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Posted inMaria's Metro

We must invest in all transportation modes to compete in today’s economy

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

At the September 2011 meeting of the Georgia Research Alliance, Gov. Nathan Deal told the prestigious group of business leaders and university presidents that he had just returned from the Southern Governors’ Association annual meeting where the focus was on innovation.

At SGA, Deal questioned why Silicon Valley and Boston were attracting research, development, venture capital the innovation jobs. He was told it was all about quality of life.

“They like to be able to ride bicycles to work,” Deal told GRA board members. “So when I ask DOT (the Georgia Department of Transportation) to build bicycle trails, don’t think I’ve lost my mind.”

Posted inDavid Pendered

BeltLine’s public safety upgrades first suggested in 2007 report from Tech’s Center for Quality Growth

by David Pendered

Atlanta’s response to crime along the Atlanta BeltLine is unfolding almost exactly as recommended in a health impact assessment completed in 2007 by a research team guided by Georgia Tech professor Catherine Ross.

The city has formed a police team to patrol BeltLine’s greenspaces; worked with Trees Atlanta to trim vegetation; improved lighting; and installed markers to help users identify their location.

All the efforts address this one statement in Ross’ report: “Users might avoid the BeltLine if it is perceived as being ‘unsafe,’ …”

Posted inGuest Column

Metro Atlanta would benefit from creation of Export/Import Highway

by Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist LANIER BOATWRIGHT, executive director for the Three Rivers Regional Commission

Why should Metro Atlanta residents and business leaders care about a little known proposed highway between Macon and LaGrange?

Because without it, freight traffic on Metro Atlanta’s roads and rail will increase by as much as 300 percent once Savannah’s Harbor is deepened in the next few years. That’s right. Triple the traffic that’s already there.

Posted inEleanor Ringel Cater

‘I’m So Excited’ — little to be excited about including lots and lots of sex

Avatar photo by Eleanor Ringel Cater

I had hoped to be more excited about “I’m So Excited.” A lot more excited.

A throwback to Pedro Almodovar’s earlier, sillier movies, this soap-opera farce — think, SNL tackles telemundo —takes place on a plane that is having difficulties.

On board is a typically Almodovar – a mix of manic passengers, plus a trio of flighty-to-the-extreme flight attendants and a pair of pilots who stop just short of asking about gladiator movies.

Almodovar does “Airplane!” Sounds like fun, right? But it isn’t.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle, Maria's Metro

Column: Georgia State University raises record $38.3 million last year

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, July 19, 2013

Georgia State University has just completed its best fundraising year ever. The university raised $38.3 million during the 2012-2013 fiscal year — surpassing its previous record of $35.3 million set in 1999.

It’s an important year for Georgia State, which is celebrating its centennial in 2013.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Wheat export through port rises as Atlanta fosters role as logistics hub

by David Pendered

Georgia’s port in Brunswick is benefiting from a rise in the export of Georgia-grown wheat to Mexico, and the first vessel of the season sailed from Brunswick Thursday.

Georgia farmers have bet heavily on wheat this year. The acreage committed to wheat production rose by 52 percent this year compared to 2012, from 230,000 acres to 350,000 acres, according to the Georgia Ports Authority, citing figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The idea that Atlanta has an interest in Georgia’s wheat exports through a state port is fueled in part by Mayor Kasim Reed. Reed has linked Atlanta’s stature as a global logistics hub with a seaport capable of handling the world’s largest cargo vessels. To that end, Reed is working diligently to obtain federal support for the deepening of the Savannah harbor.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Buckhead participates in Atlanta’s Better Buildings Challenge, adds 41 buildings to efficiency program

by David Pendered

Buckhead has joined Atlanta’s Better Buildings Challenge and added an additional 15 million square feet of commercial space to the city’s efficiency program, which now covers 65 million square feet.

The BBC was launched by the Obama administration in 2011 to promote energy and water efficiency in commercial and public buildings. The national goal is to reduce the energy intensity in commercial and public buildings by 20 percent by 2020.

Livable Buckhead was a founding partner of the city’s program and it formally began participating July 17. When it joined, Buckhead brought an amount of commercial space into Atlanta’s program that’s greater than the entire BBC program in Denver and Fort Worth, according to a statement from the city.

