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If I get Manager Holts permission I like to post something he was talking about a couple of weeks ago after the council meeting. If not too bad, you dont get to see it. Frankly its something I like to see anyways but thought it be pretty cool to see. I will stress that a lot of folks here would give some feedback about the idea and they can decide from that point. If anybody wants to send me a parcel map of 28th street I would love to give you some details on whats what and what each property is. I know just about every single location on that street, I work on it and I drive on it a lot.

Oh brother, you guys are talking about my backyard like its nothing. Okay since I been in the thick of getting into everything on the west side of 28th here is some info for you guys. First, D&W had done an additional 10 year lease on the burlingame store. As a result when it was bought by spartan it had like 8 years or so on it. Right now there is only 4 years left on the lease so Family Fare ie Spartan inc is going to keep it open until then. Second, Classic Chevy is being looked at by several parties. I wont name names because I will not do that. Its just the way I am. Third, Rogers Plaza is going to get even more development occuring. The thing is there is more deserving properties that need rebuilding. Going back to the redevolopment as of right now Spartan is going to be purchasing a plot of land and placing a gas station southwest of Klingmans to create a new entrence. As for how the bussiness are doing, well AJ Wrights is doing spectacular, Family Fare is doing better (the gas promotions are helping), the shoe place is doing okay, MC sports well I am not too sure, Office Max is doing okay, Harbor Frieght Tools is doing good, Big Lots is going crazy, Big Boys looks busy enough, but the Old Country Buffet is doing awesome. Then you have the two offices, the Post Office and the Secretary of State. There is still a lot of space that needs to be filled in but we are in bad times and frankly I would not expect to see everything filled in. Fourth, the city manager and his office teams are working on a lot of projects. Frankly its a lot to deal with but they are trying to get a use zoning ordinace put together. Its taking time, it took a year just to rework the sign ordinace.

Well, as to answer your question about a linear devolopment. It could work provided. I would have to say that if a devoloper brings it up I am certian a few of the planners would go for it. Those that are unsure, I can talk to accordingly. The key thing is the planning commision has a lot of new work ahead of themselves with some new work. The key thing is that I think you have to understand that the BRT line that is being developed is in itself a full BRT line. The only diffrence between ours and Clevelands is that Cleveland built theres in the median of the old road and as such has a better means of getting to point A to point B. Outside of that one small detail everything I have seen is the same thing.

Well I helped to plan the BRT line for the 54th/60th station redevelopment. The amount of land that is available in that area is amazing. From what I understand, the current idea is at least 200 to 300 parking spaces for the BRT line for that station. Personally I think they could go even higher but that is just me. The issue is that building any parking ramps is a huge cost and as such the cities are not looking into doing that. Any millage increase might be hard to bear on the current economic stage but we will see when they bring this to the ballot.

Actually this is right with the topic. You have to look at the whole picture. I will talk about this more but just think about this, transit is just moving something or somebody from point A to point B. The How, Why, Where, and such are the things we are trying to get everybody informed on. So lets take this 48 page topic and get it to the point where we can honestly start filling in these points.

To give you an idea GRDad. Ford motor company built an airplane factory and airfeild after Pearl Harbor. By 1944 it was producing almost 14 planes a day. Now that is what our American Car Companies can do. So do not ever tell me that they can not compete. The problem for them is that they got stuck with Americans buying SUVs and Trucks hands over fists and not protecting thier car edge. If they protected thier car edge they would never have been in the situation that they are in. I think the key thing is that they are going to reduce the amount of brands and types of vehicles. That will allow them to change and add new electric models faster. What they need is some cash aka loans to get them from right now to next model year. That will allow them an ability to do the restructering.

It looks like they will be okay. They are coming to the planning commission next week for the gas station. There is one issue I have with the design but I hope landscapping will solve the issue. As for the store, the key thing to remember is that it was not Metro Health Village or the Planning Commission that made the decision for the store to go into the PUD. Rather it is the City Council deciding to allow it by editing the PUD of the Metro Health Village for the gas station. The PUD was okay with the D&W but it was unable to accept it since the gas station was to come with it. As a result the PC refused to get involved as they should, and gave it to the City Council to deal with.

