Board - Regular Meeting

Um you'll see closer up what the proposed routes are, but I just want to point out the legend at the top of the page is uh proposed new routes and the legend towards the bottom of the page is extensions of existing routes and the routes that are really relevant to Plymouth Township are the the um the Plymouth route which is kind of like the magenta pink up there and then there's a burgundy route which is the Hagerty route uh that also touches uh or goes through Plymouth Township as well. Um, and then if we flip now to the next slide, you can see in more detail the Plymouth route and the Hagerty route. And both of these are brand new routes. They are not extensions of old routes. Um, these would be new. So, a new 295 Plymouth route and a new um 345 Hagerty route. Can't see it now because we're zooming in. Um, so yeah, so the Plymouth route, you know, goes down uh Plymouth Road and then kind of cuts around nearer downtown Plymouth. And then the Hagerty route kind of starts up by Northville and then comes down through Plymouth, uh, through Canton and ends in, uh, Van Beern, but goes a little bit over to Hagerty Road. Um, and we may want to zoom out. [laughter] So, in terms of Oh, in terms of uh why we're doing this project, uh we're trying to put together recommendations and implementation strategy that we can take to SMARTT uh to to hopefully influence the outcome of the plan that they put together. Um, a couple things I'll just talk about. we don't need to go back on the plan but um the plan did not include

uh for instance like an extension to wash county or an extension to the airport and that will factor in later when I talk about outreach and uh you'll see why in the outreach um why those those elements are important. Another thing that the plan didn't include is uh the way that the Hagerty road uh or the Hagerty route was created. it didn't go to the high school campus. So it it missed Salem, Plymouth, um and Canton high schools where there are 6,000 students there that have a lot of afterchool activities. Um and so it cuts over right now. Uh it goes east at Wayne uh Warren Road and instead we are proposing we suggested to Smart that it cuts over at Joy Road instead so it can go past the high school. Um, so there's there's a few things that we have suggested already to SMART that would make it better serve uh in general the the Plymouth community. Um, so those are the kinds of recommendations that we are trying to make uh to SMART's plan. Um, and also with exception to Westland which currently opts in. This is the first time that the six con the other six consortium communities have ever planned for transit. So again, we're we're trying to have something in place uh so that if uh the millillage does pass, it doesn't take us by surprise. Um we have a plan for it if it passes. Um and we have more resources and time and uh fin well more people resources time and financial resources with the consortium plan than what SMART was able to invest in these seven communities out here in western Wayne County. um where we're able to give uh you know more

thought to what we can do in these seven communities than what SMRT was able to spend uh in terms of time and resources uh on these seven communities and especially in terms of the outreach because SMRT did these very limited focus groups. They did not go to the general public. They did not ask the general public what they wanted um as part of their plan. And the general public ultimately is also they are also the voters on the millillage. Um so you would think you'd want to ask the the people who are voting on the millillage what they would like to see um for transit out here. Uh so so that's what we're trying to do with with our plan. Um and also you know in addition to that um SMART also just spent a little bit of time even with the elected and appointed officials just those two quick meetings um half hour each time and mostly from an informational perspective um there wasn't a lot of flow in both directions. So we are really trying with the transportation steering committee to hold uh like four different meetings an hour each time uh where there's a lot of interactive uh exercise uh or exercises that we're doing with the elected and appointed officials to to bring in uh your opinions um on the plan. Uh so next um slide please. So to to your question uh supervisor Kermy um these are the transit options uh so there's fixed route uh well these are the transit options that are available by smart in western Wayne County. This is what we're really looking at um as options if the millillage passes. So there's fixed route uh which is what most people are familiar with. Those are buses that go along designated routes and drop off and pick up passengers at designated stops um at designated times, right? And then

there's flex routes. Those are also known as deviated fixed routes. They are sort of a hybrid between fixed routes and demand response. they can deviate from the route, you know, sometimes maybe like uh a mile in either direction uh to pick up or drop off passengers, but it requires advanced reservation. So, in that way, it's demand response. So, you have to call ahead to say, "Hey, I'd like to be picked up or dropped off um at this location. It's off of the normal route." Um and then there's pure demand response, which requires advanced reservation. It's curb to curb. could also be doortodoor. It's known as parransit or dialeride. That's like nankin transit for instance. Um what you have for that and then there's microtransit and that is a newer mode of transit. And as I mentioned before what was weird with smarts um question was that they had lumped demand response which is advanced reservation in with microtransit which is on demand. Um, and I'm not sure why they put those two modes together because one requires advanced reservation and the other one you can call up right when you need it. Uh, so microtransit smart has something called smart flex. It's available in uh, Farmington and Farmington Hills. It's also available in Dearbornne and actually in the smart um, February 6th plan, they're looking at splitting the Dearborn zone into two. They're also looking at expanding Smart Flex out into Van Beern Township. They're looking at putting it um in Romulus and then they are looking at uh eliminating some of their their night routes uh down by the airport and uh adding in a flex zone there just that would operate at night only. Um so they are really looking at expanding these flex zones out more in western Wayne County if the millillage passes. Um but the way it works is you have an app on your phone. It's like the smart flex app. uh you put in your

origin, you put in your destination and it basically calls a car or a van to you and uh then you take that to your destination. Um vehicles can kind of vary, but it's typically vans and it runs within a specific zone. Like I said, the the flex zone for Farmington is literally just Farmington and Farmington Hills. You have it operates just within that zone. Um so so that's how

time out second microransit how is that different from Uber oryft? So it's different in that it's in this case it's run by a public you know a transit provider as opposed to being run uh by a venture capitalist comp you know uh venture capital funded company right uh or backed company um and a private company I'm sorry a privatelyowned company

right uh and in this case too because it is run by a public entity uh it's signi it costs significantly less. Um, and if sometimes if it's linking to a fixed route, it might be free. If it's if you're taking it to get to a fixed route, um, if you're taking it just to get to another destination other than a fixed route, then it's it's going to be u maybe like half the cost of like an Uber or Lift. I don't know what the exact rates are that smart charges for the flex service. Okay. But it's going to depend on distance, too, and time of day. It's probably dynamic pricing. Are the people in the room able to hear what she's saying? Yes.

Okay. Just don't get too far away from that microphone. [snorts] So, could you give me an example? Let's say in let's say in Plymouth. Uh I want to go to the Lions game, the football game on S on Sunday. Uh go downtown Detroit. What's the best place I can go? What's the best place? Well, I mean, we'll have to get like seven bus to eventually get there. What's the best way to go? Takes two days. Takes [laughter] two. Two days now. Or if hypothetically if it passes. Yeah. If it passes.

Yeah. I' I'd have to probably put the route map back up. Um, so there is the there's the A2D2 bus. So, I would say uh let's see the if well that goes back to one of our recommendations which is that they should continue the Michigan Avenue bus all the way into we think all the way into Ipsante and then you'd be able to catch a bus into Ann Arbor. Well, that would go backwards. That would go you have that's okay. I guess I have to think about Yeah, I don't know off the top of my head. I mean, although 60 years ago, you could take a bus from Plymouth.

