Transit Updates for Greater Grand Rapids

[demhem]

21 hours ago, walker said:

Yea, except in the rendering the sky is bluer and the grass is greener, it matches closely this Google view:

Google View:looking into John Ball Park from Fulton and Valley

When I look at all the proposed stops I can find for the Laker Line , the closest is a block to the east at Garfield:

GOOGLE VIEW: Fulton at Garfield

The map showing Garfield is incorrect.  The eastbound stop is in front of John Ball Park and the westbound stop is in front of Ball Park Floral/Rylee's (I'm not exactly sure where the exact placement will be, they were working with both owners). The stops are essentially centered around Fulton and Valley. 

[GrSportsGuy]

I don’t know if this has been discussed, but expect these downtown very soon. I noticed on indeed that they are now hiring for a Site Supervisor.

 

https://www.crainsdetroit.com/mobility/may-mobility-expand-self-driving-shuttles-grand-rapids

[GRDadof3]

48 minutes ago, GrSportsGuy said:

I don’t know if this has been discussed, but expect these downtown very soon. I noticed on indeed that they are now hiring for a Site Supervisor.

 

https://www.crainsdetroit.com/mobility/may-mobility-expand-self-driving-shuttles-grand-rapids

One of these to run up and down Wealthy St would be awesome.

[joeDowntown]

Anyone know the timeline for this? I thought it was supposed to be be running earlier this year. Excited to see it happen.  

Joe

[GRDadof3]

11 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

Anyone know the timeline for this? I thought it was supposed to be be running earlier this year. Excited to see it happen.  

Joe

The release from last Fall said it would run from March 2019- March 2020. 

https://www.grandrapidsmi.gov/Shortcut-Content/News-Media/City-joins-public-private-coalition-to-bring-autonomous-vehicles-to-GR

[mgreven]

I showed that to my wife last night since her office is on the DASH route. She was like, “Yeah, those go by a lot.” I guess they’re around...

[GRDadof3]

5 hours ago, mgreven said:

I showed that to my wife last night since her office is on the DASH route. She was like, “Yeah, those go by a lot.” I guess they’re around...

Did she mean they're already running? I haven't seen them yet. 

[joeDowntown]

2 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

Did she mean they're already running? I haven't seen them yet. 

Me neither. And no mention of it in the news (just the initial release). I’d have to think there will be a lot of local coverage when these hit the streets. 

Joe

[whitemice]

The city's Strategic Plan, meant to bridge Operations and "The Master Plan(s)": http://urbangr.org/GRStrategicPlan20202023
The mobility goals are ambitions.

[joeDowntown]

1 minute ago, whitemice said:

The city's Strategic Plan, meant to bridge Operations and "The Master Plan(s)": http://urbangr.org/GRStrategicPlan20202023
The mobility goals are ambitions.

If autonomous vehicles take off, I could see this happening. Would that be a combination of Transit and Other? 15 years should see quite a leap in technology and adoption of different modes of transportation. 

I was talking to a friend that runs a pretty large manufacturing company, and he said all suppliers in automotive are putting the gas on diversifying industries / trying to get a head of the disruption of autonomous vehicles and EVs. He said that Electronic vehicles reduce the number of parts needed by almost 80% (I was drinking beer, so it may be more / less). He also said they're anticipating auto makers selling a fraction of the vehicles they currently sell, as people ride share with on demand vehicles. 

It was interesting to hear him talk about it, as he said it's a matter of when, not if.

Joe

[JoeSchmo]

2035 will be a different world than today when it comes to cars.  It is very likely that by 2035 over 80% of all cars sold will be autonomous.  This could very easily change how transit, ride sharing, and even parking are all dealt with.  Interesting to think about.

I also read the strategic plan and many of the goal dates were unlisted.  Are the unlisted goal dates the year 2023?  A small interesting goal I read was 25% of the sidewalks plowed. 

