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Editors Note
Try Trains for Healthy Cities
If you are the child or spouse of
someone who has gone through quadruple bypass surgery, you know how frustrating
it is to watch your loved one start eating hamburgers and fries again.
You know that if they exercised and ate healthier, they could vastly decrease
the chances of another costly heart surgery or an early death.
The same is true in the case of Michigan's blocked transportation arteries.
The state spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year trying to keep
people and goods moving by widening roads and building new highways. Yet
these costly operations are only short-term fixes because all the new
cars that come with increasing amounts of pavement and sprawl act like
cholesterol to quickly clog roads again.
But citizens do not have to stand by and suffer the state's waste of time
and money, according to the cover package of articles in this issue of
the Great Lakes Bulletin. The section by Kelly Thayer, the Michigan
Land Use Institute's transportation project coordinator, examines the
critical condition of America's congested highways and airports, how other
cities are enjoying a new lease on life by adding passenger rail to their
transportation menus, and how Michigan's metropolitan areas can, too.
Our recommendation that Detroit and other Michigan cities add rail to
their transportation systems could seem futile to those who have given
up on the Motor City or on Michigan's auto-dependent political leadership.
But here at the Institute, we believe common sense and people power will
prevail. If Michigan's metropolitan areas do not start planning for rail
now, they will be as behind the times in 20 years — and behind the
competition — as are those businesses that still haven't started
using computers.
We make it our business, in the Great Lakes Bulletin and in articles
the Institute publishes in the state's newspapers and on our Web site,
to remind readers that it's really up to them, the body politic, how Michigan
uses its valuable land and limited tax revenues. The Institute is especially
proud of the Great Lakes Bulletin, which started out five years
ago as a small newsletter and has become, under the passionate and talented
leadership of former editor Florence Barone, an impressive force for land
use reform in Michigan. We will continue striving for excellence, which
means making the Bulletin ever more interesting and useful for
you.
SEND YOUR LETTERS TO:
Great Lakes Bulletin
Michigan Land Use Institute
845 Michigan Avenue • PO Box 228 • Benzonia, MI 49616
Email: glb@mlui.org
Please include a telephone number so we can call to
confirm that you would like us to publish your letteR
Teamwork
The Milan Area Concerned Citizens would
like to donate the enclosed check for $100 to the Michigan Land Use Institute
to show appreciation for the invaluable assistance we have received from
Keith Schneider, Arlin Wasserman, and the Institute.
You told us what to do, what would happen, how we
should react, etc. Your knowledge and experience are immeasurable to groups,
such as ours.
Olga Mancik, Treasurer Milan
Area Concerned Citizens, Milan, MI
Hang in There
I have been following the Petoskey beltway fiasco ever since the first
Michigan Department of Transportation "public meeting." Their
unwillingness to listen to the public has soured many people on attending
meetings. But I have also heard Arlin Wasserman and Kelly Thayer speak
at meetings. Their cool, unflappable professionalism always reinvigorates
the troops — those of us who believe the environment is worth fighting
for.
Linda Badalucco
Carp Lake, MI
Put an End to It
The oil and gas industry is working to lift a moratorium on directional
drilling from the Lake Michigan shoreline, which the Department of Natural
Resources instituted several years ago after public outcry over drilling
proposals.
The small amount of gas and oil under Lake Michigan
does not justify the human health and environmental risks associated with
its extraction. Lake Michigan and its shoreline areas are vital to the
economy and quality of life within the entire state and country.
Everyone concerned about the future of our Great Lakes and shoreline needs
to take action to accomplish a permanent ban on directional drilling.
Ron Bauman
Manistee, MI
[Editors Note: Urge your state and federal legislators
to reintroduce bills that would ban directional drilling under Lake Michigan.
The bills are: Michigan Senate Bill 541, Michigan House Bill 4682, and
U.S. House Resolution 1205.]
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