In 2000, there were 8 miles of bike lanes in Ann Arbor. Today, there are 37 miles of in-road lanes. John Hieftje’s administration has added just a little over 3 miles of lanes per year, on average, over the almost 12 years he has been in office.

Hieftje frequently crows that Ann Arbor now has 600 percent more bike lanes than when he took office. Don’t break out the fireworks just yet. The Mayor of Los Angeles recently announced his city would be adding 40 miles of bikes lanes per year. Don’t tell Hieftje or the local enviro-bots who support his anemic “achievements” as award-worthy “green” innovation, but Fort Wayne, Indiana has more miles of in-road bike lanes than does Ann Arbor.

In the February 2012 issue of Smart Planet, writer Jason Dearen asks the heretical question: “Are Bike Lanes Really Green?” Dearen writes, “The little science that has been done on this topic points to what most people have figured out from common sense: that increasing bicycle infrastructure in cities can reduce traffic and bolster public health….” He then goes on to present the other side of the street, as it were. “But, Susan Handy, who teaches environmental policy and planning in the University of California, Davis’ Transportation Technology and Policy Program, said bike lanes could potentially cause more air pollution if they resulted in stop-and-go traffic. Handy added, ‘I do not know of a general study that tests this possibility, but many cities have modeled the effect of bicycle lanes before installing them and found little effect on traffic.’”

Here in Ann Arbor, it’s likely the oft-touted increase in miles of in-road bike lanes has had little overall impact on either public health or traffic. Why?

What Hieftje, whom the Ann Arbor News once editorialized always “sprints to accept praise,” doesn’t like to mention is the fact that the number of people using Ann Arbor’s expensive bike lanes has increased only .3 percent since 2000. Yes. That’s one-third of one percent over the course of Hieftje’s tenure. Today, some 1,570 Ann Arbor residents commute to work by bike, according to census data gathered by the National Bike League. In 2000 when Hieftje took office, 1,520 people commuted to work by bike. After having spent over $5 million dollars on alternative transportation since 2003, in addition to the approximately $1.5-$2 million dollars spent on planning and installing the bike lanes while resurfacing streets, only about 50 more people commute by bike in Ann Arbor. Throw in the tax dollars gifted to the getDowntown program by the Ann Arbor DDA, and the the tab rises by another $1.3 million dollars. The getDowntown program works to encourage the use of alternative transportation and has had success increasing bus ridership. With bike commuting? Not so much.

In similarly-sized Boulder, Colorado 6,570 people commute to work on bike. Boulder sits atop the Top Ten list of cities in the U.S. in which residents bike to work. In Fort Collins, Colorado, which is slightly larger than Ann Arbor, there are 7,776 bike commuters, and triple the percentage of residents who commute by bike than in our city. Like Boulder, Fort Collins has over 300 miles of bike lanes.

The facts are clear. Biking to work is good for you, good for the economy and good for the environment. Cities that invest in biking infrastructure benefit big time. According to a March 2011 piece in Smart Planet:

Portland has spent an estimated $57 million on its biking infrastructure so far, and the city has one of the country’s highest biking rates  (a little more than 6 percent of the city’s residents commute by bike).

The study published last week in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health has found that during the next 30 years, Portland’s residents could save as much as $594 million in health care costs because of an investment into biking culture. Essentially, the money that is spent on biking infrastructure, is money that is eventually saved on health care costs, the study says.

In the local Boulder, Colorado newspaper, a January 2012 piece outlined the impact that city’s investment in its biking infrastructure has had on the local economy in that city of 90,000:

The businesses help support an industry that a new survey says accounts for an estimated $52 million in sales and 330 full-time jobs in Boulder.

“Cycling is a core of the city,” Smith said. “It’s pretty incredible how people not only have bicycles in town, but they have multiple bicycles.”

The economic impact survey was released Wednesday by Community Cycles, a local nonprofit that educates and advocates for the safe use of bicycles. The organization based its findings on surveys sent to 41 businesses in 2011.

