Trains from AA to Traverse City?

[km1125]

Only 22% of visitors to Vail and Aspen arrive by car.

Many visitors to Traverse City are from Michigan.

Visitors to those two resort towns in Colorado come from all over the country if not the world.

Bad comparison.

Your assessment is not correct. 65% come from out of state. Petoskey gets all the people from Michigan.

In 5 years Traverse City will have eliminated much of the private parking. You are looking at this from yesterday and not tomorrow. Gen Y and Z don't like cars.

You must not realize how behind Detroit is with public transportation. You don't have to understand or accept it, we don't care. We have the most wineries, breweries and cideries per capita in the country. These aren't for old people, and young people use the shuttle vans. The train will work, and they will add Detroit and DTW.

He said "many", not "most", so his assessment could easily be correct. 35% is still "many". I would bet a lot of that remaining 65% are just barely out-of-state, perhaps from the Chicago area. It would be interesting to know if there is actually a larger number coming from the Chicago area than from either Ann Arbor or Detroit and, if so, why isn't someone exploring rail to/from ChicagoLand.

I don't have any problem with running passenger rail from Ann Arbor (or anywhere else) to and from TC, but it should be those riders and the business in TC benefitting from it that pays bulk, not the rest of the residents of the state.

[fuzzpower]

People don’t want mass transit in Michigan, save for a few isolated areas. If this is 100% private that’s one thing, but not a cent of subsidies should be given to them.

Traverse City does not have many visitors from out of state. Those that are mostly come from Toledo or Chicago or NW Indiana, not exactly faraway places. Hardly a national destination. That’s not to say there aren’t good reasons to visit, but let’s not call it something it isn’t.

[TC Talks]

Only 22% of visitors to Vail and Aspen arrive by car.

Many visitors to Traverse City are from Michigan.

Visitors to those two resort towns in Colorado come from all over the country if not the world.

Bad comparison.

Your assessment is not correct. 65% come from out of state. Petoskey gets all the people from Michigan.

In 5 years Traverse City will have eliminated much of the private parking. You are looking at this from yesterday and not tomorrow. Gen Y and Z don't like cars.

You must not realize how behind Detroit is with public transportation. You don't have to understand or accept it, we don't care. We have the most wineries, breweries and cideries per capita in the country. These aren't for old people, and young people use the shuttle vans. The train will work, and they will add Detroit and DTW.

He said "many", not "most", so his assessment could easily be correct. 35% is still "many". I would bet a lot of that remaining 65% are just barely out-of-state, perhaps from the Chicago area. It would be interesting to know if there is actually a larger number coming from the Chicago area than from either Ann Arbor or Detroit and, if so, why isn't someone exploring rail to/from ChicagoLand.

I don't have any problem with running passenger rail from Ann Arbor (or anywhere else) to and from TC, but it should be those riders and the business in TC benefitting from it that pays bulk, not the rest of the residents of the state.

Here's a solution: Keep your loser ass away from here and you won't have to worry about any of it. We aren't sympathic to whiners.

[TC Talks]

People don’t want mass transit in Michigan, save for a few isolated areas. If this is 100% private that’s one thing, but not a cent of subsidies should be given to them.

Traverse City does not have many visitors from out of state. Those that are mostly come from Toledo or Chicago or NW Indiana, not exactly faraway places. Hardly a national destination. That’s not to say there aren’t good reasons to visit, but let’s not call it something it isn’t.

#2 Ohio, #3 New York, #4 Indiana, #5 Texas, #6 New Jersey.

[Deleted User 14896]

Here's a solution: Keep your loser ass away from here and you won't have to worry about any of it. We aren't sympathic to whiners.

Here's an idea:
While you're hob knobing with the civic leaders up there, tell them you feel that folks downstate should just stay home and not visit the TC area. Let me know how well that goes over.

Here's a Blue's Clue. There's a reason Whitmer opened up travel to the 231 in time for Memorial Day. Trevor Tkach, who you probably know, was making the rounds on the Metro Detroit stations the day after her announcement, doing cartwheels with a "We're Open, C'mon Up" sign. He knows as well as you should, TC would be called Tumbleweed City if it wasn't for us whiney losers.

[fuzzpower]

#2 and #4 are neighboring states. You didn’t post the raw numbers or percentages. New Jersey could be seventeen people for all we know.

Whitner also has the family second home in that area.That’s why she opened up that area before downstate.

[Rate This]

#2 and #4 are neighboring states. You didn’t post the raw numbers or percentages. New Jersey could be seventeen people for all we know.

Whitner also has the family second home in that area.That’s why she opened up that area before downstate.

They also had a tiny number of cases compared to down here.

[TC Talks]

Here's a solution: Keep your loser ass away from here and you won't have to worry about any of it. We aren't sympathic to whiners.

