A Glimpse of the Trains in Atlanta's Past

Here's a link to a great post via The Infrastructurist about old train stations and what they have become. Atlantans should be proud to see two former Atlanta train stations on the list and not to be left out, Savannah jumped in to bring the total for Georgia to 3 in the top 11. It amazes me how society has just discarded so many buildings that were examples of great architecture and offered in many cases great places for the public to go and enjoy their city.  Let's hope that the heavy presence of Georgia buildings on the list isn't an indicator that the city has moved too far away from its train dependant past that it now can't take part in what is bound to be a great resurgence in train travel.  Enjoy...

Peach Bites

Study: Use mass transit, save more than $9,000 a year - AJC

I could definitely use $9k a year. I don't think this will work out too well for those of us living in Alpharetta though.

Greenhaven Home by Pace Home Builders Open to the Public July 10th - Greenhaven Home

I love the idea and the Greenhaven home has ALL of the bells, whistles and certifications to make it a green home. However, I just can't fully buy into the 5k - 7k square foot green home. That's just gigantic. The builder says they are building what buyers are demanding but it just doesn't seem green.

Atlanta ranks as Southeast’s No. 4 city - Atlanta Business Chronicle

This isn't so much green as it is interesting. Study authored by NC professor ranks Atlanta fourth out of nine cities in the southeast on factors affecting economic growth. Atlanta is behind Raleigh-Durham, Austin and Charlotte (hmmmm).

Commuter buses' idling causes stir - AJC

Maybe we wouldn't have this issue if the two big counties to the north of the city had had the foresight to become part of MARTA years ago.

Peach Bites

HOV lanes switching to toll lanes on I-85

NorthFulton.com - I guess Money talks. I wonder how much this will actually help congestion. If you don't want to pay the 'tax,' you can still use the lanes if you have 3 or more people in your vehicle.

EPA Gives BeltLine $1M for Cleanup (2009-06-02)

WABE - Wow!! There are over 100 brownfield areas along the Beltline corridor that are still in need of cleanup. Hopefully, this $1 million can stretch a long way.

Proposed Coal Plant Loses Support

GPB News - Good to hear that four energy suppliers have lost interest in the proposed coal power plant in Douglasville. This leaves only six remaining companies backing the proposed plant.

Greenpeace places Publix last for seafood sustainability

Atlanta Business Chronicle - Not a very good score for one of the largest grocers in the metro area. The highest rated company was Whole Foods but they only scored a 4 out of 10.

The Buckhead Blog: Streets of Buckhead Delays Opening to Fall 2010

The Buckhead Blog - Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait a little longer to see how the old Buckhead Village evolves into its next incarnation. The project is seeking LEED certification and should be another great addition to the Atlanta scene.

Revolutionizing Transit in Atlanta - Wouldn't That be Nice

image courtesy of Citizens for Progressive Transit

We stumbled upon the website for Citizens for Progressive Transit (www.cfpt.org) the other day and their ideas definitely piqued our interest.  They are a grassroots organization that is committed to bringing improvments to public transit in our region by working with MARTA and our regional leaders.  There isn't much substance to the website yet but we really found their transit map very interesting.  It takes the current north/south, east/west MARTA lines and completely revolutionizes them.  Obviously, it is a pie in the sky type vision given that we can't even get movement around how to use existing funds for our transit needs.  However, it is nice to see a vision.  The Beltline was once just a vision too and today we see a great amount of progress on that project. 

Take a few minutes of your time and just imagine how a revolutionary transit system would change the face of the city.

Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable - Atlanta's Transportation Destiny

On Friday, the Southface Institute held its monthly Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable. The event is held on the first Friday of every month and brings together many of the most influential individuals , businesses and non-profit organizations involved in making Atlanta a more sustainable city. The event was started over eight years ago and has grown into an impressive meeting.

The topic of discussion this month was Metro Atlanta’s Transportation Destiny and as you can imagine with the recent political events, it was a very interesting discussion that left the experts choosing their words wisely. The Panel this month was made up of:

• Kevin Green, Executive Director, Clean Air Campaign
• Cheryl King, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA)
• Tad Leithead, Senior Vice President, Cousins Properties; Chairman of the Transportation and Air Quality Committee, Atlanta Regional Commission
• Maria Saporta, moderator, Atlanta Business Chronicle

The panel was very insightful and really shed light on the inner details of the issues, past and present, surrounding the political log jam that has evolved on this topic. I have to admit that I was thoroughly impressed with Mr. Leithead who had a thorough grasp of all of the issues and was confident enough to answer even the most pointed questions.