Posted inDavid Pendered

GDOT’s approval of I-75 project advances concept of managed toll lanes in region, plan due in 2014

by David Pendered

The state transportation board has chosen a team to build an $840 million network of managed toll lanes along I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties and open it in 2018.

Essentially, the project amounts to building a separate toll road alongside the existing highways. Traffic will flow south during the morning commute and north during the evening. Funding is scheduled from public and private sources.

This new project of managed toll lanes represents the wave of the future in Georgia’s highway program.

Posted inTom Baxter

The Battle of Atlanta and the forging of modern politics

Avatar photo by Tom Baxter

In military terms, the engagements which took place here 149 years ago Monday marked one more indecisive but ultimately fateful turn in the bloody Civil War campaign to capture this city. Atlanta didn’t fall to Union troops until Sept. 2, 1864, although there was no more major fighting. The conflict on July 22, which took the lives of more than 9,000 men, including a general each side, was recorded in history as the Battle of Atlanta.

Politically, few battles have had as immediate, or as lasting an impact as this battle and the larger campaign of which it was the centerpiece.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Atlanta’s new cycle track is short, but a milestone in city’s mobility options

by David Pendered

Atlanta is poised to complete in August a significant component of its overall plan to provide safer routes for bicyclists.

On its face, the new cycle track seems too short to be notable. It will stretch along 10th Street only the width Henry W. Grady High School, from Monroe Drive to Charles Allen Drive.

This short segment will provide a separate cycle track that will connect tip of the Atlanta BeltLine’s Eastside Trail at Piedmont Park to Charles Allen Drive. Because a bike lane already exists on Charles Allen Drive, the cycle track will provide one of the last links of connectivity for cycling and walking along a route from Inman Park neighborhoods through Midtown and across the Downtown Connector to Tech.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Portman loses $1 billion project that’s Miami Beach’s version of new Falcons stadium in downtown Atlanta

by David Pendered

Atlanta-based Portman Holdings has lost its bid to lead the master development team for the planned $1 billion upgrade of what is to become the 52-acre Miami Beach Convention Center district.

The project went instead to a team led by Dan Tishman, the New York-based developer of projects including the World Trade Center and Disney’s Epcot Center. The Miami Beach Commission voted July 17 for Tishman’s proposal, submitted as Tishman South Beach ACE.

The Miami Beach project is that city’s version of Atlanta’s deal for a new Falcons stadium. Both projects are priced around $1 billion; both call for public financing through a hotel/motel tax; both contemplate renewing part of an aged urban core; and both promise to reconnect the new developments with surrounding communities.

Posted inMaria's Metro

Discovering blocks, tactical urbanism, happiness at Citistates Convergence

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

The offer was too good to refuse. Come spend a couple of days by a beautiful lake in cool New Hampshire during the hottest days of summer to talk about the future of cities and regions in North America and the world with some of the most engaged experts in the country.

The offer came from Neal Peirce, a well-respected veteran journalist who has been writing about metro areas for decades.

Every couple of years, Peirce and a core group of “Citistate associates” have been getting together for a Citistates Convergence — a casual, yet in depth, exchange of ideas and observations on what is happening in the fields of urbanism and regionalism.

Posted inGuest Column

‘Look Up Atlanta’ gives region an opportunity to reclaim social identity

by Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist SUZANNE BURNES, executive director of Sustainable Atlanta

There was a time not that many years ago when Atlanta was seen as a hub for social progress.

While we can all point to ways that we have backslid or treaded water since that shining age of engagement and leadership, one thing hasn’t changed. Critical masses of Atlantans, Decaturites, Gwinnetians, East Pointers and those who call every corner of this region home are passionate about making this region a better place and are doing their part to change it.

We are home to internationally-known non-governmental organizations, academic and public health institutions, and multi-national corporations, as well as thousands of smaller NGOs and businesses, and each and every one of these organizations can point to the do-gooders in their midst.

Posted inEleanor Ringel Cater

‘Fruitvale Station’ – film tracks the last day of a young unarmed black man

Avatar photo by Eleanor Ringel Cater

“Fruitvale Station” isn’t a great film. I’m not even certain it’s a good one.