You could take You could actually take the Michigan Avenue bus. Sorry, let me think about this. You could take the Michigan Avenue bus east into Detroit and that would take you directly there. That's a little out of the way. 60 years ago, you could take a bus from Plymouth DSR, Detroit Streets and Roads, that would uh make a change at Grand River and Schaefer near the Montgomery Ward and the federal department store. And you could get and you could get to the Lions game. Huh. Yeah. Yeah. But if you weren't back before a certain time, they ended at Grand River and Schaefer and you had to have somebody pick you up or walk home. It's a long way. [laughter]

Yeah. In this case, as I'm thinking about it, you could take the Hagerty bus down to the Michigan Avenue bus. So, you'd have to transfer once and it would get you to downtown Detroit. I just had to think that through for a second. I have a question about on demand. I So, let's say my car is at Bell Tire getting fixed. I need a ride there to pick it up cuz it's done. I could use Smart. They could pick me up at my house and drive me to Bell or what? So, you if you had seems hard to believe. Yeah. So, if you had Flex Zone here in Plymouth Township, Yeah. which they're not proposing for Plymouth Township. They're proposing it for Van Beerren Township.

Okay. Okay. You wouldn't have flex. you wouldn't have flex as the February 6th plan is proposing. Okay. Because it's more because you're getting more fixed routes here. Where they're putting flex is um where they're putting less fixed routes. Okay. Yeah. I see. Yeah. Got it. Got it. Okay. But it's always the last mile that kills you because you uh if you if there's a bus on Ann Arbor Road, uh the the the tire repair is a good example. I want to drive my car for the day and I need a ride. Uh I still got to get to Ann Arbor Road and that's the challenge. Yeah.

Because it's 20 below zero and it's a two-mile walk. [snorts]

Yeah. So, you could potentially use um I'm assuming, let's see, Nankin Transit also doesn't go here right now. I mean, maybe they would look at expanding Nankin transit if the mill passed as well. And I know that anybody can ride Nankin transit and as part of that expansion, they might also look at reducing the advanced uh reservation time under that too. So, um I know that some dialeride services do have same day operations. Uh so it just depends on how well they're funded and that could probably take you to, you know, sometimes they can take them and drop passengers at fixed routes that way.

Okay. But for the most part, Plymouth and Plymouth Township will be served by these fixed routes. is Plymouth Road. Plymouth Road and Hagerty Road are the two routes that are proposed to serve Plymouth Township. Okay. Yeah. And anything else is um just just me hypothesizing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's not going into downtown. So, we don't know exactly where the stops are going to be right now. Um the I'd have to put the the slides back up.

Main Street. I think one of the one of the one of the routes kind of goes near Hines Drive. It's like a little outside of downtown and then I think one of the other routes goes a little bit closer to the downtown. So, um continuing with the the project timeline, uh so the project started in July of 2025. Technically, that's when OHM was brought on board, but Aaron and her team in Canton started the outreach earlier than that. They started doing the survey in June of 2025. Um, and then there have been two transportation uh steering committee meetings that have been held so far. One in September and one in December. Uh as I mentioned earlier, the first uh transportation steering committee meeting was primarily just to go over uh you know introducing the project and what the purpose and goals of the project were. And then that second transportation steering committee meeting was to um go over existing conditions findings as well as to brainstorm uh some highlevel strategies. And then uh we've been primarily working through that first round of public engagement starting in November uh through this month of March. And uh we are just moving into development of the draft recommendations which we should be finishing up by the end of next month and then moving into finalizing the report uh in the late spring and then wrapping the project up by June. And then one thing that is not on this project timeline is that there is going to be um a a workshop on public transit on March 19th for uh the consortium's elected and appointed officials. Uh that's going to be held in Canton. Um Neil Greenberg, who's a transit expert, uh is going to be talking about, you

know, what makes good transit, uh as well as um how you can go about implementing it. Um so that's not on this particular project timeline, but that is another element of the project that is going on. And then that's March 18th in Westland. March 19th in Canton. In Canton. All right.

Yes. Um and then the the third uh TSC meeting is going to be in April. Uh so that's been shifted a little bit to accommodate the workshop. Uh next slide. So we'll talk about the existing conditions now and I will leave this QR code up here in case anybody wants to go to the interactive base map. Um we will also be showing static images from the base map uh in a minute. Uh but there there is an interactive base map. It does have layers that you can turn on and off and you can also scroll around in it. Um so eventually we may embed it in a story map web page for the second round of engagement. Uh but like I said, I'm going to go through static images uh from the different layers of that base map uh in the upcoming slides and as soon as I see everyone's phones back down, we'll we'll switch through the next slides. Okay, next please. So, uh this is is there any way to have this take up the full screen? It looks like there's like a lot of

Can you expand that, Bob? Zoom out. Oh. Um, I mean, sorry, not zoom in. I just meant zoom out. Zoom zoom out. But yeah, I was just wondering if there's a way to to make it kind of a slideshow on the whole screen. Not really. Okay. Now with a PDF. Oh, it's a PDF. Okay. Sorry. Could we zoom in then one more time?

Okay, that's good. Uh so this is uh this is a map of the current public transit conditions, the opt out conditions if you will and uh the only consortium community that is currently served by transit uh by smart actually I should say because there's other communities served by transit um is Westland and uh then also uh Canton and Westland are served by Nankin transit. it. Uh, so you Oh, sorry. Please don't zoom in. Yeah. [snorts] Could Could we We're looking for the see the detail a little bit, then we'll zoom back out.

Yeah, it would it I think if we could just leave leave it um not zoomed in. That would be better. Thank you. Um so so Canton and Westland uh are part of Nankin Transit and Nankin Transit does allow you to uh go and take rides that go one mile outside of the border. So you can see where uh that does include portions of Plymouth Township uh in that onem area. So you can go to Plymouth Township. you just can't uh have a ride uh generated from Plymouth Township with Nankin Transit. Um and in that same manner uh Nankin transit can kind of reach uh ATA and DOT and livingo but it's extremely inconvenient to make those kinds of connections using Nankin. Um so that is the way that the current transit system is set up. And if we could go to the next slide.

Is N is Nin a private company? No. Uh it's it's like the the dialeride uh service for uh for Canton and for Westland. Okay. So So it's still a smart it's not owned by SMRT but it's associated with maybe funded by SMR. It gets some of its funding. Yeah. So, I think they're both funded through the the Wayne County Transit Authority because again, SMARTT doesn't fund any like their funding comes from the Wayne County. Okay.