Community Cycles found that bike-related retail, rental and repair shops supported 214 jobs and generated more than $24.4 million in revenue in 2010, while manufacturing supported 13 jobs and generated $10.4 million in sales. Education and advocacy organizations supported 48 jobs and generated $7.9 million in revenue, and miscellaneous groups supported 55 jobs and generated more than $9.5 million in revenue.

So why aren’t more people biking in Ann Arbor? Could it be a lack of a real political commitment to alternative transportation coupled with the current City Council’s addiction to parking revenues to balance the budget blown out by unfunded pension obligations and capital construction debt obligations that have tripled?

According to the web site of the National Bike League, a non-partisan advocacy group, “National Bike Month (May) is an opportunity to celebrate the unique power of the bicycle and the many reasons we ride. Whether you bike to work or school; to save money or time; to preserve your health or the environment; to explore your community or get to your destination, get involved in Bike Month in your city or state — and help get more people in your community out riding too!”

The group collects bike commuter data on 277 of the largest cities in the U.S. Ann Arbor ranks near the bottom of the list at number 187 in terms of miles of bike lanes, and the percentage of residents who use them. That hasn’t stopped Ann Arbor politicos and the DDA from frittering away tax dollars on bike hoop “art” and other “improvements” that are not enticing more residents to commute regularly by bike.

In 2012, the city of Ann Arbor budgeted $181,000 for alternative transportation, including the installation of “sharrows.” A November 2011 piece in Grist describes sharrows thusly:

A “sharrow” — the word is an amalgamation of “arrow” and “share the road” — is a larger-than-life thermoplastic symbol of a bicycle topped by two chevrons pointing the way forward. More technically known as “shared lane markings,” they’re intended to remind two-wheeled and four-wheeled road users alike to share with each other, and also to encourage people on bikes to take the lane when it’s too narrow to ride side-by-side with car traffic.

Sharrows are “politically easy,” according to the piece is Grist, and the author also points out facts that reveal many of Ann Arbor’s are incorrectly installed: “Federal regs now say that sharrows must be at least four feet from the curb if there’s no parking, 11 feet from the curb if there is.” Sharrows on downtowns Ann Arbor streets frequently put bikers right next to parked cars.

In the 2013 budget, the amount for alternative transportation was tripled to $448,265. So what are Ann Arbor taxpayers getting for their Act 51 alternative transportation money? More sharrows?

To begin, a portion of the money set aside for the purpose of “maintaining and extending non-motorized pathways,” according to the 2013 draft budget, has in part gone to pay the six-figure salary of the city’s Transportation Program Manager, Eli Cooper. In Fiscal Year 2011 60 percent of Eli Cooper’s time was charged to the alternative transportation fund. In 2009, the city dropped $885,957 on alternative transportation and in 2006 spent $723,844. In 2009, a large chunk of the money was given over to a study for the Fuller Road Station fantasy. Between 2000 and 2013 Ann Arbor has spent over $8 million dollars on alternative transportation projects, bike lanes, administration and staff. The table below shows how much has been budgeted and spent just since 2009:

In 2012, Boulder budgeted $528,264 on improving/extending bike paths in that city. Between 2005-2011, Boulder budgeted, on average, about one-half to-thirds of what Ann Arbor did for bike path maintenance. However, Boulder has over 300 miles of in-road bike lanes versus the 37 miles in Ann Arbor. Boulder also has quadruple the percentage of residents who commute to work by bike (12.3 percent).

Ann Arbor’s Transportation Department web site includes this obvious fact, “Auto travel within the City of Ann Arbor has been on the rise.  According to the WATS travel demand model, Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) for the City of Ann Arbor increased by 9.8% from 2000 to 2010, from an estimated 481,607,203 miles to 529,238,685.”

