Local in Ann Arbor

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.

This entry was posted on August 21, 2011 at 9:08 pm and is filed under civic finance, Transportation. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.