Raildudes dad

I tried but could not determine if this was one of the Twin Fair stores. Meijer entered Ohio by buying the Trwin fair stores on Ohio in the early 80's. They were a much smaller store than the Meijers here in MI at the time. If this was a Twin Fair, it may have been expanded to the size it is with no room for expansion today. My BIL lives in West Chester OH (lived in Norwood back in 80's: which had a Twin Fair changed to Meijers) ). Meijers, Walmart and Kroger are at Exit 22 or 23 on I-75. My experience visiting there is volume wise Meijer is #1, Walmart #2 and Kroger a distant #3. The Kroger is more a large grocery with pharmacy and bakery than a hypermarket.

Look at it this way. Say you and your competitor both make widgets that should sell for $10. If you can sell all you can make for $9, why would you sell them for $5 just to make your customers happy? As long as SW can fill their planes at a small discount to Delta and United, they are still the "low cost" carrier and doing well Yes, it makes no business sense to have 3 more airports within 60 miles of GRR

Not quite what I would consider a "major" announcement. We have known that SW was taking over AirTran, nothing in their announcment that "surprised" me. I don't expect any big drop in fares either. Both Delta and Unitred do a fair bit of business here. If they charge say $500 to get to the next hub, why would SW only charge $350 and give up $150 / seat?. I can see where they might drop $50-75 if they have trouble filling seats to BWI or StL. Why are the fares lower in Lansing, Flint, or Kazoo? Much smaller market and trying to fill seats. Sorry, not very exciitng IMHO

The old city ramps (all demolished) were obviously parking ramps with open areas at ground level in place of windows. They also had 2 story high signs that spelled "PARK" vertically, green letters on a white background. One had no trouble picking out where the ramps were. Todays downtown wayfinding signs while pedestrian friendly have fonts way too small for a motorist. The ramps are built to resemble storefronts so they don't stand out. (I'm not suggesting going back to the old designs but today's signage is poor). Replacing the current ramp signs with a big "P" would help.

And you have people like my wife. Grew up in a small town north of here. Won't even attempt to parallel park after I showed her the little 1/3 trick to do it. (I can teach I showed my 16 year old daughter when it came to time for driver's training and she can do it like a pro. ) My wife doesn't like parking ramps even when I am driving. She sure won't use them when she's driving. We enjoy dining at Leo's occasioanlly and she would rather I find a surface lot or on street parking rather than use the ramp above

It was a pay phone kiosk -in the olden days before cell phones

GRDadof3: You beat me to posting I still have the draft waiting for the hard numbers for rail service to be plugged in for our Sparta to GVSU demo line. The current owner, RailAmerica is opposed to any shared use of the ROW. The RR, the GRE has 2 customers, Amway in Ada and King Milling in Lowell. They run as needed, 2 -3 times a week.

The expert's comments on the East Fulton area are Am I missing something? The furniture store over on Michigan closed it's doors years ago. There's a very good Ace hardware 1/2 mile away on Michigan (I wish it was 1/2 mile from my house), a phone store on Michigan at Diamond, a Family Fare a little ways east, and one can buy garden stuff at the Ace and Family Fare. IMHO, he's an expert only because he's from out of town Somehow I don't think 2 of each that close will survive, but what do I know

A month ot so ago we bought 3 tickets to Tampa for for the last week in Feb 2013, tickets are AirTran tickets

I asked the pharmacy clerk what was going on when I picked up my meds tonight. She told me is is an expansion of the pharmacy.

SLC also completely rebuilt 17 miles of I-15 prior to the Olympics -5 lanes each direction,at a cost of $1.52 Billion or $89 m per mile. the light rail was incorporated into that. The numbers are from the FHWA website. SLC is also in a differsnt situation. It is a built up area sandwiched between the Great Salt Lake and the mountains. Not much in the way of alternate routes. GRR, another story, you can drive thru or around the core city on freeways (except for the West Beltline) We don't know what congestion is. You can drive inbound to the core city at 70mph just about anyday with only minimal slowdowns. The exception is SB 131 north of I-196. Once MDOT builds the merge weave lane from Ann to Leonard, that will get better also. (I've told folks at MDOT for years, extend the Ann Street SB on ramp so the trucks can get up to speed on the hill before they need to merge and it will reduce the backup on SB 131 in the morning.) GRD3 and I with others worked on a commuter rail plan. Only 131 north has enough congestion to consider rail. Even had a friendly RR (at least talked to us) but GRD3 will agree, there's too much parking available downtown to get commuters out of their cars.

