From AnnArbor.com:

The vision for a high-capacity transit system in Ann Arbor — either light rail, streetcar or bus rapid transit — is taking shape with preliminary route alternatives now mapped.

Officials behind the Ann Arbor Connector project have released documents showing a series of possible options for connecting some of the city’s major activity centers.

Each scenario proposes connecting the University of Michigan’s North and Central campuses, while also linking to the university medical center, downtown and Briarwood Mall.

Four partners are involved in the ongoing Connector study: the city of Ann Arbor, Downtown Development Authority, Ann Arbor Transportation Authority and U-M.

The work being done now is aimed at determining possible routes, station locations and a service plan. The next step heading into the fall is to further evaluate costs and benefits.

The process of closely examining different options for the Connector started late last year and is expected to culminate in early 2014 with the selection of a locally preferred alternative, said Rick Nau of URS Corp., project manager for the Connector study.

After the study is completed, there will be a good idea of the costs, Nau said, and the project should be well positioned to receive federal funds for future implementation.

“My assessment at this point is that in Ann Arbor we’re talking about a very high level of ridership and a very high potential for travel time savings, so my belief is it would rank very high,” he said.

Nau said federal funds have been provided for systems like the proposed Ann Arbor Connector under the Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts program.

“That New Starts program provides about 50 percent of the capital costs,” he said. “It’s a highly competitive program. Cities all across the country compete for these dollars.”

While that would be the primary source of federal funding, Nau said, Portland’s streetcar system, for example, was funded by about a dozen different sources ranging from parking revenues to tax-increment financing to state air quality mitigation funds.

Read more: http://www.annarbor.com/news/connector-vision-for-high-capacity-transit-in-ann-arbor-taking-shape-with-possible-routes-mapped/

From The Grand Rapids Press:

The city has extended a parking-lot lease with Megabus.com for one more year.

The bus service that sells rides for as little as $1 will pay $2,000 per month through June 2014 to use a city-owned lot at the southwest corner of Wealthy Street and Market Avenue SW for passenger boarding and unloading. This is the same lease fee paid to the city when Megabus started providing service to Grand Rapids last summer.

“We have been happy with Megabus for the most part and are working out a few details on their loading and unloading,” said Chris Zull, the city’s traffic safety manager. “I expect that they will be doing their loading and unloading from within the parking lot when possible.”

The terms of the lease prohibit Megabus from parking buses in the Wealthy or Market right-of-ways to board and unload passengers.

Megabus provides services from Grand Rapids to Chicago, Detroit and East Lansing for fares as low as $1. A one-way Aug. 21 ticket to Detroit was selling this morning for $1 to $3, for example, while a 1-way July 21 ticket to East Lansing was selling for $3 and a 1-way June 21 ticket to Chicago was selling for $29 to $34.

“The best way to get the lowest fares is to book 30 to 45 days in advance of travel,” said Mike Alvich, Megabus.com vice president of marketing. “We’re seeing constant growth – slow, steady, but constant growth since we started. We’re happy with the service so much so that we increased the capacity on our buses.

“The goal now is to make more and more people aware that it’s there.”

Megabus does not plan to change any services in Grand Rapids, Alvich said.

Source: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2013/06/megabus_lease_of_grand_rapids.html

From The Grand Rapids Press:

More than a year and a half after its official groundbreaking ceremony, Grand Rapids’ new Amtrak station finally is being built.

Crews began moving earth this week to prepare for the $5.1 million facility’s construction after more than a year of delays pushed back the highly anticipated project’s start date.

“It’s been a long time, really, because we always planned on this being a truly intermodal station,” said Peter Varga, CEO of The Rapid bus system, which is spearheading the project.

The new station, which will be named for former West Michigan congressman Vern Ehlers, is expected to be built by December, and operational by April 2014, Varga said.

Ehlers joined a smattering of local officials for an October 2011 groundbreaking ceremony at the station’s site, just south of Rapid Central Station near the Wealthy Street overpass.

Work building the station was slow to begin after the ceremony because of prolonged talks between the Michigan Department of Transportation and CSX Corp., which owns the railroad to which the station will connect.

Those talks, on switching and signaling on the tracks, were resolved last month, giving project leaders a green light to begin building the new facility.

Once the new station is operational next year, the existing Amtrak station at the corner of Wealthy Street and Market Avenue will be decommissioned.

Calling the new station “intermodal” means, in essence, multipurpose. For travelers, it means the ability to access commuting options in one area.

A person, for example, would be able to ride a Rapid, Greyhound or Indian Trails bus to Central Station and hop aboard a Chicago-bound train, or the other way around.

“Even back in 2004,” when Rapid Central Station opened, “that was part of our plan,” Varga said. “It’s been a long time in the making, which is why sometimes you just have to be patient and you have to be diligent.”

The station is being paid for using $3.8 million in federal funding earmarked by Ehlers during his time in Congress (though he later voted against the bill that contained the money).

The Downtown Development Authority also funneled $850,000 to the project, which will be used to build the actual brick-and-mortar station.

The city of Grand Rapids also fronted several hundred-thousand to reinforce a sewer line beneath the station, and to relocate a fiber optic cable conduit at the site.

Project leaders are able to spend as much as $5.9 million on the project, per guidelines approved by the Interurban Transit Partnership, which operates The Rapid.

Eventually, officials hope the new station allows Amtrak to add a second daily trip between Grand Rapids and Chicago.

Now, the Pere Marquette Line only runs to and from Chicago once per day. The line saw a ridership decrease for the first six months of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2012.

Still, the line also has grown by leaps and bounds, and its ridership gains since 1997 have far outpaced Amtrak’s other Michigan routes.

Source: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2013/06/work_begins_on_grand_rapids_ne.html#/3

From AnnArbor.com:

Nick Tobier and his 3-year-old son Oscar weren’t planning on getting on a train Friday, but after passing by the railcar parked in downtown Ann Arbor, they had to check it out.

“It’s fantastic, we love it,” Tobier said, while Oscar offered a one-word review of the refurbished railcar for the proposed Ann Arbor-to-Detroit commuter rail service: “Good.”

“We’re really big supporters of public transit and anything that links Ann Arbor to Detroit,” said Tobier, an Ann Arbor resident who teaches at the University of Michigan. “I work with schools in Detroit, so I’m in Detroit anywhere from three to five days a week, and I would be very happy not to drive.

Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje offers remarks at a special unveiling event on Friday while standing in front of the refurbished railcar.

Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com

“And we as a family are in Detroit for many things on the weekends, so we’d take it all the time — a Tigers game or Eastern Market. Plus the social aspect of the train is nice.”

Friday’s unveiling of the railcar took place in advance of the Mayor’s Green Fair in downtown Ann Arbor, and it marked the first-ever public display of the commuter railcar.

It’s one of a number of railcars being refurbished for two proposed commuter rail services — the east-west Ann Arbor-to-Detroit line and the north-south WALLY line linking Ann Arbor and Howell.

Representatives from the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan Department of Transportation, Southeast Michigan Council of Governments and others were on hand for the railcar’s unveiling on Friday.

Read more: http://www.annarbor.com/news/ann-arbor-mayor-commuter-rail-to-detroit-can-be-a-reality-in-3-years-with-rta-support/