Contact: Doug Christensen, PE, Mead & Hunt
Phone: (866) 441-5214 or E-mail: doug.christensen@meadhunt.com
Website: www.thegrandvision.org
Contact: Phil Callighan, Sr. Account Executive, Knorr Marketing
Phone: (231) 947-9707, ext. 207; Mobile: (231) 342-7590 or E-mail: philc@knorrmarketing.com
Citizen Participation Crucial for The Grand Vision Workshop Oct. 17
(Traverse City, Michigan) - “If you are tired of congested intersections, the lack of affordable housing close to your work, concerned about preserving land or tired of planning studies that lead nowhere, you should attend The Grand Vision workshop Wednesday evening, October 17th at the Park Place Hotel from 6:30 to 9:30.” So says Doug Christensen, Project Leader for The Grand Vision (www.thegrandvision.org), a federally funded Land Use and Transportation Study of the Grand Traverse Region.
Christensen encourages all citizens in the six-county Grand Traverse region (Acme, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, Leelanau, Wexford) to attend, because the study will set the direction for a 20-year long-range transportation plan that will establish the growth patterns of the Grand Traverse region for the next generation. “Roads and transit systems don’t stop at county lines,” adds Christensen.
The workshop on October 17th will be the first in a series of hands-on public visualization and scenario planning workshops, and each workshop in the series will build upon ideas from the previous workshop. “That’s why it’s so important for people to attend this first workshop,” said Christensen. “It’s important for people to express their values and ideas before the engineers start suggesting new roadways, mass transit, restrictive ordinances or other solutions.”
Christensen also emphasizes The Grand Vision is focused on making suggestions that can be implemented by the area. “For starters, $2 million in federal funding is currently available for implementing a part of The Grand Vision upon its conclusion,” said Christensen.
The Grand Vision project, conducted by a team led by Mead & Hunt, an engineering firm with offices in Lansing and Traverse City, Michigan, will also include reviews of past area studies, values surveys, interviews and implementation strategies.
On October 17th, workshop attendees will be split into small groups, provided with visualization tools and challenged to decide where new growth should and should not occur within the Study Area, the general form that new growth should take, and the type of transportation system needed to serve it.
Aiding Mead & Hunt in this project are several nationally-known experts, including Robert Grow, a recognized Visioning expert and John Fregonese of Fregonese Associates, a firm specializing in land-use and transportation planning, and conducting public “scenario planning” workshops.