 

[whitemice]

15 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

Electronic vehicles reduce the number of parts needed by almost 80%

I work for a company that services electric vehicles; in the material handling industry.  That number is sort-of true.  It reduces the complexity of the drive train by ~80%.  You still have all the rest of the vehicle, unchanged;  the rest of the vehicle is a lot of the vehicle.  A vehicle, unlike a personally owned vehicle today, that is in actual service to multiple users ~12 hours a day takes way more of beating, right down to the door  handles.

15 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

He also said they're anticipating auto makers selling a fraction of the vehicles they currently sell, as people ride share with on demand vehicles

Some are, some aren't.  Honestly this is nothing but speculation at this point.  Shared vehicles may take of in urbanized areas.  But in exurbs and rural areas - no way - the math can never work.  That is still a lot of owned vehicles.  The current TNCs (Uber, Lyft, etc...) model of parasitism of the value of people's personal vehicles have given people a very false impression of what the cost of truly shared fleet vehicles will be - and autonomy will not decrease that cost.  Shared fleet vehicles will also be much more like buses than the image of the posh recliner floating down a highway which companies like the currently sell.  In response to these realities it seems more reasonable to expect that many affluent households will still chose ownership.
Remember shared AV vehicles have to be stored, fueled, and services somewhere by someone.  They all will need regulatory inspections.  And they will need to be cleaned somewhere by someone, just like a transit vehicle today.  When people don't own it, they treat it differently.

16 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

it, as he said it's a matter of when, not if.

It is not a manner of when, but if,  however both the precisely when and the precisely how are very open questions.  People who talk as if they know those answers should not be taken seriously.  There are infrastructure issues like RSUs (road side units - required for AVs); who will pay for them, how will they be managed.  There are all the issues of regulation and permitting.  There are serious issues regarding equity and accessibility. And there remains the geometry problem: unless AVs carry significantly more people for vehicle [meaning not door-to-door service] they do not solve any capacity problems.

I am confident EVs and AVs change things, but likely far less so than some Futurists are proposing.  Physics, Geometry, and Human Behavior cannot be eliminated from the equation by any technology.  They muddy the picture.

Fortunately we already have the technologies to very effective deal with the demand; there is no need to wait for a silver bullet.

[thebeerqueer]

Laker Line Eastbound station at Straight and Fulton is currently under construction

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=7af15e86079348dcb57901a962c8fac6#

[joeDowntown]

2 hours ago, thebeerqueer said:

Laker Line Eastbound station at Straight and Fulton is currently under construction

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=7af15e86079348dcb57901a962c8fac6#

Awesome news. That's a great website too. I wonder how many students will use this in the winter just to get from A - B on campus.

[x99]

On 4/9/2019 at 7:38 AM, whitemice said:

I work for a company that services electric vehicles; in the material handling industry.  That number is sort-of true.  It reduces the complexity of the drive train by ~80%.  You still have all the rest of the vehicle, unchanged;  the rest of the vehicle is a lot of the vehicle.  A vehicle, unlike a personally owned vehicle today, that is in actual service to multiple users ~12 hours a day takes way more of beating, right down to the door  handles.

Some are, some aren't.  Honestly this is nothing but speculation at this point.  Shared vehicles may take of in urbanized areas.  But in exurbs and rural areas - no way - the math can never work.  That is still a lot of owned vehicles.  The current TNCs (Uber, Lyft, etc...) model of parasitism of the value of people's personal vehicles have given people a very false impression of what the cost of truly shared fleet vehicles will be - and autonomy will not decrease that cost.  Shared fleet vehicles will also be much more like buses than the image of the posh recliner floating down a highway which companies like the currently sell.  In response to these realities it seems more reasonable to expect that many affluent households will still chose ownership.
Remember shared AV vehicles have to be stored, fueled, and services somewhere by someone.  They all will need regulatory inspections.  And they will need to be cleaned somewhere by someone, just like a transit vehicle today.  When people don't own it, they treat it differently.

