From MLive.com
Shifting gears away from the bridge issue and the politics surrounding it, Matthew Moroun and reporter Jeff Wattrick discussed the Gateway Project controversy, plans to renovate the iconic Michigan Central Station and how the Moroun organization manages its local real estate holdings.
Read more: http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/07/the_matthew_moroun_interview_r.html
From the Dearborn Patch
Several resolutions were passed at Monday night’s Dearborn City Council meeting moving things forward with Dearborn’s Intermodal Passenger Rail Facility.
Effective at the meeting, Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly is authorized to finalize and execute an agreement between the Michigan Department of Transportation and the city–as well as the city and Amtrak–for the final design and construction of the station.
Also relating to the train station, two-year contracts were awarded for matters relating to construction of the facility. The first, for $1,726,300, was awarded to Tooles-Clark for construction management of risk services. The second, for $1,929,312, was awarded to Neumann Smith for architectural and engineering services.
The $28.2-million project is funded by a grant from the Federal Rail Administration Act.
The project, which will create a new train station off of Michigan Avenue just west of the Southfield Freeway, is anticipated to open doors for the city of Dearborn, city officials have said. The station would include commuter trains to Ann Arbor, as well as walkways to Dearborn hot spots–including west downtown, The Henry Ford and the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
Source: http://dearborn.patch.com/articles/dearborn-train-station-construction-to-move-forward
From an Indian Trails press release
Michigan Flyer — the airport shuttle service of Indian Trails, Inc., and Okemos Travel — plans to add a new I-96 route this fall, doubling the number of trips it makes each day between East Lansing and Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
Currently, Michigan Flyer offers luxury motor coach service along the I-94 corridor between East Lansing, Jackson, Ann Arbor and Detroit Metro.
To establish the new route on the I-96 corridor between East Lansing, Howell, Brighton, and the Detroit airport, Michigan Flyer is seeking a one-time grant of $1.5 million from the federal Transportation, Community, and System Preservation Program (TCSP) to help fund start-up operations. The new route is expected to become self-sustaining in its second year of operation.
“The new route will make airport shuttle service available to communities along I-96 for the first time,” said Indian Trails President Gordon Mackay. “It also represents a major improvement in convenience for other travelers in mid-Michigan, because it will double the frequency of trips — from 7 to 14 per day — between East Lansing, Ann Arbor and Detroit Metro. That will enable us to offer hourly departures, which many passengers have told us they want.”
To begin the new route, Michigan Flyer would contribute $390,000 in matching funds/in-kind value toward operations and invest $1.5 million of its own funds to purchase three new luxury motor coaches.
Public-Private Partnership
The TCSP Program funds public-private partnerships to improve the efficiency of the transportation system, reduce environmental impacts of transportation, reduce the need for costly future public infrastructure investments, and ensure efficient access to jobs, services and centers of trade.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation and studies by many other authorities, public-private partnerships in transportation often result in significant cost savings, shorter project development times, less public sector financial, operational, and maintenance risk, and greater innovation.
Indian Trails and Michigan Flyer are privately owned providers of public transportation services. A significant percentage of Indian Trails inter-city routes statewide are subsidized by the State of Michigan.
The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is sponsoring Michigan Flyer’s application for the TCSP grant. Michigan Flyer plans to begin the new service as early as Nov. 15, 2011, to serve the public during the peak holiday travel season.
The new I-96 project cannot proceed without the TCSP funding.
Green Transportation Alternative
“MDOT realizes that travelers need alternatives to filling their cars with $3.50-per-gallon gasoline, fighting highway congestion, and paying $10-$18 per day for airport parking,” said Indian Trails Vice President Chad Cushman. “MDOT is also interested in reducing air pollution, conserving energy, and improving highway safety. Michigan Flyer is by far the greenest, most fuel-efficient and safest way to get to the Detroit airport. Plus, with our free WiFi and electrical outlets, passengers stay connected and productive while riding in comfort.”
“Also, Michigan Flyer runs both ways,” Cushman noted. “So the new I-96 route would, for the first time, enable daily commuters from Southeast Michigan, Brighton, and Howell to reach Lansing-area businesses, education and health institutions, and recreation and entertainment venues.”
Support for Michigan Flyer Application
In addition to MDOT, Michigan Flyer’s grant application is supported by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Rep. Mike Rogers, officials at Michigan State University and University of Michigan, the Michigan Environmental Council, Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers, and communities along the I-96 corridor.
“I am impressed by the efforts of Michigan Flyer to improve regional mass transit and enhance the quality of life,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow wrote to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in June. “I hope you will give their proposal your strong consideration.”
