in trimming away the explanatory text around this object that gives it away. But what is it? Good luck!

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The view southward on Harris Street in Saline. Saline city hall, where the Feb. 8, 2011 transit master planning forum was held, sits to the left of the frame. (Photo by the writer.)

A second public engagement phase of the countywide planning exercise is now wrapping up, with 20 community forums held through the month of February at locations across the county. The final four of those forums will take place next week. Coverage of the forum hosted in the Saline area is provided by Chronicle intern and Saline resident Hayley Byrnes.

On Feb. 8, at Saline city hall, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority sponsored the ninth of 20 community forums being held from the end of January through February. Every forum is open to all Washtenaw County residents, but they’re being held at locations across the county – like Saline – to make it easier for people to attend.

The goal of a previous round of 20 public forums, held last year, was to get participants to brainstorm about countywide transit. But the current set of forums is all about presenting participants with three specific scenarios that have been developed so far, based in part on those first 20 meetings. The AATA is calling these three scenarios: Lifeline Plus, Accessible County and Smart Growth. From those three scenarios, a preferred scenario will be developed. An AATA board consensus on that scenario is expected in March, with board action on adoption of a countywide transit plan expected in April.

Michael Benham, who’s coordinating the project for the AATA, and Juliet Edmonson, a consultant with Steer Davies Gleave (SDG), hosted the Saline forum. Michael Ford, CEO of the AATA, made an appearance in video form. For county residents who cannot attend any of the forums, the AATA is also seeking feedback on the three scenarios using an online survey.

A Digital Welcome: Overview of the AATA

The forum began with a video featuring Michael Ford, AATA’s CEO, describing the advantages of public transportation. Taking public transportation, he said, is “more than getting on a bus.” Alternative and public ways of transit shape our community, he continued. The video also featured various figures in Washtenaw County, including Ann Arbor mayor John Hieftje and Ypsilanti mayor Paul Schreiber.

Objectives: Developing a Preferred Scenario

After the brief introduction and video, Michael Benham outlined the objectives for the evening. The primary objective, he said, was to update attendees on the transit master plan (TMP), a project that the AATA has been working on since the summer of 2010. The AATA began the process with more than a hundred meetings last summer, including 20 public forums, asking for input from communities throughout Washtenaw County.

In broad strokes, here’s where the project stands: Based on prior public input, the review of existing plans and data, and an assessment of the county’s transportation needs, three possible scenarios have now been developed, out of which one preferred scenario will be constructed.

More specifically, MovingYouForward.org, AATA’s website devoted to the development of the countywide master plan, outlines six steps to the process of implementing the plan: (1) visions and objectives; (2) existing conditions and needs; (3) transportation options and scenario development; (4) developing the preferred scenario; (5) transit master plan, (6) and funding and implementation plan.

The current round of public meetings is part of step (4). At the January AATA board meeting, board members indicated that they hoped to achieve a consensus on a preferred scenario in March and adoption of a transit master plan in April.

Along with familiarizing everyone with the distinctions between the three scenarios, Benham said at the Saline forum that he hoped to outline the benefits of each scenario. The ultimate goal, he said, is to “enable [citizens] to make an informed choice.”

Forum Goal: Feedback

Benham paraphrased the website’s timeline, stating that the AATA’s focus now is on honing and revising the newly-created scenarios that emerged from public meetings held last June and July. “We’re not just here to provide buses,” he said, “but buses for your education, for your community involvement.” Again he stressed that the role of the AATA is not simply transportation: it should serve to enhance the entire community.

At that point Benham stopped looking at a PowerPoint slide that listed the six stages of the TMP, turned to the audience and told them that feedback was the AATA’s primary concern. He didn’t want to just read off a PowerPoint slide for an hour and a half, he continued. Audience interaction and an informal atmosphere are paramount for the AATA to accurately gather feedback, he concluded, which was the primary purpose of the forum itself.

The Three TMP Scenarios: An Overview

Benham outlined four steps that the AATA took while creating the three scenarios for the TMP: public involvement, he said, was the primary step; the second came with research, particularly of other cities and transit systems; then came studies of other transit options; finally, the AATA took into account input from existing community plans.

Out of all that work, three distinct plans emerged, which the AATA is calling: Lifeline Plus, Accessible County, and Smart Growth. The plans are cumulative, meaning that everything included in Lifeline Plus is also included in Accessible County, with the addition of other features. The same can be said for Smart Growth, which builds upon Accessible County. Thus, the most comprehensive and expensive of the plans is Smart Growth, while Lifeline Plus implements the fewest number of changes.

The goal of Lifeline Plus is slightly different than the other two plans. Lifeline Plus primarily improves existing services and strengthens countywide connections for seniors. Rather than create new options or methods of transit, it enhances options already available to residents.

Accessible County also strengthens existing services, but would build more transit options for areas outside of urban areas. While Lifeline Plus would focus on densely populated areas such as Ann Arbor, Accessible County would have a more countywide perspective and integrate transit more thoroughly in areas such as Dexter and Chelsea.

The third plan, Smart Growth, would accomplish the same tasks as Accessible County, though it would possibly integrate rail elements (an element not found in either of the other two plans). Transit would become a permanent feature – it would serve to develop urban infrastructure and connect citizens to all parts of Washtenaw County.

Lifeline Plus: The Strengthening Scenario

Benham deferred to Juliet Edmonson to walk the audience through the scenarios in detail. Edmonson is a consultant with Steer Davies Gleave, which was contracted by the AATA to assist with the development of the countywide planning effort. She’s been living in Ann Arbor since last summer.

Lifeline Plus – Concept and Key Features

The first scenario, Lifeline Plus, is the one least different from existing transportation services. While Accessible County expands throughout all of Washtenaw County and Smart Growth aims to reinvent county’s transportation network, Lifeline Plus focuses on strengthening the current transportation options. It would start by enhancing the urban bus network. One key feature of the Lifeline Plus, explained Edmonds, is the expected increase in frequency of buses. More evening and weekend services would be available under the plan.

Along with increasing the frequency of services, Edmonson stressed that physical refurbishment and redevelopment of bus infrastructure would occur as well. Under the Lifeline Plus scenario, two existing transit stations would be developed further: the Blake Transit Center hub in Ann Arbor, and a similar one in Ypsilanti. The plan would also include a downtown circulator in Ann Arbor. In connection to circulators, Edmonson mentioned the LINK – an Ann Arbor downtown circulator that used to operate with purple-painted buses, but that was discontinued by the AATA board in August 2009. Under Lifeline Plus, she said, a service similar to the LINK would be restored.

AATA Lifeline Plus scenario (Image links to higher resolution .pdf of all three scenarios. )

Edmonson then relied on a colored map with various symbols to aid her next few points. The map gave a schematic representation of Washtenaw County, highlighting the cities of Chelsea, Dexter, Whitmore Lake, Barton Hills, Ann Arbor, Saline, Ypsilanti, Manchester, and Milan. Each town or city then had certain symbols next to its label – for example, all nine municipalities were tagged with a blue bus symbol, meaning that there would be vehicle improvements to buses across the county under the Lifeline Plus scenario.

Transit, Edmonson said, would also not be narrowly understood to include only buses: the Lifeline Plus scenario also includes enhancements for pedestrians and cyclists. Edmonson also indicated that in Ann Arbor there would be special focus on allowing for bus priority over other kinds of traffic. She said a chief goal of public transit is to allow for a reliable and consistent ride. If you are expecting your ride to take 20 minutes, she said, it should take 20 minutes.

Further emphasis would be placed on bus stops, including better shelters for the winter and easier sidewalk access. Integrated ticketing, she continued, would also be a priority under this scenario. Rather than penalizing people for using more than one kind of service, she said, the AATA would hope to centralize their ticketing, making it easier for customers to use multiple services.

Under the Lifeline Plus scenario, the kind of service offered currently by WAVE (Western Washtenaw Area Value Express), which is operated by a nonprofit, would be enhanced further, with longer operating hours; it would also be expected to integrate Chelsea and Dexter, as part the AATA’s vision for countywide transportation. The People’s Express, a transportation service for seniors, currently providing service in the townships, would also be enhanced to include Canton and Chelsea.

While the Lifeline Plus scenario improves existing options in Ann Arbor, the scenario also strengthens local transportation in Chelsea by including a local circulator. A shuttle currently operates in Chelsea, through a partnership with WAVE and the United Methodist Retirement Communities (UMRC). Under the Lifeline Plus scenario, that kind of shuttle would have longer operating hours.

