Category: Maria’s Metro

What’s a socially- and environmentally-conscious consumer supposed to do?

I haven’t bought gas at an Exxon station since 1989 following the disastrous oil spill of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker hit a reef in Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989.

It was a matter of principle. Exxon’s response to the oil spill was slow, defensive and insensitive. All these years, I have not wanted to spend my money on a company like Exxon.

On the other hand, I truly believed BP was worthy of my money.

I really got to see what BP was made of back in 2000 when I was working on a column about our upcoming smog season.

At the time, the state of Georgia had passed requirements for

Something was wrong.

Walking along Auburn Avenue during the Sweet Auburn Festival, we stopped by the crypts of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King — one of the most sacred spots in Atlanta.

We sat next to the eternal flame and realized that the coals were cold and the eternal flame had been extinguished.

How could that be? Wasn’t an eternal flame supposed to burn forever?

Underneath the flame, there was a plaque saying that the eternal flame had recently been refurbished by the Atlanta Gas Light Co., the keeper of our city’s Shining Light Awards.

So sitting there, I sent an email to John Somerhalder, CEO of

If Atlanta feels a bit more flush with lofy ideas this week, credit the Congress for the New Urbanism.

The 18th annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU18) will bring more than 1,000 architects, planners and related professionals to Atlanta from Wednesday through Saturday.

The theme of CNU18 is “New Urbanism: Rx for Healthy Places.”

Two of Atlanta’s bright lights — Georgia Tech professor Ellen Dunham-Jones and architect Laura Heery Prozes — have been the local organizers of CNU18. They have explored every avenue to find ways for the Atlanta region to benefit from this influx of urban leaders.

They are partnering with a host of local organizations — from Central Atlanta Progress, the City of Atlanta, the Atlanta

It’s just not good enough.

There’s a lot of self-congratulatory back patting going on in this town. After years of failed attempts, the Georgia legislature finally passed a bill that will allow 12 different regions in the state to pass a one-penny sales tax for their transportation needs.

But this bill is flawed. And patting ourselves on the back is premature at best.

The flaw? The bill falls short in helping the Atlanta region pay for its transit needs — arguably the greatest need that we have.

Then there’s the maliciousness of this bill against MARTA — the largest transit agency in the state and the one that is the backbone for all the other transit systems in the region.

What a disappointment House Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones (R-Alpharetta) has turned out to be.

Thanks to her insistence, MARTA got screwed — plain and

Not so long ago, Arizona State University had a mediocre reputation mainly known as being a top party school.

And then in 2003, Dr. Michael Crowe was tapped to become ASU’s president, and all of that changed.

Today there are a total of nearly 70,000 students on ASU’s four campuses in the Tempe and Phoenix urban area, and Crowe has garnered a national reputation as a transformative leader.

But to the Atlanta delegation that was visiting Phoenix as part of the annual LINK trip put on by the Atlanta Regional Commission, the most important contribution that has occurred under Crowe’s leadership is the relationship between the university and the metro area, particularly downtown Phoenix.

The result is the New American University — a bold declaration designed to make a national splash, according to Grady Gammage, an attorney and an ASU faculty member at the

If it’s 2010, it must be Phoenix.

About 110 leaders from throughout the Atlanta region will leave Wednesday morning to spend three days in Phoenix as part of the annual LINK trip.

This is the 14th annual LINK (Leadership, Involvement, Networking, Knowledge) trip where regional leaders visit a city to learn about how that metro area is handling its challenges.

In Phoenix, the major topics the group will explore will be water, higher education, immigration and transportation.

LINK is organized by the Atlanta Regional Commission, and the decision to go to Phoenix was made shortly after U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson ruled last July that the Atlanta region has no legal right to rely on Lake Lanier for most of its water supply.

The judge gave the Atlanta region three years to come up with a way to resolve the issue, possibly by reaching an agreement

Update: Georgia Senate Appropriations Committee restored funding for the Georgia Council for the Arts on Tuesday. The budget now has to be approved by the full Senate and by the House-Senate conference committee before going to Gov. Sonny Perdue for his signature.

“Georgia is in a race for the bottom.”

So said a community leader during a panel discussion this past week.

Although the topic of the discussion was not the arts, it might as well have been.

