Echo

Granholm to attend White House meeting on rail funding

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(MI) Detroit Free Press – Gov. Jennifer Granholm is one of eight governors coming to the White House on Wednesday to talk about options and funding for high-speed rail with Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The meeting is set for 1 p.m. Attending the meeting with Granholm will be Govs. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Jay Nixon of Missouri, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, Sonny Perdue of Georgia, Pat Quinn of Illinois and Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama identified 10 potential high-speed rail corridors which could compete for $8 billion — plus additional funding over five years — to get projects underway. More

Echo

GM’s Volt electric vehicle plans a go regardless of bankruptcy

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(MI) The Saginaw News – No matter what happens with General Motors Corp.’s bankruptcy filed in New York today, a company official says the Volt electric vehicle project is still moving in high gear. And that could be good news for GM factories and suppliers operating in the Great Lakes Bay Region and Flint. GM plans to build the 4-cylinder gas engine for the Volt at a GM factory in Flint. It also has hinted that it plans to use Bay City’s GM Powertrain factory to produce parts for the project. More

Echo

Whitmore Lake company’s Mag-Lev train concept: Mass transit solution or idea that won’t get off the ground?

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(MI) Ann Arbor News – Picture a rail service in southeastern Michigan that runs along a track suspended above the freeway, traveling at speeds up to 200 mph. Imagine getting from Ann Arbor to Detroit in 10 minutes – and taking your car with you on the rail. And envision that service with on-demand cross-country travel that has personal suites with kitchens, as well as the ability to rent onboard space for commercial offices and private parties. Such a service also could have the ability to dispatch medical equipment and full teams to the scene of a car accident by rail. More

Echo

City cycling is a challenge and a treat

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(MI) Detroit Free Press – The owners of Wheelhouse Detroit, a year-old all-purpose biking outfit, have something else to prove — that riding on two wheels is the best way to get to know a place, even somewhere considered unfriendly to cyclists like the Motor City. Throughout the spring and fall, and occasionally in the summer, the store — run by Detroiters Karen Gage and Kelli Kavanaugh — hosts bike tours that range from about 10 miles to 30 miles or more. More
 
 
 

Echo

A Times Sq. ‘Sanctuary’ on First Workday Without Cars

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(NY) The New York Times – The difference between the old, frenetic Times Square and the newly reconfigured, still frenetic Times Square became clear on Tuesday: now you can pull up a chair to watch the show. Traffic still flowed on Seventh Avenue, without any obvious bottlenecks, two days after the city shut Broadway to traffic between 47th and 42nd Streets.  More

Recreation

Transit moving to help cyclists

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(ON) The Toronto Star –

Cheap and clean, cycling and transit should be a match made in heaven, although traditionally, transit authorities in the Toronto region haven’t rolled out the welcome mat for bikes. But that’s changing. A long-awaited bike station opens on the southwest side of Union Station today with secure parking for 180 bikes. Occasional users will be able to use the facility for about $2 a day and there will be monthly and six-month rates. More

Echo

Detroit light rail moves forward

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(MI) The Detroit News – Leaders of a $125 million light rail project said Thursday they have reached an agreement to collaborate with the city on a three-mile plan to link city riders in a local transit system. The privately funded M-1 Rail, an approximately 3.4 mile, 12-stop route from Hart Plaza to Grand Boulevard, would be the “first phase” of a Detroit Department of Transportation’s proposed $371 million project. That plan, the Detroit Transit Options for Growth, calls for a light rail to extend from Grand to Eight Mile, said Matthew Cullen, M-1 project president and CEO. More

Water

Potential water raids unite Great Lakes states; adequacy of protection questioned

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Matthew Cimitile

Once seen as a region of endless water, the Great Lakes watershed is under stress thanks to inadequate water management, unrestrained growth and other pressures. Climate change stands only to make conditions worse, experts say, as increasingly thirsty neighbors look for additional water and changing weather harms quality and supply. Out of such gloom, however, has emerged what analysts describe as a most significant feat: Earlier this year, after almost a decade of talks, local and state leaders throughout the Great Lakes set aside differences and agreed to coordinate the protection of this vast but finite resource. The Great Lakes Compact, signed into law in October, controls transportation of Great Lakes water to parched areas outside the region. Thrust for this regional resolution came via fears of a 1998 plan by a Canadian firm to transport tankers of Lake Superior water to arid parts of Asia.

Echo

Federal stimulus money to flow through Great Lakes faucets, sewers

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Jeff Gillies, gilliesj@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo

While many Michigan communities struggle with water problems, the state’s poorest city may still be sitting on 100-year-old wood water mains. “If they’ve got the flu, you can imagine that we’ve got pneumonia,” said Marcus Robinson, president of Benton Harbor’s Consortium for Community Development. Benton Harbor is one of hundreds of Great Lakes communities that could benefit from a $1.88 billion federal boost to the region’s state-run water project loan programs.

The federal economic stimulus package will funnel $6 billion through the Environmental Protection Agency into water projects nationwide. The Great Lakes states are in line for $1.4 billion for wastewater projects and another $450 million to improve municipal drinking water systems.

The EPA sent $432 million — the agency’s biggest grant ever — to New York’s sewer program on April 3.  The state should see another $87 million for drinking water projects.