On a more Ann Arbor-centric note, Edmonson explained that on the Lifeline Plus scenario, six new intercept park-and-ride lots would be available to commuters into downtown Ann Arbor. Park-and-ride commuters could park in a lot on the outskirts of Ann Arbor and catch a bus into the downtown area. The AATA already has four such park-and-ride lots, including the lot near Plymouth Road and US-23, which was constructed last year specifically as a park-and-ride lot.

An airport express shuttle would also be implemented on the Lifeline Plus scenario, making it easier to get to and from the Detroit Metro Airport. On a final countywide note, Edmonson said that two measures would be enhanced and promoted throughout the county: car/vanpools and door-to-door services. While both these services are available currently, Edmonson stressed that they would be even more accessible for everyone within the county under the Lifeline Plus scenario.

Accessible County: The Expansion Scenario

Edmonson assured the audience that her explanation of Accessible County would not be quite as comprehensive as Lifeline Plus, simply because every single feature included in Lifeline Plus would also be included in Accessible County. The Accessible County scenario would simply build even further on that base.

Accessible County – Concept and Key Features

Edmonson dived in to the Accessible County scenario by stressing a countywide express network and local transit hubs. Under this scenario, she said, Manchester, Saline, Milan, and Whitmore Lake would be included in this countywide network.

AATA Accessible County scenario (Image links to higher resolution .pdf of all three scenarios. )

For example, there would be an express service from Milan to Saline, and then to Ann Arbor. There may be another express service that runs through Manchester, then Saline, then finally to Ann Arbor. Faster trips would be an aspect of transportation addressed in Accessible County.

In the Lifeline Plus scenario, only Chelsea and Ann Arbor had a local circulator incorporated in the countywide transit plan. But under Accessible County, Chelsea, Dexter, and Saline would all have local circulators.

The final aspect of Accessible County not included in Lifeline Plus was a “Flex” ride service available for all residents of Washtenaw County. The Flex Ride would aim to fill in any gaps of other services and would have a personalized approach. The idea, Edmonson said, would be that a resident could call up the AATA and say, “I need to make this trip at this time,” and the AATA would make it work. That may be a door-to-door service, or that may mean sharing a car with more than one person, but the service would be for everyone, she said.

Smart Growth: The Re-Invention Scenario

The final scenario, Smart Growth, has the goal to “invest in transit across the county to stimulate economic growth and focus on land development in areas that best accommodate growth,” according to an AATA information booklet detailing the three scenarios. As with the second scenario, Smart Growth is cumulative and encompasses all the services offered in Lifeline Plus and Accessible County.

Smart Growth – Concept and Key Features

A defining feature of the Smart Growth scenario is the investment in regional rail systems, a feature not included in either of the other two scenarios. One rail line, the east-west connection, would run from Ann Arbor to Dearborn and Detroit.

AATA Smart Growth scenario (Image links to higher resolution .pdf of all three scenarios. )

A second rail line – the WALLY (Washtenaw Livingston Rail Line) – would be a commuter connection running north-south between Howell and Ann Arbor. Edmonson added that cities like Toledo were not included in the plan, but there is still the potential for those places to be incorporated in the Smart Growth model.

Two somewhat more local “high capacity” transit options would be included in Smart Growth: (1) Ann Arbor Connector – a connector running along the Plymouth Road and State Street corridors in Ann Arbor, bridging the University of Michigan campuses; and (2) Washtenaw Corridor Connector – a connector along Washtenaw Avenue between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. The term “high capacity” was left deliberately vague, with Edmonson saying this could mean light rail or perhaps bus rapid transit, where high-quality buses would be used. In both cases, the trip time for passengers would significantly decrease. [For more detailed Chronicle coverage of the Plymouth-State connector option, see: "AATA: Transit Study, Planning Updates"]

A Conversation Among Citizens

When Edmonson described the Plymouth-State connector, one forum attendee asked what would happen to University of Michigan buses running through that area. Benham responded that they would be replaced, at least partially, by something like the Ann Arbor Connector. Benham said this would reduce the currently cramped nature of these buses. “I know,” the attendee responded, “they’re standing room only.” Benham continued that if you want to get to downtown Ann Arbor, congestion clogs many of the roads before you arrive at Main Street. The idea of park-and-ride, he said, is to park on the outskirts – say around Briarwood Mall – and take a straight shot downtown using public transportation.

A second person asked, on a related note, whether the AATA was thinking to penalize people who drive to downtown Ann Arbor by increasing parking rates, thus indirectly encouraging the use of public transportation. [Setting parking rates is not within the purview of the AATA. Parking rates are currently set by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, with the city council holding a veto power.] Benham generalized, “I’ve heard talk of that; we welcome opportunities to get new riders.” The first attendee piped up again, saying, “For 75 cents, it’s worth it.” [Full fare on regular AATA buses is $1.50, but there's a $0.75 fare for students, as well as seniors age 60-64 (above 64, rides are free), income-eligible and disabled people.]

A third attendee brought some local perspective to the discussion. He mentioned the “good efforts” made in Saline in the past to bring about public transportation, but said that such offerings died for a lack of ridership. Do you think, he asked, enough people will support the comprehensive offerings of Smart Growth? Benham again responded in a general way, saying that’s a challenge faced by the AATA whenever they implement new programs.

Benham continued by stressing that the AATA is a creature of Ann Arbor – residents pay a transportation millage. Outside of that, however, the AATA has no guaranteed funding. The majority of funding for construction of these scenarios – Lifeline Plus, Accessible County, and Smart Growth – would come from federal grants. But in the past, these services have barely been able to get started before funding runs out. The whole rationale of this master plan, he continued, would be eventually achieve a more stable funding source.

The first attendee made a comment that followed up on the idea of transportation local to Saline, emphasizing that these buses can’t just run over by Briarwood or Ypsilanti – they have to come into Saline. Benham continued by acknowledging that the population of Washtenaw County has spread out, but the transportation system has not followed. We must, he said, start providing services for everyone within the county.

The Three Plans: Local Community Benefits

As a part of the scenario development, the AATA has attempted to quantify the benefits of different scenarios. [.pdf of benefit estimates]

Benham first highlighted the number of cars estimated to be taken off the road annually: the Lifeline Plus scenario would eliminate 2.9 million car trips, the Accessible County would eliminate 3.3 million, and Smart Growth would eliminate 5.4 million car trips annually.

Benham also highlighted the number of new jobs each scenario would create: from 418 for Lifeline Plus to 1,830 for Smart Growth. He then moved to the number of serious road accidents annually – under Smart Growth, a projected 111 serious car accidents are estimated to be prevented per year.

Along with that, he continued, there would be an increase in the senior population who are within walking distance to transit. Environmentally, each plan would include a significant reduction in emissions.

Benham emphasized that the numbers were conservative, and that perhaps even more businesses would relocate to Ann Arbor just because of Lifeline Plus. The effect, he explained, is indirect. With a stronger public transportation plan, he continued, employees would easily be able to get to and from work.

Additionally, the congestion in Ann Arbor would be eased because of the decrease in cars on the road. Even the smoggy atmosphere of Ann Arbor, one forum participant chimed in, would be relieved. As a result of all these positive impacts, Benham concluded, businesses would be more likely to locate near Ann Arbor, thus bringing more success and prosperity to the area.

Capital and Operational Costs

Benham then moved to the question of cost – both to build the infrastructure and to operate the system once it’s built. [.pdf of cost estimates]

Capital costs for the different scenarios break down like this for a 30-year period:

• Lifeline Plus: $48 million
• Accessible County: $51 million
• Smart Growth: $465 million

Annual total operating expenses break down like this:

• Lifeline Plus: ~$73 million
• Accessible County: ~$78 million
• Smart Growth: ~$100 million

While the Lifeline Plus and Accessible County are similar in capital cost, the Smart Growth scenario is considerably higher, because offers a new dimension of high-capacity transit and regional rail services. But, Benham pointed out, not all of those costs would be paid by Washtenaw County taxpayers alone. In the case of the rail options included in Smart Growth, roughly two-thirds of the track would be located in Wayne County. We want to emphasize cost, Benham said, not funding.

Benham then introduced a pie chart indicating various sources of funding. Historically, the federal government has paid for 45% of the funding; the state has paid another 13%; local sources contribute 16%; and the final 26% is generated directly through fares.

Benham cited the Millennium Park project in Chicago as a model for how funds could be broken down to minimize the expense on the taxpayer – in that example, the project cost half a billion dollars. Yet one-third of that came from private sources. Edmonson added that individuals, institutions, and corporations all have an incentive to contribute. Benham then returned to the local scenarios, saying that one-third of the operating costs would be shouldered by local residents.

The total operating cost divided into a scenario’s total community benefits makes up that scenario’s cost-benefit ratio. The Smart Growth scenario has the highest cost-benefit ratio, of 3.12 – that is, for every $1 of additional operating cost, the community receives an additional $3.12 of benefit. Lifeline Plus has a 2.6 cost-benefit ratio, while Accessible County’s is a near-identical 2.62.

