After largely achieving the long-range plan established for Greater Grand Rapids in 1998 by the Metro Mobile 2020 Task Force, The Rapid's board and management team commissioned a new community task force to create a 2030 Transit Master Plan (TMP). After nearly a year of hard work, the final results are in.
The Mobile Metro 2030 Task Force (MM2030), representing various segments of the community, met numerous times over the past year to learn together, discuss various needs, and to develop a plan that satisfied West Michigan sensibilities and supports expected growth.
The task force's final "preferred scenario" was presented to The Rapid's board which, after providing an additional month for public input, approved the recommendation and adopt its work as its long-term guidance.
Getting to the final recommendation was not a small task, according to Bob Roth, CEO of RoMan Manufacturing Inc. in Wyoming and chair of the MM2030 Task Force.
The first task was "to get as broad a cross-section of the community as possible at the table," he said. The "Fellowship of the Rapid" was formed in 2009, with about 30 individuals representing each community, major employers, development interests, and advocates for those with disabilities, the environment, the elderly, and the poor. Roth was tasked with chairing this diverse group and keeping their focus on the year 2030.
Roth was impressed with the group he was given to work with. "There was quite a range of thought and personal backgrounds. Members were willing to bare their souls and give their personal perspectives," he said, while remaining "respectful of others' views" that might conflict with their own.
The next step, said Roth, was to become well-versed on "the foundational stuff," like comparisons of West Michigan's transit system to those of other cities of similar size and needs and understanding best practices in transit systems. Then, the group "tried to project way into the future," he said. "We tried not to fall into the trap of solving tomorrow's problems … and by that I literally mean tomorrow's problems," he said, instead trying to "anticipate the needs of users who aren't even born yet."
That involved studies of regional growth, projecting which areas will grow in population and which will decrease. It included financial projects based on use of the system as well as taxes. The study points out that the greater Grand Rapids area spends a fraction on transit systems compared to like-sized cities and even many other communities that are much smaller.
As a community, "we didn't get to vote on M-6," said Roth, and everyone can see the development and community growth resulting from that investment in West Michigan. This community does vote on mass transit funding, however, and that means The Rapid's management team and board have a huge task to educate the public, said Roth.
"How do we present the value proposition (of mass transit) to the community so they view it as a smart investment in transportation infrastructure?" asks Roth. "If we don't do a good job telling that story and showing that value, there's a good chance it won't work out," he said. A result of that would be an even larger investment in transit systems at a later date, he said.
The scenario presented by the task force to the board for approval was a blend of fiscal responsibility and steady, managed growth, building on The Rapid's already strong bus lines and enhancing services in the city's core with a downtown streetcar service. The full, approved plan and documents detailing the process by which they were created and approved are available at http://rapidtmp.org/.
While Roth is concerned about the tasks ahead to communicate the plans and obtain funding, he believes the plan will be executed. "There is a really good probability that it will come to fruition," he said. "Some parts might come quicker than we anticipated and others later … what we provided was not an exact recipe," he said.
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