It had a lot of windows back in the 50's. I remember going in there with my dad, IIRC, it was a Union Bank office until they built a new one south and across the street (Credit Union branch today)

No, the city fathers / businesses wanted the freeway to go thru downtown to keep shoppers coming downtown. They were very concerned over the 1st shopping center being built in GR - Rogers Plaza on 28th St. They wanted it so bad the city issued bonds to help pay for it. The reason Wealthy is elevated was the number of RR tracks parallel to 131 on both sides. Raising Wealthy eliminated a lot of tracks crossing Wealthy. MDOT way back in the 30's proposed either a tunnel under the tracks and a bridge over the tracks. Neither was built. I do not see any "demand" for folks to walk to the market from the bus station and back. It would make more sense to me to have a bus route serve it for those bus riders that would patronize the market - just a few steps from the shops to the bus - that's user friendly (good idea John E )

Try this website, they have lots of granola:) http://www.westmichigancoop.com/

I had to chuckle at the forum because the reason they gave that they can't go north of Wealthy because there's not enough clearance over the tracks. Funny thing is 30 years ago there were active tracks in the very location they propose and the tracks went all the way to and north of Fulton. US131 over the RR is going to be rehabbed this summer or next.

Wealthy was elevated to allow it to go over the railroad tracks on either side of US 131. The west side tracks were the approaches to the freight houses / yard to the north (Wealthy to Fulton area ) and the reason 131 is elevatated to Grandville Ave. The east side was the Pennsy's access to the west side via the "blue bridge" as well as acess to the businesses on Ionia. Those tracks did get removed until the rail consolidation plan of 1984.

The MDOT Rail Safety Section will NOT approve a new crossing. In fact, they would like to see moredcrossings closed. I do not like the Front realignemnt because it does nothing for the N-S traffic flow. Front linng up with Turner will put more traffic thru the campus that has lots of foot traffic between classroom buildings. Using Winter at least puts the traffic between a parking structure and the classroom building. Plus it's already a "transportation " corridor with the RR tracks . I'd like to see the area south of Fulton developed with all lthe buildings surrounded by "green" and ped facilities, not streets

I cannot believe the university did not take the opportunity to realign Front from the Butterworth intersection over to Winter get rid of Front north of Butterworth, Watson and Mt Vernon from Watson to Fulton. The land is all chopped up by those street segments. With them gone, it could be a nice pedestrian friendly campus area.

We have enjoyed several trips to Chicago both as a couple w/o kids and as a family w/ 2 kids. They have been weekend trips and day trips. We took the train both as a novelty and so we didn't have to drive and park in Chicago. We did drive from our house to the GR station every time. Why would we walk to a bus stop to take a bus downtown and then have to walk to the train station? My point still is, I could park my car in Grandville at a train station, get off the train at night and be in my driveway before the train would get to the downtown station. (Be home about a 1/2 hour to 45 minutes earlier.)

A stop in Grandville or Jenison is an excellent idea. Let the train overnight downtown and those that want to get on or off there can. The rest of us can get on in the "burbs" and save the slow transit time through the yard. I could get off in Jenison and be home before the train gets to the downtown station

The train is currently overnight-ed at the GRE at Ann St. It sits outside, there haven't been any problems in all the years it has parked there that I;'m aware of. It will stay over night at the new station, no reason to take it up the west side. Amtrak has been running with an engine on one end and a control unit (old locomotive w/o an engine) on the other end. The train usually doesn't need to be turned, it just reverses direction the next morning. The problem with the proposed configuration is the train will have to back in in the evening and then back out in the morning. The problem with a backup move is the conductor has to protect the rear of the train when it is backing. He really needs to be tending to passenger issues, not standing on the rear unit. It also takes time to make backup moves. I went an looked at the site also. If they had the switch facing west instead of east, the train could pull in in the evening and pull out in the morning. I drew it up on a REGIS map and sent my suggestion to the forum moderator, time will tell.

I had forgotten the comment about not using the Wealthy Street ROW. They did mention the clearance for that location because I made a comment to the person next to me that there shouldn't be any issues because trains ran under there years ago and he was very positive that trains had never traveled that area. I wasn't going to get in an argument with him, but I have copies of the plans for the original freeway construction that show tracks in that very location. It turned out that the person was a Rapid Board member If this going to be the depot location, the track needs to go north of Wealthy so the train stops alongside the "tent". The "tent" and the bus lanes should have been shifted west enough to allow for the track immediately west of the freeway. The Amtrak waiting area and ticket machines belong in the Rapid Central building, not a a quarter mile away. IMHO, poor planning all the way around.

