Cobb County Commission Chairman Tim Lee and Kennesaw Mayor Mark Mathews joined forces today with Reps Chip and Lindsey to hold a press conference at the Gold Dome to ask that the money for the fixed guideway line to Cobb be moved to the HOT Lane project up I75/575. You read that right. They want to scratch the potential light rail project to use tax money to build a toll road. This will effectively force the transit advocates and the fiscally conversvatives and the people who don’t like paying twice for roads to join up with the anti-tax folks to vote against the TIA, just so they can save their careers.

The article has been buried in the AJC, either because no one cares or because no one thinks it will happen, given that members of the state legislature have stated their reluctance to open the reopen the bill, which would be required to make the change happen. You can read the here.

So keep an eye out for developments or responses, if there are any. And feel free to contact your reps and tell them that this is some dumb, half-brained idea.

You can read more about this on the AJC, and you can look for more

Sure the spirit of these projects is great with good intentions, attempting to reduce dependency on automobiles, live more compactly, and to integrate uses and incomes with ease.  But that hasn’t happened, except in very few exceptions.  Instead these projects have served to act as nothing more than open air shopping malls or variations of the suburbs.  The approach is heavy handed and formulaic, and usually clone stamped from one location to another with the only differences being styles of crappy architecture and a Macy’s instead of a Belk’s.  Locally, Atlantic Station is symbolic of the developer approach, with complete disregard to the urban fabric of the city.  Regionally and nationally projects in Charlotte, Wilmington, Raleigh, Orlando, Nashville, and most of Texas miss the mark on what New Urbanism and Transit Oriented Development are suppose to be.  In these attempts, the single goal is to recreate a false urban feeling while not solving any of the true urban issues that plague cities and current development. 

So how do they fail?

Reducing dependency on the automobile:  In nearly all TOD’s and New Urbanism projects, this attempt is failed miserably.  This is mainly due to the fact that it is so much easier to drive than to take any form of public transportation or even walking.  And if one lives in any of the developments, one of their daily needs is missing, be it affordable housing, daily services (groceries, dry cleaner, civic functions), or feasible employment not centered on retail.  Lindbergh Station alone offers several parking decks, as does Atlantic Station.  In order to encourage the true intention of walking and transit accessibility, driving must be made more difficult, by removing free parking and  the glut of parking decks that occupy so much land.  You can’t call yourself a TOD or anything with the word Urbanism in it if the largest percentage of your development is parking decks, roads, and lots.  Until then, patrons will continue to drive to these developments, as it is easier and usually more accommodating. 

Living more compactly:  In almost all cases of TOD and New Urbanism the housing is more compact, which is great.  Townhouses, apartments, condos, live-work units, homes on smaller lots and closer to the street make for a much improved density and quality of life then the suburban alternative.  But the amount of parking that goes into these projects reduces the overall number of residents that could be living in the development, often to the detriment of the businesses that choose to occupy it.  Lindbergh Center Station and Atlantic Station are examples of that.  This is why we consistently see businesses closing and high turnover.  The developments are not dependent on those that live or even work there because there are not enough of them.  Instead they become dependent on destination visitors.  And anyone who is familiar with the economics of a shopping mall can tell you that that is only sustainable for a short period of time.   Something new and flashy always opens up in another part of town, and those drivers are willing to traverse a city to go to something new. 

Integrated incomes and usages:  This is never achieved.  Never.  Real estate prices and speculation force out middle-income buyers while rentals are priced too far above anyone below middle to upper middle class.  This always results in the same homogenous group of people living in the same homogenous development, living in the same homogenous buildings in nearly every development across the country.  I am not advocating TOD’s or New Urbanism to service the slums, but one can look at the beginnings of the new Cabrini Green in Chicago and show that mixed incomes, even as broad of a spectrum as Cabrini Green, can be successful when given appropriate design, established rules, incorporated into city public housing works, and executed less heavy handedly.  Cabrini Green’s building and development has taken place in phases.  Rather than one giant land clearance there has been a  slow integration of mixed incomes, ethnicities, and cultures, wielding what has become a successful project despite the fact that 50% of its residents are on some form of discounted or subsidized living.  The remaining residential and retail spaces go for a premium and those in affordable housing are given an opportunity to reside outside the squalor they are used to and reside in areas that provide hope and opportunity for upward mobility.   We are a product of our environment.

