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Transit Updates for Greater Grand Rapids


GRDadof3

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Presentation given at the ITP Board Meeting by the GT2 Committee. Here is the streetcar/light rail portion (I'll post the BRT portion later this afternoon):

Today's Topics

(with simulation image)

Activity Centers

(with the West side and health hill removed for the initial phase to control costs)

Proposed Streetcar Alignment North South

Future Phases and Connections

Next Steps

I like it! It's simple, easy to use, and is linear North and South, and connects with ITP. I also had been thinking of where to place a streetcar "barn". It looks like they are scoping out the recently purchased DASH lot South of ITP. A linear East/West would be a great next step in 7 - 10 years or so.

This is just a proposal, so nothing has been finalized as far as taking the next steps of conducting an engineering study (as far as I know).

Thanks for the info Geo!

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Once upon a time, Grand Rapids supported a streetcar system with less density than we have now. It seems like we could really make such a system work.

/quote]

Why did it work back then?

Because very few people owned cars. My father talked about riding the streetcars when he was a kid. He went to Davis Technical High School (now GRCC on Bostwick) by streetcar. He lived on the corner of Spencer & Emerald and walked to Spencer & College to get the streetcar. He told of his mother taking the kids to the doctor downtown the same way (He was born in 1918). If you drive the area today, remember there was a grocery store at North & Spencer (vacant lot today), one at Spencer & Penn (commercial building converted to housing) on the north side and one on Leonard at Eastern (under going remodeling). People walked to get groceries that they couldn't didn't grow in their own gardens & canned for the winter. Dry goods etc were available in the Creston business didtrict on Plainfield.

People took the street cars downtown and transfered to the interurban for intercity travel. US 16 & 131 weren't built yet so intercity travel took forever on dirt roads (mud holes in the spring, drifted shut in the winter, and horribly dusty in the summer). An improived road was a gravel road :( My dads aunt lived a few doors away (all the sisters and their families lived within 6 blocks of each other). She married a guy from Muskegon. He had a good paying job in the Cannon Foundry and took the interurban to and from work every day (how's that for commuting by rail :thumbsup: ). When the interurban went under, he took the Grayhound bus to and from Muskegon (remember US 16, not I-96) The interurban did multiple trips per day, Grayhound, 1 maybe 2. Due to the increased travel time / scheduling, he rented a room and stayed the week. They never owned a car (He passed away about 1958, she 1965 +/-), neither did my dad's father / mother.

Why did the interurbans die, and then the streetcars? Roads improved, cars became affordable by the working class, and once people had the freedom a car gave them, there was no turning back.

Sorry for rambling on but things are really different today than back then. I'm not sure enough folks want to give up their cars to make them viable.

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This past Wednesday at the ITP board meeting one of the board members made a motion to table both the street car and BRT engineering studies after the operational cost of the BRT was shown to be $2.6M PER YEAR. Thankfully Peter Varga talked the board out of voting at that point in time and convinced everyone that they were just voting to continue studying the ideas and not implementing anything at this time. Eventually the continued study passed unanimously, but it was obvious that if the GVMC comes back and continues to estimate the operation of one express buss route at $2.6M/year and can

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I don't see why they couldn't, but this isn't my area of expertise. The rails are buired in the decking of the road and the electrical wires are strung together by wire and the poles are sometime decorative like light poles are now. There may be a little more construction work (cost per mile) to go over a bridge incase they have to re-inforce the sub structure to support the extra weight or enlarge the decking to support the buried rail protion. Didn't the original GR streetcars go over Bridge and Pearl Streets?

The bridges the streetcars went over were earth filled arches. I saw a structural analysis done of the Bridge Street arches and the capacity was something like 275 tons, which is an extremely high factor of safety. The replacement bridges are designed for a HS20 truck. Having said that, I suspect they are have sufficient load capacity to handle a single streetcar at a time on each span.

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things are really different today than back then.