Conclusion: Addressing Transit Needs

After discussing the funding side of the transit equation, Benham and Edmonson quickly switched to general benefits of transit, on any of the three scenarios. Transit, they said, relieves congestion, boosts our regional economy, increases choice riders, and allows senior populations to age in place. Benham continued, saying that people don’t realize they actually get time back on the bus. “Get some work done – sleep,” he said, adding jokingly, “text.”

But the AATA, he said, cannot do this alone. In every one of the scenarios – as well as for its current operations – the AATA has “strategic alliances” with WAVE, People’s Express, and Manchester Senior Services, Benham said.

He underlined that the term “transportation” need not be limited to buses and railways. The AATA also seeks to expand bikeways and sidewalks, along with roadways. One forum attendee, who had not spoken until that point, added that they’d seen how a person in a wheelchair had not been accommodated on a bus on South University Avenue.

Another forum attendee pointed out the need for additional bike racks or some similar device to allow cyclists to use buses. Benham responded by saying that currently buses do allow for bikes to be attached to front-mounted racks, but sometimes space is limited. “We are victims of our own success.” Safety is the top priority, and the possibility of hooking bikes to the back of buses – as the citizen was suggesting – allowed for a potential danger of theft. We can’t, he stressed, create situations that are potentially unsafe.

Switching gears, Benham pointed out that if the current trends continue, development will be everywhere. But if planning tools are used, space can remain open. Benham then showed a slide illustrating the projected impact on land use in the county, with and without investments in transit and other development tools. Without transit investments, the slide showed a continued loss of open space and agricultural land and a decrease in sense of place.

Contrasting maps showing future development in Washtenaw County. (Image links to higher resolution. pdf file)

Benham then used a transit center in Tempe, Ariz. to illustrate the potential of transit hubs. The Arizona center is a multi-use green facility that serves as a center for the entire community. It includes a bike station and even showers – it became more than a transit stop.

As his PowerPoint presentation came to an end, Benham said again that community input is vital. What do you, as residents, want the future to be like? With that, two forum attendees shared their own experiences with transit.

The first was a woman from Chelsea who helped establish the local circulator that runs through town. While the circulator began strictly for those in Chelsea’s United Methodist Retirement Communities (UMRC), she emphasized that it is hard for nonprofits to get funding. Eventually, they collaborated with the WAVE. She emphasized that even a simple circulator helps seniors maintain their independence. Saline, she added, also needs something like that.

The second resident has a son with a developmental disability, and emphasized that public transportation is crucial. Especially from Saline to Ann Arbor, she said, we need countywide transportation.

And with those last two comments, Benham thanked attendees for coming and expressed his appreciation for the community’s interest and involvement. [For county residents who cannot attend any of the forums, the AATA is also seeking feedback on the three scenarios using an online survey.]

Eli Cooper, the city of Ann Arbor's transportation program manager, sets up his visual aids for the Fuller Road Station. (Photos by the writer.)

Confronted with skepticism from board member David Nacht, who expressed his doubts that the rail service would ever become a reality, Cooper urged a “glass as half full” view of the project. Cooper was buoyed in part by a recent phone call he’d received from the Michigan Dept. of Transportation about another round of funding that the Federal Railroad Administration will be making available.

AATA board member Sue McCormick also gave some shape to the city’s funding strategy for its share of the Fuller Road Station project: Once the environmental impact study is completed, that will make it possible for the local transit agency – in this case, the AATA – to apply for federal funds for the project. That’s consistent with the message thus far from city officials, who have said that whatever the funding strategy will be, it won’t involve city general fund money.

In its main business items of the meeting, the board approved a contract worth $399,805.32 with a consultant, Steer Davies Gleave, to head up the formulation of a transportation master plan (TMP), which will underpin the AATA’s effort to expand its service countywide. The board also approved an allocation of $350,000 for a period ending March 31, 2012, that will allow the AATA to task one of three public relations firms for work, depending on the nature of the project: The Rossman Group, Ilium Associates, and re:group.

Both resolutions passed, with dissent from the board’s treasurer, Ted Annis.

The board made a decision at its March board meeting to change its meeting time and location to Thursdays at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library. Although it was discussed then that the new time and location would begin in two months, board discussion on Wednesday suggested that the target for changing the new time is now August 2010.

Fuller Road Station

Eli Cooper, the city of Ann Arbor’s transportation program manager, gave a presentation to the board on Fuller Road Station. He thanked the board for the opportunity to present the transportation program project.

Fuller Road Station: Some History

By way of background, the  presentation that Cooper gave is one he has made on numerous occasions, at some stage or other of development, over the course of more than a year. He first introduced a sketch of the project at a meeting of neighbors at the Northside Grill in January of 2009. [Chronicle coverage: "City Staffers Brief Wall Street Neighbors"] That meeting had been held to address concerns of Wall Street residents about a University of Michigan plan to build two parking structures along Wall Street.

One of the neighbors who had been present at that Northside Grill meeting, Kittie Morelock, addressed the AATA board during public commentary at the end of Wednesday’s meeting. She told them she had lived in Ann Arbor for 55 years, and was now retired from the University of Michigan Health System. She had chosen to live along Wall Street, she said, so that she could walk to work. She said that the neighborhood had been living with the idea of further development and UM expansion. It was already a dense neighborhood, she told the board, with around 2,500 people living in the Wall Street-Maiden Lane corridor.

Morelock said the Fuller Road Station location for the university’s parking structure is better for the Wall Street neighborhood, but noted that there would still be some impact to the neighborhood from increased traffic during the station’s construction.

The Fuller Road Station – which in its first phase in large part consists of a parking deck – will forestall the university’s need to construct parking structures at the Wall Street location. From the memorandum of understanding between the city and the university:

10. University Parking Structure on Wall Street. Given the progress on developing the Fuller Road Station, which includes parking for University use equivalent to that planned in the Wall Street East Parking Structure, the University is willing to suspend, at this time, its pursuit of structured parking on Wall Street as presently authorized and programmed.

Fuller Road Station: Model for Mobility, North-South Connector

In his presentation, Cooper described the Fuller Road Station as a “new gateway for Ann Arbor,” which would bring various transportation modalities together. He presented the station against the backdrop of the city’s model for mobility, which features three main components: east-west commuter rail from Ann Arbor to Detroit; north-south commuter rail from Ann Arbor to Howell; and a connector system allowing transfer from the east-west to the north-south system.

Back in 2006, said Cooper, it was recognized that there was currently no transition point between the proposed east-west and north-south commuter rail systems. The Amtrak station was identified as being on the east-west corridor, but inadequate to meet the needs of a commuter rail station. Cooper said that the Fuller Road location, just south of Fuller Road next to the UM medical campus, was recognized as having two main advantages. First, the land is publicly owned. Second, it’s located next to the largest workplace in Washtenaw County – the University of Michigan. The Amtrak station, Cooper said, was not located well to accommodate buses meeting trains carrying hundreds of passengers. In that context, he said, it made sense to consider relocation of the Amtrak station.

When AATA board members got time to question Cooper, Charles Griffith asked about Amtrak’s cooperation with the project. He asked if there had been any discussions with Amtrak about the idea of co-location of their train station with the Fuller Road facility. Cooper said that as a national rail conveyor, Amtrak focuses on service. Train stations are thought of by Amtrak as “nuisances,” Cooper said. So Amtrak was excited about joining the city in the project, Cooper reported, and had supplied by way of assistance a 60-page design guide book for their stations.

Griffith noted that as a user of Amtrak’s trains, he doesn’t feel safe at the current station when returning from a trip at 11:30 at night – though he thought it was, in fact, safe. Cooper said that the idea was that Fuller Road Station would let people know that you “have arrived at a place.”

Cooper addressed the integration of the planning for the Fuller Road Station with the study currently being undertaken for a north-south connector. The north-south connector feasibility study is a different project from the north-south commuter rail initiative – that’s known as the the Washtenaw-Livingston Rail Line (WALLY). The connector study goes by the official name of the Ann Arbor Connector Feasibility Study. The point of the AACFS is to assess the feasibility of constructing a high-capacity transit system (e.g., a street car, or bus rapid transit (BRT) system) in both directions from the downtown area of Ann Arbor (i) northward to US-23, and (ii) southward to I-94.

Asked during question time by Ted Annis at Wednesday’s AATA board meeting, Cooper confirmed that Fuller Road Station is imagined to have linkages to the north-south connector. But Cooper stressed that no specific alignment of the route had been determined and no particular technology had been selected. It could range from bus rapid transit to light rail, he said.