On July 5, the Capital Area Regional Transportation Study (CARTS) committee of the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission voted overwhelmingly to recommend planning commission support for Michigan Flyer’s proposal by adding it to the “illustrative list” of transportation improvement projects for TCSP consideration. The planning commission is expected to act on the proposal at its July 27 meeting.
Indian Trails, Inc. — which has served as Michigan’s premiere, family-owned, inter-city motor coach carrier for more than 100 years, and is based in Owosso—operates one of the largest and newest fleets of deluxe motor coaches in Michigan. Its services include charters, tours, shuttles, airport transfers, casino runs and daily scheduled routes throughout Michigan and into Chicago and Milwaukee. On the web at http://www.indiantrails.com/.
The Michigan Flyer — whose motto is “Why Drive?” — offers affordable, seamless, luxury motor coach connections between Lansing, Jackson, Ann Arbor, and Detroit Metro Airport. Jointly owned by Indian Trails and Okemos Travel, Michigan Flyer has carried nearly 400,000 passengers since its launch in November 2006 — and has achieved an extraordinary 99 percent rate of on-time arrivals and departures. On the web at http://www.michiganflyer.com/.
From Michigan Technology News
The headlines have been written about the federal government allocating hundreds
of millions of dollars to support a high-speed passenger rail line between
Detroit and Chicago, but residents won’t see that speedy service until the state
wraps up negotiations with Norfolk Southern, which owns most of the rail line
Amtrak uses.
Amtrak’s Wolverine Route, which runs from Pontiac to Detroit and then
onto Chicago, includes shared usage of Norfolk Southern’s 135 miles of rail
between Dearborn and Kalamazoo.
According to a House Fiscal Agency memo outlining the issue, Norfolk
Southern has indicated that with a decline in the freight business, that track’s
79 mph standard doesn’t need to be maintained – and in fact they have reduced
train speed along 41 miles of the stretch to 60 miles per hour.
That slowdown order from 2010 is supposed to be extended to the rest of
the track, as Norfolk Southern has said its freight business only requires a 25
mph standard.
“The (Department of Transportation) has indicated that the gradual
downgrading of this line threatens the reliability of rail passenger service on
the route and could offset improvements in train speed made to the Amtrak-owned
segment of the route,” the fiscal agency states.
Amtrak runs at 95 mph on the track it owns, but intends to increase that
speed to 110 miles per hour once system upgrades are met. Allowing 76 percent of
the Wolverine route to be at that standard cuts an hour off the commute.
Janet Foran, spokesperson for MDOT, said Monday the state continues to
negotiate with Norfolk Southern, but that talks are “complex” and will take
time.
This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on
Gongwer.Com
From Crain’s Detroit Business
The proposed Woodward Avenue light rail project is in jeopardy.
The private consortium of investors that has pledged $100 million toward the project’s $528 million cost doesn’t have faith in the Detroit Department of Transportation‘s plan and won’t provide funding until it does, sources familiar with the situation told Crain’s.
The group of prominent Detroit businessmen and organizations, M1 Rail, doesn’t think the nine-mile-long, streetcar-style rail line between the city limit at Eight Mile Road and downtown, as proposed, is the best use of the funding, is financially sustainable or is the best layout and alignment.
The city’s plan also fails to tie the line into any future regional mass transit systems, sources say, and that has M1 balking at financial assistance.
The $100 million is crucial because it’s part of the $210 million in required local match money needed by DDOT to leverage funding under the Federal Transit Administration‘s New Starts program, which is aimed at partially funding qualified local transit projects such as rail. Washington would pay $318 million of the cost if the project’s New Starts application — expected this summer — is approved.
Without the M1 money, the project could be doomed because the city doesn’t have backup funding to replace any lost private money. The city is generating its share of matching money through the sale of bonds and state and federal grants. (See “The Funding Train,” right, on this page.)
The city has not been told that money will be withheld, said Bob Berg, partner and vice president at Detroit-based Berg Muirhead and Associates and a spokesman for the city on the rail project.
“There’s been a good-faith effort to accommodate all the interested parties, including M1 and the public,” he said.
The city doesn’t have an alternate local match plan because it has no reason to believe M1 won’t provide its $100 million, he said.
“You’re always going to have bumps along the road. That doesn’t necessarily stop you,” Berg said. “This always has been a fairly complex situation. The city has been trying to keep everyone in the loop all along.”
DDOT must have the funding sorted out by the fall, when preliminary engineering begins.
Deafening silence
M1 Rail has been conspicuously quiet since Mayor Dave Bing announced June 29 that the city had committed to a particular route and mixed center-running and curbside alignment for the streetcar-style system — plans that irritated some of the private backers who preferred different options, insiders have said.