Urban Connection:  The lack of connection to the urban fabric can be the main attributing factor to nearly all of the deficiencies found in TOD’s and New Urbanism.   Much like a shopping mall most of these projects are islands.  Atlantic Station is disconnected from Midtown and Downtown.  I applaud the effort to redevelop a brownfield site, but when most of your patrons drive, it isn’t much of an environmental improvement.  Sure it is only .7 miles from the nearest train station, and there is a free shuttle but most aren’t willing to walk it.  I know I am, but the walk is still not enjoyable, with a large portion (almost all of it) not pedestrian friendly.  It is a walk along an exposed bridge over an interstate, or alongside a busy 4-5 lane street.  Put Atlantic Station in Midtown, Downtown, or closer to a rail station and watch how important and busy of a well-connected place AND node it becomes.  Lindbergh Station is fortunate enough to have a transit stop.  But its internal development focus, turns its back on the surrounding community.  Prime parcels to connect the streetscape and neighborhood were given to two chain restaurants found at any other suburban shopping complex.  The development is bordered by an unfriendly pedestrian street where one can’t even get to the center of the street before the walk signal starts flashing for you to hurry up.  Many of Lindbergh’s problems arise from its lack of surrounding support, but there were design solutions that could have been executed to help mitigate that.  Branch out from Atlanta and it’s even worse.  Highly touted and celebrated Birkdale Village in Charlotte  is located off of an interstate exit, miles from an actual city center, detracting from the entire point of this type of development.  It is an attempt to recreate an urban place, while attempting to avoid solving real urban problems such as density, crime, poverty, and income disparity.  But just like a shopping mall, eventual deterioration sets in.  Unwanted patrons take control.  The development itself is chopped up and sold to third parties who have little care in the quality or appearance.  Urban dilemmas cannot be avoided or ignored.  They have to be solved, and how we design and plan our cities and transportation is essential to the solutions.

I know, I know.  That seems like a lot of whining and doom and gloom regarding the current state of TOD and New Urbanism.  But alas! There is hope.  And hope does not have to come in the form of replicated 1960’s urban renewal that focuses on large-scale heavy-handed demolition and development.  It can come in small-scale investment.  Projects that would need little tax money contribution (Tea Partiers should love that) and offer an opportunity to create unique environments that are not filled with the same generic chain retail that we have come to expect.  Downtown Decatur may not have been established as a TOD, but it has grown up into one and it didn’t require the obliteration of the existing site.  It offers a unique environment, rife with local retailers and shops, while still being friendly enough to let Starbucks have a seat at the table and diverse enough that it isn’t Phipps.  It doesn’t require generic apartments, and while some condos can be expensive in the area, there is still room for affordability.  It did not require massive land clearance, as buildings were rehabbed and reused, and it even incorporates civic and daily need functions like churches, banks, and government buildings.  It is well-integrated to the surrounding neighborhoods, and isn’t an island along an interstate.  Downtown Decatur is representative of some of the light rail suburbs of Boston, rather than Seaside, Florida.  When the streetcar project is complete, there is a good chance that the type of change Downtown Decatur experienced, will happen along the streetcar and surrounding neighborhoods.  Auburn may once again thrive.  Poplar Street, one of Atlanta’s most beautiful and underrated streets may be revived into a bustling area. These areas have character and unique elements that will not have to require massive land clearance or a colorful site plan to compensate for what looked great in Excel but fails in the true experience.