However, Cooper indicated that starting probably in June of this year, public meetings would be held to start sharing with the community-at-large some of the preliminary results of the AACFS.

Fuller Road Station: Master Concept Plan

Cooper’s presentation actually began with a description of the master concept plan – Fuller Road Station in its entirety. There would be a parking component with around 1,000 spaces. It would be an intermodal facility featuring 7-9 bus bays, where AATA and University of Michigan buses could meet trains. There would be a bicycle station – showers, lockers, and bicycle rentals. Fuller Road Station’s location would allow access to the Border-to-Border Trail, which would make it both a transportation and a recreational amenity for bicyclists, said Cooper.

The Fuller Road Station is designed to accommodate the growth of Amtrak service, commuter rail, and the possibility that Ann Arbor would be included in a high-speed rail corridor, Cooper stressed. The university’s medical campus, he said, included 20,000 employees and 2 million visitors per year. It’s one of the major travel demand generators in the county, he said. Cooper pointed out on the schematic drawing some skywalks designed for pedestrians to access the UM medical campus.

In her public commentary at the conclusion of the meeting, Carolyn Grawi, with the Center for Independent Living (CIL), responded to the description of the skywalks, saying that the CIL’s key issue is “accessibility, accessibility, accessibility.” She stressed, “We’ve got to be involved in it before it’s built.”

The full implementation would include a drop-off area and short-term parking. There would also be improvements made to the Fuller Road corridor. The parking in the Fuller Road Station would be a shared environment, Cooper said. Currently there are 75 long-term spaces at the existing Amtrak station, but with the growth of Amtrak’s service and the commuter rail service, Cooper said, it’s anticipated that around 200 spaces would be required, and that is reflected in the memorandum of understanding that UM has struck with the city of Ann Arbor on the joint project.

In terms of where the project stands, Cooper said the concept is complete and they are now working on the engineering design. He expects the submission of the site plan to come before the city’s planning commission sometime in the coming weeks.

Fuller Road Station: Phase One and Beyond

Cooper then described Phase One of the plan, which is less ambitious than the complete master concept that led off his presentation. Compared to the master concept, Phase One features a more modest bus drop-off area. Cooper compared it in function to something like the Plymouth park-and-ride lot. In Phase One, Fuller Road Station would function as a “close-in intercept park-and-ride lot.” The bus waiting room and Phase One would, in the future, be joined with an Amtrak waiting room and be more commodious than in the first phase. Phase One would not feature a bicycle station with rentals, showers and lockers, but rather enclosed bicycle lockers and bicycle hoops. The idea in Phase One, said Cooper, is to establish a piece of ownership of the station for the bicycle community. He said he could imagine organized rides originating from the station, hoping to energize the space of that plaza.

During question time, Jesse Bernstein wanted to know when the notion of stages was introduced in the process. Cooper explained that this had happened early. By way of explaining the division of the project into two phases, Cooper focused on the capital requirements. Without the reserves needed to complete the entire project, it was felt that a certain basic investment could be made, with the rest to be added later.

Sue McCormick, who serves on the AATA board as well as serving the city as its public services area administrator, related the phasing decision not just to the capital planning but also to the conceptual planning. She pointed to a meeting that had been held among around 50 people from the city and the university, as well as various other stakeholders, including AATA staff, where there had been unanimity in the room to separate the rail station from the rest of the intermodal facility. That had been a reflection of the way this site operates functionally, she said. The division of the functional components of the facility, she said, was the major driver for allowing the project to be phased.

The meeting that McCormick referred to was reported to the Ann Arbor city council by Cooper at an October 2009 work session. ["Work Session: Trains, Trash and Taxes"]:

The major change in concept resulting from the design session with stakeholders, Cooper said, was that the single building had been split into the “intermodal facility” on the eastern part of the site and the train station to the west. He described the plan to divide the project into two phases: Phase One, which would include the parking deck, a bus waiting room, and bicycle hoops; Phase Two, which would include the train station and other amenities, possibly including retail wraps.

Bernstein confirmed with Cooper that if federal dollars became available, more could be done than just Phase One. Cooper pointed out that from the Federal Railroad Administration’s point of view, the location has been approved and the environment for clearance is being prepared. That environmental study is being funded by the city of Ann Arbor as part of the city’s share of the city-university project. That funding was approved at the city council’s Aug. 17, 2009 meeting.

Fuller Road Station: Funding a Glass-Half-Fuller Rail Scenario

During question time, David Nacht asked Cooper what the odds are that the city will have train service from Detroit – or even from somewhere in western Wayne County – in the next three years. Said Cooper, alluding to Amtrak’s service, “We have it today.” But Cooper allowed that Amtrak is not regularly scheduled for commuter service. He noted that SEMCOG had intended to start in the fall with a special-event service. Although he said he could not put a number on the probability, as Nacht had requested, Cooper said he would describe it more as a “higher percentage than a lower percentage.”

Nacht then drew a contrast between living in the world of reality and living in the world of press releases. Nacht ticked off a list of SEMCOG failures with respect to the east-west rail project, including a failure to build adequate public support, and a failure to secure federal funding, and a failure to enlist adequate support from Congressman John Dingell’s office. Nacht concluded his list by stating flatly: “I do not have any faith.”

Why, Nacht asked, are we spending public dollars for a train that might never come? Cooper characterized it as a glass-as-half-full or half-empty scenario. With respect to SEMCOG’s failures, Cooper noted that class-one railroads are rather “intractable entities.” Dealing with “behemoths” that have been around hundreds of years makes it not a fair fight.

Still, Cooper said, SEMCOG had actually made significant progress – rolling stock has been acquired, for example. What happens, Cooper said, is that someone announces a date, and you fail to make the date, and everything sours. Cooper contended that east-west rail is closer today than it was before. He told Nacht, “I don’t quarrel with you in terms of some of the work that needs to be done.” But he cautioned that running a rail service is not as simple as saying, “I’m going to run a rail service.”

Nacht then cited his fiduciary duty as an AATA board member who had to look at limited resources, only some of which could be used for rail transit. Spending money on rail, he said, meant that some of those funds would be unavailable to help move people around inside this community. There was a significant risk, Nacht said, that commuter rail never happens – he said he had a responsibility to weigh that risk. Nacht wanted to know what studies show that UM workers who live in Canton will ride a train to work. He asked if there is any data backing up what was proposed as the significant capital expense. The lack of data, he said, seemed at odds with the way the board had been told – by people who included Cooper – that transit “does business.”

Cooper allowed, “I’m not here to say I have the scientific data.” However, he did point to the 25,000 to 30,000 residents of Wayne County who come to work in Washtenaw County. There had been a survey done for the north-south commuter rail project (WALLY) showing that 1,200 people in Howell had affirmed that, yes, they would ride a north-south commuter train. The east-west corridor, Cooper said, had a greater potential for ridership than the north-south, and translating the 1,200 affirmative riders for the north-south corridor meant somewhere between 3,000 to 5,000 east-west commuters.

The current lack of specific data, Cooper said, is part of the basis for the demonstration special-event service that SEMCOG is planning for the fall of 2010. The excursion service will introduce to people what it feels like to ride a train, said Cooper.

Ted Annis asked for a description of the funding. Sue McCormick gave the basic numbers as $43 million for Phase One, with 78% paid for by the university and the remainder by the city. Jesse Bernstein wanted to know what the whole project would cost if the master concept plan were to be built. Cooper said it would reflect about the same order of magnitude again, costing from $30-$40 million. Bernstein observed that Phase One “gets us a parking lot.” Cooper stressed that buses would be servicing the Phase One station.

Later in the board meeting, McCormick responded to a query from Annis about how the city of Ann Arbor was planning to contribute its roughly $10 million share to the project. McCormick indicated that the city would likely ask the AATA to step up, in the form of leveraging its ability to apply for federal funding. Specifically, she said, once the environmental impact study for the the project is completed, that will allow the local transit authority, which is the AATA in this case, to apply for federal funding. Michael Ford, AATA’s CEO, added that he’d had conversations with Congressman Dingell, as well as Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, on the topic.

In the course of his presentation, Cooper said Fuller Road Station has a magnet attraction element for funding. By way of example, he said he received a call the previous day from the Michigan Dept. of Transportation – MDOT reported that the Federal Railroad Administration is looking to do another round of funding for passenger rail. MDOT wanted to know if Ann Arbor was still interested in pursuing that kind of funding. Said Cooper, “I’m optimistic we’re going to be able to answer in the affirmative.”

Even though Fuller Road station has been presented in Phase One as consisting of a parking deck with a bus stop plus some bicycle hoops – with a train station to be built later – Cooper said he felt like the city would be “seizing the rail component sooner rather than later.”

