This is awesome and will make it very easy for office workers to also run errands during their lunch break. I know the fares are already pretty reasonable, but removing them really will make hopping on and off seamless, especially if people have multiple destinations since they wouldn't be able to use a transfer in the same direction.
Yes linking our three classic downtowns with a free and easy shuttle would be even better. Maybe add an east-west loop through the outer Capitol Complex and crossing the north-south loop downtown and going out to Sparrow and back. My bright idea about those loops would be to rehab a small fleet[4/6?] of vintage city buses and run them on the free loops. It would be very cool to find perhaps an REO Speedwagon bus or some other buses from the fifties and sixties that were made in Michigan.
I always wished they'd throw a free train trolly on the tracks that from old town to downtown... even if its mostly just a tourist attraction. Rive ferry service in the summer would be pretty sweet too!!!
Bringing Coleman road under the freeway should do wonders to reduce traffic on Lake Lansing. Navigating that area during the day is painful, they should have done this sooner.
The roads in this area get really beat up due to all the heavy trucks coming and going to the cement plants and the landfill, a haul road to the landfill and past the plants to take the trucks out of the retail areas would be another good idea. A truck route using Old 27/N East Street, then east on the north side of the whole Eastwood area.
They seem quite similar to the busses we have now maybe with rounded edges. The last time I remember a big change in bus design that I thought was cool and futuristic was when CATA went from the old 60's style chrome paneled buses to the sleek all white buses in the late 70's. I wonder if there are current bus models that would be more remarkable than this one? Really cool looking buses could help ridership.
On a side note, I find it so frustrating that they have torn up the only section of W. Mt. Hope that had been repaved just two years ago. This looks like a fairly large project that must have been planned for a while, they could have repaved the next six blocks up the street if they knew this same six block was all going to be torn up. With only 9% of our street in good condition, it seems short-sighted and wasteful to pave and repave the same six blocks three times in two years.
Speaking of CATA, a friend of mine works for there and mentioned that in a meeting they were talking about redesigning the CATA logo and possibly advertising on bus shelters and/or the exterior of the buses. He said they were talking about those new buses at the same meeting, apparently they're ditching the hybrid designs.
I have been reading about a plan for high-speed rail service between Ann Arbor and Traverse City. This sounds like a great idea but the planned route bypasses Lansing to the east. It seems like Durand is the place this new route will cross the CN tracks and the Amtrak Blue Water service. I guess there would be several trains a day on the new route but Lansing's one eastbound train gets to Durand around 9 pm so I do not see this a popular transfer point for train riders from Lansing. I could see another line from Jackson to Mt. Pleasant via Lansing connecting with the AA/TC route in Mt Pleasent and the Wolverine Amtrak service in Jackson. I am not sure why it seems like Ann Arbor is making all these plans for rail transit and we can not even build a 4-mile long bus lane here in Greater Lansing. Let's get with the 21 century already!
The Ann Arbor to Traverse City line doesn't make any sense to me when we should be pushing for a Detroit-Ann Arbor-Lansing-Grand Rapids line first. Until we can connect our major metropolitan areas then we shouldn't be trying to plan a much longer route with much less population density along the way.
Comments
This is awesome and will make it very easy for office workers to also run errands during their lunch break. I know the fares are already pretty reasonable, but removing them really will make hopping on and off seamless, especially if people have multiple destinations since they wouldn't be able to use a transfer in the same direction.
Yes linking our three classic downtowns with a free and easy shuttle would be even better. Maybe add an east-west loop through the outer Capitol Complex and crossing the north-south loop downtown and going out to Sparrow and back. My bright idea about those loops would be to rehab a small fleet[4/6?] of vintage city buses and run them on the free loops. It would be very cool to find perhaps an REO Speedwagon bus or some other buses from the fifties and sixties that were made in Michigan.
I always wished they'd throw a free train trolly on the tracks that from old town to downtown... even if its mostly just a tourist attraction. Rive ferry service in the summer would be pretty sweet too!!!
Also... Saginaw Street in East Lansing is nearly finished!
Bringing Coleman road under the freeway should do wonders to reduce traffic on Lake Lansing. Navigating that area during the day is painful, they should have done this sooner.
The roads in this area get really beat up due to all the heavy trucks coming and going to the cement plants and the landfill, a haul road to the landfill and past the plants to take the trucks out of the retail areas would be another good idea. A truck route using Old 27/N East Street, then east on the north side of the whole Eastwood area.
They seem quite similar to the busses we have now maybe with rounded edges. The last time I remember a big change in bus design that I thought was cool and futuristic was when CATA went from the old 60's style chrome paneled buses to the sleek all white buses in the late 70's. I wonder if there are current bus models that would be more remarkable than this one? Really cool looking buses could help ridership.
On a side note, I find it so frustrating that they have torn up the only section of W. Mt. Hope that had been repaved just two years ago. This looks like a fairly large project that must have been planned for a while, they could have repaved the next six blocks up the street if they knew this same six block was all going to be torn up. With only 9% of our street in good condition, it seems short-sighted and wasteful to pave and repave the same six blocks three times in two years.
Speaking of CATA, a friend of mine works for there and mentioned that in a meeting they were talking about redesigning the CATA logo and possibly advertising on bus shelters and/or the exterior of the buses. He said they were talking about those new buses at the same meeting, apparently they're ditching the hybrid designs.
I have been reading about a plan for high-speed rail service between Ann Arbor and Traverse City. This sounds like a great idea but the planned route bypasses Lansing to the east. It seems like Durand is the place this new route will cross the CN tracks and the Amtrak Blue Water service. I guess there would be several trains a day on the new route but Lansing's one eastbound train gets to Durand around 9 pm so I do not see this a popular transfer point for train riders from Lansing. I could see another line from Jackson to Mt. Pleasant via Lansing connecting with the AA/TC route in Mt Pleasent and the Wolverine Amtrak service in Jackson. I am not sure why it seems like Ann Arbor is making all these plans for rail transit and we can not even build a 4-mile long bus lane here in Greater Lansing. Let's get with the 21 century already!
The Ann Arbor to Traverse City line doesn't make any sense to me when we should be pushing for a Detroit-Ann Arbor-Lansing-Grand Rapids line first. Until we can connect our major metropolitan areas then we shouldn't be trying to plan a much longer route with much less population density along the way.