There are new projects that offer hope as well.  Rockville, Maryand’s town center comes to mind.  Accessible by Metro with a scale and quality of buildings that doesn’t have a recreated atmosphere of a Las Vegas casino.  While some of the roads are a bit too large, it is still within walking distance to civic functions such as judicial buildings and post offices.  A movie theater doesn’t act as a centerpiece; (though there is an absolutely atrocious one across the street) rather a corner anchor tenant is the local public library.  Much of the parking is below ground.  The retail is made up of a balanced mix of local establishments, as well as chains offering a certain level of familiarity, but still incorporating local charm.  The residential portion could use improvement, but the scale of the development is smaller than most.

This is a call to the Crosland’s, Carter’s, and Jacoby’s of the country to think smarter and smaller.  You can still be profitable by executing smaller scale projects that are responsible, iconic, and beneficial to a region and a city as a whole.  You can still offer places to live, work, play, and shop while creating an environment that is unique to a region, rather than one that was derived from the same project you may have executed in Nashville, Charlotte, Orlando, and Raleigh.

Hope everyone had great holidays and a Happy Belated New Year!

A. Taken out of context, you lose the idea that this blog tends to be a dick that makes fun of all the things. We are neither polite nor discerning, everything is fair game. And yes, I purposely write outlandish blog titles to get attention.

B. I’m not a “Snowflake” and calling me that makes you a racist and invalidates your argument. In fact, if we want to get personal, I’m Native American so its all my land. Mine. You took it away from me.

C. I will never accept a poverty argument or “we had no other choice.” That gets really into personal history for me, so ask me offline, but I’m not going in to it here.

D. You missed the entire point of the post. It was not on the merits of gentrification, it was that its not white but generational. I hate race arguments. It’s the 30 somethings and 20 somethings moving into the city, of all ethnicities. Study after study has proven this. It’s the myopic little twits who went to college and have come out with idealist visions working for nonprofits and wanting to change the world starting with their neighborhoods, which may be yours. I’m not talking about the gentrifiers ten years ago, I’m talking about the current generation of fixed gear riding non car owning smart phone carrying brats. Call us entitled, call us too young to get social change, call us misguided, but realize that this is not a racial thing, its a generational thing. Now that may mean that those kids are primarily white because that’s who moved out of the cities to the burbs, but its not because we’re white. It’s because we’re young and idealistic. 

Gentrification means white people are taking over. They may also be gay, they most likely are myopic little twits, but they most certainly are white.

Dog parks are for white people.

Bike lanes? White people.

Sidewalks? Coffee shops? TOD? All white people!

So apparently only white people ride tricycles pulled by dogs on the sidewalks to the coffee shop for some caffeinated love in a reusable, BPA free mug. (I mean, that’s what dog parks are for, right? Training dogs to pull? I don’t know, I live in Chambodia. We eat dogs.)

Queen went on to talk about how all the white people fled Atlanta to the suburbs and thought those left behind would just die. When they didn’t die, but instead stayed there and thrived, the white people started coming back to take over.

I’ll give her that, but it’s not that simple. Our grandparents and parents moved to the suburbs. They were frightened or driven by some idea of the white picket fence and two acres and better schools or lured by cheaper housing costs or they were just plain nuts, but it was never *my* choice to move out there, I was drug (technically my folks moved out of town to a farm before I was born, but whatever, not my choice.)

But my friends and I? We went studied abroad and learned about livability and transit and went to college and lived in dorms and learned about community and when we graduated we didn’t want those big McMansions in the burbs with yards for kids we wanted dense urban living with transit and the option to not need a car. Know where we found it? In the cities, and in traditionally minority neighborhoods.

Gentrification isn’t about taking over and running out the people who have lived there for years, we just want to be a part of the lifestyle you made and preserved.

You guys did it better than our parents.

So yea, we may move in and do some crazy thing like try to add bike lanes, but that benefits everyone, particularly those that can’t afford cars and have to bike. It’s for everyone’s safety. And that dog park? That raises the property values on your home, too. I know you’ve survived all these years without us and without these stereotypical white amenities (PS, is it so white if there are no bike lanes in the suburbs?) but we just want to integrate ourselves into the community and strengthen it. Don’t blame us for our ancestor’s choices; we want the same things as you, safe streets with lights and transit options and job access and a strong, healthy, community.

