Monthly Archive

Update:  Last night’s presentation about possible Division St roundabouts is now available here:  http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/divisionpresent20100426.pdf.

After months of work by many people, we’re nearing a decision about what to do with Division St.  First a brief recap: 

For about a year, the community has been discussing the burdens Division St imposes on our neighborhoods.  It is too fast, too noisy, too dangerous.  It is hard to cross, unfriendly to bikes and pedestrians, and creates a barrier between Munson and the GT Commons – our #1 area of residential and commercial growth – and the rest of the city. 

The city Master Plan calls generally for more transportation choices.  The Grand Vision calls for more walkable, bikeable communities.  The GT Commons master plan mandates:  “Access to the Grand Traverse Commons for pedestrians and bicyclists is a priority. Safe and accessible crosswalks will link the campus with the surrounding community.”

The Commons master plan has an extensive discussion of Division St, and the 11th St-Division intersection specifically.  You can find it here: http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/CommonsMasterPlan/5_Circulation_Plan.pdf.   

Last spring, MDOT agreed to put on hold an asphalt replacement project on Division that would have locked in the status quo for 10 more years.  In December, MDOT Director Kirk Steudle reiterated his support for doing something better, and the city embarked on a design process that would meet MDOT’s requirements while implementing the city’s goals as well.  In January, the city created a steering committee of local stakeholders and hired URS and Ian Lockwood, a sub-consultant with national credentials in neighborhood-friendly road design.  The city manager persuaded MDOT to hold the asphalt replacement project (the “mill and fill”) until 2011 in case no other changes are agreed on.

In March, Lockwood presented the recommended new face of Division St to a packed house at the Hagerty Center.  In short – take out all the traffic lights from and including 14th to Grandview Parkway, and replace them with modern, two-lane roundabouts.  You can see a picture of the concept here: http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/DivisionDesign.pdf.  You can find a video of Lockwood discussing roundabouts in general here:  http://www.upnorthmedia.org/watchgovtv.asp?SDBFid=1713#vid (this is from a bayfront presentation, but Lockwood comes on about 2/3 of the way through.)

Note that these are not traffic circles, a-la D.C., or the famous scene in “European Vacation.”  They’re modern roundabouts.  2,000 of them have been installed in the U.S. in the 10 years since the dust-up over a potential roundabout at 8th and Woodmere.  Lockwood estimates 100,000 of them will be installed in the next 10 years.  They’ve gone into some high-traffic, long-backup intersections in places like downtown Lansing and Farmington Hills.

They’re going in everywhere because they work.  Gary Howe has a nice collection of resources on modern roundabouts here:  http://mywheelsareturning.com/2010/04/05/division-street-roundabouts-traverse-city/.  Some facts that rise to the top -

Safety.  Traffic crashes go down 39% after a traffic signal is replaced with a roundabout.  Injury crashes go down 76%.  Fatal crashes go down 90%.  This is because nobody guns the light at a roundabout, and because the potential conflict movements are reduced by more than half (i.e., no left turns).

Traffic flow.  Roundabouts move more traffic, and move it from A to B in less time, than lights.  This is because while the cars move more slowly, they don’t stop moving.  Examples are everywhere, google it.

Public acceptance.  The Institute of Traffic Engineers found that before roundabouts go into a community, about 2/3 of the public are opposed to them and 1/3 are in favor.  After they go in, 1/3 are opposed and 2/3 are in favor.

Now, building a better community is about figuring out what’s possible, getting it done, and then figuring out a next step.  The 5-roundabout plan has some issues.  One is public acceptance – if the majority tends not to favor roundabouts until after they are in, shouldn’t we start with one and make sure it is accepted before talking about more? 

Another issue is 11th St.  11th St desperately needs some kind of traffic control to allow people to cross and to allow turning movements into and out of the Munson-Commons area.  But residents of 11th St need to know there is a plan to deter cut-through traffic east-bound from Division.  Such a plan is possible, but we haven’t got it together yet.