After over a decade of fauxgressive greenwash served up by Hieftje, local enviros and Michigan enviro groups that endorse and reward under-achieving, Arbor’s biking infrastructure, as well as the total number of residents who use it have increased at a pace that is well below national levels, according to an article about the proliferation of bicycle commuting in The Atlantic. Between 2000 and 2009, Anchorage, Alaska, Buffalo, New York, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and even Detroit saw triple, quadruple even quintuple the overall gains in the percentages of residents who commute by bike than did Ann Arbor.

So how can Ann Arbor increase not only the miles of in-road bike lanes, but more importantly the number of residents using those bike lanes to levels that justify the expenditure of taxpayer money and use of staff time?

1.  Get with the research

A recent study of Seattle residents found that those living near bike paths had an increased likelihood of riding, but saw no effect for bike lanes. According to a recent study: “In sum, traffic-free paths connecting suburbs and cities ‘would appear to be insufficient in encouraging a shift from car travel to cycling for everyday practical journeys.’ The important lesson for policy makers is that bike paths and bike lanes may both increase ridership, but in different ways. While the former may encourage recreational riding, that doesn’t necessarily translate into everyday cycling.”

2.  Get serious about supporting alternative transportation versus parking (and parking revenues)

Tim Jones of Oxford Brookes University conducted a study that concludes: ”More specifically, provision of good quality separate cycling facilities alongside heavily travelled roads and linking to everyday facilities that people need to use, self-enforcing speed restrictions using traffic calming and more intelligent design across residential neighbourhoods, coupled with making driving expensive and inconvenient in central urban areas through various restrictions on car use and car parking. Encouraging the public on to the ‘nursery slopes’ of Sustrans style traffic-free paths in order to acquire the skills for cycling on the road network for everyday purposes seems unlikely to create a mass modal shift away from journeys by car.”

3.  Get serious about setting aggressive goals and measuring results

In cities such as Seattle and Portland, city officials conduct bike commute counts. San Francisco, for example, has set a goal that 20 percent of the commute trips in that city be on bike by 2020.

4.  Get with the program

In cities such as Berkeley, Boulder, Seattle, San Francisco and New York, officials have, yes, programs to promote year-round bicycle commuting. Ann Arbor officials, instead, offer residents excuses as to why bike lanes are not maintained. Interestingly, in the city’s 2009 application for recognition by the League of American Bicyclists for recognition as a “Bicycle Friendly” community, Eli Cooper claims that the Field Services Department’s maintenance practices ensure that snow removal is performed full road width (including bike lanes) until the snow banks begin to encroach on the road width, and then it is pushed back further when time and conditions permit.”

5.  Get real about maintaining current bike paths

With faded lines, potholes, debris, and use by homeowners for recycling and garbage containers on collection days, bike paths in Ann Arbor are improperly policed and need much better care.

6.  Get real about education

In the city’s 2009 application for recognition by the League of American Bicyclists for recognition as a “Bicycle Friendly” community, Eli Cooper describes the extent of the city’s bicyclist education program as a “brochure” available at City Hall and online.

The University of Michigan’s Athletic Director Dave Brandon (pictured, left) is a confused man who has, obviously, never understood that value for money means paying the least amount of money for the most value. In a January 7, 2011 entry about the firing of Rich Rodriguez I wrote this:

I want to start with sports writer Joe Lapointe, who wrote a great piece about the comic opera that has been Michigan Athletic Director David Brandon and the school’s football diva/coach RichRod. Lapointe writes:

When David Brandon ran the Domino’s Pizza business from Ann Arbor, Mich., the product deteriorated so much that the company tried to turn its negatives into positives.
In television commercials, it admitted its crust chewed like cardboard and its sauce tasted like ketchup. Late in Brandon’s watch, Domino’s vowed to improve the product that had declined while he was boss. Brandon is now the rookie athletic director at the University of Michigan – a school with a lot of dough and plenty of crust — and he is facing a similar crisis in his historically prestigious football program. Lately, it’s gotten kind of cheesy.

