You can reach Sally at sally.sears@wsbtv.com

9-26

It cost me a quarter of a tank of gasoline, about twenty bucks, to drive, by myself, to the Atlanta Speedway to consider a timely alternative. That Brain Train idea, and the sometimes snickered-at idea of a train to Lovejoy (Who wants to go to Lovejoy?) is merging into a powerful coalition of elected officials.

I drove south past the airport, the state farmers’ market, past the turnoff to Jonesboro, and soon idled in a 7 mile traffic jam caused by construction. At least it was confined to the interstate and not one of the racetrack’s legendary jams on race day. Still, my expected 45 minute ride turned into an hour and a half. The train’s promise is a reliable timetable, and a ticket would probably cost less than my $20, going and coming.

But the best news for fans of an alternative to clogged interstates and greenies reducing carbon footprints and capitalists saying pay for it yourself were the suggestions percolating from the roomful of mayors and city & county commissioners.

Every county along the 24-stop route from Athens south through Atlanta to Griffin had elected officials at the meeting. Their job Thursday afternoon, September 25, 2008 was not to support the idea. They already do. No, they met to make the deals for paying for operating costs that the commuter ticket price alone will not cover.

The financial melt-down in Washington hovered over the tables of politicians. One man from Morrow reminded the room “there’s no blank check here,” as if it needed saying. Well, maybe it always needs saying to politicians. But Gena Abraham Evans, the head of DOT, reminded the group that her in-box is waiting for good ideas on paying for the train with local money. She pointed out Governor Sonny Perdue is freshly on board for the idea of the train from Atlanta to Griffin. And the money is there to get it running. Just not to KEEP it running. Where to find the missing operating money?

Several of the new ideas reminded me of the exotic language of Wall Street’s instruments for selling mortgages. But others combined financial deals with the horse sense of a city council woman explaining where hometown money is getting spent. How about this: the new business that will come to a running train line carrying commuters will enrich city and county tax bases. Borrow from that expected revenue? There’s lots of ways to do that, and here’s one several folks seemed enthusiastic about. Imagine the long, skinny real estate of the railroad track from Athens snaking through Lawrenceville, Tucker, Emory, Atlantic Station, Morrow, Jonesboro, Lovejoy and Griffin. Now imagine that giant skinny piece of land as a new born city, curving like a toy slinky lying on the ground. It’s just waiting for movement to bring it to exuberant life.

“That’s the job of each county’s Development Authorities,” John Lampl proposed to the group. “Let them put the geography of the track together for a united bid.” Lampl has a decade’s worth of experience running the city of Morrow. He earned a respectful hearing from the room as he outlined Business Improvement Districts with their self-taxing ability and development authority leaders bringing private money to the conversation.

“We’re 30% ready with passengers paying the way,” he reminded me in a phone call later. “And that 70 percent we need can come from the combination of public and private partners working together with voluntary taxes, like improvement districts, and developers willing to bet on the growth these commuter lines bring elsewhere.”

Amanda Brown Olmstead put the roomful of people together with support from some companies who might benefit from the new service: train car provider Siemens, designer HOK, property developers Cousins and Minerva Properties, Parsons Brinckerhoff and of course Emory Morsberger’s Brain Train backers.

I drove away from Hampton thinking about the public need for a working commuter rail line, and public and private money funding it. Traffic was light. In fact, I had the expansive road system leading to the Speedway almost to myself. All that public asphalt, waiting for race day to explode. And what about the railroad tracks linking these towns to each other? They are hiding in plain sight.

4/24

Who says Atlanta’s traffic is terrible?

Not everyone.

Some folks realize the more frustrated motorists become, the more likely they are to vote to raise money to change how we manage our mobility. For these people, the worse traffic becomes, the faster we’ll vote to fix it. And of course traffic, as most Atlantans have heard repeatedly, is the number one problem in the region.