Um, so this is a a a map of the density of jobs and uh as you can see actually the highest concentration of jobs is at Ann Arbor and Hagerty Road uh which is Plymouth Township. So, it's really it's right out here. Um so that is uh where we see the highest concentration of jobs in the consortium and uh as you saw in the uh February 6th plan there is the Plymouth uh fixed route proposed for this area and and that's certainly the jobs concentration is certainly playing a role in why SMART is choosing to propose a route here. Um, in addition, there's other concentrations of jobs near Ford and I275. And then there's uh concentrations of jobs in downtown Plymouth and Northville. Uh, those are primarily the service jobs uh for the downtowns and also another uh cluster near Beck Road and M14. Um, and we can go to the next slide. And this is the commuter patterns. Um primarily the consortium has more outflow than inflow as a whole. Um but uh in Plymouth Township there is more inflow than outflow substantially just due to the number of jobs that are in Plymouth Township. So you see inflow of almost 28,000 uh and then outflow of about 12,000 in Plymouth Township. So, this is uh this says 27,980

people or cars trips or whatever trips come into the community every day. But it hasn't uh work at home impacted that. But it has I'm sorry. It hasn't what has work, you know, people are working remote. So, this is from 2021. The data is a little old. Yeah, that's I I don't I would question whether it's still uh well, you probably have more inflow now because people aren't working from home. Still a lot are Yeah, that that is the most recent data that's available. Okay, what is this telling us? What was the job creator? More people come into Plymouth Township than leave Plymouth Township.

Yeah, it's saying that there's a very high density of jobs in Plymouth Township. tell us within the context and that there's a lot of employees coming in, right? I I would I would question that. Um, in 2021, Ford Motor Company was largely completely remote work. An awful lot of people that work for Ford live in Plymouth Township. If it was a more recent, I think we'd see the outflow number much higher. Just a comment. It might be more evenly balanced

perhaps. But what does this mean in terms of the context of the overall context of this proposal? What are these numbers? What why are they why are they relevant or gerine to the conversation? So, it's just showing that there's a lot of regional movement uh between Plymouth Township and other communities and therefore a need to have uh like for instance uh east west uh fixed routes that like there's a lot of movement for instance between Plymouth Township and Leavonia. There's a lot of traffic that is going between residents who live in Leavonia but may work in Plymouth Township for instance. So they may need a bus that goes back and forth. So that that's one example of what that means. Hence you have the proposed Plymouth route, Plymouth fixed route that goes between Leavonia and Plymouth Township that SMART has in its February 6th plan.

When will the data be updated since it's five years old?

Uh I don't work for the census so I cannot tell you. [gasps] Um so this is a map of the population densities in the consortium communities and as you can see u most of the population density is scattered throughout Westland uh and in the city of Plymouth and a little bit in Canton Township. Uh less so you don't see huge pockets of it in in Plymouth Township. That's kind of medium population density in Plymouth Township, if you will, medium low. Um, so, uh, mostly, like I said, Westland and and city of Plymouth. Um, next slide. And then kind of same with the senior population density. Not a lot to say for Plymouth Township for the senior population density, although you you kind of see more pockets of it in southern Plymouth Township. And Westland has a lot of seniors uh by comparison on this map as does the city of Northville. Um next slide for the youth population. Again, uh the southern half of Plymouth Township has more youth than the northern half, but still not as many compared to like Westland or Canton Township, uh or even the west side of the city of Plymouth. And next, yep, so same situation with individuals with disabilities, although you do see more of a pocket with the census tracks on the east side of Plymouth Township. uh you do see a little bit more of a density of individuals with disabilities there. Um but nothing like what you see in the city of Westland or certain pockets in

Canton Township uh or even again the west side of the city of Plymouth. Um so just uh Plymouth Township doesn't really pop on a lot of these maps except like the jobs map. The jobs map really is where Plymouth Township pops up. Um next slide. And then same with uh well actually there's a little bit of a pop on zero car households uh in the the northeast corner of Plymouth Township here. Um not like what you're seeing in in Westland, but a little bit more than what you're seeing in the other consortium communities here. Um except for that census track in uh in Canton Township.

Let's think about what's in the northeast corner. Uh Independence Village. Uh, yeah, [clears throat] that's right. Senior assisted living. That's kind of west. It's right here. Yeah, but I'm trying to figure out what's in the lake. The Lake Point, but I don't People have cars in Lake Point. Yeah, wash is located there. Definitely definitely worth checking out. What's What's over there? That's what's over there. Okay. On the road stuff. is the border is Eckles on the east. Uh there's a there's

some apartments, but a lot of industrial although this is households Lake Point is what it is. Is the census the source for this data? Is the US census the source for this data or where's this data come from?

Yeah, I believe this comes from the US census but I would have to double check that with our GIS specialist. Households per square mile 101 to 250. And then with lowincome households, uh it's mostly the city of Westland that has the higher densities. I think in particular that most of this data was coming from the ACS, the American Community Survey of the US Census. Uh and then if we could go to Yep. Thank you. Oh yes, let's stay on unemployed individuals for a minute, please. Uh so you see higher densities of unemployed individuals throughout Canton and Westland and the west side of the city of Plymouth and then to a certain extent medium densities of unemployed individuals in the southern half of Plymouth Township but not uh not the higher densities that you're seeing in the other areas.

That includ Oh, excuse would that include retired people? Say where do they No, that does not. It includes uh job seekers that are out of the market and that's something that we did double check and look into because we've had that question before. So it's it does not include retired individuals. [clears throat] Surprising. It is surprising.

Okay. And so this is this is a transit score. This data comes actually from SECOG. uh and they look at uh they it's a compilation of uh data on older adults youth uh minorities uh households in poverties ling li limited English proficiency uh transit dependent households female headed households and uh households with disabilities and so it's a composite of all of those factors and uh as you can see uh the more green it is the higher your transit uh need score is if you will and You see more green in Westland, a couple of census tracks in Canton and uh you really don't see any green in um Plymouth Township. Uh so you kind of see some medium. The the golden color is kind of halfway up the score. Um so there's there's a middle need there in some census tracks, but but not not a high need. And so in terms of findings, uh obviously when you look at all the demographics, uh Westland had the greatest need for transit, uh just based off of the, you know, the writer's age, youth and, uh older individuals, uh individuals with disabilities, and the density of unemployed individuals. the west side of the city of Plymouth actually had a lot of uh demographics that would indicate a need for transit, but uh because of some of the other factors, uh it actually didn't score very highly in the SECOG's kind of transit need score. Um, and then there was this area of Canton that uh I called out a couple of times along Ford Road, Salts, uh, North Canton Center, and North Lily that also had um, a high transit need score from SMCOG uh, due to all the demographics uh, that it scored highly on. Um but overall uh Plymouth

Township uh didn't really have a lot of uh transit indicators outside of the um the very high uh inflow of of employees uh due to the job market here. Um but that was a substantial indicator. Um next slide please. So we are working on a trends gaps and needs analysis. This is also called best practices. We have selected the communities of Grand Rapids, Denver, Omaha, and Columbus. And this is uh still in progress. We selected these uh regional and national communities because they have recently had an influx of funding either through a sales tax or uh a residential uh property tax um or millillage. uh that has allowed them to expand out into uh new geographic areas with transit that were previously unserved by transit. And so we are looking at uh what their implementation plans uh were for those uh geographic expansions and how they went about doing that. Um because those provide good case studies for the types of plan that we're trying to do. Um but again, it's still in progress. We don't have the findings to share on that yet, but that is one of the next things that we're working on. Uh, next slide. And now we'll work on discussing the engagement update. So, we uh picked some tools out of this toolbox for the first round of engagement. Um specifically, uh we used surveys, focus groups, and stakeholder interviews as well as community popups for the first round of engagement. And if we could go to the next slide,

next slide. Yeah, I'm trying.

