By Todd Heywood: For Complete Post, Click Here…
ngd-abadonment just as the cold weather flows in. This is a feature not a bug because it will punish the people Frandor wants to punish…
Frandor is kicking out CATA in three weeks because the shopping center’s management says bus shelters and some riders pose “many safety concerns for our customers and employees.”
“Lansing Police are not effectively helping us with vagrancy, public intoxication/open container, aggressive panhandling, public urination and other major incidents at these stops,” Patrick Corr, president of Corr Commerical Real Estate, which manages Frandor, told the Capital Area Transportation Authority.
As a result, the company has ended an agreement to allow the publicly funded transportation agency to run its routes through its property, effective Oct. 17. The 1, 13 and 15 routes cross there. CATA will remove its two bus shelters, leaving cement pads.
Corr notified CATA in a letter dated Aug. 1. The letter, however, was sent to the agency’s downtown bus station, instead of the business offices located on Tranter Street in south Lansing. As a result, CATA didn’t find out until Aug. 17, setting in motion two months’ notice to end the agreement.
The letter provides no details for Corr’s decision. However, in a follow-up email on Aug. 30 from Corr to Dustin Hagfors, CATA’s director of planning and development, Corr accused the users of public transportation of causing public safety and health concerns.
“As we discussed, there have been many safety concerns for our customers and employees that are not being addressed, he wrote.
“Unfortunately, the changes to various laws/ordinances the City have put in place have greatly hindered the ability of police to affect significant progress. The Cata shelters are being used as a ‘safe haven’ from LPD and our security staff and, almost daily, are used as a roof over their heads for the purpose of sleeping, living, drinking and loitering. And, when called, the police do not remove them from the property for the above referenced issues we continue to have here. Also, when violators find out LPD won’t remove them, it emboldens them and word spreads. Usually, the police just let someone get on the bus….and they sometimes return the same day by bus.”
Corr claimed LPD has been called “over 150” times by mall staff and retailers.
“A majority of those calls involved the two bus stops in one way or another,” Corr wrote to Hagfors. “The stops have become a conduit in addition to a hangout for these individuals.”