“It’s a crisis!” Tom Weyandt says, and he ought to know. He’s watched local governments and the state Department of Transportation struggle for decades with our growth attracting newcomers. Tom oversees transportation for the Atlanta Regional Commission, and says today the finances are the worst he’s ever seen. Dollars for solutions are down, and costs for solutions are up.

But Tom and his friend David Sjoquist at Georgia State University hold out hope more public involvement will make a difference. That’s why they joined a hundred others in three separate gatherings to talk dollars and sense in recent weeks. The crowd at Clayton State College wanted to hear more about transit and a proposed commuter rail line.

The collection of people at Kennesaw State College was eager to hear about new solutions to rush hour mayhem on I-75, among other topics.

The largest crowd, at Georgia Public Broadcasting in midtown Atlanta, wanted to know where the money to fix this could come from.

After ninety minutes of debate and questions, the answers seem clear: public willingness to raise taxes to change how we commute has to be tested at the polls.

Matt Towery of Insider Advantage, a political polling firm, says his research shows voters deeply frustrated by traffic, but unwilling to pay more in gasoline taxes to fix anything. Karen Webster Parks, the executive director of the citizens’ group The Civic League, which sponsored the gatherings, told the crowd we’ll get nowhere if we don’t invite everyone to the table with ideas and solutions.

The solution in the state legislature didn’t move far this spring. But two competing ideas both involve raising sales taxes to pay for improvements. Both ideas are likely to sprout again in next year’s General Assembly.

One idea would give every Georgian a vote for raising a temporary statewide tax. If that passed, the money, and the projects it would pay for would be chosen and construction managed by the Georgia Department of Transportation.

One member of the audience pooh-poohed that solution. Sally Flocks with the advocacy group PEDS pushes for sidewalks and better environments for walking and bicycling. She says she simply doesn’t like the state Department of Transportation’s track record.

The other idea circulating through the legislature is a regional sales tax, collected after a group of voters in a particular region agree to support raising their own taxes, and managing the money and projects regionally instead of statewide.

But that idea did not bring the audience to its feet, either. One tired member of the crowd, as the evening drew late, said she was just looking for leadership. To that, Matt Towery the former lawmaker and pollster gave a fast, fiery pitch: The best thing this group can do is get an idea. Choose one! And get everybody behind it and push it until it comes true. That’s the way to get things done in Georgia.

And by the end of the evening, the consensus, if there was one, was to do just that.

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I'm glad we've got more money and more attention directed at solving traffic congestion in North Georgia. Nice to see big expensive solutions coming over the horizon, like the 85-316 expansion.

But the more I look at the traffic patterns and the land use patterns emerging in North Georgia, the more I'm convinced nothing will solve a personal traffic problem like a personal solution. Didn't we learn this in Kindergarten? Since so many of us drive like 5 year olds on a souped up tricycle, here's my list of Five Ways your Child Knows to Help you Solve Traffic Yourself:

Play nice. Wave to others. Use a turn signal.

Turn right. Only right.

Plan your errands.

Move your job toward your house or vice versa.

Get a bike.

And best of all, if you don't think we're spending enough on fixing traffic problems; tell somebody who can do something about it!

Not your parents, or your children... your elected leaders. At the grocery store yesterday, the lady making flower bouquets asked me if our two US Senators are John Lewis and Zell Miller. Okay! If we're going to get stuff done the way we want it done, we have to know not just who our US Senators are, but who are state senators, county reps and most of all, county commissioners are, too.

And even more important, they all need to know our name and what traffic improvements we're willing to pay for.

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Dateline: The Perimeter: Sometimes traffic just looks like a nightmare. Georgia 400 at Interstate 285 is ground zero for Atlanta traffic crowding. The worst of the worst in North Georgia, for the most moments each day, certified by the Georgia DOT and every screaming person who drives through here. But even in this sea of asphalt and tail lights, progress is peeking through if you know where to look. I've covered wrecks, high-speed chases, chaos and misery here for 20 years, and this time, it's different.

