Bicycling in Ann Arbor

There's a new page up on the city website about bicycling in Ann Arbor.

It looks like a promising start. As I noted here, I think it could be improved in several ways.

1) The online citizen request system does not include an obvious category for asking the city to remove broken glass or similar trash from a bike lane. (I tried this recently, and the closest category I could find was “pothole to be repaired.” Needless to say, the request is still listed as “open” 4 days later.)

2) The bicycle registration section links to the City Clerk’s site, but the City Clerk’s site barely mentions bicycles. (There’s one brief mention, but the bike registration form is not online.) I would think folks might be much more likely to actually register their bikes if it did not require a trip to city hall.

3) The page talks about how many miles of bike lanes were added in 2007. It would be nice to see an updated number for 2008, plus a graph or chart showing the change on a per year basis.

4) It would be nice to see a link to what's planned for 2009 in terms of bike infrastructure for Ann Arbor.

WALLY

The AATA site has a new page charting the progress of WALLY, the proposed commuter line from northern AA (Plymouth/Barton) to Howell. (Hat tip: getDowntown) So far the content includes a press release, plus a PDF of the presentation and the summary of each of the first two monthly meetings. Next meeting is January 26th. Interestingly, these meetings are being held at Whitmore Lake, which shouldn't have surprised me as this is really focused on the commuters north of Ann Arbor getting into the city, not intra-city transit. Skimming through the presentations, it seems like the major points include the fact that AATA is now the designated authority, that the AATA has identified a staff member to work on this project, that the work has begun, that there is now a placeholder for Livingston County to contribute in return for federal matching funds, and that the consultant-generated estimate of $32 million to get the project up and going does not include costs for ADA compliance.

As suggested during the Ann Arbor Transportation Plan overview in September, it looks like they are going to focus on getting the service up and running and not worry about extending it into downtown (or south to the stadium) yet.

I still think this is a mistake, but I think I understand the reasons. My concern is that you really only get "one introduction" to a new service and I suspect the resistance to switching from "car/walk" to "car/train/bus/walk" will be too much for many potential commuters. I'd much prefer to see folks switch from "car/walk" to "car/train/walk", as that strikes me as a much easier transition.

That said, I do have a very personal bias here. I'd really love to be able to hop on a commuter rail at the Washington Street overpass and hop off at the intersection of State and Stimson, but I suspect that will be a long time coming. (Even the optimistic projections of extending the line into AA seem to have it stopping near the Stadium, rather than continuing SSE to State Street and Georgetown.

Regardless, it's great to see a designated site for all your WALLY needs. It would be nice if they eventually included links to the consultant information (or migrated it to this site), currently found here.

A2 Capital Improvement Plan

Although the Ann Arbor city website is pretty good, I'm still struggling to find information--what's planned, what's been accomplished, and what will really happen--about the evolution of the city's transportation infrastructure on the website. Today I came across the Proposed FY2010-2015 Capital Improvements Plan page, which appears to contain much of the information I was looking for. Apparently, the A2 City Charter requires a six-year-plan every year, the first two years of which form the basis of the two-year Capitol Improvement Budget. (From this, one might conclude that Years 3-6 are simply wishful thinking unless they actually migrate into Year 1-2 in a future year.)

The 3 links of interest:

# 2010-2015 CIP Presentation (3.2 MB pdf)
# Planning Commission staff report (pdf) - December 16, 2008
# Capital Improvements Programming (pdf) - December 5, 2008

The first one is apparently the public presentation given on December 16, 2008 at a public hearing held by the Planning Commission. It seems pretty bereft of content, other than repeated statements that the process has been improved (which might well be very true, as this is the first I've ever heard about this process) by using interdisciplinary teams and focusing on "corridors" with overlapping projects that can be done in sync. (Presuming this reduces hassle for local residents, improves efficiency, and reduces cost, although I'm speculating.) In my opinion, the most interesting slides is #24, which clearly illuminates that most of the non-motorized transit plans are unfunded. This is explained in slide 27 as follows:

Previous plan had removed most items because of inability/unlikelihood of
implementation
• This year all needs identified --funded and unfunded -- so many non-motorized and alternative transportation projects added

In my experience with budgeting processes, this is a significant step forward as oftentimes good ideas are buried by middle managers who don't even get the good ideas on the table because they assume they won't be funded. In other words, by calling out the ideas, even if unfunded, they become part of the debate. This seems to have been the intent, as the second document says the following, on page 4 of the PDF:

During the work on the FY2008-2013 CIP, the approach taken was to include only “implementable” projects. As a result, most of the non-motorized needs were not
included in the plan due to the lack of available funding and the uncertainty of support at the time of implementation. This year, the approach to the CIP was to charge the CIP Category to identify all of the needs in the various asset areas - - regardless of funding or outside support.

Therefore, there are many needs that are included in the CIP that are not funded at this time including a great number of non-motorized projects. However, the presence of these unfunded or unprogrammed needs are intended to draw the attention of the
broader city staff, policy makers and the public on the increasing number and scope of
needs of the city related to its infrastructure systems; and to perhaps serve as the
catalyst for discussions and efforts to find methods to fund and program these needs.

So, it seems like the city staff that put the document together are saying "Here are some worthwhile projects that ought to get funded which we can't afford; please have elected representatives and members of the citizenry discuss creative ways to get these funded." The document doesn't seem to be saying "Perhaps we should build more bike lanes before we build any new streets; please discuss."

The first question that comes to mind is "Why are non-motorized projects largely unfunded while other projects are fully funded?" Returning to the first PDF, it looks like the Sanitary System, Stormwater Management, Water System, Airport, Parking Facilities, Street Construction, City Owned Buildings, and Solid Waste are fully funded, while Alternative Transportation, New Streets, Other Transportation, Parks & Recreation are not. (These are not defined in this document, so one is left to wonder about the difference between Alternative Transportation vs. Other Transportation.) Is the reason some are funded and some are not tradition (i.e. the city has always done sewers but bike lanes are relatively new)? Prioritization (i.e. sewers are more important than bike lanes)? Legal (i.e. we're required to fully fund these things by the state)

Reading through the third document, it appears that it's not "legal", as defined above. I infer this from page 4 of the PDF, which quotes the Municipal Planning Act (Section 125.3865, Act 33 of the Public Acts of 2008) as saying: "The capital improvements program shall show those public structures and improvements, in the general order of their priority, that in the commission's judgment will be needed or desirable and can be undertaken within the ensuing 6-year period."

That leaves either tradition or prioritization, presumably both of which should be considered critically by the citizenry.

The second question that comes to mind is "So what are the unfunded projects and where can the public have input about creative funding for these projects?"

More on that in the next post.

Ann Arbor Transportation Plan

The draft Ann Arbor Transportation Plan was unveiled several weeks ago in back-to-back presentations and informal poster sessions at city hall. While the focus of the plan is on things like commuter trains, streetcars, priority queuing, and road diets, it does endorse the Ann Arbor Non-motorized Transportation Plan as well.

My main bike-related concern is that they did not consider "Copehagen Lanes."

My main rail-related concern is that I think they should be more aggressive in the roll-out. The current proposed stations (Plymouth and Fuller) see much lower priority than the Downtown station or the station at the intersection of the two commuter lines.

Winter Bike Commuting

Winter snows have hit Ann Arbor early this year. We went from 70 degrees on Halloween night to regular snowfalls in the latter half of November and early December. There hasn't been much melting, as the temperature has stayed in the mid-20s or below.

My goal for the winter is to bike to work every day the bike lanes are clear of snow and ice, regardless of the temperature, assuming I am not traveling for work. (I've signed up for the Winter Bike Challenge, so we'll see how I do.) So far that's worked out to just a half-dozen rides since mid-November, and winter hasn't officially started yet. (I missed a good week while on travel for work or I would be doing better.)