Is that so white?

On their website and others, BAC claims that if a rail stop is placed at its proposed location it will put them out of business (which was later retracted to state that they may have to relocate – exhibit A of overreacting).  This is nonsense.  Their claim is based on the fact that their parking lot, located across the street from their place of business, will be taken as the location for a parking deck for the station.  I would prefer to see a building there rather than their unsightly lot, or a proposed deck, but that’s my personal preference.  Regardless there has been a proposed solution of offering space within what would be the new MARTA deck for the BAC’s customers.  The BAC dosent like this idea because  “….we cannot see this as feasible. The intersection of Zonolite and Briarcliff will become a major thoroughfare for both car and bus traffic entering and exiting the station. Clients with pets would not be able to safely navigate the crossing.”

So the current traffic flow, and bus stop directly at the intersection does not pose a safety problem now, but a park and ride with 3 bus bays would eliminate the chance of customers coming to their business?  Being that their location is already at a rather strange and unsafe intersection, I don’t think adding a few buses and some early morning and evening park and riders will render this intersection useless for them.  So let me pose this.  While I know it isn’t reasonable for owners of large breeds, those with smaller breeds, such as me, would probably be more prone to use them as the veterinarian of choice.  Being that MARTA allows pets, as long as they are crated, I would be able to hop on the train with my dog and finally eliminate one of only two things that keeps me behind the wheel of a car in this city. (Not really.  My wife usually takes our dog to the vet, but to her pleasure I would probably be much more willing to take him if I knew I could just hop on the train one or two stops away to take him.  Besides he is an urban dog and would love the opportunity to see more people and walk some city streets).  

If customers crossing the street is a safety concern, though it wasn’t before, here is a really simple solution.  Being that the cars and buses will make a loop through the station, if a proper crosswalk was placed on the far west side (away from Briarcliff) connecting the new deck/station to their facility, their patrons could walk behind any of the increased traffic since Zonolite is not a thru street.  That way they will still only have to be combating the existing traffic that frequents the other businesses on Zonolite.

While the BAC claims that they will be put out of business, or relocated, they also haven’t considered how many customers they may be able to pick up by those that don’t or choose not to drive.  They are also not considering that many parcels in that area are slated for potential redevelopment.  So while they could keep their existing customers who will then be able to park in a deck rather than a lot, they potentially could pick up additional customers from those that use transit and from any future development that may take place around them. 

They also go on to explain how this will put a stop to their planned expansion for a boarding facility.  I would like to know how.  If you only have a handful of parking spaces left on your existing building parcel, (more than a handful, a simple look at Google Earth shows 8-12 spaces which appear rarely used) that is surely not enough space for a boarding facility, nor can you provide proper ADA parking if all parking is moved across the street.  So unless you were going to relocate your only option is to put the building on your existing parking lot across the street, and then you would no longer have parking for your customers.  This sounds like an attempt to drum up sympathy to me.  I could be wrong, maybe they have some other proposed ideas, but that is just what it sounds like to me.  Might I add, if you want to save on the need for parking spaces, your employees could take transit, being that you will have a stop located directly across the street.

They also posed the question as to why other undeveloped tracts of land haven’t been considered.There are lots of reasons, but the most simple and quickest way to explain it is this:  a transit stop will not work when placed in the middle of an open field or a low density residential neighborhood.  There simply is not enough potential riders to pull from.  And that is all that is really “available.”