M1 Rail’s members don’t want to fund a project they believe will fail — the fear is being linked to a little-used system belittled as “People Mover 2” — but they also don’t want to be viewed as the ones who killed light rail, insiders say.
One member, however, has broken his silence.
Rip Rapson, CEO of the Troy-based Kresge Foundation that has pledged $35 million toward the rail effort as part of M1, told The Wall Street Journal in a story on July 2 that the organization was reconsidering its financial commitment — something that it can use as leverage in talks with the city.
“Are we going to pull our money out? We won’t just because we’re annoyed,” he told the newspaper. “Everyone knows that Kresge is the do or die for the line.”
The heart of the dispute is less annoyance than disagreement with the city’s plan, however.
Rapson was out of town Thursday and Friday and unavailable for comment, but a foundation spokeswoman tried to soften the tone of the newspaper story.
“We really expect that the issues will be resolved,” said Judy McGovern, Kresge’s associate director of communication. “There are fresh conversations going on to this all the time.”
She said the $3.1 billion foundation already has paid $14 million of the $35 million so far, and expects to fund more this year.
Other members of the M1 coalition have declined to comment or have not returned messages.
Matt Cullen, M1’s CEO, would volunteer only a blanket statement.
“M1’s board and stakeholders remain very supportive of Mayor Bing and very supportive of robust, sustainable transit projects for Detroit and the region,” he said.
Cullen previously has said the group won’t fund a project with which it disagrees. And those close to the situation have said M1 doesn’t view DDOT’s proposal as a “robust, sustainable transit project.”
Sustainability, insiders say, is one of the key stumbling blocks. M1 doesn’t believe the city’s plan to cover the line’s annual operating expenses is viable and that the line is of only limited value if it isn’t part of a regional system.
Norm White, the city’s CFO and lead on the rail project, previously has said the Woodward line is being built with the hope it will spark other communities to pay to extend it into the suburbs and become part of a regional system.
A $10 billion proposal to deploy a system of bus and rail lines throughout Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties over 25 years, with M1 rail as its spine, was approved by political executives in December 2008 — but has been put aside since then.
The author of the regional plan and the man who organized the private investor group, John Hertel, declined to say anything other than it would “be a shame” if the rail line wasn’t built at least from Hart Plaza to New Center — the original plan proposed by M1 three years ago.
He left his role as regional transit czar to head the SMART bus system, and the Woodward project transitioned from M1 to DDOT in 2009.
The Woodward alignment and route were agreed upon by Bing and the FTA, a pact announced June 29. The agreement is via the project’s final environmental impact statement, which spells out the specifics of what will be built and where.
M1 and DDOT negotiated for months on the alignment. M1 wanted more curbside service, especially through Midtown. But that’s not part of the plan, which fed into M1 Rail members’ irritation.
The city has said the layout and median-curbside alignment chosen was the best option and one driven by federal guidelines.
Big names, big money
M1 Rail assembled its $100 million in commitments largely from foundation gifts, federal tax credits and pledges to buy the advertising rights for the line’s stops.
The organization’s major individual donors are deep-pocketed, powerful Detroit advocates with downtown business commitments: Penske Corp. founder Roger Penske, who is chairman of the project; Peter Karmanos Jr., founder of Detroit-based Compuware Corp.; Mike Ilitch, owner of the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Red Wings and co-founder of Little Caesar Enterprises Inc.; and Quicken Loans/Rock Financial founder Dan Gilbert, the project’s co-chairman.
Those four have committed $3 million each for the display advertising rights to a station along the route. Henry Ford Hospital and Wayne State University also have committed $3 million each for a station.
Four other donors withdrew informal $3 million station commitments. Cullen declined to name them and said he believes they can be persuaded to recommit when there is a final design.
Also pledging funds to M1 is Detroit’s quasi-public Downtown Development Authority ($9 million).
The final portion of the $100 million wasn’t cash but $20 million from the U.S. Treasury Department‘s New Market Tax Credit program, which annually awards credits against federal income taxes for qualified organizations that invest in low-income communities.
The credits are for a year and must be reapplied for if they aren’t used. M1 qualified for the credits twice but isn’t applying again until plans are in place, Cullen said.
The uncertainty over the rail money has transit insiders worried.
Marie Donigan, a former Royal Oak state representative who does private-sector transit advocacy and consulting, said the loss of M1 Rail funding would be “devastating.”
She also said that since the project was taken over by the city — M1 Rail originally intended to build a smaller line on its own, but stepped aside for DDOT’s bigger project — the private backers haven’t been deployed properly to advocate for the effort.
“Instead of being asked to champion the project, they’re being asked to pay for it. It’s kind of a sad role for them,” she said.