Oh, looks like Oh, there we go. Um so this was the engagement schedule that we used for the first round. We held our first TSC on September 17th and then the second one on December 4th. As I mentioned, the third one will be in April. Um there was a community survey that was done in June that uh Aaron put together. We'll talk about that in a bit. Aaron also did about four to five stakeholder interviews that were just done for Canton Township that were also done in the summer before OM became involved with the project. Um, again, those were just limited to Canton Township, so we're not really going to talk about those tonight. And then, uh, there was a series of popups. We will get into those. A business survey that was also distributed among the consortium communities. And, uh, the city of Northville also did its own transit survey recently that closed a few weeks ago. We won't talk about that because it was very specific to Northville. Um, and then there's another round of engagement coming up in April. And of course the board and commission meetings which are in the process of wrapping up this month before we start another round in June. Uh next slide please. So these are the results of the community transit survey that Aaron and her team put together. They received 935 responses which is a really awesome response rate. So I always have to say please give Erin kudos on this because uh her team did a fabulous job and uh of those responses they had 255 responses from 48170 which of course is the city of Plymouth and Plymouth Township. So uh you were very well represented here in Plymouth Township with those results and uh there was a broad uh array of ages that took the survey. uh although I will say that uh the the senior group was uh

the most represented as you can see here on the graph. Um next slide. So one of the questions that was asked was how often do you use public transit? And about 75% of the respondents said you know when needed but not regularly and that's what we would generally expect to see in an area that doesn't really have fixed route transit. it only has paratransit and and dileride. Um and then of those 18% said they use smart, 15% said they they use DOT. Um and then 7% said that they use like paratransit. Next, so we also asked uh reasons why people don't use uh public transit and the three top reasons uh were all around um accessibility to transit. Uh so it had to do with you know not being served uh or transit doesn't serve the geographic area where people are living um or not being able to access you know the stops or not having knowledge of uh where they can get to transit. Uh so this is all reflective of uh the the area of western Wayne County just not being opt in and not currently being connected to the smart network. um not having fixed routes. So that's about what we would expect to see as results in this kind of question. Um next, so another question that was asked was what public transit services would you like to incorporate uh or would you like incorporated or expanded into your community? And um the number one thing that people wanted to see was fixed route service. Um, no surprise that people wanted to see just buses, uh, standard buses incorporated into the community. The number two thing that people said, and uh, I do want to point

out that this is not going to happen off of, uh, one mill is light rail or subway. It's just not realistic at all. Um, and probably, you know, even with more mills than one mill, not realistic during my lifetime out here. um we don't even have it in Detroit at the moment. So uh but it was interesting to see the response on that. Um and that was uh and then the third uh mode that people wanted to see was uh flex route service which I will point out there's no flex route service proposed right now in SMART's February 6th plan. And that was interesting to see um because I think it is a popular option that that is that hybrid between fixed route and demand response and they aren't considering it right now in their plan. Um next. So then uh there was another question asked what amenities are most important to include uh at a public transit bus stop and um all of these were focused more around uh safety and security and comfort and included uh covered structures um real-time arrival information on the stop. Uh because even if you have an app on your phone, what's to say that your phone battery won't die um while you're waiting uh for a bus to come? Uh so it's nice to be able to have that on the shelter itself. And then lighting and uh so all of these uh can improve the safety and security and comfort of passengers uh while they're waiting for the bus. Uh next question. Oh, we're done with the questions. Okay, we're on to the pop-ups. Um oh, go ahead. Uh so we did these popups in the summer and fall of 2025. Uh they were completed for every consortium community except for Northville Township. Um, next, so the pop-up statistics, uh, there were three different exercises done as part of the popups. There was a destination board exercise, a transit mode exercise, and then people could just leave post-it

note comments. As you can see from this slide, the destination board exercise was, for some reason, far more popular than the other options, and we got 1,185 total stickers placed. Next, uh so for Plymouth Township, we uh came out to the fire safety event that was on October 11th. And uh of the responses we received, 73% of respondents were most interested in fixed route transit. And the top destinations uh that residents in Plymouth Township wanted to connect to were the airport, Ann Arbor, and special events such as concert and sporting events. And uh next slide. As you can see, they were pretty much right in line with what all of the popups said about their destinations that they wanted connections to because the airport was the number one destination that consortium members wanted to connect to across all seven consortiums. Uh it got the most amount of stickers placed on it. Um and if you think back to the February 6th smart plan, you will see or you may remember there is no connection to the airport proposed in that plan. Uh so one of the recommendations that we have made to smart is please provide a connection to the airport because it is the number one thing that people would like to see in western Wayne County in the plan for the expansion into western Wayne County. And there's an easy way they could do that, which is that they have this 20-mile long proposed Hagerty route that ends right now in Van Beern Township. It starts all the way in Northville, goes through Northville, City of Northville, Northville Township, City of Plymouth, Plymouth Township, uh, Canton Township, and Hagerty. So, it hits almost all the communities in the consortium except Westland, which also has its own way to get to the airport already, so it doesn't matter. Um, so it hits all those

consortium communities. All they would have to do is bring it over on I94 for 5 miles and then they'd be at the airport. So now you've connected all of the consortium communities to the airport on that line. So um, we were told that that would make it too long in our initial conversation. We're like, it's already 20 miles. What's five more miles? Um, so we'll we'll keep pushing on that. Uh, oh, please don't please don't go yet. Um, and so, uh, also, uh, they said, you know, the other thing that was mentioned on here was Detroit, uh, was the number two destination. Ann Arbor was another destination that came up a lot. Um, and the Michigan Avenue line that was on the the February 6th plan, stops less than a mile from the county border. I may have already mentioned that. So, we proposed that they could continue it on uh into county and potentially to Ipsy. Um, and same way, uh, you asked the question earlier, how to get to Detroit. I said, well, you could take Hagerty down to Michigan Avenue. And you said, well, you know, is there a more direct way? And actually, that was one of the things that we've we've suggested to SMART is like, could you have a more direct way from like the Plymouth Northville area rather than having to go down to Michigan Avenue? That was one of our recommendations. Um, so now we can go to the next slide. So um of the responses that we got, 56% of respondents are most interested in fixed routes. This is in keeping with uh the responses that we saw with the the other survey that got the 935 responses. Most of those respondents were also most interested in fixed routes. And again, this is an opposition to what SMRT found when SMART did its uh public outreach and they said most people were interested in demand response. uh that is different than what we found when we pulled the general public, but again they never pulled the general public. So

