I attended a town hall meeting here in Washtenaw County last night about transportation hosted by State Representative Pam Byrnes.  The event included comments from a panel including US Rep. Mark Schauer, MDOT Director of Governmental Affairs Ron DeCook, and Terri Blackmore of the Washtenaw Area Transportation Study.  I am not a transportation expert by any means but better public transportation is one of the hot topics these days when discussing how to keep young talent in Michigan so I'm interested in what our policymakers are doing to promote it.  

All of the panelists spoke about how important supporting improved public transit was important what it all comes down to is Michigan's transportation funding.  There is a significant risk of losing federal transportation funding in the next couple of years because we aren't reaching the state and local matching levels to keep it.  Ron DeCook presented some of the elements of the Michigan Transportation Funding Task Force recommendations that are intended to increase over the next 5-7 years the level of transportation funding come close to meeting the anticipated funding needs for transportation.  The primary ways that they are looking at increasing that funding are through incremental increases to the state gas tax, vehicle registration fees, and the aviation fuel tax.  I was amazed to learn that the aviation fuel tax hasn't increased since 1929 when it was first implemented.  One of the other things that I hadn't considered about funding is that the more we encourage people to buy smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles and ride public transit, the less gas tax revenue the state will bring in.  I don't think that means we should continue to encourage gas consumption as we have in the past but it means that we're going to have to get more creative about how we fund some of our transportation needs.

It's never easy to get people excited about tax or fee increases but I think that we'd all agree that well-maintained roads, safe bike and walking paths, and efficient and convenient public transportation are all important elements of a desireable place to live.  I'd certainly pay a little more for my registration or gas to not have to pay $200-300 to get a tire fixed after I blew it out on a pothole or to be able to ride on a bikepath to more of the places that I need to go.  I'd love to be able to take a high speed rail line to Chicago for the weekend and not have to worry about getting stuck behind a freight line that has priority over the passenger line.  There are all sorts of benefits for our cities and state if we do invest in these transportation improvements but I think it will be a hard sell when people don't have jobs and are losing their homes.  The other thing is that people just don't know.  I learned about the event from the A2 Chamber of Commerce so I'm sure that a number of chamber members received the same email.  However, there were maybe only 40 people at the meeting and at least 50% were government employees or elected officials.  I think 50% is probably quite conservative too.  As citizens we need to be informed and get involved, especially if we want our state economy to bounce back.  Now is not the time to sit back and feel sorry for ourselves and our state.  Get involved!

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce Morning Edition.  As a marketing communications professional I was impressed with the number of innovators sharing their story at this networking breakfast event--right here in Ann Arbor, right here in Michigan.  

Among them was key sponsor Ann Arbor State Bank, a new start-up in the banking industry. They are to be applauded for joining with other strong local banks in bringing stability and insight to our challenged financial industry. Lumigen is a research, development and manufacturing company of chemiluminescence technology.   Chemiluminescence is the generation of electromagnetic radiation as light by the release of energy from a chemical reaction.  A sample demonstration lit up the room like a spotlight and not a firefly.  The Michigan Prisoner ReEntry Initiative has reduced recidivism by 20% in the state of Michigan in the last two years.  And Zipcar is a new vehicle service that gives you wheels when you want them and enables exciting new forms of alternative transportation.   

One of the key speakers, Dr. David E. Cole, Chairman, Center for Automotive Research, extended the theme.  On the heels of the announcement that Mercedes will open up a new research facility in Ann Arbor, he spoke about other opportunities that are developing based on the retooling of the automotive industry and the important collaborative work going on right now between the labor unions, auto company management, supply chain representatives and the federal government.  This difficult but game-changing work, if it succeeds, will avoid bankruptcy while restructuring to compensate for overcapacity and ultimately strengthen the industry to provide profitable, market-pleasing products going forward.  In conversation afterwards, we spoke about the innovation of Johnson Controls, one of MOVE’s clients, and a recent project developed by its global innovation team headed up by Michael Warsaw in North America.  This project, the re3 vehicle rethinks the small car interior environment.  He remarked that this is an example of Johnson Controls strong history of strategically initiating to bring new ideas to its customers. 

My take-away was that now more than ever all of us in business have the opportunity as  we service our customers to bring forward new ideas based on our expertise that solve problems in ingenious ways--ideas that our customers wouldn’t have had the time or resources to generate. As we do, we shouldn’t feel obligated to have everything totally baked before we demo an idea.  Let our customers collaborate with us in tuning the innovation to their specific applications. If we do, we’ll see a new edition of innovation.  Bring it!