The Muskegon Culture Tour Nobody Knows They Can Take

Muskegon Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce · Leadership Summit 2026

I always say my dream car is good public transportation and walkable cities. I like where I live, but I don’t like driving everywhere and dealing with parking logistics and sidewalks to nowhere and the exhaustion of driving home after a family outing. Last Friday at the Muskegon County Leadership Summit, I heard something that made me think Muskegon might actually be closer to that than I realized.

I joined the Muskegon Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce in December and started attending events in January. My first was the Economic Forecast, which was a bit of a deep end for a first swim. But a few events in, I'm starting to connect dots I wouldn't have seen before.

Today was one of those days.

Note: All images in this post are conceptual AI-generated mockups. Some locations and lines are not accurate. Actual content would be created by real humans.

What the transit panel said — and what I heard underneath it

Representatives from Pioneer Resources, Harbor Transit, and the Muskegon Area Transit System were candid about the gaps in the current system. Service hours that don't reach second or third shift workers. Families without reliable options for childcare or grocery runs outside the standard workday. Real gaps that affect real people in our community.

But they also described a transit network already connecting Muskegon to Holland, with potential expansion toward Whitehall and Montague. That's a remarkable corridor. And one speaker mentioned wanting the bus to feel fun, which stuck with me.

The bus doesn't need to “be” fun. It needs to connect people to fun. 

Here's what I kept thinking: the bus doesn't need to “be” fun. It needs to connect people to fun.

The bus is widely perceived as an option of last resort, which makes it hard to attract the riders, advocates, and investment that would make it better. But if more people had a genuine reason to choose it, that perception shifts. More riders means more voices. More voices means more political will. Better experience for everyone, including the people who need it most.

What the arts and culture presenters were really arguing

The Muskegon Arts & Culture Coalition, the Frauenthal Center, and the Lakeshore Museum Center all took the stage, and underneath the specifics of their individual work, they were making the same point: cultural institutions aren't amenities. They're infrastructure. They're what transforms a zip code into a place people feel rooted to.

Cultural institutions aren't amenities. They're infrastructure.

Listening to them, I kept thinking about so many downtown family outings I had when my kids were younger — the museum, the waterfront, a performance — that ended with everyone a mile from the car, tired, and hanging on by a thread… and we still had to drive home.

Great day. Brutal logistics.

Which is when the question hit me: how many of those destinations were near the bus line?

The idea in the middle

That's when my marketing brain kicked in.

The bus is already running. The destinations already exist. The corridor from Muskegon to Holland with potential for more already connects more cultural stops than most people realize. This isn't just an infrastructure problem. It's also a story problem. And solving the story problem can bring more attention to the infrastructure problem.

It could be a collaborative campaign. Call it the Muskegon Culture Crawl. Not a singular event, a new way of thinking about:

• A Saturday morning with the kids — breakfast downtown, the farmer's market, the museum, lunch somewhere. No hunting for parking. No one ending up four miles from the car on tired legs.

• A Thursday evening with friends — a new exhibit at the Muskegon Museum of Art, some shopping, dinner and drinks. No remembering where you parked. No designated driver if happy hour runs long.

• A weekend built around a festival or a show — together from the moment you leave, not just at the destination. No splitting up to find parking, no shouted goodbyes in a parking lot twenty minutes before you actually say goodbye.

A collaboration between our transit and cultural infrastructures could reframe the entire conversation:

• Route maps built around cultural destinations

• A crawl guide for different kinds of days

• Someone documenting the corridor on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Not a transit ad. A travel experience that happens to be in our backyard.

…and a lot of it could be done digitally with minimal investment.

The pieces are already here. The buses are already running. All that's missing is the story that ties it together.

I'm throwing this out into the world because that's what you do with ideas that feel bigger than one person. I'd love to hear any thoughts!