Fuller Road Station: Parsing the Mayor’s Letter

As we said in a previous post, Mayor John Hieftje wrote many of us a letter regarding Fuller Road Station on July 28, and it deserves serious consideration.  Problem is, this is a multilayered issue, and his letter skips around quite a bit, addressing different topics and making a number of assertions.

The topics in his letter can roughly be categorized in this way:

1.  Parking: The current proposal is, after, all for a parking structure for the UM.  The mayor addresses some points brought up about that.

2. Jobs: He brings up several points regarding the jobs being added at the UM.

3. He makes quite a few points about transit, especially commuter rail.  Actually, the existing plans for FRS do not explicitly address this, but it is clearly from his viewpoint the major point.

4. Parks: Since much of the opposition has come from those who are concerned with the conversion of parkland to a permanent parking structure, he addresses this issue (note, the paragraphs on this subject are much longer than most of the others in the letter).

5. TOD: The mayor inserts (rather oddly, from my viewpoint) the concept of Transit-Oriented Development into his promotion of FRS.  Transit-Oriented Development is the idea that if you build commuter rail (or other reliable transit solutions), people will want to live near that.  I heartily concur.  My local bus stop is part of the amenities for which I pay Ann Arbor taxes.  But the point of TOD is that it will support future development.

6. Fiscal: The mayor discusses fiscal aspects of the project, including the advantage of the UM’s contribution.

7. Other:  A couple of additional comments, including amenities for the Border-to-Border trail, traffic, and stormwater.

I have now attempted to parse his comments, by enumerating and typifying them as to category.

Here is a slightly altered (only by adding numbers to paragraphs with separate subjects) version of his letter.  I went through his letter and labeled each point according to the categories listed.  Here is the result:

As you see, the Transit category is by far the most emphasized. Though the current plan is essentially a parking structure for the UM, the mayor’s major emphasis is on a future plan for commuter rail and other transit enhancements.

Each of these points deserves separate discussions.  I hope to bring those forward in future posts.

Explore posts in the same categories: civic finance, Transportation

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