But it is an important film. And its timing — i.e., right as the George Zimmerman trial concludes — makes it doubly, triply, quadrup-ly important.

Because right here, we see what we already know: Trayvon Martin isn’t the only one.  Never was. And, alas, never will be.

Early in the morning on New Year’s Day, 2009, a 22-year-old unarmed black man named Oscar Grant III was fatally shot by a transit cop. At that moment, Grant was handcuffed and facedown on the subway platform at the BART stop called Fruitvale Station.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle, Maria's Metro

New Atlanta Beltline CEO Paul Morris: Public will help shape project

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, July 19, 2013

As a trained landscape architect who has been a developer and transit professional, Paul Morris now is adding a new title to his résumé — president and CEO of Atlanta BeltLine Inc.

Morris said his friends and associates observed that “if a person could craft a position that fit a unique set of skills for one person — this is Paul” — about the Beltline position.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Army corps installs new Savannah commander who will guide harbor deepening project, two ports

by David Pendered

The Army colonel who will take over the Savannah district Friday, and the sensitive task of the harbor deepening project, brings a wealth of experience managing complex engineering scenarios, according to his military resume.

The executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority, Curtis Foltz, said Thursday that he expects the new district commander – Col. Thomas Tickner – will continue the efforts of his predecessor, Col. Jeffrey Hall, who oversaw two important reports that propelled the deepening project.

The change in command is a routine event for a district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but it comes at a sensitive time. Federal funding for the planned harbor deepening project hangs in the balance, even as Georgia has committed $230 million toward the project.

Posted inDavid Pendered

DeKalb County’s interim CEO: Works with Republicans, funded by Democrats, educated as a cleric

by David Pendered

The Democrat chosen by Gov. Nathan Deal to serve as interim CEO of DeKalb County wrote a piece with a Republican colleague that appeared last week on Shirley Franklin’s website. It calls for the position of CEO – and DeKalb’s entire form of goverment – to be eliminated.

Although DeKalb County Commissioner Lee May will reach across the aisle, he has strong backing from the state’s leading Democrats. Former Gov. Roy Barnes’ law firm contributed to May’s 2012 reelection campaign, along with the family-owned company headed by former Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor.  Michael Thurmond, the former state labor commissioner who now serves DeKalb as interim school superintendent, contributed.

May opposed the proposed 2012 transportation sales tax, saying it provided too few benefits to south DeKalb. About the same time, May said he was considering running against incumbent CEO Burrell Ellis because he disagreed with the direction Ellis was taking the county.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle, Maria's Metro

Column: GSU Hall of Fame to honor Russells, McKerrow

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, July 12, 2013

It will be a year of firsts for the Business Hall of Fame at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business.

It is the first year that the second generation is being inducted and the first year for siblings to be inducted into the respected Business Hall of Fame. Three of the four 2013 inductees are the children of Herman Russell, founder of H.J. Russell & Co. Russell was in the first class of inductees in 1985.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Solar energy meeting follows PSC ruling that Ga. Power significantly expand its solar portfolio

by David Pendered

Now that Georgia's utility regulator has authorized the additional development of solar power in the state, attention is turning to questions of how that power will be governed.

In less than a year, Georgia’s Public Service Commission has approved 735 megawatts through solar power arrays. Georgia Power voluntarily provided the first 210 megawatts that was approved last winter. The PSC voted last week to require the additional 525 megawatts as part of a broader Georgia Power docket.

The solar expansion happens to have come to a head just as the Georgia Solar Energy Association hosts a forum on Thursday in Atlanta. The featured speaker is coming from North Carolina, where there was a movement this year to roll back some of the state’s significant goals for producing renewable energy.

Posted inTom Baxter

Inman Allen recalls his father’s ‘courageous and dramatic’ testimony

Avatar photo by Tom Baxter

Fifty years ago this month, Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became the only elected Southern official to testify for what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The decision to “go beyond the niceties of racial harmony” and take a firm stand on the issue of segregation had been a “torturous” one, Allen’s son, Inman Allen, told the Atlanta Rotary Club Monday.

It was “a uniquely courageous and dramatic testimony that many have suggested was a pivotal moment in this country’s journey toward a fully integrated society,” Allen said, speaking to a group which his father once headed and of which his grandfather was a founder.

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