Ridership and routes are up at the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority.
AATA’s go!pass initiative is up 20 percent while the authority has added a bus route connecting downtown to the city’s Amtrak station.
Route 17 connects the Amtrak station on Depot Street with the Blake Transit Center in downtown. AATA created the line because of increased Amtrak ridership for the Detroit-Ann Arbor commuter train line set to open in October, 2010. There is also a lack of parking at the train station. The new bus line will make trips every 30 minutes and help passengers connect to local institutions like the Gandy Dancer and Kerry Town.
The line also promises to benefit go!pass users. The year-long bus passes for AATA are subsidized by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority as way of allowing more people to utilize downtown while easing congestion and parking problems.
Between November 2006 and October 2007, go!pass users took 365,556 rides on AATA buses. The next year it jumped to 437,062 rides, its biggest increase since 2001.
The DDA’s getDowntown Program started the go!pass in 2000. The go!pass is available to people who work downtown. So far 429 downtown businesses and organizations have purchased 5,691 go!passes.
Source: Ann Arbor Transportation Authority and Nancy Shore, director of getDowntown
Writer: Jon Zemke
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