Last week, the Georgia House of Representatives passed a $17.8 billion state budget that would totally eliminate the Georgia Council for the Arts. That would give Georgia the dubious distinction of being the only state in the country without a council for the arts.

Few institutions are more important to Atlanta than the King Center.

And few families are more important to our city’s legacy than the family of Martin Luther King Jr.

Unfortunately, for the past several years, the three living children of the late Civil Rights leader have been at odds — saddled with legal and financial disagreements that threatened to destroy their parents’ legacy and the future of the King Center.

But now that three children have laid down their swords, partly due to the involvement of an outside mediator, the opportunity exists for each of them to follow their own paths by working in roles where they excel.

But a danger also exists that the three children will take on challenges where they could fail or give in to their own

To aspire or not to aspire. That is the question facing the City of Atlanta today.

Historically, Atlanta has always been an aspirational city. Back in the late 1800s, it willed itself to be the capital of the New South by putting on national events, such as the Cotton States Exposition in 1895.

The following century, Atlanta willed itself to be the “world’s next great city” or the “city too busy to hate.” It also built what is now the world’s busiest airport. And it aspired to host the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

In short, Atlanta is a city that has always aspired to be something grander than the city it has been. And then it has had to live up to its own hype by turning its dreams into reality.

But during our most recent mayoral election, none of the candidates offered an aspirational vision. Instead, they focused on all the problems facing the city — from budget shortfalls to

It’s a simple question.

Why hasn’t the business, political and civic leadership rallied to support MARTA in the same way it did to save Grady Hospital?

And it’s not just MARTA. It’s C-TRAN. It’s the Xpress buses. It’s Cobb Transit. And Gwinnett. In short, the region and the State of Georgia have failed to come up with a way to financially support transit.

As a result, C-TRAN is about to go out of business. And MARTA is facing a $120 million deficit in its next fiscal year — a deficit which will force the transit system to drastically reduce its operations beginning July 1.

A few years ago, Grady Hospital was in a similar precarious position.

The hospital was plagued with deficits, and there was talk the

A penny here. A penny there. And pretty soon you’re talking about some real money.

The sales tax is one of the most tempting taxes a government can pass. It generates millions and millions of dollars. And with the exception of when someone makes a major purchase like a car, consumers really don’t realize how much they’re paying.

As this column is being written, the state legislature is in a tug of war over whether it should give voters an opportunity to pass a transportation funding bill with a one-cent sales tax. It is the third or fourth year in a row when there has been a concerted, and so far unsuccessful, effort get such a bill to pass.

The city of Atlanta has the highest sales tax in the state — currently at 8 cents. (Four counties in the Atlanta region only have a 6-cents sales tax: Cherokee, Cobb, Douglas

Look what they’ve done to my school, Ma.
Look what they’ve done to my school.
(Apologies to songwriter Melanie Safka)

It used to be known as the College of Urban Life. Later it became the College of Public and Urban Affairs.

And then most recently the college morphed into the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.

Last week, the word came out that the GSU administration was considering folding the Andrew Young School into GSU’s Mack Robinson College of Business. That led to the forced resignation of the recently-named dean of the Andrew Young School — W. Bartley Hildreth — who had protested the potential merger.

Now it appears that the administration has backed off that plan, and GSU is now seeking to fill the dean’s position and is

The economy sucks. Local governments are slashing their budgets. MARTA is facing a $120 million operating shortfall and may have to cut its service by 25 percent. Many people are suffering from unemployment and underemployment. And our region, economically dependent on growth, is lagging.

It’s easy to get depressed, easy to feel that our best days are behind us.

But I can’t help feeling optimistic about the future. Maybe it’s because winter is finally on its way out and spring is coming. Maybe it’s because I’m tired of being depressed and pessimistic.

Yet I can point to two experiences this past week that have taken me out of my current misery and lifted me to take a longer view of the future of our city. And that future is bright.

It’s been more than a year since I launched SaportaReport.

Now — 444 posts later — it looks as though the site might be around for awhile.

SaportaReport has been my experiment into the new world of journalism. It’s become my venue to share what’s going on in our community as well provide insights on the issues of the day.

Every week, guest columnists also have generously contributed to our community conversation — stimulating thoughts and ideas.

