Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Candidate questionnaire, August 09: Transportation

30. July 2009 • Murph
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Continuing our candidate questionnaire results…

#4 – How will you work to ensure a safe, effective, and efficient transportation system in the city, ranging from biking and walking to transit options like AATA or the proposed commuter rails?

Greden: I have long supported the City’s pedestrian transportation program, which adds new bike lanes and sidewalks as part of road re-construction projects. I also support the expansion of regional mass transit in partnership with SEMCOG, U-M, and other local governments.

Kunselman: I can’t answer this question with much specificity as it is too broad of a topic, and much of our transportation planning occurs outside of City Hall. But I’ve always been supportive of pursuing a “safe, effective, and efficient transportation system.” As the candidate that is the most multi-modal of any (I have been known to bike, catch a bus, travel by train, drive a car, ride a motorcycle, and skateboard to my destinations), I know all too well the importance of the need for good roads (potholes are known to have killed motorcyclists), defined bike lanes, and laws that permit skateboarding as a form of transportation. As for the commuter rails – WALLY is dead due to a lack of Livingston County cooperation and cost sharing. And resurrecting commuter rail to Detroit will entail a huge federal subsidy that is not likely to happen during any tenure that I may have on Council; I would rather the Feds at least subsidize the Stadium Bridge reconstruction.

(Candidates Bullington, Anglin, and Rosencrans did not provide responses.)



  1. “….I would rather the Feds at least subsidize the Stadium Bridge reconstruction.”

    What his the City done to compel the federal government to do so?


       —Mark Koroi    Aug. 5 '09 - 01:28AM    #

  2. Actually, commuter rail to Detroit, headed up by SEMCOG, is set to happen very soon: with any luck, by fall 2010. Since it will use existing tracks, the cost is not high; the tricky part is working with the railroads to schedule their freight trains around passenger trips. See http://www.semcog.org/AADD.aspx.


       —Joel Batterman    Aug. 5 '09 - 04:38PM    #