It can be done! Highway projects can actually be stopped. We need investment
in rail transportation, not more highways.

Tom Mathews,
Iowa Chapter Transportation Issue Chair

Subj:         MI DOT Ditches $90 Million Petoskey Bypass; MLUI and ELPC help
lead fight
Date:   02-09-26 18:45:29 EDT
From:   [log in to unmask] (John Holtzclaw)
Sender: [log in to unmask] (Sierra Club Forum on
Transportation Issues)
Reply-to:   [log in to unmask] (Sierra Club Forum on
Transportation Issues)
To: [log in to unmask]

Let's hear it for the Petoskey Bypass!!! While not familiar with this road,
in a knee-jerk reaction I joy in its death.

John Holtzclaw
[log in to unmask]
sprawl and transportation action -- http://www.SierraClub.org/sprawl
----- Forwarded by John Holtzclaw/Sierraclub on 09/26/2002 03:41 PM -----
Kelly Thayer <[log in to unmask]>
Sept. 26, 2002

Dear Friend,

The Michigan Land Use Institute and the Environmental Law & Policy Center
would like to share news of the spectacular defeat this week of a highway
bypass pushed by the Michigan Department of Transportation for 15 years
with $4 million in studies. The Petoskey bypass is dead and the city's
thriving downtown, the township's active farms, and region's cobalt-blue
Little Traverse Bay are better for it.

MDOT actually conceded Monday night that public opposition to the 4-lane
highway was too great to overcome. And MDOT concluded that the $90 million
bypass would not draw enough traffic away from the existing highway to
justify its construction. Local residents had said from the beginning that
a bypass of a resort community on Lake Michigan, with a nationally historic
downtown, wouldn't attract much traffic away from the scenic city center.
MDOT finally agreed.

The Institute and ELPC helped by rallying citizens, critiquing the EIS, and
meeting with state and federal transportation officials. Perhaps most
importantly, we also hired the Chicago-area transportation planning firm
New Alternatives, Inc., to assist residents in developing a local road
option. The option remains the most viable choice for relieving congestion
and respecting existing land uses.

MDOT pledged Monday to fund the study of local roads, and federal funding
already is in place to build what's chosen. Petoskey area residents and
officials should be thanked by all Michigan residents, as well as northern
Michigan's many tourists, for protecting one of the state's premier areas
of natural beauty and thriving small town life.

Please see the story here:
http://www.mlui.org/projects/transport/petoskeybypass/petbypass.asp

Thank you,
Kelly Thayer, MLUI

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