I read about a very interesting project called The Great Lakes Hyperloop. Cleveland to Chicago in 28 minutes! Via a tube with magnetic levitation "trains". Let's get Lansing in that loop!
The Detroit News had an article out about the roads projects schedule for this year. The notable ones in the Lansing area include:
3.1 miles of median cable barries on US 127 between the 496 interchange and the county line with Clinton.
Resurfacing of Saginaw between Coolidge and Hagadorn in East Lansing. This will also include ADA upgrades.
Bridge repair of the Michigan Avenue bridge in downtown Lansing. What exactly this entails I'm unsure. Maybe someone could find out a bit more about this.
Thank the powers that be for #2!!! That section of roadway has to be one of, if not the worst of the major thoroughfares in East Lansing... it is actually crumbling away in huge chunks... I usually take Lake Lansing road or Grand River just to avoid that stretch of rotten highway!!!
I saw an interesting idea being proposed in Boston on the boston.com page. They are considering building an overhead gondola "ski style" cable car system that will connect the expanding Sea Port District[South Boston] with Downtown. The traditional transit types do not really like the idea but I think it is innovative and kind of cool besides. What about a gondola cable car east-west line from Downtown or the Lansing Mall out the East Lansing and Okemos. Let's think above the box!
Unfortunately gondolas have limited capacity, poor frequency, limited stops, and high up-front costs. They are best suited for mountains or very steep hills. Grade-level and below grade transit is still much cheaper without all those negatives. I've used the Roosevelt Island tram in New York multiple times, and while being a nice date idea, it fails to connect with the other mass transit systems (no close subway on the Manhattan side and no ticket transfer either ) and thus is more of a nice gimmick for when the F train is having issues.
I've also noticed I can walk about just as fast as the gondolas in Cedar Point.
CATA really should work on connecting the different spokes at the outer edge instead of only relying on the hub-and-spoke model.
I think the case in Boston is that the new growing Seaport area is on a peninsula across the harbor from downtown, with traffic choke points at the bridges. Go over those points without adding more traffic to the street level is the idea. It was just being proposed but the story said that the capacity was around 9 people per car running continuously for 18 hours a day could carry 15,000 riders. I was not thinking it would be fast but it would be easy to use and I am sure a cable car system for an urban area would be built for heavy use and run faster than an amusement park ride. I was just dreaming about a solution that would get people across town other than by car or bus, maybe something in itself [a great view from a cable gondola car ride]would attract people who just want to see it and ride on it. In Racine WI they rebuilt a streetcar line and use refurbished vintage streetcars on that line, so a transit/tourist line is not "that crazy"!
Prep work is starting on the extension of the Kalamazoo Avenue bike lanes. One block of Kalamazoo between Cedar and Larch will be closed from April 2 to May 9 for the project. We'd discussed it before, but the project includes extending the bike lanes from Larch westward to Washingtons Square, and adding another connection to the River Trail on the north side of the Kalamazoo street bridge. This will include a slight widening of the block between Larch and Cedar, which is why this small section will be closed for about a month.
Comments
I read about a very interesting project called The Great Lakes Hyperloop. Cleveland to Chicago in 28 minutes! Via a tube with magnetic levitation "trains". Let's get Lansing in that loop!
You can find that article at Curbed Detroit.
The Detroit News had an article out about the roads projects schedule for this year. The notable ones in the Lansing area include:
3.1 miles of median cable barries on US 127 between the 496 interchange and the county line with Clinton.
Resurfacing of Saginaw between Coolidge and Hagadorn in East Lansing. This will also include ADA upgrades.
Bridge repair of the Michigan Avenue bridge in downtown Lansing. What exactly this entails I'm unsure. Maybe someone could find out a bit more about this.
MDOT has a statewide construction map for 2018.
Thank the powers that be for #2!!! That section of roadway has to be one of, if not the worst of the major thoroughfares in East Lansing... it is actually crumbling away in huge chunks... I usually take Lake Lansing road or Grand River just to avoid that stretch of rotten highway!!!
I saw an interesting idea being proposed in Boston on the boston.com page. They are considering building an overhead gondola "ski style" cable car system that will connect the expanding Sea Port District[South Boston] with Downtown. The traditional transit types do not really like the idea but I think it is innovative and kind of cool besides. What about a gondola cable car east-west line from Downtown or the Lansing Mall out the East Lansing and Okemos. Let's think above the box!
Unfortunately gondolas have limited capacity, poor frequency, limited stops, and high up-front costs. They are best suited for mountains or very steep hills. Grade-level and below grade transit is still much cheaper without all those negatives. I've used the Roosevelt Island tram in New York multiple times, and while being a nice date idea, it fails to connect with the other mass transit systems (no close subway on the Manhattan side and no ticket transfer either ) and thus is more of a nice gimmick for when the F train is having issues.
I've also noticed I can walk about just as fast as the gondolas in Cedar Point.
CATA really should work on connecting the different spokes at the outer edge instead of only relying on the hub-and-spoke model.
I think the case in Boston is that the new growing Seaport area is on a peninsula across the harbor from downtown, with traffic choke points at the bridges. Go over those points without adding more traffic to the street level is the idea. It was just being proposed but the story said that the capacity was around 9 people per car running continuously for 18 hours a day could carry 15,000 riders. I was not thinking it would be fast but it would be easy to use and I am sure a cable car system for an urban area would be built for heavy use and run faster than an amusement park ride. I was just dreaming about a solution that would get people across town other than by car or bus, maybe something in itself [a great view from a cable gondola car ride]would attract people who just want to see it and ride on it. In Racine WI they rebuilt a streetcar line and use refurbished vintage streetcars on that line, so a transit/tourist line is not "that crazy"!
CATA average cost per trip (to CATA) $3.49, average fare per trip $0.61: https://www.nationaltransitdatabase.org/michigan/capital-area-transportation-authority/ . (PS - Detroit People Mover is losing $9.89 per trip by that website.)
Prep work is starting on the extension of the Kalamazoo Avenue bike lanes. One block of Kalamazoo between Cedar and Larch will be closed from April 2 to May 9 for the project. We'd discussed it before, but the project includes extending the bike lanes from Larch westward to Washingtons Square, and adding another connection to the River Trail on the north side of the Kalamazoo street bridge. This will include a slight widening of the block between Larch and Cedar, which is why this small section will be closed for about a month.