Andrew Vriesman, a 22-year-old senior at Central Michigan University, is excited about passenger rail that will one day connect Mt. Pleasant with Ann Arbor to the southeast and with Traverse City and Petoskey to the northwest. The route will travel through thriving downtowns that include growing businesses, tech sectors, and colleges that are collectively home to 90,000 students.
We’ve officially announced the major northern Michigan passenger rail study that will explore regular service between Ann Arbor and the Petoskey and Traverse City areas. The announcement took place last week at press conference along the tracks at Traverse City’s former train depot.
Back in 2012 it took me more than two hours and a bus change to get to downtown Detroit from its Metro Airport–the 44th busiest airport in the world. But finally, after decades of trying to create a modern transit system in southeast Michigan, regional leaders have a plan to make getting around much easier.
The letters of support keep coming in. City after city, from Ann Arbor to Petoskey, is making it clear to state and federal officials that they support passenger trains.
Dallas is big and it’s getting bigger. It’s one of the fastest growing areas of the country. In order to meet the growing demand for travel, Dallas has been building a fairly robust train network, and that striking boom in rail activity made it the perfect place to host the 21st annual Railvolution, a national conference on how to build modern cities around rapid transit.
Ten years ago, if you showed up at Michigan’s top transportation agency and asked for someone in the passenger rail department, you’d be greeted with a strange look, and probably hear something like, “We don’t do that here. Try Amtrak.” But things have changed. These days, not only does MDOT have staff working on passenger rail, they have a whole office dedicated to improving train service. In fact, freight and passenger trains are one of the state’s top priorities.