Well here is the detailed report. IT Professionals - 1.30% (22) Avg 1.37% Managerial,Professional, Technical Jobs - 22.2% (13) Avg 21.5% Workforce Education - 30.7 (28) Avg 31.5 Immigration of Knowledgeable Workers - 12.9 (8) Avg 11.4 Migration of Knowledgeable Workers - 13.0 (26) Avg 13.1 Manufacturing Value Added - 97.7% (26) Avg 99.2% High Wage Traded Services - 12.2% (31) Avg 14.7% Export of Manufacturing and Services - $21,973 (29) Avg $31,606 Foreign Direct Investment - 3.5% (11) Avg 3.0% Rapid Growth aka "Gazelle" Jobs - 6.3% (31) Avg 8.0% Job Churning - 38.9% (10) Avg 33.4% Fastest Growing Firms - .005% (32) Avg .013% IPOs - 4.19 (32) Avg 5.0 They have some groupings in this. First is Knowledgeable Jobs. Here we are at 10.01 and the national avg is 10.00. So We are really close to the avg and can be increased to keep pace. Okay for the IT Professionals its not so much IT people but relates to where they work. So having a ton of IT companies will not help that score. What we need is more IT Jobs in non IT places. So with us being under the avg we have some room to grow here. Managers, professionals, and technicians jobs, here we are above the national avg but just marginally. Thankfully this is going to go up in a year or two with the Medical Hill projects getting wrapped up. But we need to figure out some more expanses in this area after the medical hill gets wrapped up. Workforce Education, this one we got some room for improvement. Unlike the IT here we have a huge hill to climb. This one needs to get the Blue Collar Unions on board and hopefully we can increase the education of our employees. The problem I see is how can unions ask their workers in the auto industry to go to school to get an AS, AA or some other college courses. Immigration of Knowledgeable Workers is saying that we have an avg years of education of 12.9 for each immigrant coming into our state. The national avg is brought down a lot by immigrants on the southern border. As a result I think we should look more to top 5 or so and that gives us around 13 yrs. So we have some work to do. One thing that can help is having those immigrants from Latin America, which tends to be of lower education, go back into school in local ESL programs to help them assimilate better. The next one is Migration of Knowledgeable Workers which is key for bringing in high educated workers from other states. Right now all that can be done is just make sure we have jobs for them. Not much else we can do here. Its really just up to the companies to do. Next we go to Manufacturing Value Added which is one that we are going to struggle until we can get more high tech areas. We as a state do not have the car factories running for effeciency but as a union hostage in that regard. It is rather large part of our base but with a change in GR from manufactury to medical should improve our numbers. High Wage Traded Services which is just to say how we rank in paying our employees in all service jobs. This one is a catch 22 IMHO. We would like to have a higher wage for everyone but by doing so we also increase our costs. But since this also includes lawyers and other higher wage earners it can also be used to keep us near the national avg which we are. The next aspect is Globalization. The ranking is sitting us at 16 with a score of 9.76, the national avg is 10. Some room to grow IMHO. The first part of this is the Export of Manufacturing and Services, which is the worth of the product we produce per service and industry worker. Essentially its rating how our trade is compared to the costs of the employees. Here we sit at $21,973 with the of Avg $31,606 which means we are currently $10k off the national avg. This is more than likely the fact that the Big 3 are not cutting it with efficiancy. Given that vehicles are a major export for the state we need them to change how they work. Thankfully that should be going up if the congress has their way with them. The thing that can also help us out is getting more pharmacutical companies in the state with the Medical Hill. That can also help our rankings. BTW a nice tech bomb could help in getting the office furniture business moving again. The next part is Foreign Direct Investment. Here it is how many employees are being employed by businesses owned from outside the US. I guess its a good thing for some reason but personally I think just keeping the status quo is fine by me. Not sure why this is here personally. Can somebody explain this to me? The next aspect is Economic Dynamism. Here we are again below the national avg with a score of 8.95 and national avg at 10. So its one part we can get better at. The first part is "Gazelle" Jobs which we are below the national avg by 25%. This one is going to be hard to expand but thankfully our city is working hard at expanding this one. I am just not sure what we can do outside of a handful of medical startups that effect this score. If we continue our work on the medical hill and hopefully more companies start up making medicines and other medical areas we should be able to keep up with any increases and hopefully get more with this. But be mindful like the 90's to make sure we dont throw money on companies that may close up shop in a few years. It needs to be sustianable. Job Churning frankly I think this one is kinda bad and can be good. Its a catch 22 in their ranking. The problem is that combines both firm closes and firm openings. Frankly I think it should be a negative percent for us since we had more firms close than open per their report. Its quite sad so all we should be looking for is just getting more firms to open and expand. Fastest Growing Firms is the next one. This one is actually something that Wyoming is going to get noted in that a lot of the small industrial facilities in the city are expanding. The key is that they need to expand by 200% for several years to get listed. As a result which Wyomings industry base is expanding I do not think it will make it get a lot of companies listed since manufacting is hard to get continued growth. Overall though just getting more companies to invest in themselves and expanding is what is key here. Lastly is the number of IPO's. Granted a well rounded state that has full employment should not have many IPOs if there are mostly public companies. But a state like us needs to get more IPO's happening. IPO's are great because it means a company is raising cash to expand which means its doing well. So for us being almost 1/3 of the national avg we need to be a leader to say our ecomeny in the state is increasing. But as I said time and time agian, the medical hill is going to give a lot of that to us thankfully. The thing is that even if our medical hill does all that I say it can we still need to be mindful that if those companies ask for breaks we need to provide them to keep them in the state and continue to hire more and more. The other good thing about expansion is that if they are producing items it means they are getting shipped. If they get shipped that means they are going to be paying taxes for our roads and for the income that is being used to service that shipping and manufactoring. Its a neat little circle.