Agreed. As long as parking downtown remains as cheap as it is today people are still going to drive cars downtown. The key issue is getting people to leave their cars parked and trust a streetcar to take them to where they want to go in the downtown area.

Also, the streetcar needs to be faster than it would be to walk to your destination. Example: DeVos Place to Van Andel Arena, AGP to GRCivic, etc.

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This past Wednesday at the ITP board meeting one of the board members made a motion to table both the street car and BRT engineering studies after the operational cost of the BRT was shown to be $2.6M PER YEAR. Thankfully Peter Varga talked the board out of voting at that point in time and convinced everyone that they were just voting to continue studying the ideas and not implementing anything at this time. Eventually the continued study passed unanimously, but it was obvious that if the GVMC comes back and continues to estimate the operation of one express buss route at $2.6M/year and can
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Google search - BRT operating costs per mile

One of them I found in there was $.5 Million/mile. Yikes! That's more expensive than light rail.

Here's the rundown of the BRT proposal:

South Division BRT Alignment

BRT Downtown Alignment

BRT Recommended Alignment

BRT Features

Average speed of 17 to 18 mph. I wonder what the current buses run on average?

Shades of the "Weslin REport" :blink: Not sure I trust the Press numbers :unsure: The numbers are only as good as the"expert" putting them together. :shades:

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Shades of the "Weslin REport" :blink: Not sure I trust the Press numbers :unsure: The numbers are only as good as the"expert" putting them together. :shades:

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you are saying, but all the recent numbers posted have come directly from the GVMC and the consultant that they have been working with, the Press hasn't mis-reported anything, so far...

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What do you guys think the names of the stations will be?

My guess , based on the new maps I would say:

Streetcar south to north:

Rapid Central Station

Oakes Street/Heartside

Van Andel Arena

Fulton Street

Rosa Parks Circle

Calder Plaza/DeVos Place

Trowbridge Street

Newberry/Sixth Street Bridge

BRT South to North (Division route)

60th/Cutlerville

54th

44th

36th

28th

Burton/Garfield Park

Hall

Franklin

Wealthy/St. Mary's Health Center

Cherry/Heartside

Weston/Monument Square

Fountain/GRCC

Ottawa/Calder Plaza

Rosa Parks Circle

Fulton/Van Andel Arena

Rapid Central Station

What do you guys think?

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Google search - BRT operating costs per mile

One of them I found in there was $.5 Million/mile. Yikes! That's more expensive than light rail.

Light rail cost ,on average, around 68 million dollars per mile in 2000.

EDIT: My source- http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-lrt2001.htm

Edited by dtown
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This past Wednesday at the ITP board meeting one of the board members made a motion to table both the street car and BRT engineering studies after the operational cost of the BRT was shown to be $2.6M PER YEAR. Thankfully Peter Varga talked the board out of voting at that point in time and convinced everyone that they were just voting to continue studying the ideas and not implementing anything at this time. Eventually the continued study passed unanimously, but it was obvious that if the GVMC comes back and continues to estimate the operation of one express buss route at $2.6M/year and can
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I think people would rather fund a sales tax that they feel they have control over rather paying for a lump tax bill. The deeper we get into rapid or any kind of mass transit the county, ITP, business, and tax payer must partner on creative funding sources.

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Why did it work back then?

Because very few people owned cars. ... Why did the interurbans die, and then the streetcars? Roads improved, cars became affordable by the working class, and once people had the freedom a car gave them, there was no turning back.

Sorry for rambling on but things are really different today than back then. I'm not sure enough folks want to give up their cars to make them viable.

I don't think this argument works in light of the record bus ridership that we are currently experiencing. Clearly, people are using and are interested in using mass transit.

I think the challenge with mass transit is (pretty obviously) getting people where they want to go in a timely manner. One thing that has changed over the last century is our transition away from manufacturing and, more specifically, jobs concentrated in our city core to jobs spread around the periphery of the city. I'd be curious to know how the current ridership is using the bus system we have. I think a lot more people would use the system if they could see a way to get to-and-from their jobs in a timely manner.

