Background

This all started with Sandy Springs, Dunwoody and others.  From there, things have branched out, but Sandy Springs, located in Fulton County, serves as the original model.

To quote Wikipedia:

Debate over incorporation [of Sandy Springs] began in the 1970s when the city of Atlanta attempted to use a state law to force annexation of Sandy Springs. (Buckhead had joined Atlanta in 1952.) The attempt failed when the Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that the law was unconstitutional. In response, the Committee for Sandy Springs was formed in 1975. In every legislative session since 1989, state legislators representing the area introduced a bill in the Georgia General Assembly to authorize a referendum on incorporation. Legislators representing the city of Atlanta and southwestern Fulton County, who feared for the tax revenue that would be lost, blocked the bills using the procedural requirement that all local legislation be approved first by a delegation of representatives from the affected area.

Note that the process of founding the City of Sandy Springs effectively began in 1989, but actually started much earlier.  Things finally came to a head in 2005, sixteen years later, with a referendum vote by those who would be within the limits of the new City of Sandy Springs.  94% of those voting approved of the measure, noting:   Many residents expressed displeasure with county services, claiming, based upon financial information provided by the county, that the county was redistributing revenues to fund services in less financially-stable areas of the county, ignoring local opposition to rezoning, and allowing excessive development.

Two years later, other Fulton County municipalities, Johns Creek (formed in 2006), the City of Milton and the City of Chattahoochee Hills (both formed in 2007), all came into being under similar circumstances.  By 2008, the city formation movement moved across county lines into DeKalb County, with the formation of the City of Dunwoody.  As with the Fulton County cities formed in the early 2000′s, voters massively approved the idea.  And, as with the new cities in Fulton County: “Critics claimed that incorporation of Dunwoody, as in the incorporation of Sandy Springs in 2005, would take away a great deal of tax revenue from the rest of the county, leading to shortages of services, tax increases, or both for everyone else in the county, as has happened in Fulton.“

What is a City?

When you Google that question, you get a variety of responses, but here’s a decent answer:

A city is a place where you live, work, go to school and play. A city is a place where you carry on your day-to-day life.

That said, a city is unique unto itself.  You’ve got Paris, France and Newark, New Jersey.  The restaurants are better in Paris.  Not that there aren’t good ones in Newark, but you get my drift.  But you have to wonder just a bit about what form a City of Brookhaven will take.

Brookhaven City Limits

Now there is a proposed City of Brookhaven, and unlike previous efforts to create independent cities in metro Atlanta, a possible City of Brookhaven is somewhat different because there is not as clear a citizen mandate as there has been with the earlier cities which are its precedent.  Further, the push for a City of Brookhaven is not centered in an area that people presently call “Brookhaven”, but in an area considerably to the north of that location.  This is because the central personalities of the City of Brookhaven are generally clustered in an area north of Oglethorpe University, far from “downtown” Brookhaven.  And it is with this issue that this discussion will center.

Geopolitical Spheres of Influence – Defining what constitutes “Brookhaven” is a little vague.  The same issue comes up with “Buckhead“; the real estate people periodically describe a house in Brookhaven as being in “Buckhead”, because there’s a nice cachet to being in Buckhead.  And higher real estate prices, too.  But is Lenox Square in Buckhead?  Piedmont Hospital?  Chastain Park?  The same problem happens with “Vinings”, another high dollar area.

In any case, my view is that “Brookhaven” is south of the Ashford community (Ashford Dunwoody Rd at Johnson Ferry Rd), east of the DeKalb County line with Fulton County, and west of Clairmont Road (and maybe not even that far).  “Brookhaven” certainly does not continue up into Chamblee and it doesn’t continue that far south of Cross Keys High School.

One clear definition of Brookhaven could be derived from the Livable Communities Initiative for Brookhaven, which limits the notion of the community to the area around the MARTA station, with a stretch up to Oglethorpe.

After several iterations, a proposed “final” City of Brookhaven appears here.  One of my concerns is that the boundaries of this “city” are being driven by forces in which my Brookhaven neighborhood does not seem to have a voice.  There have been meetings to be sure, but the actual boundaries of the proposed city are being formed by people from the area around Perimeter Mall, not around the Brookhaven MARTA station.  Continuing “Brookhaven” up to I-285 and down to I-85 seems a stretch, but it is a logical line of demarcation.

This is Brookhaven – Say what you will about one of our neighborhood activists, he does have a canny way of hitting the mark on some things.  Like when he stood up at a Brookhaven Community Connection meeting, pointed down to the ground and said “THIS is Brookhaven”.  And, in a quite odd way, he was exactly right.  The building that Hudson’s Grill (where the BCC meets) currently occupies has been a part of Brookhaven since before my time.  When I moved into the neighborhood from Butthead in 1978, the building housed a Davis Brothers cafeteria.  And, it was something before that, back when it was still the town of North Atlanta.