uh what the general public wants is different than the writers that they pulled. Um so generally uh the people that came up to the pop-ups were uh positive uh spoke positively about public transit, but they could have also been self- selecting. Uh people who maybe uh weren't as positive about public transit may not have interacted with the boards. We had a couple people that came up regardless, but um you know, we don't we don't know that either way. Um so, uh next slide. So, there was also a business survey that we did because we wanted to hear from business owners and employees and that was run from November 24th to January 6th. Uh we obviously had far less responses on that because it was kind of a niche group that we were targeting. And uh the the responses that we did get on that were focused on convenience and reliability. Uh because the business owners and employees were uh primarily concerned about getting to work on time and especially getting employees to work on time. Uh so uh they they were focused on options that would get them there. Uh we did get uh representation quite a bit of representation from Plymouth um and then also from Van Beern and Belleville and uh I think it was by zip code. So we can't break down necessarily if it was city of Plymouth or Plymouth Township. It was just like uh 48170. Um next slide please. So the most preferred improvements again speaking to the values that the businesses had uh of reliability uh and convenience they wanted to see microransit uh which is they're the only group that said microtransit right uh because the other group said demand response and fixed although demand response was lumped in with microtransit with smart which threw things off because that's two different modes. Um but business community said microtransit uh because it'll it's on demand and it

gets you right to the door. So uh that's very reflective of I think what a business community would want to see. Um and they also said increased frequency which again speaks to reliability. And then in terms of preferred amenities, they said bus shelters, security cameras, and lighting. the lighting in in the bus shelters we've seen over and over again no matter which group we're polling the security cameras really only popped up with the business community and I think again that's reflective of um what the business community would value in general. Uh next please. So we'll talk about what the uh the transportation steering committee brainstormed as strategies at their second meeting. Um, we asked, "What transit service expansions would your community like to see?" And as you're seeing again here, when we pulled the elected and appointed officials that are on this committee, they said number one, a connection to the airport, number two, a connection to Ann Arbor, or sorry, a connection to Detroit, and number three, a connection to Ann Arbor. So, uh, none of those things were really provided in the smart plan that came out on February 6th. At least the Detroit one is a little wonky, as we've talked about. Um but there's no connection to Ann Arbor and there's no connection to the airport in that plan. Uh so this is something we need to continue have discussions with smart about um and that we are certainly going to put in our plan um as recommendations. Uh next please. So we also asked what potential fixed routes should be prioritized. This is something where actually smart got most of this correct and right in their plan um which was really good to see. Uh the way that it was ordered uh by the TSC was Ford Road, downtown Plymouth, downtown Northville, Ann Arbor and Hagerty, Beck and Five Mile, um Michigan Avenue in Belleville, and then uh Wayne Central City Parkway. The only ones that didn't get in the smart plan were Beck and Five Mile. There's nothing in there for that. Um and Wayne and Central City. Um

[clears throat] but all the others are covered pretty much or very close to it in the smart plan. Um, next please. So, we we also asked what stop improvements would you like to see? And again, um, reflective of all the other engagement that we've seen, number one, shelters with benches, better lighting, and then real-time arrival signs. And I want to pause to here too and just point out that the smart plan uh some of the consortium members were a little bit disappointed that the smart plan did not get into stop locations or proposed stop infrastructure. Um it was very uh silent on those those elements. Um, and especially uh when you know feeling safe and secure at a bus stop can make a difference on whether someone is going to choose to ride to the bus or not. Um, and if there's only a sign there versus having a shelter with a bench and good lighting uh, and real-time arrival information um, that can really make a difference in the quality of of whether someone is taking the bus or not or feels safe. Um, so that's something we're going to push for as as well is, you know, are you going to put in actual stops or are you just going to throw a sign on the road? Um, so we also asked what potential fixed routes should be priorit uh, we did this one already. I think you're going backwards. One more. Okay. Uh what is the best way to market transit in your community was another question we asked and uh basically the top two choices that came out of this were social media and eblast and that was a little bit reassuring because that is how we have been uh doing most of the marketing around our outreach. Uh so we really don't need to change a whole lot with that um in terms of continuing at least to market the project but also as we make

recommendations in the implementation plan for how they should uh smart or the consortium members should market transit in the future if if the millillage passes right like this is a plan so that you're not caught off guard if it pl if it passes in the future. Um now these are the methods that should be used. Uh next please. So we also asked what transit tech is most important for your community and this is all transit technology that already exists and is mostly already used by smart and DOT in the region except the mobility wallet because it's in a pilot phase with the RTA. Um there's already apps showing real-time route information and an app for dialeride. But the reason that we we wanted to pull the TSC on this was just to understand if smart was going to make continued investments in technology uh or concentrate or target bringing technology that they already have like into western Wayne County like where should they concentrate those efforts? Um so we can make those recommendations in the plan. So that's why we we wanted to ask this question. Uh next please. Okay. So this is Aaron's question. I always point this out when we get to this question. Uh this is her favorite question. Uh and it's would you be interested in partnering with other consortium member communities on future uh grants to support transit related infrastructure? And Erin loves this question because no one said no. So, everyone said yes or maybe. Uh, so for next steps, we're almost at the end. Uh, hopefully no one's asleep yet. Um, promise it's almost over. Um, so we are wrapping up round one of engagement. Uh, it's pretty much over next week. I think we have like one more, maybe one more of these, I don't

know. Um, and then we are finishing the best practices, trends, gaps, and needs analysis. And we've basically finished the existing conditions technical memo. We are just editing it at this point. Um, as I mentioned, we may have one more board or council meeting left. Um, and then we are moving into developing the mobility focus areas. We also have the workshop on March 19th in Canton, which is not up here. Uh, and then we have the third TSC meeting in April. And so that is going to keep us busy for the foreseeable future. Um, but that is pretty much what we have on the docket for next steps. And then I think the next slide just says questions. But we can see what does the next slide say? It says questions.

So I had this set up so we do the questions at the end. Um, well this this would could go on a long way. Why don't we let's do the planning commission stick to the agenda for now and then because I expect a lot more questions on this than the planning commission annual report but not yet. We're going to talk about planning commission first which is the annual report. Second item on the agenda, Laura Hall, Laura Mangan will be giving the presentation. She is uh a principal at McKenna and Associates, the planning consultant and the planning portion of Plymouth Township. We do not employ a planner as an employee.

