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I am off the downtown parking rant. Another improvement that can be made i think someone mentioned it is adding boulevards like they did on south division. 4 lanes of traffic those do come in handy. Plainfield would look great with those michigan division north.

Also I dont know if wyoming is the only city that does this but winter time they shovel residents sidewalks i think that should be done in gr. Alot of elderly ppl live in gr and it is hard for them to shovel walkways. Winter time i park around the corner and id say 80% of my walk to my car is snow covered. Its crazy.

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...Also I dont know if wyoming is the only city that does this but winter time they shovel residents sidewalks i think that should be done in gr. Alot of elderly ppl live in gr and it is hard for them to shovel walkways. Winter time i park around the corner and id say 80% of my walk to my car is snow covered. Its crazy.
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Who is "they"? It could be the residents (required in most jurisdictions in the state).

It could be a neighborhood assn contracting a snow removal service.

It could be the block's resident snowblower owner. (Seriously. My father, age 82 with about 500' of sloping asphalt on a hill, enjoys living next door to the village admin who plows his own drive, the neighbors', and the access road.)

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Many of the suggestions on here are great and would be a benefit for the City, surrounding areas and people who live there, but it all costs money and sometimes lots of it. The City gets it money from us the taxpayers, and even if they get grants from the State or Feds, their money still comes from residents of the City, State or US as a whole. If enough residents are willing to increase their taxes than maybe more of this type of stuff can be accomplished. I am not trying to be negative, just realistic.
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Snowmelt costs:

"Well, it all depends. On Monroe Center, (and in Holland) the snowmelt covers the entire street, from building to building. The cost to operate and maintain the system is about $240,000 [per season] for three blocks, or about $80,000 per block. In other cases (the Pantlind, Ellis Parking Ramp, and next year all of Campau Ave.), the snowmelt covers only the sidewalk areas. Since you are heating the outdoors, the smaller the area heated the lower the cost."

This is straight from the DDA. I'm looking for construction costs too.

ETA: found on mainstreet.org:

"Installed during the Streetscape project, Holland

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I would like to see more snow melt systems in key areas of DT such as the VAN, Devose Place, and Pill Hill, if such systems are not already in place. I'd also like to see better lighting along main corridors leading into DT like Division, Fulton, Leonard, etc. Let's start thinking Mass Transit options above and beyond what buses can do. LRT or BRT would do this city wonders.

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I'd like to see the downtown bike paths along the river extended north and south and connected into the other trail systems (Kent, White Pine). That'll bring more people through downtown and set up more opportunity for business, similar to what has happened in Rockford.
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I'd like to see some improvements done in the Monroe North area. The roads, sidewalks, everything are in pretty bad shape IMPO.

I had an interview in that area the other day, and I parked in a very bad parking lot.

Theres some rails there which might be useful if GR ever needs them, but please do something to make them safe! I nearly tripped! (Although maybe blame that on my bad dexterity)

Also some areas in the Heartside district could use some TLC as well. especially some of the sidewalks.

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I'd like to see the downtown bike paths along the river extended north and south and connected into the other trail systems (Kent, White Pine). That'll bring more people through downtown and set up more opportunity for business, similar to what has happened in Rockford.
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I can't think of the business name right now...but there is a provider out here...some local guy who was able to put wifi in some towers around here in Greenville and offers wifi internet access for approx 35 a month...and it's located in rural areas too. They have about a 2-3 mile radius

I'm tempted to try it out because I'm getting annoyed with charter.

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I like the ideas that have been pouring into this thread...even though I don't personally live in GR...I am going to someday probably next summer.

I remember being downtown a few weeks ago and some of the sidewalks were in pretty rough shape...and it sounds like the #2 problem besides the parking.

Coming from a rural town, I never found GR's parking to be quite extreme. Anytime a concert would come in at the Van Andel I can usually get parking in one of the area lots or over by market/fulton corridor. Other times I go downtown I can usually park on the street. So I personally don't think there's a problem with the parking, but it's probably more of a case by case situation as far as what time of the day you are there, or if you are there for an event...or if there is an event nearby but you're going to downtown for something else, then I could see where this creates problems.

I think connecting the trails would be a wonderful idea. There's ideas being thrown around Belding/Greenville DDA's that they want their trail systems to eventually connect down to Rockford, or through the lowell/cascade area. Greenville already has a trail in motion, about 2/3 completed, it will eventually wrap around the whole city, and Belding just recently started adding trail spots along the flat river (although the whole system is not fully connected yet, it will be). And then Greenville's trail is going to eventually connect with the Heartland trail which goes all the way up through Montcalm Community College, Edmore, and stops at Alma. I think someday we're going to have a state-wide connected trail system which would rock especially for bikers.

Ornamental lighting I think would be a huge asset in the Winter time. I'm not sure if there's some place (besides the Grand Plaza) that does this, but it could definitely add vibrancy to shops down Monroe, and make the city look a little alive. Do they add lights to trees around Rosa Parks Circle? That would be a cool idea as well.

Other then that, I like some of the input...be interested to see what more ideas people come up with.

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My internet is run through a radio tower.. I'm guessing it might be what you were referring to, blueradon. It's the only available DSL I can get where I live. There's a small antenna on our roof that sends and receives the signal between us and the main nearby tower.

Downtime only happens once every few months, and is fixed by restarting the antenna. (I'm not sure how this is done, but from what I understand, it isn't exactly rocket science.) There was one episode of downtime about a year ago after a violent thunderstorm damaged either our antenna or the main antenna.. not sure which one. Aside from that, it's been fast and reliable. If this is what WiMAX will be like, then sign me up. =]

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  • 1 year later...
Looks like this may happen..... well, except for the free part.....

GR's wireless Internet pick could cover entire city

They do not say in the article how much they will charge, except that "the city contract calls for 5 percent of the city's households to get low-income accounts for $9.95 a month" and that "Clearwire is expected to offer competitive rates to build its market share". It looks like they charge $29.95 or $36.99 a month (depending on speed) in other cities where they offer service, so I would expect it to be something similar here. At that price it's really not any cheaper than the alternatives.

Also of note: the system will be WiMAX, not WiFi (except for some free "hot spots" they will set up throughout the city), which means most computers will need additional hardware to make it work.

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I've always hated the power transformer stations around town; especially the one infront of the brassworks building. Some obviously can't be moved, but since our powerline infrastructure is in need of upgrades (from what I've heard), what about hiding them better? I've heard of some transformer stations in California becoming additions to parks because they've buried them (hmm, what's next to the Monroe station?). We all lucked out apparently with the new station on Medical Mile. ;)

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  • 1 year later...
Looks like this may happen..... well, except for the free part.....

GR's wireless Internet pick could cover entire city

They do not say in the article how much they will charge, except that "the city contract calls for 5 percent of the city's households to get low-income accounts for $9.95 a month" and that "Clearwire is expected to offer competitive rates to build its market share". It looks like they charge $29.95 or $36.99 a month (depending on speed) in other cities where they offer service, so I would expect it to be something similar here. At that price it's really not any cheaper than the alternatives.

Also of note: the system will be WiMAX, not WiFi (except for some free "hot spots" they will set up throughout the city), which means most computers will need additional hardware to make it work.

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