Fuller Road Station: Public Land and Its Use

Ted Annis brought up the question of the Fuller Road Station site, calling its status as city parkland a “sticky” issue. At that, Cooper stopped Annis, saying that there were two concepts that needed to be separated: (i) city-owned land, and (ii) designation as a park in the city’s Parks and Recreation Open Space Plan (PROS Plan). Cooper stressed that the land is zoned as public land (PL), which includes 10 different acceptable uses.

Cooper was referring to the land uses specified in the city code. Of the 10, three uses are park, or park-related:

5:10.13. PL public land district.
(1) Intent. This district is designed to classify publicly-owned uses and land and permit the normal principal and incidental uses required to carry out governmental functions and services.
(2) Permitted principal uses.
(a) Outdoor public recreational uses, such as: playgrounds, playfields, golf courses, boating areas, fishing sites, camping sites, parkways and parks. No structure shall be erected or maintained upon dedicated park land which is not customarily incidental to the principal use of the land.
(b) Natural open space, such as: conservation lands, wildlife sanctuaries, forest preserves.
(c) Developed open space, such as: arboreta, botanical and zoological gardens.
(d) Educational services, such as: public primary and secondary schools, and institutions of higher education.
(e) Cultural services, such as: museums and art galleries.
(f) Public-service institutions, such as: hospitals, sanatoria, homes for the elderly, children’s homes and correctional institutions.
(g) Essential services, buildings containing essential services and electrical substations.
(h) Municipal airports.
(i) Civic center.
(j) Government offices and courts.

Annis asked about statements that the Huron Valley Group of the Sierra Club had made, contending that the land required a charter vote before it could be put to use as a transit station.

Cooper allowed that yes, people have expressed concerns about the status of the land. However, he said, title searches have been done on the property and there is no deed restriction that the land be used as a park. [The city's implicit position here is that the site is not "dedicated parkland," which has a specific legal interpretation.] Annis confirmed with Cooper that there was no issue in his mind about the legal question of the city’s ability to use the land for the purpose of the Fuller Road Station.

But James D’Amour, speaking during public comment time, disagreed with Cooper’s assessment of the public land analysis. D’Amour, who has addressed the Ann Arbor city council and the UM board of regents previously on behalf of the Huron Valley Group of the Sierra Club, stated that he was at the AATA board meeting speaking for himself on the Fuller Road Station.

He stressed that he is not opposed to rail transit and that he hoped for long-term service to be established. But the site where the station was proposed, he contended, was indeed city parkland. A 2007 vote by the citizens of Ann Arbor had modified the city charter to require a vote on the sale of any parkland, and the proposed long-term arrangement with the university without a vote would violate the spirit if not the legal requirement of the charter. D’Amour suggested that if it were put to a vote, people might be surprised at the outcome. He praised the board for asking questions about the station.

Jesse Bernstein inquired of Cooper whether there had been progress on a suggestion from a local developer for additional land development as part of the station. [One local developer who's made that kind of suggestion is Peter Allen: "Transit Forum Critiques Fuller Road Station"] Cooper said that not a lot of progress has been made in that area.

In the event that a decision were made to go in that direction, Cooper said, that would require a community conversation. If the community decided to capitalize on the potential for economic return that private development might offer, then the community would need to make that decision. What is currently proposed for the station is a public use of publicly owned land, Cooper said. Bernstein asked if the public use of publicly owned land would allow coffee shops to be included in the station. Cooper said that it would.

Fuller Road Station: Where’s Ypsilanti?

Speaking to the issue of Fuller Road Station during public commentary was Audrey Jackson, who stated that she was excited at the concept that Ann Arbor could come out of its tunnel vision. She’d just returned from Washington D.C., she said, which had what she described as a Cadillac transit system designed to impact the whole D.C. area, extending to the border of Virginia. But the planning for Fuller Road Station, she said, begins and ends in Ann Arbor.

“Where’s Ypsilanti in all this?” she asked. It’s good for Ann Arbor, she allowed, but it’s important to start looking out for other people, too. Whether it’s rail or local transit, she stressed, it is important to look out for the most needy and those who are least likely to have their own cars.

Consultant for Countywide Vision

Reporting out from the planning and development committee, Rich Robben said the most notable action item was a motion to approve a contract worth $399,805.32 with a consultant, Steer Davies Gleave, to head up the formulation of a transportation master plan (TMP). The TMP will underpin the AATA’s effort to expand its service countywide.

Ted Annis clarified that the TMP was a label for the countywide plan and was not the Ann Arbor Connector Feasibility Study.

Jesse Bernstein led off the discussion by saying it was one of the most exciting projects he’d been involved with. One of the things the community did poorly, he said, was knowing where we are going – not 2-3 years from now, but 25-30 years into the future. Bernstein echoed many of the same sentiments he had expressed at the board’s Jan. 20, 2010 meeting, when he’d emphasized that the approach to be taken would be first to figure out what kind of transit people wanted and would support. [Chronicle coverage: "AATA on Countywide Transit: READY, Aim, Fire"]

Bernstein said the consultant would start talking to people – Washtenaw Community College, Eastern Michigan University, University of Michigan – but not just elected officials and staff. There would be extensive community meetings and there’s going to be a discussion of where the community wants to be in 20-30 years, he said.

Bernstein described transit as a “chicken-and-egg thing,” saying that when you commit to transit, it will help define development and land use. He pointed to Washtenaw Avenue where it intersects with Hewitt and Golfside as examples of where high-volume transit along the corridor could result in positive development.

Step one for the consultant, Bernstein said, would be to listen and talk to everyone. That would result in a draft plan, which would be presented to the community with the question: “What do you think?” At the end of a year, he said, they’d have the vision. The governance and funding of the system would need to be looked at, he said.

It was noted that the consultant is based in London, England, which meant that they’d be getting ideas and benchmarking from around the world. CEO Michael Ford indicated that the consultant would be working out of AATA offices.

Outcome: The board voted to approve the contract with Steer Davies Gleave, with Ted Annis dissenting.

Consultants for Public Relations

AATA awarded a contract for three firms to act as its agencies of record to provide professional public relations and marketing services. In question time, Sue McCormick brought out the nature of the resolution – it was not to award a contract in a particular dollar amount to one vendor, but rather to authorize a total expenditure over three years of $350,000. Each vendor would be tasked, said McCormick, with the specific projects for which they were suited, in a relationship that was somewhat similar to having legal counsel on retainer.

The estimated cost of $350,000 breaks down as follows for each initiative:

                                     SPENT AS OF   ESTIMATED BY   
PROJECT AREA                           4/15/10       3/31/12 

Transit Master Plan Public Outreach       0         $   50,000
Comm. for Countywide Transit         $  12,000      $   12,000*   
Rebuilding Blake Transit Center           0         $   35,000
Washtenaw Avenue Transit Hub         $   1,000      $   15,000
Central Campus Transit Center             0         $   10,000
Plymouth Park & Ride Lot             $   9,000      $   13,000   
Fuller Road Station                       0         $   10,000
Dvlpmnt of “Casual” P & R Lots            0         $   15,000
WALLY                                $  50,000      $   95,000  
Employer Outreach Programs                0         $   15,000
Public Education/Image Campaigns          0         $   35,500
Board Meetings at AA Public Library       0         $    4,000
Improving Internal Comm. & Culture        0         $   15,000
Social Media                         $   1,000      $    2,500   
Other (i.e., East/West
Rail; M Ride; POSAs; Website,        $   8,000      $   23,000   
Pilot Programs                   _____________    _____________
 TOTAL                               $  81,000      $  350,000 

*Communications pertaining to Countywide Transit will be included as a
part of “Transit Master Plan Public Outreach” in future years.

-

The three vendors who will form the set from which AATA will draw expertise will be: The Rossman Group, Ilium Associates, and re:group. From Mary Stasiak, AATA’s manager of community relations, Nacht drew out the fact that two of the three vendors are local or regionally based – Rossman Group (Lansing) and re:group (Ann Arbor). He wondered why the approach seemed to be to extend existing relationships with current vendors instead of bidding out the work to a wider pool of expertise. He observed that for the development of the transportation master plan, the AATA had selected a vendor based in London, England.

Stasiak indicated that when the work had initially been bid out last year, they’d received responses from across the county. The current item was before the board, because the initially anticipated costs were not estimated to exceed $100,000. The increase to an amount exceeding $100,000 required the board’s approval, she said.

Outcome: The board voted to authorize up to $350,000 for the three-year period ending March 31, 2012. Ted Annis dissented.