Evening trustees and planning commission members. Um again, Laura Mangan with McKenna. Uh the planning um enabling act requires that the uh planning commission of a community prepares a report of its annual activities um from the prior year and presents that to the legislative body. So, the planning commission has prepared this draft um 2025 annual report of their uh activities and it is scheduled to go before the board of trustees for a receive and file um at the March 10th meeting. So, tonight is just an opportunity to quickly go over the draft and um provide any additional feedback before it is um in your packets for next week. This is a highle summary of all the activities that the planning commission has done uh last year. Our monthly makenna reports provide more detail on each application or project. Um so just in quick summary, the planning commission met 19 times in 2025, five of which were study sessions. Um we note the membership there on page two and acknowledge the hard work of the steering committee um which includes former commissioner Dave Bladawick. In terms of applications, the planning commission reviewed eight special use applications and these dates reference when a decision was made. Um some of these applications were of course reviewed over multiple meetings. Um there were nine site plan applications, two zoning ordinance text amendments, one um related to sign requirements and uh uh posting standards for resonings. Uh the second uh dark sky provision ordinance. There were two cluster housing um options, six resonings,

and then 89 other reviews. This includes landscape reviews, um, sign reviews, land division, fence modifications, etc. And then of course we note the ongoing efforts to update the master plan and a couple recommendations there on the last page for um this year 2026. Of course, wrapping up the master plan um adoption later uh or early this summer. Um, and then some recommendations for text amendments to the zoning ordinance to implement the vision of the master plan. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Um, you can also send any questions to the planning department before next week. I'm just curious to know when you look at what planning [clears throat] and zoning in 2026, is there anything here um that reflects our need to look at um our ordinances as it relates to the potential of the moratorum we have on the um data centers?

No, we did not specifically note that. We can if you like could add that. Okay. Okay. All right. Uh we'll take questions. Uh come to the mic. Uh remember, be brief, be civil, be factual. [clears throat] You're going to sign in. give put the signing sheet over there and they can sign that be

before they start that I would just like to say thank you very much it was a very exhaustive presentation you've put a lot of time and effort into it all in an effort to be you know um proactive and we appreciate all of the time that you've devoted to this you have a question back there just clarification is this the public comment period Yes.

All right. Hi everyone. My name is Patty Posios. I live at 43005 Riverbend Drive in Plymouth Township. Um, thank you ladies for your presentation. We went last night too to the city of Plymouth. It it actually helped to hear it twice. It was really good. Um, so I just want to talk about um just some facts and just say that, you know, I think we all recognize there's a need for some type of public transportation, whether it be seniors or people who can't afford a car. Um, for example, my parents came from Greece in the mid-50s. Uh, they got married and they did not have a car until 1968. So they commuted in Detroit which you know the density has gone way down since then but you know that's how we survived. So and my mom never drove cuz she's a Greek mom so I drove her around or we rode the bus together so we did the dialeride stuff. So um but the presentation did talk about um existing conditions. So I want to talk about uh a very important existing condition of the smart system and that is wrership. So, um, if you look at SMRT's reports, you'll see, well, actually, let me back up. I'm sorry. The opt- out communities of which we were one, that includes the city of Detroit. So, the city of Detroit is being forced into smart and that will be a double tax on the residents of Detroit, which doesn't seem fair. They already have DOT. Um, so yearly wrership is passenger miles. And then um they also have a second number that we found at the uh federal department of transportation report called vehicle revenue miles. So if you take those two numbers and do the math, you come out with an average annual ridership of 3.8 riders per bus. That is down 14% from the previous year it was 4.5. Um,

so that said, you know, one bus is the equivalent length of about three vehicles. With that ridership, we're not going to see any improvement in traffic. Um, also, one bus is the equivalent weight of about six to seven vehicles. So, these empty buses riding around are actually doing more damage to our roads than cars do. So, please don't speak while I'm speaking. Thank you. Uh so and then um just to be clear everybody understands this consortium that is what we'd like to see which is great to get our voice out there. It is a wish list. Smart as we've seen has their own plan. They've already said that we've expressed from our side we want you know certain things and SMART has I don't know if they've flat out said no or if they're just not in the plan. can't answer that part of it, but um so just you know, Leavonia was in and opted back out because they had no say where these routes were going and it wasn't suiting the needs of their of their residents. So this is one mill that's like 2.4 million and one mil is a start. They probably want five is what we're hearing. Thank you.

One mil is about $250 per year in a house in Plymouth. average house. [clears throat] Wow.

Hi, I'm Ron Bquard. I'm 1373 Sheridan in the city of Plymouth. [clears throat] Um, and if the millage passes, go you guys. I hope they listen to everything you say. Uh, but [clears throat] four years ago, uh, Oakland County was going through this process where they were having the milit coming up on their ballot. Uh, at the time, I want to get this right. they uh published their 2022 regional master transit plan update. Okay. And as part of that update, they this was their pretty map kind of white like what we saw what they want to do in uh in our area. All the orange is the existing routes and the blue were what the vision was. Um, and I want to thank Matt uh because today he found a video where there was a woman, you know, it was kind of a pro millillage video. She went through all the the reasons to vote for the millillage and one of the things she did is she pointed this map and said, "Yes, we can go to Oxford. We can go to Clarkston." [clears throat] Um, but we know we we've been talking about this for a while and we know, you know, they're not servicing Oxford. So, what I [clears throat] wanted to do is I took uh the existing uh smart route map off their website and I took their map and colored red all the routes that haven't shown up yet and and that's and that's what we come up with.

Wow.

Now, you can see they did use a little bit of of their plan. Uh but you know, so when when they're asking for money and this and this is what we have. Uh so you know, Smart's going to do what SMART's going to do. Period. Uh and what I want to bring up today is, you know, when the election gets closer and most cities will put out something in a mailer that says this this is going to be on your ballot. This is what it's about. I would really hesitate to put their vision maps anywhere on stuff you're sending to the voters. Uh because it's it's all vaporware, you know, it's it's a wish list. Um my my hope is that the millillage doesn't pass, I can be I can already say I'm I'm not for it. If it doesn't pass, you know, maybe Smart will run back to Lancing and say, "Hey, we need to let these communities opt out again." Otherwise, we're in real trouble. So, thanks Is this your phone?

Ra can't live without it. I got two teenagers die.

