As Michiganders drive less, is more public transportation funding needed?

MLive.com: ""The main reasons for the decline in driving are increased telecommuting, increased use of public transportation, increased urbanization of the population, and changes in the age composition of drivers (fewer young drivers and more older drivers, with older drivers driving less in general)," Sivak said in an email."

How Much Money Can You Save By Living Car Free

Living Carless: "If you sit down and calculate the numbers it seems that many people are possibly spending up to 50% of their income on vehicle ownership. Sometimes even more if your family has more than one car. With continually rising gas prices, car payments, insurance premiums, maintenance, auto repairs, and other car ownership expenses it’s no wonder that road rage exists. We have become a society that is enslaved by the gas and automotive industry."

Money spent on cars leaves the community

Strong Towns: "My back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates that the Holland-Zeeland area (where I live) would see as much as $300 million returned to the local economy EACH YEAR if every two-car household became a one-car household.

Massive Toxic Black Cloud, Brought To You by the Koch Bros, Blows Over Detroit

Common Dreams: "MInd-boggling video of a billowing, high-carbon, high-sulfur cloud from the mountain of petroleum coke - waste from Canadian tar sands shipped from Alberta to Detroit, and the dirtiest potential energy source ever - illegally stored by the Koch Brothers along the Detroit River. Produced by Marathon Refinery but owned by Koch Carbon, the pet-coke piles have for months been producing "fugitive dust" - ie: thick black crud - that blankets the homes of outraged residents and lawmakers; analysis shows the dust contains elevated levels of lead, sulfur, zinc and the likely carcinogenic vanadium. Environmental officials say the Koch Brothers broke the law by not getting a permit for their toxic dump, and they can't guarantee there won't be another "dust event,""

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Dearborn transit station design moves along

h/t metromode

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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