Eli Cooper

by P.D. Lesko On August 11, 2021, in a letter to City Administrator Tom Crawford, the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) said of the proposed plan to build a $171,410,000 "train station," the feds…

Please note: Kathy Griswold is the Chair of The Ann Arbor Independent’s Editorial Board. SUPPORTERS OF LOCAL transit argue that Mayor John Hieftje has pushed everything but local transit—trains to Howell, park and rides and bus service…

THE 2013 NON-MOTORIZED Transportation Plan (NTP) should make the average driver pull over and take notice. The NTP lays out plans for  so-called “road diets,” whereby some of the city’s busiest streets—such as Jackson—are slimmed from four…

In 2000, there were 8 miles of bike lanes in Ann Arbor. Today, there are 37 miles of in-road lanes. John Hieftje's administration has added just a little over 3 miles of lanes per year, on average, over the almost 12 years he has been in…

by P.D. Lesko On The Atlantic's web site, writer Micki Maynard quotes David Askins of The AnnArborChronicle.com explaining how the pedestrian crosswalk ordinance mess has gotten so out of hand. Askins, with a straight face one presumes,…

For more than five years, Ann Arbor residents have had to deal with a mismanaged and heavy- handed city sidewalk program which forced them to pay for repairing sidewalks along their property.   City officials estimate property owners spent…