One of the questions that resonated with me had to do with the party polarization that has come about around the transit issue both here in Georgia and nationally. I cannot understand why if you are a conservative then you must be a car person and if you are a liberal then you are a transit person. Ultimately, all forms of transportation in this country are subsidized so there can’t be an argument that one form of transportation pays for itself while another does not. It, of course, was not the purpose of the roundtable to settle partisan and philosophical issues.  The one thing that I was suprised did not come up once was the Beltline.  I figured that for sure, someone would bring that up.

Here are some of the main points that were made in the discussion:

• Companies are reconsidering moving to Atlanta due to Traffic.
• Virtually no progress has been made on transit in 10 years.
• The rest of the state needs to realize that if Atlanta goes, so goes the state.  Thus, the state needs to consider a more integrated funding approach for transit.
• Most Atlantans don’t have transportation choices except what road to take to get to work.
• Charlotte may pass Atlanta on this front as they have figured out how to work together with the state. Atlanta is no longer the little engine that could in the south. Everyone is shooting to be the next Atlanta (without the traffic)

If you are interested in listening to the roundtable, you can access it on Southface’s website here.

Also, if you would like to attend any in the future, they are on the first Friday of each month and are open to the public. Admission is $10 for members and $15 for non-members if you pre-register. Prices jump by $5 on the morning of the event.

May Marks the Beginning of Smog Season

The Clean Air Campaign blog has a good post from a few days ago to kick off Smog Awareness week. There is a lot of great info so I suggest you check the post out but here is a summary.

• The One Ton Challenge helped keep 3600 tons of pollution out of metro Atlanta’s air.
• Rainfall this year is expected to be above normal according to the Farmer’s Almanac. That will definitely help pollution levels.
• Atlanta ranks #23 out of the 25 top cities for Ozone pollution according to the American Lung Association’s State of the Air report released today. L.A. was #1. The report also ranked for Year-Round Particulate pollution. Atlanta came in at #17 on that front. The final ranking was Short-Term Particulate pollution where Atlanta didn’t make the list.
• Last smog season had almost 30 days with unhealthy levels of ground level ozone and/or particle pollution.

Kudos to the Clean Air Campaign for its initiatives at engaging individuals and businesses to help create a healthier environment.

See Original

May is National Bike Month

image by Francois Schnell

Hopefully all of you bike owners out there will take advantage of the nice weather we are having and participate in National Bike Month. I’m trying to pedal a couple of times a week to work even though Alpharetta isn’t all too bike friendly.

You might even want to incorporate biking into your regular weekly commute after May ends. It’s a great way to get some exercise and reduce your footprint.

Additional resources:

Clean Air Campaign Rewards Program

Atlanta Bicycle Coalition Website

National Bike Month Website

Movie Review: Radiant City

I really enjoyed this "documentary." The story is told through the lens of a fictional family who has moved to a suburban neighborhood outside of Toronto from a more urban area. They made the move to get a bigger house with more space and to hopefully give the kids a better life. Throughout the movie, all of the major issues of urban sprawl are covered.

The family psychology moves from euphoria to uncertainty to misery throughout the course of the film as they discover that their move to the suburbs is not making their lives easier or happier. 

If you would like to see a movie that gives you a primer on sprawl, check Radiant City out.  You will definitely see a lot of similarities with Atlanta since we unfortunately are a sprawl city.

www.radiantcitymovie.com

Friday is Ride MARTA Day

image courtesy of hyku @ Flickr

If you have the opportunity to ride MARTA, you may want to do it while you still can.  Just kidding, we know MARTA will be around for a long time to come but there are many obstacles to our region's largest transit system.  As you probably, know the legislative session was a bust and has left MARTA in the position that it may need to cut operations by a day in order to sustain its operations and meet its budget requirements.

The group Save MARTA is a growing coalition of organizations, local communities, and individuals who are demanding sensible funding and legislative support for MARTA. They are organizing Ride MARTA Day this Friday.  Here is what their website says about it:

The purpose of Ride MARTA Day is to bring all concerned Metro Atlanta residents into a community building activity that will boost ridership, expose new riders to useful routes, express solidarity with MARTA workers and regular commuters, and demonstrate that, as the backbone of our city´s transportation system, MARTA must be fairly funded.

We hope this will be a successful event.

For more info, check out their website: www.ridemartaday.com

City Sustainability Rankings from SustainLane

It's very useful to compare yourself against others to determine where you need to improve. Knowing where our city stands on a number of sustainability and environmental issues would be very useful. SustainLane does just that for the top 50 metro areas in the U.S. They rank cities based on 16 environmental criteria and then assign an overall ranking. Atlanta was the most improved city from 2007 to 2008 moving up from number 38 to number 19. That's a nice move. Our bright spots on the report are Green Building, where we are #3 overall, Transit Ridership and Local Food. Our low spots are congestion, air quality and planning/land use.

Check out the chart to see how Atlanta ranked on all of the criteria.



Source: SustainLane.com