Nonetheless, I can understand their concern.  They do not know the specifics of this plan and deserve the right to be involved or have a say.  They have proudly been around for quite some time and deserve acknowledgment.  But to have a knee jerk reaction and scream from the mountain tops that they are going to be put out of business and puppies across the city will go without medical care by the big bad evil MARTA is immature and foolish.  Particularly when the proposed plan is nothing more than a study or schematic.  I think that as a business the BAC is not looking at the opportunity to be one of the few vet clinics with access to transit while still keeping their driving customers.  If their reviews are really as glowing as many people have written about them, I doubt customers will stop going to them just because there is a transit stop next door.  I want to see the BAC succeed, it sure as hell beats a PetSmart neighborhood, but I would have a tough time justifying using them as my vet if this is how closed minded they plan on being.

I started taking transit in my late twenties; 27 to be exact. Unlike Mama, it wasn’t that my parents didn’t ride the bus, it was that there was no bus where I grew up. In fact, my parents had grown up taking transit in DC and my grandfather helped build WMATA (and still does), but not me. I rode the school bus for a couple of years, basically for middle school until I made friends with the older kid down the street. Then I went to Radford University for college and grad school and we had a bus that drives you from the parking lot to campus and that’s the extent of the transit opportunities I was exposed to. I mean sure, I’d taken WMATA & MTA on vacations and the Tube in London when I studied abroad, but the only nonschool bus I had ever been on before moving to Atlanta was when the Tube was on strike and you had to catch the bus to go anywhere and that wasn’t the best experience. The term crushload comes to mind.

When I moved to Atlanta I took the MARTA train; that’s easy. Stick some money in a machine, get a card, get on a train, hopefully the one headed in the right direction, get off said train at either the Braves shuttle or the High. Done. Train maps are pretty easy to figure out and there are like two trains at a station. If you mess up, it’s an easy fix, even for a country girl.

But buses? There are like 100 of those things and they go everywhere and the maps are a series of squiggly lines and where do you get on and off if not at a station and then there are time tables and there are like loads of different times that the bus may or may not come and who takes buses? I’m a white girl who lives in the burbs. I don’t take buses.

Well I didn’t. And then I met One.

Stupidest reason to take a bus? To impress a guy.

To give myself credit, I had already been heavily involved in environmentalism before meeting One. In fact, that’s how we met, at a Sierra Club retreat. Combine a growing interest in a guy who works for public transit and an already established passion for saving the environment, and hopping my happy butt on the bus made perfect sense, even if bus schedules didn’t and I found myself stranded, confused, and with loads of stories to tell, which is how this blog thing started. Well, that, and One suggested it.

(I sound like such a girl. At least I have never doodled anyone’s name on my notebooks.)

But you know what? I enjoyed the heck out of those bus rides, even the ones that went terribly wrong, and I fell as much in love with public transportation as the boy. A couple of years later and here I am, writing a blog while wearing a bracelet of transit tokens, a cable car necklace, and working for a transit referendum campaign while being president of a stranghangers group. And none of that is to impress anyone.

Whatever the silly reason, I’m glad that I ventured out and took the bus. While Mama may have known from an early age that transit is great and what she wants to do with her life, I didn’t figure it out until I had someone to motivate me, and it’s the best thing that a guy could ever give me.

And you can all blame One for being stuck with me.

The one cent sales tax created by the TIA if passed next year is expected to generate $6.14 billion to be used for transportation purposes in the ten county Metro Atlanta region. The draft project list had given $3.37 billion of those revenues to public transportation projects such as bus service to Clayton County, the Clifton Corridor, and the Beltline. The final list sees one major cut to that project list, the switching of $167 million from the Northwest light rail line into Cobb to road and intersection improvements along Windy Hill road in Cobb County. $20 million was added back to the transit side as road projects in Clayton County were cut to add money to the commuter rail line, leaving the final transit number at $3.22 billion of the TIA revenue, giving transit with 52.4% of the funds generated from the tax.

A second notable amendment that was accepted yesterday calls on the state to fulfill the capital funding shortfall left by the roundtable, stating that while the region has chipped in operating funds along with some capital, the remaining funds should be an ARC and state priority. Two amendments had been on the table to cut other transit projects, including MARTA state of good repair funding, to meet the shortfall, but this resolution replaced those.

