TRU meeting tonight

[tapezord]

If anyone is interested, this is tonight. I personally plan on making the trek down from east lansing in a few.

Dear TRU members, Riders

[baldy]

Please let us know how it goes.

[statedude3]

I had intended to be a part of this meeting, but it appears that my car is not going to be a friend to me today...please post an update!

Just think, an I-96 train link from GR-Detroit via Lansing would have allowed me to travel to this meeting even though my car is dead...food for thought.

[tapezord]

An interesting meeting as always, here are some highlights:

Stay SMART delivered their message on their opposition of Livonia opting out of the SMART bus system. They mentioned that the move is highly political citing it as a "pay back" for apparent disagreements between the previous Livonia mayor and the Wayne County Transit Comittee. The movement is mostly grass roots and I am not sure they were quite ready for the agressive stance taken by TRU. TRU wanted to make a motion to boycott the City of Livonia.

The DARTA update sounded pretty grim to me. Apparently the bill is back, but it will take time to get it back (2-3 years possibly). They are also awaiting an appellate decison from the court ruling a few months ago.

A transit planner who had designed systems in many other various cities delivered the dooming message that he does not feel Detroit will ever get transit. He basically said that it would be the Woodward Corridor or nothing, but the politics in place currently will prevent this from ever happening.

Ann Arbor to Detroit Commuter Rail is kicking off a series of meetings next week. Any Ann Arbor people sure as hell better attend (you have NO excuse!). Your meeting I believe is on Sept. 21 at Wash. Comm College (Check the SEMCOG site for more info). It was re-affirmed by a Stabenow official tha the $100M will include monies to begin engineering of the route.

other notes:

Freeman was in the house. Kwame was nowhere to be found.