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
Leave a Reply