It’s just the kind of pin-to-the-over-inflated-balloon kind of writing that Michigan’s football program and its Athletic Director deserve.

Joe Lapointe writes:

Noting that Michigan has traditionally paid its coaches at around the middle rate of their profession’s pay scale, Brandon said that should change. ”There’s a market out there,” he said. “You pay for value. My boss and my boss’s bosses understand that concept.”

“You pay for value?” Has David Brandon ever shopped with his own money, and for anything other than over-priced college football coaches and stadium food? Value for one’s money means that one pays less for an excellent product. Bo Schembechler comes to mind, as does my new dishwasher. My new dishwasher is not the $1,400 Bosch for sale at Sears. It’s the $500 Kenmore. Know why? I obsessively compared the two brands, zeroed in on models that were virtually identical, then compared prices, and read buyer reviews (on several sites). I also bought the extended warranty. Alas, college athletic directors don’t come with those. University of Michigan president, Dr. Mary Sue Coleman, hired a pizza salesman, and she’s getting exactly what she paid for: fast food management of the college’s football program.

Dave Brandon is at it again.

This time, though, he’s justifying spending $900,000 (base pay plus incentives) on a defensive coordinator for the University of Michigan football team. AnnArbor.com picked up the news from the Associated Press wire on February 24, 2011. The next day, The Detroit News dug a little deeper and reports:

Most notable was defensive coordinator Greg Mattison’s contract. He will be paid $750,000 annually with a chance for a bonus of up to $150,000 if the Wolverines win the Big Ten. Mattison, 61, who spent the last two seasons as defensive coordinator for the NFL’s Ravens, is the Big Ten’s highest-paid assistant.

“We’re not messing around,” Brandon told The News when asked about Mattison’s contract. “I am sure he’s the highest-paid defensive coordinator in the Big Ten, and I have to believe he is also one of the highest-paid in the country.

We’re not messing around? Is this guy serious? Spending a boatload of money is supposed to indicate that the University of Michigan’s football program is not “messing around?” I would argue just the opposite. Brandon goes on to justify the $900,000 expenditure thusly:

Brandon said he had no problem upping the salaries of Michigan’s football coaches.

“I have great respect for the marketplace, and you pay for value,” Brandon said. “We are blessed to have one of the largest football programs in the country. We should be able to pay to attract the best and talented coaches available.”

One of the largest football programs in the country? Does he mean by weight? One imagines since he’s justifying spending money, he’s talking about revenues. Alas, Michigan’s total football revenues are nowhere near as large as those raked in by programs NCAA officials consider “the largest” in the country. Mr. Brandon’s statement is a Whopper.

According to officials at the NCAA, the University of Michigan’s football program isn’t in the top ten in the country in terms of revenue produced. I know. I know. I was shocked, too! All that posturing, puffery and over-blown egoism about having the “biggest audience….” Dash it all. Here’s what an official from the NCAA had to say about Brandon’s claim: ”Mr. Brandon’s program is not among those the NCAA has identified as the top ten revenue producers.”

So who’s programs are actually the largest in the country? All of the financial figures are from the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics report for the 2008-09 school year and the NCAA.

1.  Texas Longhorns:  2009 gross revenues $87.5 million (stadium holds 94,000 fans)

2.  Ohio State:  2009 gross revenues $68.19 million (OSU spent a national high on its program, as well, $32.3 million OSU spent about $10 million dollars more than Texas, the school that raked in $20 million more after spending less on its program. Damn. That’s value for money in my book.)

3.  Florida:  2009 gross revenues $66.15 million

4.  Georgia:  2009 gross revenues $65.21 million

5.  Alabama:  2009 revenues $64.6 million

6.  LSU:  2009 gross revenues $61.86 million

7.  Penn State:  2009 gross revenues $61.76 million

8.  Auburn:  2009 gross revenues $58.61 million

9.  South Carolina:  2009 gross revenues $57.11 million

10. Notre Dame:  2009 gross revenues $56.92 million

Where’s Michigan? One click and $22.7 million in annual revenues behind Notre Dame’s football program. In fact, in order to crack the Top Ten list, Michigan would have to increase revenues by almost 60 percent.