One thing that I noticed is that if a rural area wants somebody out, they will come out in droves to get somebody out. So even though this is not a Tax Increase it is essentially a redistrubution of the future tax amount. But trying to sell that to people is hard to do if your opponent goes its still a tax increase and goes on and on and on about it. I do agree that it is a smart move to have this as we need to get at least 3 to 4 lines built in the city.

Coopersville doesnt get bus service that much plus Grandville, and Jenison doesnt do bus service. They have very little in the means of built up areas that will use the service. So to get elected which is the cheif job of any politician it is best to look at the district you represent to see if your voters would use the service if not why vote for it. Now he should have voted for it IMHO but he was looking more at all of the rural areas he serves rather Grandville.

Judy Emmons

I am not sure if drury owns the property to be honest. But considering the aspect that it seems they did not fight the planning commission after allowing a 54' hotel maybe they just figured they knock off 2 feet and extend it a touch. I did not see it in future meetings so it appears they accepted the PUD language. nevemind they do own it now. I did check all of the meetings after the PUD was approved by the commission. It appears they did not fight proposal so it appears it will happen.

let me explain myself better. First the head of the DDA commission is leaving. Thats the position that Bobs son should take up. They also have been in discussion in creating a DDA executive position. I do not know precisely who would be paying for the position and what the roll would be. Just been reading it in the minutes that have been posted. If you know more info about that position please fill me in. As for Wyman he still exists although I have not seen the guy lately.

yeah he is retiring. They are also looking at creating another position. I am not sure what qualifications you would need to be head of the DDA but if it were up to me I take Marge of Marge's Doughnuts or the son of Bob Israel that is currently on the board.

There is at least 4 miles of Division that needs to be redone. Thats 4 of the 6 miles that the BRT will be running on (the rest is on Jefferson, Michigan, Wealthy, Ionia (or some other government street), then back to the bus depot. Wyoming and Kentwood have a big job to do in the next few years.

Wow, I know that the system for us is going to run something like 40 or 80 million and it goes further than cleveland. That makes me wonder how much the feds paid for. Then agian they may have more busses than us. I know that a Street Car and a Light Rail are pretty much the same except a street car has just a front end and back end sections. A Lightrail adds links inbetween the front and back sections. But as for us, well we will see if they combine all of the government money spent to redo the majority of Division Ave.

uhm the lots are near the two existing commerical buildings on the west side. You can tell from the overly large parking lots. You have to remember we dont want a sea of parking there but over time those two lots could be built into a parking ramp structure if there is a need. A lot is pretty easy to construct as everybody can see from the prespective of downtown, gag. As for the concept of 28th, well thats what the 20/20 plan looks like. The problem we have in wyoming is M-11 is controlled and ran by the State. They have REFUSED our requests to put in a boulevard. The key thing that I see in this is that although it has the greenery in the middle of the street it still only takes up the space of a normal lane. They are more like islands than a true stretch. Thats what Kentwood and Wyoming need to do all the way to 28th Street. That will help that street by a large amount. If I can get the 4 negative votes on the planning commission to allow the gas station at the corner of 28th and Jenkins To become positive votes then wyoming has a good way of getting Mdot to pass this. As I said it is up to the Planning Commission IMHO to use the gas station to spur the walkability of 28th and hence allow the 20/20 plan to come into fruitation. BTW I plan on posting some pics of what I would like to see the downtown stretch to look like.

not sure, I have not seen anything from the charrette system. They maybe doing one now with Google earth using the program sketchup but I am not sure. I know they plan on using it to show the change in landscape but thats about it.