Board Meeting Time and  Location: LAC and A-Ride Considerations

At the previous board meeting in March, the board voted to change its bylaws to provide for meetings on the third Thursday every month, instead of the third Wednesday, and to specify the downtown branch of the Ann Arbor District Library as the meeting location.

In his report to the board on his activities, CEO Michael Ford indicated that it would likely be August before the board began the new schedule. There are details being worked out to make sure that people who use the AATA’s A-Ride paratransit service have their needs met for the library location. From the written text of Ford’s report on his activities, which he submits to the board each month:

Brian Clouse [AATA liaison to the local advisory council (LAC)] met with Josie Parker [AADL dirctor] last week and discussed logistics for paratransit service riders to attend meetings at the library. They also discussed a notification system that could be installed at the library, by AATA, which could be activated by paratransit service drivers to provide notification to someone waiting inside the library. This solution would also allow riders to wait inside the library after the library is closed, if someone is attending a Board meeting. Staff will discuss the cost of providing such a notification system and make a recommendation on how to proceed.

A-Ride got a mention as well from Rebecca Burke, who chairs the AATA’s local advisory council (LAC). She expressed the LAC’s concern that the target window for elapsed time after calling for a ride was contemplated to increase from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. It’s often the case that riders already wait as long as 30 or 40 minutes, she cautioned, and she wondered if the increased target window would mean that riders would wait up to an hour.

In her report to the board from the LAC, Burke thanked CEO Michael Ford for his report to them on plans for reconstruction of the Blake Transit Center – he’d answered all their questions, she said.

Present: Charles Griffith, David Nacht, Ted Annis, Jesse Bernstein, Paul Ajegba, Sue McCormick, Rich Robben

Next regular meeting: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 5:30 p.m. at AATA headquarters, 2700 S. Industrial Ave., Ann Arbor [confirm date]

The city-owned Fuller Road parking lot, site of the proposed Fuller Road Station. To the south of the lot is the University of Michigan medical complex. (Photos by the writer.)

Speaking at a forum on transit-oriented development, Leinberger – a University of Michigan professor of practice in urban planning – said current plans for the joint UM/city of Ann Arbor project do a good job of incorporating different kinds of transit, from bikes and buses to perhaps, eventually, commuter rail.

But Leinberger criticized the project for taking some of Ann Arbor’s most valuable land and turning it into something that won’t generate revenue for the city. He told Eli Cooper, the city’s transportation program manager, that “whoever’s in your position 20 years from now will tear it down.”

Monday’s forum, held at the UM Art & Architecture building on north campus, was organized by members of the WALLY Coalition and the 208 Group, among others, to focus on local transit-oriented development efforts. Moderated by local developer Peter Allen, the event included presentations by Cooper, Richard Murphy of the city of Ypsilanti and Shea Charles, Howell’s city manager.

Walkable Urban vs. Drivable Sub-Urban

Chris Leinberger began his presentation by noting that Doug Kelbaugh, former dean of UM’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning, had written a book with Peter Calthorpe – “The Pedestrian Pocket Book” – in which they coined the term transit-oriented development. “So in a sense,” Leinberger said, “it started here.” [The name Calthorpe is familiar to Ann Arbor residents for another reason – the city hired Calthorpe's firm to help develop a zoning and land use strategy. The result of that work was the Calthorpe Report.]

Transportation drives development, Leinberger said. To illustrate, he outlined a post-World War II shift in America from walkable urban environments to drivable “sub-urban” settings in what he characterized as the country’s largest social engineering project. The shift was facilitated by 1) zoning laws that made walkable urban designs illegal, 2) massive subsidies for roads, and 3) finance and real estate industries that are far more comfortable with suburban development. Race played a factor, too, in pushing development out of the cities.

But the pendulum is swinging back to favor walkable urban design, Leinberger contends. Several factors are at play, including a downturn in the market that’s structural, not cyclical, he said. The suburbs are overbuilt, and demographics are changing. In the 1950s, 50% of households had children – today, only 33% do, and in the next few decades that percentage will drop even more. “The demographics are telling us something,” he said.

Chris Leinberger, a developer, UM professor of practice in urban planning and visiting fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Other factors have more to do with attitude. “Boredom is a much underrated motivation for social change,” Leinberger said, adding that people are recognizing how strip malls degrade quality of life.

Also at play: the expense of maintaining a household fleet of vehicles is no longer sustainable, Leinberger said. And a third of Americans don’t drive, either because they’re too young, too old, disabled or disinclined. “I think the days of 15 million in car sales per year are long gone,” he said.

All of this contributes to a structural change taking place in development. And high demand for walkable urban settings puts a price premium in areas like Ann Arbor, he said.

Rail transit plays an important role in making walkable urban design feasible. But paying for it is an issue, especially in an age of declining federal resources. Leinberger said we can learn from the past – 100 years ago, 80% of all rail transit was built by real estate developers, with the rest paid for by power companies.

Leinberger laid out a range of funding options for transit projects, from tax-increment financing to private special assessment districts. He believes the availability of federal funds will decrease, because “we just don’t have the money.” That’s one reason why it’s important to encourage private investment, and to change the requirements that constrain the ability to leverage private dollars for public transit. He cited a nearby example: The proposed Woodward Avenue line in downtown Detroit has backing from private investors, which the federal government initially wasn’t going to include as a match for federal funding.

What’s Happening Locally: WALLY, East-West Rail

There are two local commuter rail efforts: the Washtenaw and Livingston Line, known as WALLY, and an east-west commuter rail between Ann Arbor and Detroit. Representatives from three municipalities connected with those efforts spoke at Monday’s forum.

Howell

Shea Charles, Howell city manager, gave an overview of his city’s work as it relates to the rail project. Howell would be a terminus for WALLY, which also would include stops in Genoa Township, Hamburg and Whitmore Lake, ultimately ending in Ann Arbor. He noted that the railroad’s owners hope eventually to extend the northern route to Traverse City, and possibly go as far south as Toledo.

Charles described Howell as a classic downtown urban area, with a train depot about 2.5 blocks away from the city’s main intersection of Michigan and Grand River avenues. He said potential development around the depot could include a six-level parking deck, and noted that a portion of the site is a brownfield.

Leinberger was asked to comment on Howell’s plans, as was Susan Zielinski, managing director of UM’s SMART (Sustainable Mobility and Accessibility Research and Transformation) program. Leinberger said if the city was going to have to pay for the commuter line, they’d need to shoot for much higher density to generate more tax revenues. Tax-increment financing was viable, he said. But the problem is that site improvements like housing or retail, which create the additional tax revenue captured by TIF, also create a demand for public services, like police and fire. And if you’re using 20 years worth of TIF revenues to develop the site, other parts of the city will end up subsidizing those public services.

Susan Zielinski, managing director of UM's SMART program. SMART stands for Sustainable Mobility and Accessibility Research and Transformation.

In her response to Howell’s plans, Zielinski characterized the node as one of a string of pearls. She urged the audience to think about how the train connects to other parts of the community, as well as how the stations in different cities connect to each other. She also noted that the goal of transit is accessibility, not mobility for mobility’s sake.

Technology will be able to play a role in making these connections, she said. Imagine using your iPhone to reserve a Zipcar at the next stop, for example, or interconnecting the fares for different systems to make payments easier for commuters.

Ann Arbor

Next up was Eli Cooper, transportation program manager for the city of Ann Arbor, who gave an abbreviated version of presentation he’d made at a Feb. 10 public forum. He described Fuller Road Station as an intermodal “mecca,” with the ultimate goal of creating a hub for commuters into Ann Arbor near one of the city’s major employers, the University of Michigan Health System.

Peter Allen noted that in terms of development, the Broadway Village at Lowertown – a mixed-use project that he described as being  “trapped by the economic downturn” – was only four blocks from the proposed transit station.

Leinberger said the Fuller Road site was “golden” in terms of future development, given its proximity to the Huron River and the premium put on land in that area. He suggested building an underground structure, if possible. Another idea – one he said would likely get Cooper “hung” – was to narrow Fuller Road, making it more walkable.

But fundamentally, a parking structure will under-utilize the land, Leinberger said, and drive out every other type of development. It won’t generate revenues on the site, he said, and in 20 years will be torn down to accommodate something more appropriate – “because the land will be too valuable.”

In her critique, Zielinski said she liked the variety of transit options planned for the site, but thought it should be more of a mixed-use development.

Cooper noted that the site is designated as city parkland, which puts some constraints on development. But he also argued that the project is important because it would support one of the mainstays of the regional and state economy – the University of Michigan. He said that one of the suggestions from the city’s park advisory commission was to find a way to bring more active uses to the site. He said the structure will be built to be strong enough to support additional levels of housing on it in the future, but that finances will drive those decisions. Fundamentally, though, the project must be done in phases. “Crawl before you walk,” he said. “Walk before you run.”

