Traverse City Record-Eagle

Our Views

EDITORIAL

The issue: City dumps plans for tunnel.

Our view: Finding a new option must be a priority.

Related story: City ditches plan for parkway pedestrian tunnel

January 25, 2012

Tunnel plan collapses, but new option is a must

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Traverse City's Downtown Development Authority has finally abandoned — for now, anyway — the idea of digging another pedestrian tunnel under Grandview Parkway, an idea whose time and funding had not come.

The decision takes the heat off the DDA and the city, both of which had been under pressure from a developer who wanted to build a hotel in the Warehouse District on the south side of the Parkway and link it to the soon-to-be-refurbished bayfront by a new tunnel.

It also saved the DDA at least $1 million in tax increment financing it had pledged for the tunnel.

The decision came after the city missed out on a $3.5 million federal transportation grant that would have helped cover the estimated $2 million-plus it would have cost to build the tunnel. Wisely, officials decided that without the grant, the project isn't financially feasible.

That doesn't mean the city can forget about resolving the knotty and persistent problem of getting people from one side of the parkway to the other without them taking their lives in their hands.

Resolving this puzzle goes well beyond linking the proposed Hotel Indigo to the bayfront. The city hopes to embark soon on a major upgrade of the old Clinch Park Zoo site to add a host of attractions, including a kid's splash/wading pool, a fountain, an amphitheater, a bathhouse and plaza, a winter ice area, the TART trail, a play area and more. It absolutely must find a better way to get people across the parkway.

The DDA's 2012 capital improvement plan does include options for improving access to the bayfront, including more than $180,000 to renovate the existing underground pedestrian tunnel at Cass Street.

That tunnel is old, dark and scary at night. Ice and snow make it so dangerous for pedestrians in the winter it is shut down.

DDA Executive Director Bryan Crough said tunnel improvement plans are mostly aesthetic and the city would have to spend more to make it a year-round facility. As work begins on the bayfront this fall, pressure for an upgraded crossing will increase; significant upgrades to the old tunnel may gain traction.

The city can't make a hurried decision about a new crossing; finding new options soon so residents can chew over the ideas must become a top priority.

Walking away from a new tunnel at a cost of at least $2 million makes sense for now, but can't be the last word. As bayfront work proceeds and more families want to get there, new options will have to be created.

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