The Capital Area Transportation Authority is moving along the tracks toward its proposed $85 million Lansing to Detroit Passenger Rail System.
CATA secured the next step in a needed rail study for the project, which will review all transportation alternatives to the system that would have stops in Lansing, East Lansing, Howell, Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Detroit. The project could be completed by 2005.
The funding for the rail study came from the Federal Highway Administration, Michigan Department of Transportation and seven communities through which the train would pass.
Lansing, East Lansing, Howell, Washtenaw County, Wayne County, Dearborn and Detroit all contributed $19,500 for the Alternative Analysis.
“It took us six months to get the funding,” said Debbie Alexander, director of strategic management for CATA. “It was a long process of communities going to their boards to get the money.”
Alexander said the Alternative Analysis is a 12- to 18-month federally required component that evaluates alternative approaches to providing the railway.
During this period, CATA will be completing other activities, such as community outreach and education and finalizing the exact location of rail stations.
Alexander said these steps would not begin for at least a couple months, until CATA has received a contract from the state securing the federal and state funding.
“We will not execute anything that is not fully funded,” Alexander said. “I am asking for a contract through the whole planning process.”
Alexander said after the Alternative Analysis, CATA will start designing the station, engineering the tracks and removing environmental debris from the areas.
East Lansing City Manager Ted Staton said the railway will bring a lot of benefits to city residents.
“We think it is not only smart transportation but good for economic development,” he said. “People from Detroit and Ann Arbor can take a high-speed train to East Lansing for sporting events and cultural events.
“And it will be good for our restaurants and hotels.”
Staton, however, is concerned that communities in which the rail system passes through will not contribute to funding the project.
“This is simply one more phase in the study and we are going to have to find a broader base of people to subsidize the trains,” he said. “It can’t just be the communities where there are stops, it will have to be the communities on the way as well.”
Accounting sophomore Mary Anne Van Camp said the train would be good for college students who do not have any other way home.
She also said she would take the railway home to Grosse Pointe and to visit friends if she didn’t have a car.
“I took a bus to Ann Arbor and it was bumpy and had that uncomfortable bus smell,” she said. “If the train prices were reasonable then I would definitely take it over a bus.”