Ypsilanti

The third city project was presented by Richard Murphy, an Ypsilanti city planner who recently accepted a job at the Michigan Suburbs Alliance – a nonprofit led by Conan Smith, who’s also a Washtenaw County commissioner. Ypsilanti’s train depot is in the Depot Town district, located between two parks – Riverside to the south and Frog Island to the north – which draw thousands of people to various festivals each year. The Eastern Michigan University campus to the northwest is another major player, Murphy said, with about 22,000 students and a fast-growing enrollment.

The freighthouse at the train depot is being rehabbed, Murphy said, and there are about 18 acres of a mostly abandoned industrial facility along the river to the north of Depot Town, which could be developed. But “downzoning” has been a trend in the city, he said, shifting toward single-family residential and away from higher-density zoning. Within a quarter-mile radius of the train depot, roughly a third of the land is zoned for single-family homes. There’s also resistance from Depot Town business owners to the commuter rail project, he said, adding that the political consensus for transit-oriented development isn’t there yet.

Murphy also noted that the city might have a “TIF allergy” – they used that strategy to finance redevelopment of the Water Street area along Michigan Avenue, but the land still stands vacant. The city is counting on TIF revenues to help pay $31 million in bonds over a 20-year period.

In responding to the project, Leinberger said that NIMBY opposition can be a critical hurdle to overcome for any type of high-density development. Giving examples from the Washington D.C. area, he said people were finally figuring out that a more walkable, urban environment yields a better quality of life – and accounts for a higher price premium on housing in those kinds of areas.

Leinberger also cautioned that if this region doesn’t invest in the commuter rail, “you’re going to be toast.” To prevent being stuck in a 20th-century economy, he said, rail is key to economic survival.

Southeast Michigan

Wrapping up the presentations was Dick Carlisle of the Ann Arbor planning firm Carlisle/Wortman Associates. Carlisle cited political fragmentation as the single most important obstacle in achieving transit-oriented development. This region has the resources, he said, but not the common vision.

There are over 50 units of government in Washtenaw and Livingston counties, Carlisle noted, and the regional economy will only prosper through collaboration. That effort must include leadership from the universities as well. He proposed forming a Green Growth Alliance, with WALLY as its transit spine, to develop a green and technology-based regional economy via a partnership of the public, private and institutional sectors.

Davy Rothbart signs autographs before the start of Monday's transit forum. The publisher of FOUND Magazine had been speaking at an unrelated event in the same lecture hall, but The Chronicle did find a tenuous connection: In a June 2009 interview on Asylum.com, Rothbart talked about good spots for finding material: "Public transportation like buses and subway trains always seem to attract found stuff."

At left: Architect John Mouat, a member of the Fuller Road Station design team, talks with Eli Cooper, the city's transportation program manager, before the start of the Feb. 10 citizen participation forum. Mouat is a partner in the Ann Arbor firm of Mitchell and Mouat. (Photos by the writer.)

For Eli Cooper, the city of Ann Arbor’s transportation program manager, a project like the proposed Fuller Road Station happens “once in a lifetime” – an opportunity for the city, he says, to take a vision and make it reality in a fairly short time.

What it will take to reach that reality was the topic of a Feb. 10 public meeting on the Fuller Road Station, a joint University of Michigan/city of Ann Arbor project. Its first phase entails a parking structure with about 1,000 spaces – nearly 80% of them earmarked for UM use.

But much of the presentation by city staff and members of the design team focused on the broader goals for that site, which they hope will eventually include a train station for commuter rail.

Beyond Phase 1

Eli Cooper began his comments by putting the Fuller Road Station into the context of the city’s overall efforts to increase alternative forms of public transportation. Ann Arbor is a regional employment center, he said, but rather than invest in wider roads and more parking, the long-term goal is to leave the cars outside the city and find other ways to bring people to work.

For this, commuter rail is crucial, he said. That includes a proposed north-south rail known as WALLY, which would run between Ann Arbor and Howell, as well as an Ann Arbor-to-Detroit rail, with stops in Ypsilanti, metro Detroit airport and Dearborn.

These two railroad lines cross but aren’t connected, Cooper said, so the idea was to create a local connector system. The east-west line, owned by the Norfolk Southern Railroad, runs past Washtenaw County’s largest employer – the UM medical complex, with more than 17,000 workers – so it made sense to start there. [The north-south track runs through downtown Ann Arbor.] City staff looked for a site where the concept could actually work, with major roadways and less than three acres of publicly-owned land, near the east-west railroad. Looking at the Fuller Road property, which has been leased by the city to UM since 1993, “it didn’t take a lot of thinking to say, ‘We can do this,’” Cooper said.

Site plan for Phase 1 of the Fuller Road Station. (Image links to larger file)

The concept was brought to city council, which endorsed it, Cooper said. [In May 2009, city council approved $80,000 as its portion of a feasibility study for the project. In August, council approved a professional services contract with JJR for conceptual design, environmental assessment and engineering work, and set a budget of $541,717. The council approved the master plan concept, an additional $111,228 for work by JJR, and a memorandum of understanding with UM in November.]

As for the Detroit-to-Ann Arbor commuter rail project, Cooper noted that a representative from SEMCOG recently made a presentation to the city council, reinforcing that it’s a “go project,” with a target launch date of Oct. 25, 2010. If the commuter rail takes off and several hundred people need a place to park their cars, Amtrak will feel pressure to accommodate those commuters, Cooper said. [Amtrak officials have not committed to moving the train station from its Depot Street location to Fuller Road.] Cooper said that the Ann Arbor Amtrak is the highest-volume station in Michigan, and second only to downtown Chicago along the Chicago-to-Detroit corridor.

Cooper said that 98% of commuters into Ann Arbor come by vehicle, and that Fuller Road is a major artery used by vehicles as well as the AATA and UM bus system. The Fuller Road Station will include an indoor bus waiting room and a loading platform for those buses, with the hopes of getting regional carriers – like Greyhound and Michigan Flyer – to use the facility, too. There will also be bike lockers and bike hoops in the first phase of Fuller Road Station, Cooper said. Eventually, the structure might include showers and a maintenance area for cyclists, he said.

The structure will have about 1,000 parking spaces, plus another 50 spaces in an adjacent surface lot. Cooper said the parking structure is expected to be nearly full from the time it opens in 2012 – there might be need for additional parking when the commuter rail launches, he said.

In wrapping up his presentation, Cooper described the first phase as “modest,” but said that it has already attracted attention from federal transit officials. He’s hopeful it will attract additional investment to bring the future phases into reality as quickly as possible.

What Will It Look Like?

Dick Mitchell, of the Ann Arbor firm of Mitchell and Mouat, is one of the project’s architects, and spoke about the process of designing Fuller Road Station. He began his part of the presentation with three questions that he said they hoped to get feedback on:

1. Are there qualities of the Ann Arbor area that you feel could inspire design of the Fuller Road Station?
2. Are there special experiences, relationships or visual images within this area of Ann Arbor that you feel could be acknowledged and/or reflected in the design of Fuller Road Station?
3. Are there unique qualities about the vision for the master plan of the Fuller Road Station as both a gateway and/or transportation hub that might inspire the design of the station?

Dick Mitchell, an Ann Arbor architect who's working on the design for the Fuller Road Station.

Though all of the people on the design team have been Ann Arbor residents, Mitchell said, he hoped that people from the Fuller Road neighborhood would weigh in with design suggestions, based on their familiarity with the area.

At the city council’s Nov. 5 2009 meeting, Ward 1 representative to the council, Sandi Smith, expressed her hope that the design would be significant, and Ward 2 representative Tony Derezinski echoed that sentiment, saying that it would be a welcome center for Ann Arbor.

At the Feb. 10 meeting on Fuller Road Station, Mitchell said his team had spent considerable time thinking about the site and its connection to the Huron River and river valley. Using maps of the area, he showed how the site fits into the system of city parks along that stretch and the county’s Border-to-Border trails, describing the river as “an incredible force.”

While the natural environment dominates the east and north, the more urban environment – including the “citadel-like presence” of the UM medical complex – dominates the areas to the south and west. The medical buildings, with horizontal lines interrupted by vertical spires, give the design team its “architectural language,” Mitchell said. “We don’t know what that means to us yet, but we’re pondering.”

Later in the meeting, someone in the audience asked whether the design for the Fuller Road Station would be like the parking structure at Fourth & Washington, which Mitchell and Mouat also designed. It’s going to be quite different, Mitchell responded, “but just as nice.”