Finally, the concept design currently includes a new street – 8 1/2 St – extending west from Division to the hospital.  The new roundabout and street would replace the light at 7th St, because there is not enough room at 7th St for a roundabout without removing some of the houses on that corner.  There has been significant pushback to 8 1/2 St from the Kids Creek neighborhood, because it would cut through the Women’s Walk neighborhood park.  This again is a problem for which a solution is possible, but we haven’t got it together yet.

One place we could start is with Front and Division.  A roundabout there would significantly reduce the long E-W backups during morning and evening rush hours.  It would provide an entrance to the downtown area.  Needed property for the roundabout is currently contaminated and undeveloped on the NE corner of that intersection.   However, there is potentially additional property needed on the other side.

The other option is to look at 11th St, which would require a vote for a small piece of parkland (but less than the original divided highway concept advanced by the city engineer).  If 11th is not first, improvements to 11th for turning and crossing still must be part of any mill and fill project.  Some kind of counterflow bike lane or other improvement on 7th is still needed so that cyclists coming home from Munson or the Commons are not immediately riding against traffic or forced onto the sidewalk.  And the Grandview-Division crossing remains dysfunctional, a problem that could be mitigated by moving it back to the other side and creating a fully protected crossing by synchronizing the red light for E and W bound parkway traffic when the S-bound green left turn arrow is on.  

Hopefully the steering committe will be invited back into the process to iron out what should be done now, what might wait for a while, and what else we should do in the meantime.  The city commission is discussing these issues Monday night, and it would really help us to hear from you.

There’s a lot coming up the next few weeks in TC:

Hotel in Warehouse District.  A new, different hotel is being proposed in the Warehouse District.  Luke Haase of the TC Business News tells IPR the neighboring businesses are cautiously supportive:  http://ipr.interlochen.org/ipr-news-features/episode/7420. 

Street projects.  Monday night the city commission will approve this year’s street projects.   Details are here http://planfortc.com/2010/04/08/small-steps-toward-complete-streets-april-8/.  Barlow has been pulled for further discussion.  I think Ross Richardson nailed it:  

It is critical that we start doing the streets completely (and right for everyone) now. If we don’t get sidewalks and curbs on Barlow now, it may be 20 years before the issue is visited again. This section of Traverse City, generally considered a less economically advantaged area, suffers from decades of infrastructure neglect. In essence, we are being told that that we can’t fix it now, because it costs too much, because we didn’t do it right before. It is a very difficult to break out of this circular, self-defeating mindset.

Team Elmer’s http://www.facebook.com/TeamElmers bid the projects for about $950,000, well under the original $1.2 million budgeted.  Fun Fact:  the savings would pay for curb, gutter and sidewalks on Barlow - and then some.

Affordable Housing at Depot.  The city is renewing efforts to find a developer to do mixed use, with affordable housing, at the Depot Property south of 8th St.   A reduction in the price, or tax capture assistance from the GT County Land Bank, are potentially available.  The next step is a meeting with the local developers group to get their ideas.

Biomass.  This Monday night the city commission will refer the TCLP capital budget to the planning commission for their review.  The capital budget and operating budget come back to us for a decision June 7.  The capital budget includes potential expenditures for biomass generation.  (correction: these were in last year’s capital budget, so the commission will not be deciding whether to approve them this year.)  The inclusion of these expenditures is like a place-holder, it does not require that they be spent.  Other CC decisions, like approving bonds for construction, are believed to be a long way away if the project was to head that direction.

While we’re making no decisions Monday (other than the formality of sending to the PC), we expect a large turnout.  We look forward to hearing from our residents and ratepayers Monday night, a discussion that will no doubt continue. 

Division St.  What to do with Division St will be back before the CC a week from Monday, on April 26.  Potential plan(s) will be here as soon as they’re available.

Old Town Parking Deck.  The Old Town parking deck construction is ahead of schedule.  It’s expected to open in August.  It’s expected that Hagerty will be announcing the plans for its new buildings on Lake Street in the next few weeks. 