Actually if the "old" locomotive is leading on the Pere Marquette, it is backing up. The "old" engine only has controls which operate the "new" engine on the other end. The Pere Marquette travels 79 mph down by Chicago. At least the engineer has more protection in a crash than the Metra guy operating the "wrong" end. They are touting this as transit center but the average walk from the bus station infrastucture to the boarding point on the train is over 1300 feet. That's quite a hike with luggage for someone dropped off at the front door of "Rapid Central" or the persons that try to use the bus to get there. The reason given by the "experts" for not putting the depot north of Wealty Street (I still do not understand why the Rapid Central buiding can't house the Amtrak stuff) was clearance issues under the Wealthy Street overpass. I'm old enough to remember the freight tracks under that very bridge so I'm not buying that reason. Even it they needed a foot or 2 (which I really doubt), that's what they make excavators for, dig out the dirt and lower the tracks. IMHO, the design and location leaves a lot to be desired fior current and future rail. I'd like to see a low cost commuter rail operation tried here (GRD3, we never finished my report:( ). Use the Marquette line to Sparta, if that works, go south on Grand Elk to 84th Steet or 100th Street. It will never happen at this location. Even their talk of a send trail to Kalamazoo will not work well from here. It can be done on the existing tracks, but it will require a double back up move.

I’m not familiar with the Millennium or Ogilvie stations but I’m very familiar with Union Station. Every Amtrak and Metra train pulls directly into the station. The passengers are unloaded and the “road “crew gets off. A yard crew then backs the trains out of the station, gets the train serviced and then backs the trains into the station for loading. The “road” crew then pulls the loaded train out of the station. The trains do not reverse direction while loaded. The conductors of these trains are never protecting the backup move and not paying attention to the passengers. I don’t have an issue with the proposed back up moves in and out of the proposed station EXCEPT for the fact the “experts’ (and I’m using the term very loosely”) are touting the new location as more efficient for Amtrak operations when it IS NOT. The current operation is very efficient for operations, pull up to the station, load or unload and go. As a guy that has experience as a passenger conductor, trust me, back up moves are time consuming. What is even more time consuming on the Pere Marquette, has nothing to do with the station, and is not being addressed is creeping from the station to Ivanrest at 10 mph – the maximum speed allowed in the yard. One last point, according to the presenters, Amtrak tickets will not be sold in the bus station. The “experts” comment was “different unions”. I couldn’t believe they said that. While it may be true, I would have used the phrase, “there currently are some contractual issues” and we are hoping Amtrak and the Rapid can resolve them. At least put an automated ticket machine in the bus station and educate the bus ticket sellers so they can answer basic questions. Sorry about the font size, I did a copy and paste from a Worddocx and can't edit it:(

Here's a link to a another photo of the old Greyhound Station. http://cdm15416.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/p15416coll4&CISOPTR=309&CISOBOX=1&REC=6 I don't know where to start on this project. The Rapid Central Terminal should have been between US 131 and Seward, between Lake Michigan and Bridge. Step off the bus and onto the Dash Bus. Right next to the GVSU campus, Amtrak goes right by there on the way to and from it's overnight at Ann Street, pull right thru , no back up moves. As GRD3 and a few others know, the corridor best suited for commuter rail is that track as well as Grand Elk to the south. Comments on the proposed station, every train arriving and leaving must back up. EB train from Chitown has to pull past the switch to the depot and back in to the end of the track. Int he morning, the train needs to back out in order for the engineer to be in the correct position to "drive" the engine to Chitown. Every time / anytime the train backs up, the conductor must be "in the back" to watch. That means he cannot be dealing with passenger needs. Inbound, that means he's at the rear of the train and not preparing to unload passengers. With the current station, its pull thru with the current engine on one end and a cab car on the other end. The proposed station is very poor for commuter rail Again every last train using it must back in or back out. The most efficient commuter operations are pull thru. The station is located south of Wealthy and the platform is 400 feet long. That's a long walk to the Central Station. Certainly not "cross platform" to a bus. If it's not going to offer true multi modal, why locate it so it has inefficient operating characteristics every day of the year?. They show two trains on 2 tracks. Why 2 trains would leave at the same time does not make sense to me. Even if one went to kazoo and the other to Chitown, why wouldn't they be staggered departures / arrivals to give more travel opportunity? Amtrak is currently; using "double deckers" called Superliners in the winter months since the single level cars have "issues" in Michigan winters. The Rapid is currently looking for a "Construction Manager" not a contractor to build the facility. There were representatives of several of those firms in the audience. . Last track work is estimated to cost $3.8 Million, the station, $800,000. I think the spikes will be gold plated. The train left the station a long time ago on this project, but it left w/o an engineer or conductor.