Uh thank you uh trustees and commissioners. My name is Matthew Wilk. I'm 17245 Camera Drive. I live in Northville Township, but we have commonality of interest here. You've heard two very powerful pieces of information, and we really thank the ladies that did the presentation. and they've done this twice. What they provided to you is something that's very aspirational. This is what could happen. This is what might happen. If you look at the report that's in your packet, you'll see a lot of verbs like that. What you won't see is a lot of verbs that say we promise, we will, we shall, because these are hopes and thoughts. And as you saw from Ron's map, they haven't had a good track record for that. Let me add a couple of other facts that I've heard recently and that our research has shown. Our research has shown unequivocally there is an average of 3.88 88 people that ride each bus. If you drive, if you see them riding around, you'll see something new. Their windows are blacked out. One can only wonder why. Uh number two, the current Smart Pension Fund has somewhere between a 20 and $72 million hole that we would be picking up. I know you all, especially the trustees, have worked very hard to make sure you limit those things, cutting your costs to pay those obligations down. Smart simply has not. Right now, SMART is receiving a 97% subsidy. That is to say that fairs make up 3% of SMART's revenue. As a comparison, just apples to apples. Roads receive approximately a 17% subsidy. I heard want to raise two other interesting points that I heard um about your senior transit. We have that in Northville as well. And what they the lady indicated is that maybe maybe $500,000 from the millillage will go towards senior transit. Right now the millillage is $57 million a year. A 10-year mill is a half a billion dollar in new taxes in Wayne County. From that maybe all the communities that do senior

transit will share 1% for their senior transit. Okay. I want you to, if you have time, go look through the package. Look at page nine of the presentation. You will see on there a set of delivery dates. You will see that 2029 is the not quite promised delivery date for the routes in our area. They're advertising that our residents are going to pay, I believe in Plymouth Township, is $2.4 million annually in 2027 and 2028. In 2029, we're going to hope that we get a route out of that or two. Same in Northville Township where it's about $3 million. I made this presentation earlier. So, they've admitted that this these are things they try for. Unfortunately, their track record is very poor. They don't deliver these things. So, when you guys are considering reviewing this and and taking a position on this issue, I think we you guys have been good stewards of the public's money. I simply think this isn't one of those opportunities. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. Hello. Uh my name is Claire Grove. I'm a Plymouth Township resident of one year. I live in the Plymouth Heritage uh apartment complex off of North Territorial. Uh this is my first uh township meeting I am attending. Uh so please bear with me. Uh I came here today to speak in support of the Wayne County Transit Authority Mill. Even though it is admittedly imperfect in its current state, I am more than happy for my tax dollars to go towards supporting public transport for Wayne County community members. Even as someone who owns a car and drives it nearly every day out of necessity, I would love to have the option and freedom to ride the bus uh to some destinations such as Northville, uh Canton, Detroit, uh etc. Uh parking in dense urban areas can be stressful and timeconuming and riding the bus would alleviate that alleviate that. Additionally, the more public transport is available, the less traffic there will be and the streets will be safer for everybody, including those who choose not to take public transport. Um, that being said, there is lots of room for improvement um in the plan. I would love to see connections to the airport and uh shuttles to Detroit and Ann Arbor. Um, as the presentation is kind of stated. Um, but even with all of that said, I really do look forward to the new routes uh that could be created as a result of this millillage if passed. Even if it is imperfect, I think an improvement to the system is better than doing nothing at all. Um, I think everybody deserves reliable access to affordable public transportation. Thank you for your time. That's better. Uh, yeah. Hi. Um, I'm Dylan Tremba. I also live in the uh Plymage Plymouth Heritage Apartment Complex. Um been living here for about a

year now and um I'm kind of speaking off the cuff here, so bear with me. Um but I wanted to come up here and speak in support of this millillage. Um, I believe that it is a great opportunity to connect our communities, especially for those with disabilities, seniors, um, and those who aren't able to afford to purchase and maintain a vehicle, as I'm sure many of you know, is extraordinarily expensive. Um, I look at Plymouth Township right now and there is literally no way out except by car or I guess if you want to bike or walk like that's also an option. Um, but this would open up a lot of opportunities for people from surrounding communities to come and visit our businesses. um you know and also allow commuters to more easily go to and from Plymouth Township. [gasps] Um and you know I know that there were some concerns that were raised regarding writership. Um and I just wanted to say that you know um if you look at other countries um around the world you know first world countries like in Europe or you know in say Japan or South Korea um they have significantly superior public transit to us. Um, and I think it really kind of shows how far we've fallen behind in that respect. Um, I think, you know, everybody who who lives in this society, you know, the United States of America, uh, the richest country on the planet deserves that same access to

public transit as in those other first world countries that are in fact less wealthy than we are. Um and again regarding writership um you know I understand that there's some concerns that the numbers were low but um [clears throat] you know if you make a good robust public transit system you know fast reliable I understand that there are concerns that maybe this isn't what this millillage is but again right now we literally have nothing. We're going from zero to one here. So, you know, we we have to start somewhere. Um, and I think, you know, this could be a good, you know, point to push off from, um, to achieve greater things in the future. Um, so yeah, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Hi, my name is Linda Conway. and I live in Bradbury, which is probably the largest area of concentration of older folk in Plymouth Township. Very nice place to live, by the way. I grew up in Chicago. And from the time I was 12 years old, I could get from Lraange, Illinois, which was 17 miles outside of that city downtown by myself. It was a little different time then, a little safer, but you can still do that. And you can't do that here. I think it's one of the biggest detractors to the city of Detroit and to our suburbs. You can't get around unless you have a car. And that's an expensive prospect for a lot of people. If you don't have to have a car and you can use public transportation, you can use that money to spend at your local stores for recreation, for additional things that are sold in your local businesses. So, I think public transportation is really important and I support this. It's not going to start out well. No project ever hits the ground and is able to achieve 100% of its goals in the first six months or two years or three years, but you do have to start somewhere. And Dylan, I appreciate what you said because I think you were accurate. Thank you very much for your time.

Good evening. I'm Walt Coleman. I've been a resident of uh Plymouth for 62 years now. I live in West Brier subdivision. A lot of this is just seems to be um reaching into taxpayers pockets more and more these days. Uh we as homeowners have sacrificed a lot through our lives to live here to pay our taxes to put our kids through school to pay for all the local amenities and that I can understand and sympathize with the public wanting uh transportation. But when you take a look at the small percentage of people that it services versus the burden that it places on the taxpayers is quite ownorous. We're already paying for the DIA, the zoo, schoolcraft college, a bunch of other things that are once again uh seemingly reaching into what everybody perceives as endless deep pockets. Uh one of the things that I've noticed too that since uh uh like with the zoo, they're so flushed with money now. Now they're reaching out globally to support other zoos around the place that we don't get a break as taxpayers for all this. When you take a look at the debt of smart and everything, once again, I think they're just looking at us as being a a cash cow for them. So I am dead set against this and I'm sure that most residents do and I hope that they come out and vote accordingly when this comes. Thank you.