Volunteer for your city.  The city is interviewing for positions on a host of city boards and commissions.  Gary Howe has a call to action here: http://mywheelsareturning.com/2010/04/15/boards-committees-volunteers-traverse-cit/.  Ellen Fivenson said it best to me:  TC residents are branding the city as their own.  We haven’t won anything yet, but from financial inequities to neighborhoods to streets to parks, the push is on and some of us have gone all in.  We need your help.

April is budget season in TC. While not the most colorful subject, the city budget is among the most fundamental work of local democracy: deciding how to spend your money.

This is an update on what we are looking at for the coming fiscal year (July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011), with more discussion expected in the coming weeks. This post will be followed later on with posts on the city’s public safety spending, and the city’s tax structure – with some ideas about how things might be improved over the long term.

Back to this year. The city has a smaller budget than most people think. Last year the general fund budget was about $14.4 million. Part of this money comes from state revenue sharing (taxes people pay to the state that the state then sends back). Part comes from the city’s component funds like sewer and water and TCLP, which return 5% of their revenues to the general fund.  But most of it comes from property taxes.

Taxes

The city levies a property tax on residential, commercial, and industrial property of 13.1765 mills. That means the average city resident, who owns a home worth the average city home value of $146,400 pays the city $956 in taxes (these are simplifications but will do for now). If you rent, the property taxes are no doubt baked into your rent as part of your landlord’s carrying cost.

Obviously, $965 is not a city resident’s entire tax bill. City residents also pay taxes to the County, the schools, NMC, BATA, the Commission on Aging, the Library, and the Joint Recreation Authority, for an average tax bill for homestead residents of $2,635 and non-homestead residents of $3,953. The longer you’ve owned your house, the less you pay. The more it is worth, or the more recently you bought it, the more you pay. If you own commercial or industrial property, you pay more.  The breakdown of what an average taxpayer pays to who is found at http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/agendas/Packet20100410.pdf, on page 10 of the pdf.

The goal

The city commission’s goal is to spend these limited funds in a way that maximizes the benefit to city residents. Easy to say, harder to do. Because the city’s budget is limited, and the needs are many, every dollar spent to meet one need is a dollar that cannot be spent to meet many other needs.

And as COFAC – the citizens group who spent a year studying city finances http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/COFAC/ – pointed out, the needs are increased by the fact that Traverse City’s roughly 14,500 residents (and its commercial and industrial property owners) pay for services used by a much larger portion of the region’s 130,000 residents, plus thousands of annual visitors. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a good thing to have lots of people working, visiting, and recreating here. But the city needs to provide policing, fire protection, parks, streets and sidewalks, and many other services for all those people, and someone has to pay for that.

If the above discussion sounds like a rationalization for high tax burdens or existing spending patterns, it should not be taken that way. There are areas in which the city can improve how it spends your money. Some of these areas require longer term strategies, and we will be discussing those here in the coming weeks.

Issues this year

Some of the strategies are relevant this year, however. Most pressing this year is that the city’s revenues are flat, but its expenses are projected to rise. Revenues are flat primarily because the loss in real estate values has finally caught up to the way property is taxed in Michigan. (This is a longer discussion about the Headlee Amendment – see http://www.michigan.gov/documents/treasury/Bulletin10of2009_297377_7.pdf for more info.) Revenues are also flat because state revenue sharing to TC is expected to be cut by about $110,000, and because the revenues of contributing units like TCLP are down – primarily due to the economy.

Expenses are up primarily because of existing contractual and state law obligations the city has to its employees and its retirees. Overall, employee costs are up about 2%, or $215,000. Other costs (fuel, equipment, etc.) are projected to increase about 1%. The city will need to assume half the cost of the Community Development office this year if that program is to continue, which is another $75,000, and has some other contract costs that will rise as well.

The result is a projected city shortfall in revenues compared to expenses of $550,000 for this coming year. That assumes the city spends at least $1 million on streets and sidewalks this year – a commitment the city commission made last year and believes the public wants us to continue. (And candidly, is not enough to do the job over the long haul – see http://planfortc.com/2009/12/19/streets-sidewalks-2-news-on-waterfront-sheriff-last-update-of-2009/ )

The city is not in a financial crisis – far from it. We have significant funds in various savings accounts. Our general fund savings balance is actually higher than the city commission’s long-standing policy says it should be: at 25% of general fund spending. It is now at 31%, which is about a $950,000 difference.