Here's an idea:
While you're hob knobing with the civic leaders up there, tell them you feel that folks downstate should just stay home and not visit the TC area. Let me know how well that goes over.

Here's a Blue's Clue. There's a reason Whitmer opened up travel to the 231 in time for Memorial Day. Trevor Tkach, who you probably know, was making the rounds on the Metro Detroit stations the day after her announcement, doing cartwheels with a "We're Open, C'mon Up" sign. He knows as well as you should, TC would be called Tumbleweed City if it wasn't for us whiney losers.

The voters of TC proper don't derive much income from tourists. I believe our largest economic sector is retirement, followed by the hospital, followed by banking, finance and consultant types. I think tourism is about 8% of the economy. That is significant but most of the workers are not in Traverse City proper. That's why there is such a push to downsize cherry festival and other festivals that really don't have an impact or meaning to locals from the city proper.

Traverse City opened early because we had a very low rate of infection. I believe at the lowest level in the state at the time. The deal to open Traverse City and announce that Traverse City was open was made by the Visit TC director and he heard about it from many angry people in the community.

I guess I wouldn't try to tell you about your community as I don't live there. But feel free to try to tell me about Traverse City.

[Deleted User 14896]

...I think tourism is about 8% of the economy ... feel free to try to tell me about Traverse City.

I wouldn't know much about TC personally. However according to your city's website, your thinking may be a little low. They say 30 percent of the areas economy comes from tourism.

https://www.traversecity.com/about-trav ... ity%20area

[TC Talks]

Sometimes they lop the retirement economy into tourism. It is absolutely not 30%.

Traversecity.com is not the city's website. That is a tourism website privately owned.

I forgot to mention Hagerty and the fruit industry as big employers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City,_Michigan

[km1125]

...I think tourism is about 8% of the economy ... feel free to try to tell me about Traverse City.

I wouldn't know much about TC personally. However according to your city's website, your thinking may be a little low. They say 30 percent of the areas economy comes from tourism.

https://www.traversecity.com/about-trav ... ity%20area

To be fair, he did reference "TC proper". That's like comparing what the folks in Detroit think is good for the economy of Michigan compared to the rest of the residents. Likely polar opposites in reality.

[MWmetalhead]

Train travel in this country is a joke because there is little if any high speed rail. Until that issue is corrected, any discussion of train travel is a waste of time.

A train from AA to Traverse City is beyond moronic; people like to stop and check out tourist spots along the way. Being stuck on a train inhibits that. If a family or couple needs to grab a rental car once they reach TC, why not just drive in the first place?

There are plenty of public buses running in the city of Detroit. Mayor Duggan has done a good job in improving bus service for citizens of Detroit.

Millennials don't need rail; they have Uber and Lyft. The indigent don't need rail; they have bus service and ride share programs.

For interstate travel, high speed rail would be a useful service. Not arguing that. The airline industry is represented by a lot of lobbying muscle unfortunately.

[Rate This]

Train travel in this country is a joke because there is little if any high speed rail. Until that issue is corrected, any discussion of train travel is a waste of time.

A train from AA to Traverse City is beyond moronic; people like to stop and check out tourist spots along the way. Being stuck on a train inhibits that. If a family or couple needs to grab a rental car once they reach TC, why not just drive in the first place?

There are plenty of public buses running in the city of Detroit. Mayor Duggan has done a good job in improving bus service for citizens of Detroit.

Millennials don't need rail; they have Uber and Lyft. The indigent don't need rail; they have bus service and ride share programs.

For interstate travel, high speed rail would be a useful service. Not arguing that. The airline industry is represented by a lot of lobbying muscle unfortunately.

Uber isn’t an economical travel method and isn’t really available outside of cities. So that’s not a real good example.

[fuzzpower]

It’s not because the cases were low, it was because Whitmer wanted to go to the family’s summer home.

What are the percentages of tourists from each state? I’m curious how high Ohio is compared to the others on the list.

[km1125]

Train travel in this country is a joke because there is little if any high speed rail. Until that issue is corrected, any discussion of train travel is a waste of time.
.... ....
For interstate travel, high speed rail would be a useful service. Not arguing that. The airline industry is represented by a lot of lobbying muscle unfortunately.

I think high speed rail only works in certain corridors. It might OK from, say, DC to Philly to NYC to Boston. Otherwise I think it has VERY limited appeal. The "problem" with rail in this country is that the destinations are not just point places like big cities. It's whole metropolitan areas or various smaller cities. Hard to aggregate enough folks that want to go to and from the same places at the same time. High speed cars can't be stopping at every 'port' along the way too, or it destroys the advantage of speed.

What I think MIGHT work in a rail system is to rethink rail as long trains of many many cars and separate it down to smaller groups of cars. Use only a couple 25-50 passenger cars, perhaps coupled with a freight car or two and run them more frequently.