11. University of Michigan:  2009 gross revenues $34.21 million (spent $18.03 million on its program, and its stadium held 13,000 more fans than the stadium where the Texas Longhorns play.)

Michigan’s revenues are well behind Big Ten schools Penn State ($42.63 million) and Ohio State, and nowhere near those of programs that are, actually, the largest in the country.

So, does spending more translate into football success? Nope.

Auburn’s Athletic Department fritters away only slightly less than OSU on its football program. However, Auburn hasn’t been to a bowl since 2004. In the Big Ten, in 2009 Iowa spent $26.9 million on its football program, but hasn’t won a league title since 2004.

Money can’t buy you love, or a winning football program, and someone needs to tell poor Dave Brandon that Michigan’s gross revenues do not make his program “one of the largest in the country.” Those bragging rights belong to the University of Texas and the other heavy hitters in the top ten whose gross revenues are multiples of what Michigan’s program brings in each year. Oh, and last three seasons, Michigan has lost to Michigan State, a school that spent, on average $3-$5 million dollars less on its football program each year than did the University of Michigan.

That is the definition of value for money.

I want to start with sports writer Joe Lapointe, who wrote a great piece about the comic opera that has been Michigan Athletic Director David Brandon and the school’s football diva/coach RichRod. Lapointe writes:

When David Brandon ran the Domino’s Pizza business from Ann Arbor, Mich., the product deteriorated so much that the company tried to turn its negatives into positives.
In television commercials, it admitted its crust chewed like cardboard and its sauce tasted like ketchup. Late in Brandon’s watch, Domino’s vowed to improve the product that had declined while he was boss. Brandon is now the rookie athletic director at the University of Michigan – a school with a lot of dough and plenty of crust — and he is facing a similar crisis in his historically prestigious football program. Lately, it’s gotten kind of cheesy.

It’s just the kind of pin-to-the-over-inflated-balloon kind of writing that Michigan’s football program and its Athletic Director deserve.  

David Brandon didn’t hire the over-compensated, under-performing Rich Rodriguez, but he could have fired him much sooner, maybe shortly after players such as Justin Boren (who helped OSU kick Michigan’s butt this year as a player for Ohio State, where he transferred) started leaving the team and whispering about NCAA rule infractions. Now, Brandon’s plan to “improve the product,” as it were, involves, well, paying the football coach more money. As people selling over-priced products are always quick to point out, things that cost the most must be the best.

Joe Lapointe writes: 

Noting that Michigan has traditionally paid its coaches at around the middle rate of their profession’s pay scale, Brandon said that should change. ”There’s a market out there,” he said. “You pay for value. My boss and my boss’s bosses understand that concept.”

“You pay for value?” That’s right up there with George Bush’s famous, “Brownie is doin’ one heckuva job.” Has David Brandon ever shopped for anything other than over-priced college football coaches and stadium food? Value for one’s money means that one pays less for an excellent product. Bo Schembechler comes to mind, as does my new dishwasher. My new dishwasher is not the $1,400 Bosch for sale at Sears. It’s the $500 Kenmore. Know why? I obsessively compared the two brands, zeroed in on models that were virtually identical, then compared prices, and read buyer reviews (on several sites). I also bought the extended warranty. Alas, college football coaches don’t come with those. 

A couple of days ago, I read Detroit Free Press sports writer Mitch Albom’s piece titled, “Little went right in Rich Rodriguez’s run” Albom, in just about 800 words, served up a great piece of sports-writing. He gets right to the point:

In ugly, out ugly. Why wouldn’t Rich Rodriguez be fired? In three years, he didn’t win a single important game. He couldn’t coach defense. He got hit with NCAA violations. And he made a lot of people squirm when he talked — or, on occasion, swayed to a Josh Groban song.

