We are working with farm organizations and landowners in west Michigan to find solutions to the stench and pollution from industrial-size hog factories that force residents out of their homes. And we expanded our program to provide technical and management support to grassroots organizations throughout northern Michigan.

Our members are extremely enthusiastic about our program to help citizens improve the places they live. The Institute's membership grew by 600 in 1998 to more than 1,400 member families, organizations, businesses and local governments. We also recruited three accomplished new members to the Board of Directors, and five talented people joined the staff.

In all, the Institute has a much stronger team to serve our members and advance the message that ending sprawl and using land more thoughtfully is good for Michigan's environment, economy, and communities.

Credible Alternatives to New Highways Take Shape
For as long as Michigan has made cars, the state's program for moving people and goods has centered on three goals: Roads. New roads. More and wider roads. Where we build roads determines where new fast food restaurants, big box retail outlets, and mini-malls will go. The two-tracks that farmers used in the 1890s are today's four-lane highways.

As we enter a new century, it's becoming ever more clear what the road-dominated transportation policy since the 1940s delivered: unparalleled traffic congestion, fouled air, neighborhoods divided by super highways, and development that sprawls across the countryside.

It doesn't have to be this way. Courageous and intelligent planning for growth can yield prosperous downtowns, thriving rural areas, and ways to get around that produce smiles instead of headaches.

In 1998 the Institute's Alternative Transportation and Land Use Initiative started a statewide coalition of transportation advocacy organizations that so far includes groups from Alpena, Detroit, Grand Haven, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Petoskey, and Traverse City.

In Traverse City, we worked with the Coalition for Sensible Growth to prepare Smart Roads: Grand Traverse Region, a technically credible plan to replace the proposed $300 million Traverse City Bypass with a cheaper and less damaging alternative. Smart Roads calls for synchronizing traffic lights, redesigning existing thoroughfares, increasing access to mass transit, establishing an "urban investment boundary" to direct public infrastructure spending to already developed areas, and improving zoning to protect natural resources.

In Petoskey, with the assistance of local government officials and generous citizens, the Institute hired transportation planner Rick Kuner to help us develop a technically credible alternative to the proposed $70 million Petoskey Bypass. The goal is to ease congestion, promote business in downtown Petoskey, and prevent forests and farmland from being paved over by miles of unsightly sprawl.