A Modern Odyssey, Part Two: Trains and Buses in Kalamazoo

For Odysseus, the ten-year journey from Ithaca to Troy was tough, but at a certain point in the story, his luck turned around. As we left Birmingham and headed for the west side of the state aboard Amtrak’s Wolverine 351 at 6:18 AM, we passed though Michigan’s largest city one last time. The smooth ride [...]

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MLUI Job Opening: Communications Manager

The Michigan Land Use Institute is inviting applications for a new Communications Manager position to manage program and fundraising communications. The Communications Manager will help program staff develop policy messages to reach intended audiences, deliver those messages through appropriate media, and evaluate the effectiveness of the communications. The successful candidate will also develop and manage a social [...]

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Riding the Bus Here and There

Two different cultures, and two very different experiences when it comes to transportation. Shaan Embrey and Sofie Falenius are from Norrkoping, Sweden. It is a place where you don’t need a car. Embrey and Falenius walk, ride their bikes, the bus or tram to anywhere they want to go. The two college students visited northern [...]

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Civic Sausage: Watch the Farm Bill

The old cliché about lawmaking is that it’s like making sausage – best not to watch. But sausage is a farm product, and the Farm Bill is worth watching if you care about investing in local food and farm jobs, the environment, family-scale agriculture, and healthy, local food for schools, kids, and families. Today, Thursday, [...]

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Farmers Fear New Pig Rule

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment is enforcing a new policy that threatens the livelihoods of small farms raising heritage breeds of pigs that are popular with chefs and others buying in local food markets. On April 1, the new DNRE policy turned those farmers into potential felons for raising what the agency [...]

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It’s Time for Traverse City to Grow Up

Traverse City is growing, and over the next few months, you have the chance to shape that growth. Do you want to young families and entrepreneurs living in town and growing with the city? Do you want to see more asphalt along Eighth Street? Do you want safer crossings at East Front and Barlow? City [...]

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Detroit Transit Vital to the Whole State

While Traverse City area residents frequently complain about traffic, we know that it is nothing like that endured by our downstate friends in the Detroit area. And it’s easy to think that their issues don’t affect us: That’s their problem, and we’re glad we live here. But economists know that Michigan’s future, including Traverse City’s, [...]

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A Modern Odyssey, Part One: From Traverse City to Detroit

After the Greeks won the Trojan War, it took Odysseus about 10 years to get from Troy to Ithaca. He endured violent storms, hardships, deception, and at many points along the way, deep confusion borne of serious information gaps. Unless you’re in a car or an airplane, getting around Michigan can often seem as difficult. [...]

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MLUI Welcomes New Board Members

The Michigan Land Use Institute welcomed three new members to its Board of Directors at its first quarterly meeting of the year. The new board members are Paul Danielson, co-owner of Traverse City’s Trattoria Stella restaurant; Maureen Smyth, recently retired from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation; and Mary Van Valin, a longtime Institute supporter. “It [...]

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Teamwork, Plus Bus, Equals After-School Success

Jemario Raglin needs help with his geometry studies, and the Thompsonville teen is getting it thanks to the non-profit group SEEDS—and Benzie County’s public bus system. Raglin, a 16-year-old high school sophomore, lives in rural northern Michigan, where big stretches of farmland and deep forests separate most communities and make it much more difficult for [...]

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State’s Top Transportation Official To Grand Vision Network: Keep It Up

When Kirk Steudle visits northern Michigan, it’s for one of two reasons: he’s either on vacation or he’s talkin’ transportation. This time, the visit from the state’s transportation chief was focused on stuff that matters to folks up here: streets, sidewalks, trails, buses, and trains. Mr. Steudle also had high praise for the Grand Vision [...]

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Getting Around Michigan By Bus and Train

When Andy Crosby travels around Michigan, he rarely drives a car. Instead, the graduate student, a longtime resident of Grand Rapids, uses trains or buses when he visits his friends or works on academic projects around Michigan. It’s not that Crosby dislikes cars. He just prefers to spend his time doing things that graduate students [...]

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College, Cars and BATA

Chloe Granahan lives in Crawford County and is a student at Northwestern Michigan College. To get to her classes she has to drive an hour each way, five days a week, enduring long commutes and a loss of time and money. “It’s a lot of gas money,” she said recently as she walked the NMC [...]

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TCL&P’s ‘Power of Art’: Calling all Videographers!

There are moments in all of our lives, both personal and professional, when it’s time to “put your money where your mouth is.” It’s so easy to be idealistic and wish for things to be better and for our dreams to just come true, but in reality you have to put something into life in [...]

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Winter Celebration 2012

We had a fabulous time at our very first Winter Celebration at Crystal Mountain Resort and Spa on Saturday night. What a fun night it was, with a room full of chefs, farmers, and guests, mingling and enjoying all of the delicious local food and beverage. A very special thank you to Crystal Mountain Resort [...]

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