As momentum for expanding public transit builds across the country, Lansing lawmakers are moving forward on progressive legislation that could accelerate transit development across the state, including Grand Rapids’ Bus Rapid Transit line.
According to excerpts from the story:
Led by the business community, local elected officials and forward-thinking state lawmakers, momentum is building across Michigan to significantly expand public transit. The biggest motivators are jobs and economic development.
Every major U.S. urban area that has embraced transit in the past two decades has gained thousands of transit-related jobs and billions of dollars in commercial, residential and infrastructure development near their transit stations. Apartments and condominiums, office buildings, restaurants, pubs and cafes, movie theaters, art centers, and retail shops are developing near the stops. The story is the same in Dallas, Charlotte, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Portland.
Communities with real transit systems - buses and rail working together - are also places where young, college-educated people are increasingly choosing to live, work and play. Michigan currently has no such community. Building a real transit system requires substantial public and private investments.
Because systems cross many local government borders, they also require the political and public policy cooperation of multiple elected officials and bodies. The Detroit Regional Chamber, the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, the Michigan Municipal League, and officials in Livingston County and Ann Arbor, all are working on transit.
Read the complete story here.
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