There’s obviously a lot that’s going to be said on this subject, starting with the wet, hot, mess that was former Michigan Athletic Director Bill Martin’s “negotiated” a contract with football coach Rich Rodriguez. Martin, another man who obviously doesn’t understand the definition of the word “value,” or the concept of “shopping,” “negotiated” a lop-sided contract that paid Rodriguez $2.5 million per year, and included a clause that required Michigan to pay should he be dismissed before the contract ended. Is the University of Michigan a non-profit public university supported by $300 million in state tax dollars, or Goldman Sachs? Evidently, Michigan’s previous Athletic Director was under the impression that there is little difference the two. U of M has money to burn except when city officials come asking. Why is that?

John Hieftje, Third Ward Council member Steve Kunselman, Second Ward Council member Tony Derezinski and Fourth Ward Council member Marcia Higgins, all work for U of M in various full-time/part-time capacities. In addition, they don’t have a collective spine between them when it comes to pressing for payments U of M for payments in lieu of taxes, payments for fire services, or payments for solid waste services, water and sewer that are commensurate with what the University uses. All four continue to vote merrily along on the Fuller Road Parking Garage project for U of M. Despite the fact that Kunselman and Higgins, as full-time employees, are held to a U of M code of conduct of conduct that requires all full-time U of M employees to act in the best interests of the University, both continue to vote on projects that benefit U of M. 

Current Michigan Athletic Director, David Brandon, who’s no fool, could have summarily dismissed Rodriguez without paying out $2.5 million dollars had he fired the coach as a result of the recently imposed NCAA sanctions. Michigan had the contractual right to do that. However, the next question after Rodriguez was fired because of the sanctions would have been whether Brandon should lose his job over the scandal-ridden football program. When asked by the New York Times what he thought, Fielding Yost III told the paper the scandal was  “really a disappointment” because “the football program has always been above reproach.”

Now, AD Brandon has suggested that the answer to Michigan football’s coaching woes is to pay more to the next football coach hired. This is like saying that money can buy you love. Money can buy you sex, and $226 million can buy you sex in a sky-box in your renovated football stadium, but someone needs to clue Dave Brandon in to the fact that Michigan is a state-supported school with a football program that is not self-supporting. 

I won’t delude myself into thinking that Dr. Coleman has the cojones to put her sensibly shod foot down and tell Brandon that those are student-athletes, not NFL rookies. However, let’s call pass interference when we see it. Brandon, at the press conference called to address the dismissal of Rich Rodriguez, told those present that the college’s football program brings in the lion’s share of revenue to the Athletic Department. That’s true. It’s also true that U of M’s football program is sucking money right out of the university’s $1 billion dollar General Fund. For every dollar that goes to that coach whom Dave Brandon thinks needs to be paid more than $2.5 million dollars per year, is a dollar that won’t go to student instruction, which is the mission (last time I looked) of the public institution.

“You pay for value.” I’m betting the next football coach will earn $5 million dollars per year.

The city of Ann Arbor is terribly strapped for cash, partially because U of M doesn’t pay its way fully. However, the Ann Arbor City Council will probably never pressure U of M officials for payments in lieu of property taxes, payments for fire service, or payments for water, solid waste and sewer that are commensurate with the college’s usage. Why? In exchange for employing the academically unqualified Hieftje as a temporary lecturer and paying him exorbitantly, giving a part-time temporary job to his wife, by employing Tony Derezinski as a part-time lecturer, by having Kunselman and Higgins by the short hairs (a total expenditure of less than $200,000 per year in salaries and benefits), U of M has saved, perhaps, a quarter of a billion dollars since John Hieftje took office in 2000.

That, my fellow A2 politicos, is the definition of a great bargain. And a raw deal.