Saying those things does express the notion that Brookhaven, while not having defined geographic boundaries, does have a state of mind.  And, that state of mind does have some sort of image with the typical Atlanta resident.  They may not know exactly what it is, but it certainly centers on the area around the MARTA station.  As such, this area called Brookhaven doesn’t have a whole lot to gain by creating a City that encompasses so much of what isn’t Brookhaven.  If “Brookhaven” is a brand, those who currently live in other nearby areas benefit from Brookhaven’s presence more than Brookhaven benefits from theirs.

Brookhaven – The Bedroom City – One of the attendees at a Brookhaven Community Connection meeting observed that the “City of Brookhaven” shown on the map is almost exclusively residential.  And, as pointed out by Jerry Cooper, “single family neighborhoods “lose” money from the taxation perspective”.   That is, it costs more to service a community of less dense development because the cost/benefit ratio is different than area of high population density.

Also, we don’t have a nice steel mill throwing off tax revenue.  Yet, the Carl Vinson study of a proposed City of Brookhaven fleshed out the details.  In theory, a City of Brookhaven is possible.

Brookhaven Yes!

There are some good reasons to form a City of Brookhaven.

DeKalb Governance – DeKalb County has a form of government unique within the State of Georgia.  In recent years there has been some tweaking, but overall, the governing structure shows continued signs of internal conflict.  Consider this recent news article “Power struggle heating up in DeKalb“.  To wit: “A battle that goes to the heart of control in DeKalb County government is heating up, with one official talking about hiring an outside attorney.“

This matter has been brewing for years and it costs DeKalb County money.  The current CEO used to be a mere County Commissioner; during that period, he was constantly locking horns with the CEO at that time.  Now that he’s the current CEO, he has taken a liking to the powers of being CEO.  So, the power struggle continues.

The final reconciliation of this power struggle will have to take place with the DeKalb County delegation to the State of Georgia General Assembly, which is currently in session.  It was this delegation that originally formed the DeKalb Chief Executive Office form of government that we currently enjoy.  To wit:

In 1986, DeKalb’s delegation in the Georgia General Assembly created a unique chief executive officer (CEO) position, which is the chief elected official.^[4] The local legislation that authorized the position made it unique among Georgia’s 159 counties, all of which have a standard county commission or a few still with a sole commissioner. As a result of this legislation, all county employees report to the CEO rather than to commissioners for day-to-day operations. Then, the CEO served as the chairman of the seven-member county commission, but did not vote except to break a tie. In 2008, the Georgia General Assembly amended the act to allow the DeKalb County Board of the Commissioners the authority to preside over meetings of the county commission and to set the agenda for meetings of the county commission.

While this system may have worked well when Manuel Maloof was CEO, the effectiveness of the CEO position has been consistently more expensive for the County in passing years.  There is periodic discussion in the DeKalb delegation about changing this situation, but it never seems to get resolved.  Presumably, the formation of a City of Brookhaven might provide them with the motivation to correct the problem.

County Spending – At the same time, the loss of County tax revenue that would occur if a City of Brookhaven forms would be significant.  I keep hearing the number $25 million, but who knows?  In any case, a reduction of revenue would force DeKalb County to bring its financial books into balance.  One sure way is to cut spending.  Another is to raise taxes, which brings us to……

Certainly the recent 26% increase in DeKalb County property taxes should draw popular attention, especially when the bills arrive in homeowner’s mailboxes.  At the same time, there is a strong ground level sense that more government is not necessarily better.  The generally alert voter has already seen the significant increase in governmental presence in their lives.  You can’t turn around without running into another regulation or law that wasn’t there ten years ago.  Or five years ago.  Given that healthy distrust of government, it is hard to make a compelling case for even more, no matter how good the intentions might be.  The matter comes down to local control of spending.

As with Sandy Springs, decades earlier “Many residents expressed displeasure with county services, claiming, based upon financial information provided by the county, that the county was redistributing revenues to fund services in less financially-stable areas of the county, ignoring local opposition to rezoning, and allowing excessive development.“  It’s déjà vu all over again.

In any case, DeKalb County seems to have a hard time controlling its spending.  This was fine when times were flush, but with the continuing recession, money is tight everywhere.  This is further complicated by the structure of DeKalb’s county government.  The spending goes hand in hand with the uncertain governance issue.  The Commissioners enact spending cuts, the CEO circumvents them.