SaportaReport is not alone. A host of websites and blogs have sprouted as traditional news organizations have had to cut costs by shedding shed some of their seasoned journalists, either through buyouts, early retirements or layoffs.

The Burge Apartments at 210 North Avenue is being dismantled — removing pieces of my past brick by brick.

For the first 14 years of my life, my parents, my sister and I lived in the Burge Apartments in Apt. 71. The eight-story, H-shaped building has stood across the street from Georgia Tech’s administration building since 1947, built as a home for married students and faculty members.

My parents moved in the two-bedroom apartment in 1948 when Papa began teaching architecture and city planning at Georgia Tech. We lived there until 1970 when we moved to a home in Midtown, which felt as though we had moved to the suburbs.

So many memories. The Burge Apartments was sandwiched between Georgia Tech and Techwood Homes — giving my sister and I an amazing contrast in cultures and communities.

As children of Georgia Tech faculty, Elena and I (as well as the

Let me paint you a picture.

MARTA is facing a potential $120 million operating shortfall come July 1, a situation that will cause drastic decreases in transit service.

The Clayton bus system — C-Tran — is scheduled to end its service April 1 because the Clayton County Commission decided it could no longer afford being in the transit business.

The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority’s X-Press bus service in 2011 is facing an end to its federal new starts funding for many of its routes, which means that service will have to be eliminated or significantly reduced.

Cobb County Transit, which celebrated its 20th year anniversary last year, is facing budget challenges, and for the first time it might have to cut back on its bus operations.

When it comes to political muscle in Washington, D.C., Georgia has almost no pull.

The days of the late Sen. Richard B. Russell or the now-retired Sen. Sam Nunn are a distant memory. The days of a President Jimmy Carter and a Georgia mafia running Washington, D.C. is for the history books.

Today, we are the state that didn’t get invited to the national dance. With a Republican governor, a Republican-dominated legislature, two Republican United States senators, we have little pull with a Democratically-controlled White House and a Democratically-controlled Congress.

So we sit back and watch our neighboring states receive hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, from the federal government to finance their grand plans for high-speed rail and an upgraded infrastructure.

Oddly enough, we were in a similar spot back in late 2000 (just

Just when I’m ready to give up on Georgia, something gives me hope.

In this case, it’s two budding initiatives aimed at making the case for passenger rail travel and public transit throughout our state.

Of course, just to keep it real, if our state leaders were more enlightened about the need to invest and develop in rail and public transit, these organizations probably wouldn’t be necessary.

But here we are — a state that continues to lose ground when it comes to rail and transit.

Fortunately, there’s a large cadre of Georgia business and civic leaders who are not satisfied with the status quo. They have a vision that Georgia can regain its reputation as a leader in transportation.

The first is the organization — Georgians for Passenger Rail.

Tracks were being laid in front of the Metro Atlanta Chamber this week so Georgians could see an actual light rail car — making a stop in town for a couple of days.

The light rail vehicle, which also can operate as a streetcar, was on its way to Charlotte, N.C. as part of the North Carolina city’s second phase of its public transit system.

The symbolism was eerily ironic. The closest Atlanta was to seeing light rail was a two-day stop for a vehicle headed to our biggest competitor — Charlotte.

Of course Siemens, the German firm that designed and manufactured the light rail car, wanted Atlantans to see what they could have if they got their act together.

Proposals exist. The Atlanta streetcar. The BeltLine. But all those plans are just lines on paper. In Charlotte, permanent rail lines have been built, light rail vehicles have been purchased

France and Haiti.

A tale of two countries — one rich, one poor — both connected by a French heritage and little else.

Earlier this month, International Living Magazine named France as the best place to live among 194 countries across the globe.

Countries were ranked based on cost of living, culture and leisure, economy, environment, freedom, health, infrastructure, safety and risk and climate.

“For the fifth year running, France takes first in our ‘Quality of Life Index,’” the magazine wrote. “No surprise. It’s tiresome bureaucracy and high taxes are outweighed by an unsurpassable quality of life, including the world’s best health care. France always nets high scores in most categories. But you don’t need number crunchers to tell you its ‘bon vivant’ lifestyle is special. Step off a plane and you’ll experience it first-