A third amendment had been on the table that would have taken money from the 400 and 285 interchange project as well as the Clifton Corridor rail project to be added to the I-20 rail extension. Drafted by Dekalb CEO Burrell Ellis, this amendment went without a second failed to be considered. The scope of the I-20 rail extension will now include park and ride lots for a premium bus service that will mirror a line that will continued to be studied and prepared to be built, with the park and ride lots to be converted to stations.

So what does this mean for th region? It’s not a perfect list. But did you expect a roundtable of twenty-one elected officials from the Atlanta metro region that included suburban counties to come up with a perfect list? There are bad projects, like the Northern Arc, that have snuck their way on the list. But there are also good projects, like a new bus service for Clayton County, MARTA state of good repair funding, and some new rail. I, for one, will be voting for this. Just because it isn’t ideal doesn’t mean we should turn down $3.2 billion for transit when we haven’t done anything in the forty years since the MARTA Act was passed. There’s no guarantee that we would get a better list if this is voted down and we try again in a few years. Who’s to say they won’t blame the failure on there being too much transit? So two, maybe three new rail lines plus some good bus projects and some stuff that basically just keeps us running in the region? Yup, sign me up.

This is significant (the transit project list):
*Clifton Corridor Rail Project: $700 million
*Northwest Corridor Fixed Guideway Project: $689 million with $100 million of that going to a premium bus service that would mirror the entire route as designed (funding level in draft list: $856 million)
*Beltline Corridor: $602 million
*MARTA state of good repair including station rehab, train control upgrades: $600 million
*I-20 proposed rail and premium bus service: $225
*Clayton County bus service: $100 million
*GRTA Xpress operating assistance and capital: $95 million
*Gwinnett light rail project study money: $95 million
*Gwinnett County bus service operating assistance: $40 million
*MARTA SR 400 heavy rail extension study money: $37 million
*Griffin Commuter rail line study money: $20 million (funding level in draft list: $0)
*Regional Mobility Call Center: $17 million

Plus:
*Bike/Ped improvements: $24.07 million
*Lindbergh BRT plus road improvements: $50 million

Regardless, the aftermath of the fare increase has brought out some not so intelligent analysis and comparisons.  A lot of the outrage and lack of understanding probably comes from news tactics such as this.  Funny, that “Amongst Highest in the Nation” headline, didn’t go up when CCT raised their fares equal to that of MARTA’s for bus only service.  But then I remember that the AJC doesn’t actually practice journalism.

Moving on.  So there seems to be certain complaints that I keep reading online.  The first is how the fare went up, but the service didn’t improve (more routes, 24 hours, more frequent trains).  So when gas went to $4.00 a gallon did the same people expect the fuel to be better?  Did they expect their car to run more smoothly and efficiently if they paid more for gas?  Coca Cola recently raised the cost of their beverage.  Did those same people get on Facebook and other internet pages and throw a fit because the taste didn’t improve?  My electrical bill has never been as high as it has been using Georgia Power when compared to other states I have lived in.  Should I expect my lights to work better, and the overall quality of my electricity to be better?  Groceries have been on a steady rise for years.  Has the milk and bread improved in flavor and freshness?  The answer to all of those is no.  So why would it be different for MARTA?  If you are going to expend such energy to complain about MARTA’s fare increase then you should do the same to Coke, Netflix, BP, Publix, Verizon, Comcast, and all the other companies who have raised rates this year.  But then again I am sure the We Only Print Bad News About Atlanta Journal Constitution probably didn’t give much attention to those increases.  Furthermore, if you want to complain about how MARTA doesn’t serve the other counties around Atlanta so you dont get your money’s worth, I would suggest finding their websites, and their Facebook pages and complain to them, as they are the ones not allowing MARTA to come in.