I think the danger with the proposed street car system is that it could become a downtown tourist gimmick and not the first step in a larger system.

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Of course, there's probably no way to build a streetcar line and satisfy everyone, or find the "perfect" fit. However, the route that the GT2 Committee is recommending certainly has an almost limitless number of development opportunities within a 2 - 3 block radius of the line.

1) In the future, if there are commuter rail or light rail lines added on the North and South ends of this, it would be ideal. People could make a quick transfer at the stations at the Northern and Southern ends, and be downtown within minutes.

2) Some people may live downtown and work in the suburbs. It's not that uncommon. The streetcar could help them get to a transfer station to get them out of downtown.

3) If there are entertainment/cultural/staple amenities built along the South and North ends, it will help connect the potential residents living at either end. (ie residents of Monroe North riding to a grocery store or mall at Area 4/5, or vice versa)

4) The city could place DASH parking ramps at either end (Area 6 South of Wealthy or in the Monroe North area, both marked in blue) where land might be cheaper, and be rid of the DASH lots near the arena (and not require the Area 4/5 developers to replace the lost parking spaces). This could be used as a tool to change parking and land use policies in the downtown area. For example, give developers much more lenient parking requirements within the streetcar "ring". Or transfer development rights of the county-owned parcels North of I-196, in exchange for any potential developer helping to fund the line.

5) The total trip from ITP to Newberry is estimated at 11 - 13 minutes. That's at least a 20 minute walk.

I mapped out parcels that are either severely underutilized, under development, proposed, or parcels that we've dreamed about being redeveloped. This does not even include properties on the West bank of the Grand River. There are probably even more that I missed. Much like highway interchanges, development tends to follow light rail/streetcar lines.

372362424_3914b2533c_b.jpg

In a perfect world, Monroe North and the area South of the arena transform into the Pearl District (maybe in 30 years, but still would be awesome):

pearl_district_large.jpg

page2.image.jpg

pearl-district-2.jpg

pearlfaces.jpg

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Interview with John Carroll, prominent Portland developer (and head of Portland Streetcar)

Carroll recently returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Charlottesville, Va., where he met with city officials and developers to tell what he calls the Portland story. It's a story of success with urban planning, growing up rather than out, and incorporating public transportation into the mix.

"We had a lot of communities coming here - Baltimore, Austin, Tacoma, Arlington and others - who all ask, How does Portland do it? So, we ended up starting to travel to those communities, and we sit with the city planning people, we meet with developers and construction people, and just talk through our story about how the streetcar made an impact on development."

DJC: What is the overall sentiment you get from other communities? Do they say, Yes, you did it, but that wouldn't work for us?

Carroll: That's a recurring theme. There's a core of people who really see the virtue of all of this, and then there's unfortunately an element of the private sector that says, Why are you trying to bring your plan and lay it down in our neighborhood? It's not going to work. We're not Portland.

An interesting read. I wonder if Carroll is one of the individuals the GR people met with?

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I don't think this argument works in light of the record bus ridership that we are currently experiencing. Clearly, people are using and are interested in using mass transit.

So, now I'm wondering if my own argument works. According to the GVSU/Rapid schedule: GVSU has grown from one straight route connecting two campuses to four routes serving almost 15,000 riders per day. According to someone I know who works at GVSU, the buses run every 8-9 minutes. I wonder how much of the record ridership is due to the students?

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So, now I'm wondering if my own argument works. According to the GVSU/Rapid schedule: GVSU has grown from one straight route connecting two campuses to four routes serving almost 15,000 riders per day. According to someone I know who works at GVSU, the buses run every 8-9 minutes. I wonder how much of the record ridership is due to the students?

Here's a breakdown of the ridership increases on different routes in 06:

-GVSU campus connector up 39.9%

-All fixed routes saw double digit increases

http://www.ridetherapid.org/about/reports/ridership/

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