Questions from the Audience

The 30 or so people who attended Wednesday’s forum, held in city council chambers, were given notecards and asked to write whatever questions or comments they had about the project. Those cards were collected and Connie Pulcipher, a senior planner with the city, read some of them to the group. Different members of the project team fielded the questions – others, particularly those related to financial concerns, were deferred. Pulcipher said that all questions and comments would be compiled and posted on the city’s website for the project.

Here’s a sampling:

Will traffic lights be added to the entrance off of Fuller Road? Les Sipowski, a traffic engineer with the city, said they didn’t believe traffic signals were necessary. Boulevards like Fuller Road have “a ton of capacity,” he said. Two new crossovers between the eastbound and westbound lanes will be added.

Will the existing soccer field be removed? No. The field to the east of the site will remain.

Will users of the nearby parks continue to have free parking? Eli Cooper said there’s a firm commitment to the parks that during off-peak hours on nights and weekends, parking will continue to be available.

What’s the likelihood that non-residents commuting into Ann Arbor will actually use alternative transit, even if this station is built? Eli Cooper said there was no research specifically tied to the use of the station, but that surveys conducted to study the feasibility of commuter rail between Lansing and Detroit indicated that people would be willing to use that form of transportation. Jim Kosteva, UM director of community relations, said the university provides a range of alternative transportation options, and that now up to 40% of employees come to work in something other than a single-occupancy vehicle. [However, efforts by the AATA over the last year  to introduce express commuter bus service from Chelsea to Ann Arbor and from Canton to Ann Arbor have not been as successful as hoped in developing ridership.]

Is there evidence of future need for this facility? Eli Cooper pointed to SEMCOG studies forecasting that Ann Arbor would add 18,900 jobs through 2035. However, since the city’s population is expected to grow by only 1,800 people, he said, that means a lot of workers will be needing transportation to get from their homes to their workplaces in Ann Arbor. Jim Kosteva added that another reason for the facility is to reduce the area’s carbon footprint. He also noted that a significant number of UM employees live along the proposed commuter rail route between Ann Arbor and Detroit, particularly in the Ypsilanti area.

What plans does UM have for the former Pfizer site? Jim Kosteva said the university is undergoing a major planning effort for what’s now called the North Campus Research Complex, or NCRC, led by the Medical School, the UM Health System and the College of Engineering. As it relates to the Fuller Road Station, he said they expect the area to see employment growth, which will add to the need for transportation as people shuttle between the NCRC, the medical campus, central campus and their homes.

Will there be any private development at the site? Peer hospitals like the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic have supported nearby development of hotels, restaurants and retail, creating a real sense of place. Does the university plan to do the same near the Fuller Road Station? Eli Cooper said there were ample opportunities for that type of development in the nearby Lower Town area. Jim Kosteva said that UM is focusing on the delivery of health care. They do operate the Med Inn, he said, which has 30 rooms. Sue Gott, a university planner, added that UM’s mission is focused on academics, research and clinical care. They look to the private sector to provide other kinds of development. Kosteva then noted that the hospital’s cafeteria food is quite good.

At left: Cresson Slotten, senior project manager with the city, sorts through questions and comments written on notecards by people attending the Feb. 10 Fuller Road Station forum. Slotten is consulting with Eli Cooper, center, and Dave Dykman, a project manager for the city.

Isn’t the proposed train service a demonstration project? Yes, said Eli Cooper, the initial service planned as soon as the fall of 2010 would be a smaller scale service. [See Chronicle coverage of the Feb. 1 city council meeting where Carmine Polombo of the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG)  gave an update on proposed commuter rail service between Detroit and Ann Arbor. Polombo described the initial service offerings as likely to be limited to day trips for special events, like UM football games.]

What’s the estimated increase in train traffic? The SEMCOG demonstration service will start with four round trips each day, increasing to eight over time, Eli Cooper said. He envisions the service will eventually have between 16-18 round trips daily, with three to four per hour during peak commuting times.

What will the impact be on surrounding home values – for example, on Cedar Bend Drive? Eli Cooper said that in other cities where he’s lived – New York and Philadelphia – there’s a premium associated with housing that has immediate access to rail transportation.

What’s the timeframe for the commuter rail? A feasibility study will be completed this year, Eli Cooper said. Two years after that, an environmental impact study will be conducted, followed by engineering and design for an additional two to three years. It would take two or three years to build, he said – so the entire project would likely take a decade to complete. Coming up with local funding would streamline the process, he said, rather than relying on federal and state dollars. He projected a range of three to ten years, “if ever.”

Will UM compensate city voters for the long-term use of parkland? Eli Cooper said there’s a continuing commitment to city parks, through the city’s memorandum of understanding with UM. The facility will be city-owned, he said, so there’ll be no transfer of parkland to the university. And since the parkland isn’t going to be sold, he said, it’s not necessary to bring the city charter into the discussion. [He was referring to a charter requirement, approved by voters in November 2008, that the sale of city parkland be authorized through a voter referendum.]

Has a land swap with UM been considered to compensate for the use of city parkland? The lease of the land to UM for a parking lot generates revenues for the parks system, Eli Cooper said. The project team, he added, welcomed suggestions for how they can enhance the park user’s experience. He noted that they were planning to integrate “active art” into the facility’s design, though he did not specify what that might entail.

Why will the city be getting less money from UM in the future than it does from the current annual leasing agreement of $31,000? Connie Pulcipher said they couldn’t provide the answer to financial questions that night. Jim Kosteva, representing UM, read from the memorandum of understanding between the university and the city, which states that UM will be paying 78% of a $24,846 operating cost, and that money will go to the city’s parks and recreation unit. That amount – $24,846 – will increase by 3% each year over a 30-year period. In addition, UM will make two payments of $31,057 to parks and recreation between Sept. 1, 2010 through Aug. 31, 2012 – the period of construction. [.pdf file of the memorandum of understanding] The current surface parking lot at the site has 250 spaces.

Who’s paying for all this? Eli Cooper called the financing “very much a work in progress.” The city is working with the Congressional delegation that represents this area to help secure federal funding, and is working with the Michigan Department of Transportation to find state dollars. There will also be revenue generated from users of the facility, he said, adding that more financial analysis is needed.

[According to the memorandum of understanding, UM will pay for 78% of the cost of design and construction of the facility; the city of Ann Arbor will pay 22%. According to the city's capital improvements plan, which the city council postponed for consideration at its Feb.1 meeting, the city's share of $5.36 million would come from the city’s economic development fund. Minus the city's obligation to Google for parking incentives, the economic development fund currently has a balance of around $700,000. ]

Why not have a real public hearing? The city staff has been directed by council to fully engage the public, Eli Cooper said. He has made presentations at the park advisory commission, the planning commission and city council. There are requirements related to public hearings for the environmental impact study, he said, as well as at other points in the development process.

What are the plans for public art? After the forum, The Chronicle queried Dave Dykman, a project manager for the city, about a topic raised at the Feb. 9 meeting of the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission. At that meeting, commissioners discussed the possibility of an art consultant being hired to oversee the integration of public art into the Fuller Road Station’s design. Dykman clarified that the project had a line-item for public art at about $250,000. He said it wasn’t clear yet whether an art consultant would be paid for out of those funds, or whether other funding would be available.

Comments from the Audience

Several people gave comments as well. Here’s a few:

• Preserve as many trees as possible, include underground parking, and try to minimize the structure by blending it into the existing natural area on the site.
• Include a place for large meetings.
• Restrooms, showers and other amenities should be fully accessible.
• In the design, consider the entire history of transportation and the surrounding natural environment, from the beginning of time.

All questions and comments will be posted on the city’s Fuller Road Station website, Connie Pulcipher said, where other information about the project is available. She also encouraged people to sign up for email alerts from the city about upcoming meetings, or to look at the Tree Town Log, a city calendar of events and meetings.

Project Timeline

Dave Dykman, a project manager for the city, concluded the meeting by giving an overview of the project schedule. He noted that the conceptual plan has been approved by both the city council and the UM regents.

An environmental assessment is ongoing, and is expected to conclude in the fall of 2010. Dykman said they don’t expect any significant findings, but it’s a necessary component for federal funding.

Efforts at community engagement will continue. There will be a presentation to the city’s park advisory commission at its March 16 meeting, and another public meeting similar to Wednesday’s will be held at a yet-to-be-determined date. In addition, the project will be taken to the city’s planning commission for approval, possibly this spring or summer, and there will be a public hearing associated with that process.

In the late spring, workers will relocate utilities that are on the site, including an electrical transmission line that runs above the property and a major sanitary sewer pipe located underneath the proposed building’s footprint.

Design and engineering for the project began about a month ago, Dykman said. The plan will likely be presented to city council in mid-summer, with a public hearing at that time as well. Early foundation work would start next winter, with construction through 2012.