Second order of business.   MARTA is not the only authority to raise their fares.  While the AJC likes to point out that it is amongst highest in the nation, they always seem to leave out the part how they are also one of the busiest systems in the nation.  Of the 10 largest transit systems in the country (MARTA being one of them) 7 of them have cut service in the past year and 5 have raised fares.  Overall 79% of transit agencies in the country have either cut service or raised fares; or are currently considering doing so.  That number alone should be proof that it isn’t MARTA gouging for larger profits, but it’s a nationwide issue.  Sales tax revenues are down for everyone, a large contributor to transit funding.  We are in a recession, so less people are buying things.  That equals less sales tax funding for transit.  The gap has to be closed somewhere, so until someone can provide a viable alternative that 79% of the transit agencies can use, baseless whining gets nowhere.  Compound on top of that, MARTA gets relatively no supporting state funding that the rest of the systems do, making their attempts at a balanced budget even more difficult.  That is where you should direct your frustrated energy; to your state leaders who rob MARTA of potential funding that would help prevent fare increases.  A little dated, but I think this OpEd explains it pretty well.

Lastly, it is true that low income citizens use transit, and adding another burden, whether 50 cents or 50 dollars is not beneficial, and only the most insensitive people would be unsympathetic to that.  But if  you want to use  your cell phone’s data service to post a complaint on Facebook about how you are too poor to afford a 50 cent per trip increase and will get a car instead; don’t.  If an increase of 50 cents per trip or 20 some dollars for a monthly breaks your bank, then you probably shouldn’t be paying for a data plan on your cell phone, and you certainly can’t afford the true cost of an automobile.  Regardless of how it is done, whether by car or mass transit, transportation is a necessity, updating your status via a $20-$30 a month data plan is not.

Mr. Dunaway hit on everything from crime to subsidies and did a great job of bringing a sensible point of view to the topic of transit in Cobb County.   I also have to salute his ability to balance both the needs of his locale with the benefits the rest of the region, particularly Atlanta, offers to everyone.

What I found to be the most interesting was his take on “immediate gratification.”   While not talked about as much as many other topics, I do feel that this need for immediate results might be holding some people back that may vote for TSPLOST.  Mr. Dunaway exhibited a great deal of selflessness by stating: “These projects might not be completed in my lifetime, but that does not stop me from wanting us to make decisions now that will give the county the best future.”  It is a refreshing break from what many counties have been exhibiting in their “me first-what do we get out of this-I want results now” attitude that they have been bringing to the table.

Maybe it’s the uncertainty that most of us face currently, or maybe it’s the transferring of expectations of immediate results due to what is slowly becoming an over dependency on technology and apps that deliver what we want, when we want it.  But regardless we are becoming a rather impatient collective of citizens.  And many of us are also the type who want a great deal of change to be made, but don’t want to participate in the process.  Rather, just wanting to sit on the sidelines and wait to reap the benefits of others’ work, and criticize when it doesn’t go how they anticipated.  We need more people working for this region and leading the conversation on everything from jobs to transit, that understand the amount of time it takes to make great changes.  It took decades of poor decisions that put Atlanta in the traffic mess that we are in today.  To expect results that would reverse this only taking a handful of months or years is unreasonable. 

Much like Mr. Dunaway stated as well, we have to also think beyond how this impacts us.  Maybe by the time many of these projects will be completed you won’t be living here, or will be at a stage in your life where you do not feel as if you will benefit from them.  But that does not mean to vote it down.  Just because something doesn’t benefit you directly, doesn’t mean it will not impact future generations, or prospective new residents or increase the quality of life for someone who lives a few blocks from you.

I definitely do not intend for this to be some kind of “holier than you “ type of post.  My impatience is exactly what drove me away from my previous home.  But that desire to jump ship came from seeing a stagnant move towards improvement.  By voting down TSPLOST because of not seeing traffic congestion reduced the day after the vote, could drive many current citizens of Atlanta and the region to feel the same way.  Some view insanity as a repeated behavior while expecting different results.  By not diversifying our transportation options and further focusing on roads and road construction would be to do exactly that.  I know none of this is knew, but a little reminder from time to time never hurt anyone.