A tug-of-war has emerged over how to invest the $2.5 billion More MARTA funding in the City of Atlanta.
Sadly, a divided mindset has developed on how to invest those dollars – pitting one group against another.
Category: Maria’s Metro
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Now is a good time to create a City of Atlanta transportation department
When contemplating a vision for Atlanta’s future, transportation issues often are a centerpiece of how we envision our city.
The assumption of the Atlanta City Design Project is that the city’s population will double or even triple over the next 30 years.
So the challenge facing Atlanta is how do we incorporate more people living within the city limits without having complete gridlock on our city’s streets.
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A special time for France – and for all who long for global harmony
After France won the World Cup on Sunday, I called my cousin – Alain Bourla – in Paris. Alain lives along Boulevard St. Germain near Boulevard St. Michel in the Latin Quarter (my favorite part of Paris).
So what was the reaction in Paris? Alain told me the city was going crazy. He took the phone to his balcony so I could hear the wild celebration outside his apartment.
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Plans to redesign Monroe Drive are ‘completely incomplete’
It’s no secret that Monroe Drive is an accident-prone corridor in the City of Atlanta.
Just ask Ivan Schustak. He was walking along Monroe Drive in the crosswalk at Yorkshire Road on March 29thwhen he was hit by a car turning left from Monroe Drive.
Schustak, who is visually impaired, attended a Renew Atlanta community presentation of the latest proposed plans to improve the corridor of Monroe Drive-Boulevard Avenue at a town hall meeting at Grady High School on June 28th.
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City needs to hit pause on Brock English Ave. project
A proposed mixed-use project by Brock Built Homes and partners has become a lightning rod in the already divided English Avenue community.
Despite a lack of consensus among key players on the Westside, the project has been sailing through the Atlanta City Council’s committee meetings. It was scheduled to go before the full Atlanta City Council on Monday, July 2, but it has been delayed for 30 days.
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Gwinnett can board transit train faster by joining MARTA
Gwinnett has an opportunity to do what it should have done 47 years ago – join MARTA.
The Gwinnett County Commission is looking to pass a transit plan this week that would significantly increase its public transportation investment.
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Atlanta region needs to refresh annual LINK trips
For 22 years, an impressive group of metro Atlanta civic, business and government leaders have spent three days a year visiting a North American city to learn how other cities are handling their urban challenges.
The LINK trips also have provided people an opportunity to get to know each other – connecting with leaders from different races, genders and sections of the Atlanta region as well as people from different circles of influence.
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Now it’s the Atlanta Symphony’s turn to get a new home
Sometimes it takes outsiders to help one appreciate what we have in Atlanta.
We are blessed to have a myriad of cultural institutions that help define what we are as a city. The Woodruff Arts Center – which encompasses the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Alliance Theatre and the High Museum of Art – is the centerpiece of our cultural offerings.
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Let’s honor Atlanta with statues of Ivan Allen Jr. and Maynard Jackson at Peachtree and Sweet Auburn
Before leaving office, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed announced in late November that a statue of boxer Evander Holyfield would be placed near Woodruff Park at Peachtree and Auburn Avenue.
With all due respect to Holyfield, Woodruff Park is the wrong spot to honor the boxer, who fought Bert Cooper on Nov. 21, 1991 at the now demolished Omni Coliseum – the site of Philips Arena.
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Atlanta’s ParkScore jumps seven spots, still has lots of room to improve
The City of Atlanta jumped from 50 to 43 in the Trust for Public Land’s annual ParkScore survey of the nation’s 100 largest cities.
The improved ranking shows how Atlanta has gained traction when it comes to acquiring and maintaining parks and green space in the city limits. TPL also including a few other factors in its ranking – such as including private support for parks – that helped boost Atlanta’s standing.
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Center for Civil and Human Rights gives us timely inspiration
For me, the Power to Inspire gala – the benefit for the Center for Civil and Human Rights – inspired a sense of gratitude for what we have in our town.
The Center will celebrate its fourth anniversary next month, and it’s hard to imagine an Atlanta without this touchpoint for our community. It combines in one place our unique place in the history of civil and human rights.
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Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms – aim high when building out your team
It’s not surprising for a new mayor to transform her administration with new faces in various roles.
Since taking office in January, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has announced the transition of nearly 20 members of her cabinet. Some have left of their own volition, some have been encouraged to leave in due time, an some have been asked to leave immediately.
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New controversy emerges over Bobby Jones golf course redevelopment
The environmental destruction surrounding the redevelopment of the Bobby Jones Golf Course continues.
The Chattahoochee Riverkeeper is strongly opposing a plan by the Bobby Jones Golf Foundation to encroach within the stream buffers of Tanyard Creek and Peachtree Creek.
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Influential Atlanta leaders to visit San Diego in May for 2018 LINK trip
Housing affordability and transit will be key focus areas of the 2018 LINK trip to San Diego, which will take place from May 9 to May 12.
Ever since 1997, a group of more than 100 Atlanta leaders – representing governments, businesses and nonprofits – go to a different city to learn about the best practices that we can bring back to our region. And it also provides an opportunity for leaders from the 10-county region to get to know one another.
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Atlanta Housing Authority’s recent actions need further scrutiny
Recent actions by the Atlanta Housing Authority need to be viewed through a magnifying glass.
Despite owning hundreds of acres of land, AHA is spending millions of dollars to buy more land from the City of Atlanta, another public entity.
AHA couches these land deals as helping fulfill its goal to develop more affordable housing in the City of Atlanta. But over the past eight years, AHA has not developed any new housing units on its significant land holdings.
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Expanded rail transit needs to be part of Atlanta region’s future
As the Atlanta region becomes more interested in mass transit, the question now can be boiled down to expand rail lines or invest in bus rapid transit.
Recent conversations from key state and county leaders in the Atlanta region seem to be leaning towards a bus solution rather than rail.
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Enough already: GRTA, SRTA, MARTA, GDOT, ARC…and now….the ATL
Nearly 20 years ago, key business and government leaders heralded the creation of a new transportation authority that would tackle metro Atlanta’s traffic problems by expanding transit.
And so the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority – GRTA – was born.
At the time, there was one naysayer – the late Harry West, the longtime executive director of the Atlanta Regional Commission.
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Georgians finally will be able to vote on a dedicated fund for conservation
At long last, Georgia now has a pathway to create a dedicated funding source to conserve our land and water.
The state legislature on Thursday passed the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Act calling for a referendum on a constitutional amendment that would dedicate a portion of existing state sales and use tax on outdoor recreation equipment to establish a conservation trust fund.
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Still missing Martin Luther King Jr. after all these years
MEMPHIS – For 50 years, I had little desire to travel to Memphis.
The city always triggered one of the most painful memories of my youth – the assassination of an idol who had become a friend – Martin Luther King Jr.
I have often said my life peaked when I was 11. It was September, 1966 when I became close friends with Yolanda King, who had helped integrate my elementary school – Spring Street – along with the children of Juanita and Ralph David Abernathy.
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GSU leading effort to get U.S. Civil Rights sites on the World Heritage list
An exhaustive effort is underway to catapult the international recognition of the modern Civil Rights movement in the South.
Thanks to a grant from the Alabama Department of Tourism, Georgia State University is shepherding the effort to get about a dozen Civil Rights landmarks to be nominated as World Heritage sites.
