Build It Bigger: A 20th Century Solution to a 21st Century Challenge

Mode Shift : "In response to periodic congestion on these highways, SEMCOG proposes to make them bigger. Widening a highway has been the region's traditional "demand management" response, and it is distinctly a 20th century solution. It is a response that has resulted in ours being the only major metropolitan area in the nation without a comprehensive transit system to serve commuters. It is a response that has facilitated massive outmigration from our core city, helping to exacerbate the concentration of poverty that underpins Detroit's current economic struggles. It is a response that looks to the past rather than the future and offers our region, essentially, more of the same."

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Do you get it now? Koch Bros front group wants to cut education to fund cars

Americans for Prosperity wants Gov Snyder to use cuts to education & state employees to fund road repairs | Eclectablog: "As the debate rages on where to get the millions of dollars in funding needed to repair Michigan’s crumbling roads and bridges, Americans for Prosperity have an answer: use cuts to education and state employee wages to pay for them."

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Great lakes low because #climatechange warming water faster than air. Time to rethink cars.

Good thing there’s no such thing as climate change or Michigan would have to dredge 58 harbors. Oh. Wait. | Eclectablog: "The Great Lakes are now at historically low levels. So low, in fact, that Governor Snyder was forced to prevail upon the legislature to pass emergency funding to dredge 58 harbors and bays so that ships and recreational vessels could continue to use them."

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Young people ditching their cars

Public transportation hits 10.5B rides in 2012: "In Michigan, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (TheRide) saw a 6.6% increase in ridership to a record 6.6 million trips in 2012, spokesman Don Kline says. "We have the transit-dependent riders, but we also have the choice riders," he says. "We really play into the national trends, with young people ditching their cars."

The 34-year-old system, which operates mainly in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, saw ridership numbers spike last year when gas prices hit $4 a gallon, Kline says."

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Molly Gail Shannon: Bus riders still left out in the cold | Commentary | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Molly Gail Shannon

Molly Gail Shannon: Bus riders still left out in the cold | Commentary | Detroit Free Press | freep.com: "I wished I could tell every person in that room to give up their car and live like the 30% of households in the city that do not own or have access to a vehicle. Let them navigate the network of SMART and DDOT buses that I and many others rely on for school, work, errands, appointments and recreation."

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Public transit makes Grand Rapids more attractive

616 Lofts fosters community in downtown Grand Rapids | The Rapidian: "With the popularity of the 616 Lofts above Flanagan’s, Coppess and company helped to bring the idea of placemaking and residential community to downtown Grand Rapids.

“Placemaking goes back to our core mission,” says Coppess. “For us, it’s all about people. It’s all about community.”"

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Climate Change Affecting Great Lakes Farming And Health | Moms Clean Air Force

Climate Change Affecting Great Lakes Farming And Health | Moms Clean Air Force: "The warming of the Midwest over the past few decades is already affecting public health, the Great Lakes, and farming, and fossil fuels are the main culprit, according to the new draft of the National Climate Assessment Report."

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