Welcome to the forum, it's great to have another voice on here.
I think a route down Saginaw at least as far as the 96 would be a logical second route if Eaton County would ever get on board with CATA. After that I think both Cedar and MLK would be good choices. Cedar would probably see much higher ridership, but MLK is much more in need of some investment and something like BRT may do a lot to help the corridor. If things go well I think some sort of BRT would be nice along pretty much every major road though.
I do agree either Cedar or Saginaw would be the more logical corridors, and yes MLK is def in need of some life.. Do you think because of discrepancies between CATA and Ctran, CATA would push for less bumpy rd and shoot for as Cedar N and S Line? This would Cover St Johns to Holt, Include Old Town Stops, Meijer south.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Cedar will be the next BRT line unless CATA takes over e-tran altogether. I'd be surprised to see a line start off going from St johns to Mason, but I think starting around Saginaw and going south to some point past Holt Rd would be a great start.
I could totally see a north-south line along Cedar going north of Saginaw/Oakland. You'd just keep it up Larch over the bridge, route it onto Lake Lansing Road, and from there you could either continue to use Lake Lansing, or you could take that old, unused rail corridor right before you get to High Street and turn it into a high-speed/limited stop dedicated busway. It takes you to the northern end of Eastwood. Depending on who owns the old rail corridor, this is definitely a way to connect downtown with Eastwood. I'd always envisioned a light rail along this corridor (south of High Street/ and Larch/Cedar/North street junction you could run a light rail track next to the existing freight track to get you to around Claras), but it could be basically used for anything (BRT, trail extension).
I could definitely see it going down Lake Lansing towards Eastwood, just not really up N East St. I've never looked at that rail corridor before, I like the trail idea much more than the dedicated bus line though.
I think the connection to Eastwood has to be a viable option. I also think lansing has the opportunity to become a vibrant urban center in the next 20 years if we can make the right decisions now in regards to transportation between villages or communities within metro area, more density downtown, more large venues and hotels downtown.
Well, this is a bit disappointing. CATA released a small part of the technical analysis of the Environmental Assessment begun last May, and it seems that they found the busway option - which would use the south lanes of Grand River and Michigan between Detroit Street in Lansing and Bogue Street - would disrupt traffic too much, even though the costs of both options considered were fairly close. So, they went with Option #2 alignment, which will use the southern lane of each part of the boulevard, instead:
Nothing huge, but it seems regional leaders went to tour the BRT line in Cleveland the other day. From East Lansing Mayor Nathan Triplett's facebook page:
Today I joined Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, Meridian Township Treasurer Julie Brixie, Ingham County Board Chair Brian McGrain, LEAP, the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce, CATA - Capital Area Transportation Authority, and others on a fact-finding trip to the City of Cleveland and the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority to learn about their "Better" Rapid Transit system in anticipation of the development of a similar BRT system along the Michigan-Grand River Avenue corridor in metro Lansing.
CATA's BRT project has the potential to transform our region and provide a foundation for future economic development, investment, and growth. From a transit, connectivity, and economic development perspective, the impact of BRT on Cleveland is remarkable. CATA's BRT project is currently in the final stages of the federal Environmental Assessment process through the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). Stay tuned.
It was my understanding that a draft of the Environmental Assessment would be released to the public in either late June or early July, so maybe expect to see this soon. After that, actual engineering work can start.
The LSJ has an updated story on the project. Really nothing new, with the one new piece of information being that they won't be releasing the environmental assessment documents to the public until the fall. They were originally supposed to come out in either June or July, so this is a few months behind schedule. All in all, though, this is still moving forward. What I also found interesting and what's new is that CATA thinks it could operate the new line without a millage increase, so the project isn't beholden to the voters, which is always a risk.
The biggest confirmation of earlier aspects of the proposal is that the buses will have signal preemption, which is huge for a BRT project. A lot of BRT projects are BRT-lite. This one will have both signal preemption - which allows for a bus to extend a green line to hasten a green from a red to make it through intersections - and dedicated lanes. The only thing that will keep this from being "gold standard" is that they dropped the busway through downtown East Lansing.
The story was a follow-up on the trip regional leaders took to Cleveland that I posted about above. Seems like everyone's in support of this.
So are the state and federal funds already secured? It doesn't seem clear in the article and I don't remember hearing anything about it. I didn't really realize how close to fruition this is.
Comments
I think a route down Saginaw at least as far as the 96 would be a logical second route if Eaton County would ever get on board with CATA. After that I think both Cedar and MLK would be good choices. Cedar would probably see much higher ridership, but MLK is much more in need of some investment and something like BRT may do a lot to help the corridor. If things go well I think some sort of BRT would be nice along pretty much every major road though.
It was my understanding that a draft of the Environmental Assessment would be released to the public in either late June or early July, so maybe expect to see this soon. After that, actual engineering work can start.
Cleveland RTA HealthLine
The biggest confirmation of earlier aspects of the proposal is that the buses will have signal preemption, which is huge for a BRT project. A lot of BRT projects are BRT-lite. This one will have both signal preemption - which allows for a bus to extend a green line to hasten a green from a red to make it through intersections - and dedicated lanes. The only thing that will keep this from being "gold standard" is that they dropped the busway through downtown East Lansing.
The story was a follow-up on the trip regional leaders took to Cleveland that I posted about above. Seems like everyone's in support of this.