The thing is this, BRT lines still need to run on streets. The COOL thing about a BRT is that you more than likely will not see a change in the route method but rather an extension. Taking a look at Pittsburgh has been an eye opening look. They are a city similar to Grand Rapids although I would say just slight larger by twice. The key thing is this, they put the BRTs back in the 80s not in the downtown areas only, but rather to move people from the downtown to suburb areas outside of the downtown to relieve congestion on major arteries. The thinking I have is we are doing the same with Division Ave BRT line. We are taking the congestion we get from the workers running from south of town to the north by running it on Division. I am amazed that they are running nearly 41k daily riders when all three busways are combined. Since they have no real maps for each route what they do is have 3 major bus routes that are fed by feeder busses. They also allow at certian stations a park and ride. That is essientally what this BRT line on Division is going to do. Just think you can take the Rapid 44 from say GRR to Division, hop on the BRT and run into downtown in less than 20 minutes from getting to Division. Find a way to get into dtown faster than that from the airport and you got me. But the thing I also read since it is harder to see is that they have a light rail system and some street car systems. They key thing is they ALL work together. The BRT is the first step and one that I think is neccessary in getting cars off from roads in GR. We may see a Street Car system running on Michigan Ave linking to the St Mary's area to the dowtown area with the BRT line running North to Rockford running along Plainfeild. The key thing is that a BRT can do that and be successful with the Street Cars and Light Rail supporting the BRT and the BRT supporting those systems by providing the long haul work force.

Well according to most folks that I have talked to show the BRT line is successful. The main issue when a BRT versus a light rail transit is that in a LRT you are limited to just where tracks can be placed. A BRT can overnight change its route. By overnight I mean in less than a week you can move a stop and place it in a new one provided you get every duck lined up for the stop. From what I asked, is that most of these Stops are prefab units that wont need a ton of setup time. I think at most is a phone and power lines running to it which just happens to run on most if not every street in the city. I think Provo just opened up theres or will be very shortly. Its Eugene, Or that is already opened up. In anycase here is the link to BRT systems that are at present up and running. The Charrette we are finishing up was helped by one of the gals that worked on the Miami-Dade line.

Thank you fotoman. I just wanted to make sure he understood very well that the info I relate here comes directly from the people who are working on the TOD for the BRT. If you want to argue with what they say then go to the meeting tonight or dont bother argueing with stats that are well backed up.

I also want to put a nail into your thinking as well. This transit system is not geared to the older generations. This is a Generation Y or Millenimals as the key riders. To give you an example who these people really are, if you are born after 1980 you are a Generation Y for the most part. The baby boomers were born during and after World War Two and the Korean War. Thats roughly 1940 to 1960. The generation X that pepsi was targeting was the group from 1960 to around 1980. The next generation is the Gen Y or as some people say the Milleniumals. We are as a whole a very diffrent population group. We do not like the current vehicle travel. A good majority are used to riding in public transit and are very used to that system. We also like to see a more urban setting since we want interaction to find that better DNA we are striving for. Its also why a lot of my generation is just starting to get married, heck most do not until after college is over with that is diffrent than many generations. Its also one that has a demand of getting treated fairly and not run over. Also many of these Transit Orriented Developements are based upon 10 to 20 years down the road. Its not an overnight thing. Most people in my generation are going to want to be near a means of travel outside of vehicles. Also as a whole we will only have one family vehicle than the current 2 to 3 that most Gen X and Baby Boomers have or had. Also if you try to rip into what I have stated just remember I am only saying what has been stated at the Charrette for the 54th and 60th Stations. The people who are running this know what they are talking about. If you think it is wrong then go to meeting Tonight at Grace Lutheran Church and speak up. Otherwise dont argue with me since I am firm believer in this system and what they say.