It is not a manner of when, but if,  however both the precisely when and the precisely how are very open questions.  People who talk as if they know those answers should not be taken seriously.  There are infrastructure issues like RSUs (road side units - required for AVs); who will pay for them, how will they be managed.  There are all the issues of regulation and permitting.  There are serious issues regarding equity and accessibility. And there remains the geometry problem: unless AVs carry significantly more people for vehicle [meaning not door-to-door service] they do not solve any capacity problems.

I am confident EVs and AVs change things, but likely far less so than some Futurists are proposing.  Physics, Geometry, and Human Behavior cannot be eliminated from the equation by any technology.  They muddy the picture.

Fortunately we already have the technologies to very effective deal with the demand; there is no need to wait for a silver bullet.

That's a pretty rational assessment of ridesharing.  I'm inclined to agree that it doesn't really solve any congestion or cost issues at all, except perhaps for making the load in parking ramps nominally lighter.  When various studies look at the cost to own a vehicle, they often consider the cost to own a vehicle that is less than 4 years old, with full insurance coverage.  The reality is that the automotive fleet is much older, and the insurance costs much lower.  Owning a 10 or even 15 year old car and insuring it really is not that expensive compared to the cost of "sharing" someone's brand new ride.  It's probably cheaper.  The wear parts are all dirt cheap, the oil changes are dirt cheap, the insurance costs are dirt cheap, and the other operating costs aren't much if anything at all over a new vehicle.   Ridesharing seems like a road to nowhere, unless you're someone who buys a brand new vehicle and just lets it sit, causing your worst expense to be depreciation.  I know a guy who bought a car for $600, and insures it with PLPD.  Since he, like 60% of Americans, has no assets to speak of, I'm sure the liability coverage is also the legal minimum.  It wouldn't surprise me if he only pays $500 a year to operate the thing, plus gas.  Uber and Lyft can't possible compete with that.   

Even the bus can't compete with that on a macroeconomic cost level, not even at NYC occupancy levels.  And on a "greenness" quotient?  It takes NYC style occupancy levels just to hit fuel consumption figures that can compete with a new Camry.  It takes a lot of fuel to push those heavy things around, heat them, and idle them every 500 feet, even with the Hybrid buses.   Not to mention that you have to overbuild all of the roads to handle the weight.

I sometimes wonder how much better off we would be just banning everything over 10,000 pounds transiting local streets unless it was absolutely necessary (fire trucks, construction vehicles, etc), and imposing taxes based on vehicle weight and height.   And then, run the bus system with far smaller shuttle vans 90% of the time.  Lately, I've noticed that one of the most significant congestion producers is buses trying to make it through busy intersections, and then continuing to block them after the light turns.  Not only do, say, 5 cars not get through for every one bus, but probably 4x the occupant load of the bus stands idle when the bus acts as plug in the works, and probably 1x the occupancy load of bus gets impeded whenever it stops for loading and unloading.  When traffic is heaviest, the buses do the most damage to the flow.  That makes me wonder whether the bus system can ever really achieve any of the lofty promises claimed for it.  I don't think running a bunch of vehicles 5x the size of everything around them is something any traffic engineer would prescribe.  

Tough problems, no easy solutions.  Too bad subways are so expensive.

[joeDowntown]

With the 196 construction, you just described my commute home every day. Wait in traffic on Monroe, watch a bus use the bus lane almost all the way to the light, cut in line, stall traffic, creep forward 15 feet, watch another bus cut in line. Repeat.

[Allison Slater]

The biggest factor I see in promoting ridesharing growth is EVs. Some 15 years after EVs have largely taken over the market, you'll likely see less cars making it to the budget consumer, since the batteries just don't last that long and are typically pretty costly to replace. That'll result in less availability for $600 cars and force more people to rely on other means of transportation. But that's probably 20 years away at the soonest -- not something for 2035. And that also depends on battery replacement costs not going down dramatically, which they likely will if some of the new battery tech advancements going on right now move forward.