Today was fairly typical ... when I woke up our side street was fully covered with a packed 1/2 inch of snow. While the main arterials were largely clear where the cars were driving, the bike lands were not totally clear. The forecast suggested snow late in the day, so I didn't risk it. However, looking at the roads on the way in and looking out my window at lunchtime, I think it probably would have been fine.


I'm still trying to figure out how to do better at guessing whether to ride or not. A coworker told me about a fellow who works downstairs from me whose bike slipped on some ice. Apparently he broke his hip and he will be out of commission for six months. That put a major damper on my enthusiasm to risk it. One option is to get winter tires for my bike, but I'm not sure whether that would be a good investment or not. Would they really make me feel comfortable enough to ride in any conditions? Comments from other winter bike commuters would be very helpful.

Complicating things is that I try to avoid having my kids walk to and from school when it's sub-20 degrees, as they are so thin and get cold so easily. If I'm going to drive them to school, I usually just drive on to work.

As a result, I'm increasingly convinced that going "car-lite" or even "car-free" and relying on one's bike for most intra-city mobility in Ann Arbor requires a supplementary mass transit option to handle the winter commute, at least for the majority of potential commuters. In my case, that would mean having the option to shift to walking and mass transit when I didn't feel comfortable riding my bike due to weather or conditions on the road. Normally there would be about 3 months out of 12 where I might consider an alternate mode each day (although this year it's looking like 4 months out of 12).

So what would those alternate modes of transportation look like? More about transportation alternatives in another post.

Planning an Upgrade

I want to make it a full year before I invest in a new bike and associated bike paraphenalia that might better fit my commuting needs. My plan is to get used to the characteristics of each season and its impact on my biking before making a decision.

For example, initially, I thought I'd need "fall biking clothes", so I bought a pair of shins from Chrome Bags, as shown here:



While I love them, and they are great for biking in cool fall weather, they were quite expensive. I've since figured out that I actually prefer to cycle to and from work slowly in my work clothes, following the principles of the Slow Bicycle Movement and Copenhagen Cycle Chic.

To date, other than ice and snow, the biggest complication to my 3.2-mile commute is that I need to get my two small children to school before going to work. It's two blocks to the first drop-off and two blocks beyond that to the second-drop off. At present, I walk the four blocks with my bike and kids in tow, and then start actually riding after the second drop-off. As small kids walk slowly, this process takes 30+ minutes, including going into both schools, making my total door-to-door commute take about 60 minutes. My thought is that I could get this down to 45 minutes if I ferry the kids by bike.

I was initially considering a Bakfiets, as shown here:



I even test-drove one out in Seattle on a business trip. While I love the bike, it's pretty pricey.

Now I'm leaning towards an Xtracycle Electra Townie, as shown here, with the idea that two kids could straddle the rack:



Of course, even this is pretty expensive, so I'm also looking at a solution for one child, such as a Novara Afterburner 7-Speed Trailer Bike as shown here:



Not sure how this would work for two children, but it would speed up the second half of the drop-off.

So, the lesson learned to date is that patience is a good thing. By taking time to figure out what will work for my situation and searching for alternatives, I've realized that my initial impulses would not have necessarily been the best investment for my bike commute.

Let's see how the winter goes.

Commuting to Work

I began commuting to work in July 2008 during the peak gas prices. My commute is 3.2 miles each way. My commute is pretty flat (sidewinding along the railroad tracks from the Old West Side to South State), with the exception of the hill up South State at the end on the way into work.

My motivation to finally start commuting by bike was less financial (I calculated I would save $8.00 a week if I rode every day) than health and wellness. I've always loved riding my bike, and I'm increasingly inspired by people who live far greener lives than I do. Moreover, with young kids and a demanding job (albeit one that has me sitting most of the day), I never seem to fine time to exercise. Riding my bike to work allows me to get a little exercise in each day, as well as be out and about in Ann Arbor, a city I really enjoy living in.

Here's my current ride:



It's a 15-year-old Bridgestone MB6 mountain bike. I replaced the seat and wheels last summer at Great Lakes Cycling and Fitness. I added front and rear lights from them in the fall. I bought new fenders in the fall from REI. Next I intend to add a rack and panniers.