Balancing the books this year

Back to this year’s numbers.  Of that $550,000 projected shortfall, roughly $212,000 represents the amount needed to get the city from one mill of street and sidewalk spending ($788,000) to the city commission’s commitment of $1 million. Another $290,000 represents the expected increase in employee costs (the contractual commitments plus taking on part of the Community Development office).

The city commission’s discussion Saturday centered around a two-fold strategy. The first part of the strategy was to use at least $212,000 from the $950,000 difference between our general fund savings and our 25% savings policy to close the gap to $1 million in street and sidewalk work.

The other part of the strategy was to ask the city manager to come up with a plan to keep employee costs flat this year since revenues are flat. To put it bluntly, because per-employee costs are rising, keeping overall employee costs flat will require some layoffs in the city workforce – something that has not happened in recent memory and something that no one takes lightly. On the other hand, the city commission believes that we cannot increase our overall employee costs in a time of flat revenues.  Nor does the city commission believe we can reduce our new level of infrastructure spending.  Something has to give.

The city budget will be presented April 26^th. The city manager is expected to have a specific plan for holding the line on employee costs this year, as well as more specific numbers for each of the subjects covered here. Any comments you have between now and then will help us make final decisions about what to do this year. Look for discussions of longer term budget strategies in this space over the coming weeks, and thanks for checking in.

If you’ve already read the original part of this post, the update starts a few paragraphs down.

This week the Traverse city planning commission moved the city a few steps closer to some complete streets.  Following the failure on 8th St, the PC has taken on the task of ensuring that future street projects meet the city’s Master Plan and the expectations of our residents.  This includes working on a better process for capital improvements – the infrastructure template upon which everything else in the city is built. 

More immediately, it includes the street projects for this year:  sections of Cass, Oak, Maple, Union, Hannah, Barlow, Highland Park Drive, Third, Airport Access, Boyd/Bates, and Kelley.  The PC held three of them and requested designs more in keeping with the goals of bike and pedestrian safety:  Hannah, Airport Access, and Barlow. 

Wednesday the PC decided to move forward with sidewalks on the stretch of Hannah, and a road diet on a stretch of Airport Access (four lanes down to three with marked shoulders for bicyclists.  The PC left it to the city commission whether to add curb, gutter, and sidewalks to the stretch of Barlow, due to the increase in cost.  Details are here:  http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/boards/planning/packet20100407.pdf.  

The PC is also working on elements (like chapters) of the new Master Plan.  The Transportation Element is led by Ross Richardson, and you can contact him or other members of the PC for more info on how the future of the city’s streets are being planned to meet the needs of all users.   The PC’s info is here:  http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/boards/planningcomm.pdf.

Update:  What to do about Barlow, and streets without sidewalks in general, is before the city commission Monday night.  The stretch of Barlow on the table is between Centre and Carver.  The new Master Plan classifies about 3/4 of this area as a Traditional TC neighborhood, which requires “more formal designated transportation access (sidewalks, bike lanes, alleys).”  You can view the map of neighborhoods in the master plan here, on page 32 of the pdf: http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/departments/planning/20090715masterplanapproved.pdf 

The original plan from the city engineer was to simply repave this section of Barlow without without any pedestrian features, at a cost of $60,000.  After the PC determined the master plan required more than that, the city engineer submitted a plan that adds two feet of road on both sides of the street for pedestrians to walk along, at a new total cost of $91,000.   Or a sidewalk could be added to the west side only, which requires curb and gutter on both sides, and costs a total of $260,000.
 
Under the city’s infrastructure policy, the city has started again paying the cost of streets and sidewalks as a general burden of government, rather than expecting residents of specific streets to pay these costs through special assessments.  However, city policy apparently still requires residents to pay half the cost of curb and gutter.  Because curb and gutter is apparently necessary for any sidewalk, this creates a Catch-22:  the city will pay to repair your existing sidewalk if you have one.  But if you don’t have a sidewalk already, you have to pay half of the (much higher) cost of the curb and gutter.  So if you do not have a sidewalk, you still cannot get one unless you pay for a big chunk of the cost. 