[organsnyder]

2 hours ago, tSlater said:

The biggest factor I see in promoting ridesharing growth is EVs. Some 15 years after EVs have largely taken over the market, you'll likely see less cars making it to the budget consumer, since the batteries just don't last that long and are typically pretty costly to replace. That'll result in less availability for $600 cars and force more people to rely on other means of transportation. But that's probably 20 years away at the soonest -- not something for 2035. And that also depends on battery replacement costs not going down dramatically, which they likely will if some of the new battery tech advancements going on right now move forward.

I'm not sure the durability will play out as you describe. From what I've heard, EV batteries tend to have quite long lifespans (especially if they have proper thermal management, which is more common now), and they tend to wear out in predictable, linear ways. A 15-year-old EV that gets 150 miles instead of 300 would be preferable (to me, at least) over a 15-year-old gas vehicle that has less predictable failure modes.

[grandrollerz]

This certainly dresses up the Covell/LMD corner with that old Westdale office still there and falling apart. 

Im sure GVSU owns the westdale building and I'm hopeful that they tear it down for additional parking.

Always wondered why that whole intersection isn't just turned into a roundabout?!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[GR_Urbanist]

It might be better for GVSU just to pay the owner of the strip mall across the street and have students park there.

Add a crosswalk with traffic light so that it's safer for people to cross, although MDOT will have  cow over that idea.

[joeDowntown]

12 minutes ago, GR_Urbanist said:

It might be better for GVSU just to pay the owner of the strip mall across the street and have students park there.

Add a crosswalk with traffic light so that it's safer for people to cross, although MDOT will have  cow over that idea.

Also would be an interesting spot for off campus living. Easily accessible to both/all campuses. 

I’m really surprised we haven’t already seen more development around these stops. 

[GRDadof3]

20 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

Also would be an interesting spot for off campus living. Easily accessible to both/all campuses. 

I’m really surprised we haven’t already seen more development around these stops. 

We had to swing through East Lansing yesterday to drop off my nephew and holy s**t I couldn't get over the development in downtown EL. And they're getting an Urban Target! I too am surprised we haven't seen this kind of development along the new bus route. 

[thebeerqueer]

3 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

We had to swing through East Lansing yesterday to drop off my nephew and holy s**t I couldn't get over the development in downtown EL. And they're getting an Urban Target! I too am surprised we haven't seen this kind of development along the new bus route. 

Yeah, it's crazy in EL right now.  The two massive projects coming up on Grand River are already making a huge change on the streetscape. The Urban Target will go gangbusters there. 

[GR_Urbanist]

There are 50 thousand people roughly in E. Lansing.

 

Yet they can land an urban Target? I get that there is a university there, but so what? Are those students that likely to shop there or spend that much?

I would think with the success of the Bridge Street Market that these outlets can stop acting like the only retail options we can get over here have to be located in the back of an asphalt slab out in some suburb. Clearly people here are willing to shop in the core of our city. I mean we DO have a university right by Bridge as well if they really need that incentive.

I'm honestly really surprised that there hasn't been anything new announced around BSM by now. Are these people still applying an old paradigm to GR where they still think our city is still some suburb-centric market?

[Pattmost20]

50 minutes ago, GR_Urbanist said:

There are 50 thousand people roughly in E. Lansing.

 

Yet they can land an urban Target? I get that there is a university there, but so what? Are those students that likely to shop there or spend that much?

I would think with the success of the Bridge Street Market that these outlets can stop acting like the only retail options we can get over here have to be located in the back of an asphalt slab out in some suburb. Clearly people here are willing to shop in the core of our city. I mean we DO have a university right by Bridge as well if they really need that incentive.

I'm honestly really surprised that there hasn't been anything new announced around BSM by now. Are these people still applying an old paradigm to GR where they still think our city is still some suburb-centric market?

I agree with you that I think GR could support an Urban Target. At the same time, there are other factors contributing to East Lansing being able to support one. West Lafayette, home of my alma mater Purdue University, is getting one. There are about 35k people in town. Both MSU and Purdue make it basically impossible for Freshmen to have a car and make it very inconvenient for all other students. You have a built in audience of walkers, bikers, and bus riders that can't easily run out to malls or other suburban shopping centers.