Arbor Update

Hope the liquor license goes through for the HomeGrown Festival. We will need to drink if it rains again like last year :)
(It was still great, despite the rain!)

Wow, Council added a transportation agenda item dealing with the Fuller Intermodal Transportation Station (FITS). This would be a multi-modal, multi-level, multi-rail facility on what is currently a surface parking lot on Fuller Road at the foot of the hospital. The University has agreed to pay 75% (approximately $1.6 million) of the total of Phase I, an information-gathering section of this process (which will then make the project eligible for federal funds). This phase will include site plans and an environmental study. The City will pay $541,717 of the total of Phase I.

The hope is that this facility will replace the current outdated and insufficient Amtrak station, have commuter parking, multi-level platforms for high-speed and commuter rail, space for AATA and UM buses, and some sort of skywalk system to the hospital site. Details will be forthcoming later this fall and there will be a lot of opportunity for citizen input. The plan is that the facility would be opened mid-2012!

And TeacherPatti, the liquor licenses for the Nash Bash and the HomeGrown Festival were approved. :)

“The City and University desire to jointly develop an intermodal transportation station which shall include in its first phase of development a bus stop, and parking structure with approximately 900 parking spaces and a surface parking lot with approximately 100 parking spaces. “ – that’s in the “FITS” Fuller Road project language.

Let’s update the Greyhound Bus station while we are at it. Ours is such a disgrace!

I don’t want to see the actual Art Deco building destroyed downtown.

I do think we need to re-locate Greyhound to make it more accessible with our AMTRACK and AATA services.

Why not take a look at the CATA system in Lansing, MI? An Indian Trails rider or a Greyhound rider can hope off the bus and onto a CATA quite easily.