Three things stand out about this situation.  First, the financial roadblock it creates for individual neighbors on these streets prevents the master plan from ever being implemented on them.  We again find ourselves in a situation where the city has a legally binding master plan but no intention of following it. 

Second, rather than spreading costs, the current policy focuses hardship on those residents who for one reason or another do not or cannot drive.  The director of the Grand Traverse Area Community Living Management Corporation wrote the city a letter saying that she has 34 residents on that stretch, none of whom have drivers licenses and many of whom have mobility impairments.  The letter noted that as pedestrians with no other option, these residents remain vulnerable to fast-moving auto traffic if they want to go to the store. 

Third, the situation programs an inequity into the city’s new effort to spend more money rebuilding our old and long-neglected infrastructure.  If the city is now spending 10% of our general fund infrastructure dollars to replace existing sidewalks, but not to build new sidewalks in areas that are supposed to have them, that means the tax dollars of some residents are helping to replace the sidewalks of other residents, but not the other way around. 

It often costs more money to be fair to everyone.  In practical terms, if the city maintains but does not increase overall infrastructure spending, that means being fair to everyone will cause it to take longer to get all the infrastructure fixed.  These kinds of tradeoffs are the decisions we are supposed to make.  The city commission will be discussing this issue Monday night at 7 pm.  I hope we will hear from you, by comment, email, or otherwise.

tomorrow:  city finances, part 1

We attended the TCLP biomass presentation tonight. I did a more extensive post on this topic a couple months ago at http://planfortc.com/2010/02/21/biomass-my-2%c2%a2-feb-22/

This is not a comprehensive summary. The slide presentations will be at www.tclp.org as soon as possible. A few things that stood out to me tonight.

Ed Rice, TCLP executive director, talked about the board’s decision on April 20 as a decision to undertake a series of additional analyses. Mr. Rice explained that the less expensive analyses would be done first, so that if an unsolveable road block emerged the utility could change direction prior to more expensive investments.

Energy Efficiency. Rice highlighted TCLP’s Energy Optimization plan (energy efficiency), and its exceedance of state requirements last year by 70%. TCLP is currently working to meet the capacity of a full 10 megawatt generating plant with its efficiency plan.

Cost Comparisons. Rice presented the comparative impact on electric rates determined by RW Beck in the Integrated Resource Plan. In 2010 dollars, the cost to TCLP customers per kilowatt hour of current generation is less than 10 cents. The cost of electricity from biomass is a little over 10 cents. The cost from new coal is closer to 15 cents. The cost from natural gas is a bit over 15 cents, from wind is about 17 cents. The cost of doing nothing and buying on the electric market is about 20 cents, and the cost of solar is about 27 cents.

Michigan Forests. Bill O’Neill from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources presented data showing the ratio of aggregate forest growth in Michigan to its removal is 2.1. In other words, forest growth is exceeding its removal by over two to one. By way of comparison, the ratio in Minnesota is 1.4, and in Wisconsin is 1.5. He also said there are 9.8 million acres of forests in Michigan.

 Gasification. Goutam Shahani, a chemical engineer from HTI, presented the difference between combustion and gasification. In combustion, fuel is combined with air to produce fire to heat water to make steam. In gasification, the solid fuel is converted directly to gas. As a result, no water is used, and the pollutants are much lower. This also allows much of the ash to be reused, and allows between 2/3 and 3/4 of the waste heat to be captured and reused.

Sustainable forestry requirements. Tom Stanton from the Michigan Public Service Commission presented the requirements of the Michigan Clean and Renewable Energy Act of 2008 related to sustainable forestry. Under the law, biomass from whole trees only qualifies as renewable if the wood is derived from sustainably managed forests or procurement systems, as defined by a state law governing how the state buys paper and wood.

There was a lot more discussed, this is just a few notes that stood out. If the meeting is available on-line, we will post that link here too.  TCLP will continue discussing this, including a possible vote on proceeding at their regular meeting April 20th.