A new bridge is spanning 285. We were there for the blasting in February '06, and I'm glad they made me wear a hard hat. Tons of bedrock smashed away a space where wide lanes for bicycles, walkers and cars will saunter over 285, from the Perimeter Marta station to the hospitals inside 285. But it will NOT connect to 285. Huh?

How is a bridge that won't even add an exit ramp to 285 going to make a difference? The experts that live for this stuff tell me it's all about connections, choices and relief valves. For instance, give somebody at St. Joseph's the chance to walk across the new bridge for lunch at the Perimeter Mall, and they'll avoid 285 like a bad waiting room.

I've loved putting together a half hour show, with the smartest people I could find showing me what they've learned about our number one problem. Traffic. They've really turned over the rocks and found some good ideas we can all use, if we pay attention.

It's not just about cussing the traffic any more.

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5/9/06

My brother in Alabama asks a joke: Do you know the best place in Atlanta to meet singles? Answer: The HOV lane!

Very funny, Brother Steve. It used to be true.

But today, the HOV lane is one of the better used incentives for doubling up in a car pool. It's not the solution to Atlanta's traffic, but it is an important one. Another idea, little but powerful, is keeping traffic lights timed for surging commuters. The Georgia DOT is re-timing seventy intersections around North Georgia, and here's the time saved by the first half-dozen.

*Cascade Road, 8 lights where Cascade crosses I-285: cut the average number of stops in half, and improved travel time by 25 percent.

*Hudson Bridge in Henry County, just three lights there, cut the stops in half, and speeded up traffic by 57 percent.

*Scott Boulevard in DeKalb county: traffic light tweaking saved over half a million dollars in gasoline and wasted time every year.

*Indian Trail Road in Gwinnett County, this is a long one, 16 lights, cut the stops by 25%, and cut delays by almost 20 percent.

*Mansell Road, in Alpharetta, a 12 percent improvement in delays.

Eleven projects done saved over 6 million dollars so far, in gasoline and drivers' time, and kept almost 70 kilograms of pollution out of the air. For more traffic solutions to Atlanta's future, watch my special report Saturday at 12:30... And go to wsbtv.com and click on traffic.

Projects currently under design:

Forsyth Co: Atlanta Highway, Peachtree Parkway, Keith Bridge Road, Buford Highway

Gwinnett County: Jimmy Carter Blvd toward Britt Road, Peachtree Industrial, Holcomb Bridge Road, Pleasant Hill Road, SR 120, US 29, Park Place, Jimmy Carter Blvd toward Peachtree Industrial, Satellite Blvd, SR 378, Cherokee County: SR 92 at Bells Ferry, Interstate 575

Fulton County: SR 141 at McGinnis Ferry, DeKalb County: Memorial Drive, Coweta County: SR 14 at I-85

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5/2/06

Dateline: Ponce de Leon at Moreland Avenue: Sometimes the little changes have the biggest impact. This corner of Atlanta, close to the Majestic Diner and the Boys' Choir, looks wonderful. The trees are shaped and growing, bushes replaced from the plant list dictated by Frederic Law Olmsted, and a diverse crowd of neighbors and baby buggies encourages walking. Collectively, these changes are huge.

My friend Terry lives near the Decatur end of the string of Parks lying along Ponce De Leon. Her son is the same age as mine, 15. But even with Deepdene Park at her doorstep, she never wanted him or his brother or sister to play freely in the parks. Too much grime, crime and needles, she feared. And the closer the parks stretched toward Atlanta, the worse they were. Now, they're returned to the neighbors. What happened? Neighbors happened!

Not one big thing, but lots of little changes. First, the streetlights. Then broken curbing replaced. For the Parks on Ponce, it took millions of dollars, raised among neighbors and the city's biggest foundations, the state Department of Transportation, Atlanta and DeKalb counties. Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance! One final question: what's the chance Terry and I can get our sons to cut the grass at home?