tslater back up here. think crossing 44th street or clyde park half way between the lights. Thats what I am talking about. Ivanrest is not a good example if not a horrible example. It is a huge steet, in fact it is 4 lanes of traffic on the north side if I am not mistaken. I think it is 3 lanes on the south side. I would say that having a handful of people crossing is not a major deal. BTW some info from the Provo line that was put in regards to ridership, a woman saw something like 3 or 4 people in the first week on the line. The next week it was doubled, after that it was packed. So I think all it would take is a month or two to get this system really rocking. Bus route 1 will still run but the BRT line is what most people will more than likely take for longer trips.

its just something that was directed to a reader here, thats it. As for the connector from the Airport to Woodland Mall to Downtown GV to Rivertown Mall to Metro Health is this. It would cross connect with the Division BRT Line. As a result it would allow people living around those areas to be able to get to downtown without a lot of hassle and would be rather quick. As for the connector to the airport I think the problem I see is that sometimes somebody would need to use 3 busses just to connect plus ever try to lug baggage up to the bus height. Those are nearly impossible for some people. The BRT line would have the ability to just roll it right on the bus without heaving lifting. The reason for some of those locations is also for the aspect of Park and Ride areas. That allows a good portion of the population to be drive to certian locations and hit several diffrent areas and even to get to downtown much faster. The aspect of going to Metro health is to allow people that are going to be served there due to their doctors to be able get there without having to drive. More lines would be needed overtime but overall you need a few long routes to get things started first. As for development here are some numbers that were pulled from the 54th St Charrette. The range for return of investment when a line gets put into place runs from 300% to well over 1000% of return. For the Division Ave BRT line it is predicted to be around 400% rather low but expectations are for a decent return. The other thing is that a BRT line to be successful needs walkability. If anybody tried to walk accross 28th St knows, well lets just forget about walking since you can only do that in a sprint. Also anybody knows that standing in the middle of a road is not really all that safe when you yourself is on pavement. If you are located on an raised island like you see with boulevards, it creates some ease and makes it a little safer not completely but at least a vehicle is going to take some effort to get up over the curb. The other item I like with this is that it creates a more vibrant appearence. A four lane street is not terrible to cross its just that it is typically easier to do it with 2 sets of 2 lanes with a landing inbetween. The great thing with this BRT is that brings back the neighborhoods that this area is seeming to lack anymore. A good majority of people barely talk to each other unless you are in a hood that has houses on top of each other. In most designed BRT line stops they tend to create infill between the stops with built up houses that most cities are forgetting about. The nice thing with houses like those is that are easier to mantain than the regular single family homes built since the 70's. The other thing with BRT lines is that as long as there is major employment centers on a line it will be successful. A good number of employers are on 28th plus the aspect that it would connect to downtown via the Division corridor. The great thing also with BRT lines is that open space around BRT spots at major cross interections does create a huge amount of development. Its not so much that development has to be in place before a BRT line is run, rather it is better that areas of under development are included with stops since it would create a neighboorhood before your eyes. I do want to stress that by 2014 we need to be ready to start another line if the Division Ave corridor is booming. We do not want to sit back and do studies on 2014 with no line being ran for another 10 years. It be best to have a study started I would say by December of 2010. The cool thing is that an extension really would need no major study work but rather just some planning design by the areas affected with the COOL transport. As I said as the line is succesful we need to move towards Phase III and should be ready for Phase II. The only thing I might change is a sub line running to Calvin College if a need is wanted for the 28th St Line. As for other Phase III lines, well a West Side line running to GVSU would be nice the only issue I see with that is how verticle these stops tend to create. Would the west side of GR want to see 4 to 5 story Mixed use intersections on a line. The other aspect I have to continue to stress is that this is NOT a car centrict street developments. These are in fact a pedistrian and everybodies favourite mode of transit here, bike centrict streets. As a result cars still get the ability to travel but they are restricted by the ability to turn left as they will only be able to do so when there is an opening in the islands.

The thing is that 28th has a lot of dead spots. Also we do not have a connector linking Metro Health to the Airport. Plus if you do this properly you can have people leave one bus and a minute later catch another bus that goes 90 degrees another direction. The other aspect is I hate the 5 lanes of the streets in the area. I much prefer the driving of 44th Street which seams to drive much better. I would say that 44th would be better but the issue it has a lot of residential that would need to be redevoloped that is not in the best intrest. You have to choose corridors that have plenty of depth for redevolopment or infill.