Hello everybody. Uh my name is Chris Robbins. I am a current resident of the township. I live at join Lily. Uh so just a couple of quick things. Uh first off, I agree with everything that that P Matt and uh Mr. Bard have said earlier. Uh definitely feel like this is not really in the best interest of township at the moment. [snorts] Uh and there are so many better ways that we could go about this whether it is through a private company uh through Uber through Lyft through so many other services that we already have existing uh that we don't need to use our taxpayer money that should be going to other issues that our township board and the city of Plymouth and Canton uh all think would be better uses of our funding whether that be parking space, whether that be city parks uh or other issues that are are much more important to what we should be doing uh for the environment of everybody. I feel like a lot of the clone township residents that we have here uh are already in possession of cars and vehicles and ways to get around and that at this point you're not really going to be getting your value as as Patty and Matt have so eloquently put it much better than I could uh in terms of writership for Plymouth Township and and city of Plymouth that really wouldn't necessarily add to our specific communities and uh what we already have established here. Also, a couple of other quick questions I have. This is I guess more questions for those two. Uh first off is I know that we're the current plan doesn't really have great infrastructure for stops already in place. I feel like if we just had a willy-nilly stop right in the middle of Ford Road, that would number one lead to more accidents, number two lead to a very significant inconvenience for traffic, not even alleviate any of the

issues that we already have. Uh, and it would also possibly lead to issues of jaywalking or issues of hitting runs, people just walking, stopping at a bench when there's not really [clears throat] infrastructure along the side of a road like Ford Road, Ford benches. Uh, it really doesn't necessarily [snorts] solve any of those issues. And I also feel like it's important to consider how people would get to those stops. For example, for me, I live at Joy and Lily. Uh, I don't necessarily have the ability to walk to Ford Road to get to a stop. Uh, I would end up having to take a car that I already have that I would be driving to my destination anyways just to get to that stop location. Uh, so, uh, I guess those are my main questions and concerns. Thank you all very much for everything that everyone here does. I appreciate it. And, uh, yeah, thank you guys.

[clears throat]

Hi guys, Bill Pine. I've only lived here 48 years. Um, thank you ladies for your presentation. The information was very valuable. Um, I've been in the transportation business off and on for almost 50 years. Uh, this reminds me of a bad business deal where you can have any answer you want as long as it's public transportation and smart. That doesn't say it's not the answer, but it's the only answer it's g you're given a choice on and you need to have a much broader uh to be convincing, you need to have a much broader database than 1% less than 1%. Bill, we can't we can't hear you. You got to

Okay. Sorry. Um, what I do have are a whole series of questions that would help address this more constructively. The first is who are the specific users of the proposed service? I know you say it's going to be dependent uh kids, people who are uh handicapped, they get rides with their families in many instances. Um you need to talk about what their needs are. You need to talk about how those needs are served today. You need to talk about the gaps. You need to talk about the alternatives. And you need to talk about how those alternatives compare. I mean, Chuck talked about uh private as opposed to public transit. That's one alternative. There probably others, I don't know. Uh public transport transit is generally and has been for a long time the high-cost solution to transportation. Now, you know, there may be social issues that justify that cost, but it is the highost solution. Uh, this kind of sounds like a solution looking for a problem and it reminds me a lot of what I see when we go and visit our daughters who live in San Francisco. Now, they got a great public transit system, but man, they pay through the nose on that and there are all sorts of problems and that's not a good thing. So, I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm saying there are a whole bunch of questions that haven't been answered unless those questions are satisfactorily answered. I think that's a problem. [clears throat] anyone else.

Okay. Sure. Hello again, everybody. Um, again, my name is Aaron I'm a senior planner with Ktown. Make sure it's close to your face.

Thank you so much for all of your comments and uh questions and and coming here tonight. Um, we really love to hear from the public and what the public is saying and what you're hearing, whether you agree with us or not, especially those who disagree with us because it gives us a different viewpoint. Um, so we really do appreciate that and I hope you'll continue to come out to these meetings, reach out to us individually, we we love to talk about this stuff. So, I just wanted to address a couple of the questions that I heard tonight that I know that I could answer. So, in regards to Oakland County's maps, uh, when you show that the 2022 plan and this is all that they've they've done, and that's that's a fair point, um, but the millillage is for 10 years, so they've only had 3 years to implement the that plan. So, things are still in flux and things are still being worked on in northern Oakland County. Not to mention, there are groups and transit authorities in the northern and uh, western Oakland County areas, NOTA, BOD, People's Express that do service those areas. It's not perfect. It's never going to be, but there is service in in Oxford, uh, in Lake Oran, in those areas. So, I just wanted to to to address that. Um, and the millillage for Wayne County is going to be 10 years as well. This plan, the February 6th plan that SMART put out, is only addressing 3 years of investment. So, it's not going to be perfect from the get-go. This is still just very much in flux and how it's going to go. And I I just wanted those those things to be uh to be addressed. Um the other big thing is the infrastructure and the safety that you mentioned sir. So one of the things that we've talked to to SMART and to Wayne County about is that there needs to be especially in these western Wayne County communities that have been opt out for so long. There needs to be an outreach and education on how we can utilize these better and how people can access the information to make it work for them. Just putting up a a sign or putting an enclosure where people don't

really know how to access it, we want to be able to mitigate any kind of uh safety uh uh dangers or anything like that. So in addition to working with the county with SMART, there's also going to be local participation with with the residents and with the communities so that way we can all work together. So that's that's another another component that we have reached out and talked to Smart about. Um the plan is never going to be perfect. We're not here advocating for SMART's plan and saying that it is perfect. As Audriana had mentioned, there's there's a number of things that we see that are deficient with it, but it's a start, especially in these areas in western Wayne County that hasn't had it before. So, we're trying to be the advocate for the residents who need it and communicate those needs and those wants to smart. So, again, I really thank you all for coming and providing your feedback. Um, if you have any other questions or discussion points and you want to reach out to uh myself or Audriana, I'm putting you on the spot. Um, individually, you are more than welcome to. Um, thank you all again and thank you for having us here to present this evening. Thank you.

Anything else? Got to come up here if you got a question. Um, tell us who you are. What? I'm Jaclyn Kite. I live in Bradberry Park Homes. Oh, in Bradberry. Yep. Uh, I just would like to uh learn what influence communities have on the services and routes that would be provided. I mean, if the mer is is approved, is there any influence that you guys, for example, would have on that? My judgment is very little. Okay.

And you can kind of see that already. They haven't even approved the millillage and they're already going their own way. I'm talking about smart. Mhm. For example, there's no consideration for the most popular destination, the airport and downtown Detroit and Ann Arbor. So, I [clears throat] think that they need to get a message that they need to listen. Yeah. I just wondered if you know where the money you would expect them to listen more now uh because they're trying to get past it but uh I guess they're that was all my question.

All right. And remember Plymouth Township is neutral on this. We're not going to be advocating one way or the other. Uh also the supervisor in Northville Township said he's neutral also. He said that there's a document that said he wasn't, but anyway, he wanted me to convey that. Um, anything else? All right, we can adjourn. Make a motion. Motion to adjurnn. Do we need is it a regular meeting? I don't know. It's just a work session. We don't need to have a