I Am Somebody – At the same time, there is a compelling argument for a City of Brookhaven because of the issue of representation, a fact which is frequently used in promoting such a City.  This is because our current representation at County level is simply a matter of numbers.  That is, when we contact our elected County representatives, we are just one of about 40,000 people.  With a City, our representation levels would put us at about 10,000 people per council member.  Of course, just who represents us will be a matter of how each city council district is configured, a point which is currently in dispute with people in my neighborhood.

Zoning & Development – “single family neighborhoods “lose” money from the taxation perspective” -  There is a notion at the County level that denser development is more desirable from a taxation perspective.  That is, when you have the choice of a single $400,000.00 house sitting on 1/2 acre or three $250,000.00 houses sitting on 1/2 acre, there’s not much choice if you’re interested in tax revenues.  But it goes beyond that, for apparently utilities also lose money in less densely populated development areas.  So, there’s a financial incentive for dense development.

In our immediate neighborhood, there have been two denser developments which replaced less dense housing built in the 1940′s and 1950′s.  In both cases, tax revenues increased because of this increased density.  One side effect, however, has been that denser development also requires wider roads and more parking spaces.  It’s a trade-off.

For the moment, redevelopment in the area called “Brookhaven” has largely come to a halt, but it won’t stay that way forever.  You need look no further than down N. Druid Hills Road to the area near the intersection with Roxboro Road.  There has already been one higher density redevelopment in the vicinity, and there has been one proposed redevelopment for even higher density.  For the moment, this most recent redevelopment has been put on hold, but the developers are sure to be back.

Currently, any proposed redevelopment would take place at the DeKalb County level, and would have the best interests of the County at heart.  Regardless of how the neighborhood might feel about it.  To be sure, there will be public meetings and such, kabuki-like affairs where people stand in line to vent their opposition.  And after the public commentary segment is over, the County goes ahead and does what it planned on doing all along.  With few short-term political consequences to those doing the voting.

Denser development on N. Druid Hills Road will eventually result in that road becoming four lanes instead of the current two.  And maybe denser development is inevitable.  You might not be able to fight City Hall, but it would be nice if your voice was heard more clearly.

Parks –  While the parks in our vicinity seem to struggle with funding, parks at the southern end of DeKalb County seem to be different.  Did you know, for example, that DeKalb County has a water park?  It’s the Browns Mill Family Aquatic Center, located at the southern end of the County.  Likewise, at the other end of DeKalb County, we have the taxpayer funded Porter Sanford III Performing Arts & Community Center.  You don’t hear much about the $17 million Sanford Center because it is apparently underutilized.  In both cases, these facilities cost a great deal to build and consume County resources to continue their operation.  Meanwhile, we can’t get Briarwood Park’s pool opened and Brookhaven Park is hidden away from public view.

One of the proposed functions of a City of Brookhaven is “Parks”.  Based upon the map which has been circulated, this would include Murphey-Candler Park (which DeKalb County Parks & Recreation lists as being in “Dunwoody”), Lynwood Park, Brookhaven Park, and Briarwood Park, not to mention a number of neighborhood parks and green spaces (Ashford, Blackburn, Clack’s Corner, Parkside and Skyland).  These are currently maintained or sponsored by the County.  Yet, the promoters of a City of Brookhaven only mention Murphey-Candler Park and Blackburn Park, which are located in their neighborhood.  We’re not even a City yet and they’re already ignoring us.  Oh, the irony!

Brookhaven No!

Something Must be Done! – At the January 17, 2012 meeting of the BrookhavenYES group at Oglethorpe, there was discussion about how a City of Brookhaven would save the taxpayers money, but as the evening wore on, this notion was quickly offset when the subject of Buford Highway came up.

One of the panelists who lives in the Drew Valley neighborhood got the ball rolling.  A real estate agent, this individual complained that the presence of Buford Highway was a drag on real estate values, noting that houses which back up to Buford Highway sell for “40% less than houses across the street”.

It’s hard to argue with the fact that Buford Highway is an eyesore, but it has been an eyesore for decades, if not longer.  I’ve lived in Atlanta long enough to remember when the Buford Highway was two lanes of asphalt and four lanes of compacted gravel.  If you go up the highway to the Chamblee area, you will note that streetlights, sidewalks and pedestrian crossing lights have been added.  Yet, on each side of these improvements, the ugly commercial structures remain.

For our neighborhood, there is little question that Buford Highway needs work.  The poster child for this work is visible for those who drive to Buford Highway on Briarwood Road.  As you wait at the traffic light, your eye is drawn to an apartment complex near the corner.  The structures are run down, hallway doors hang wide open, windows are boarded up.  It’s ugly.

So, the compulsion arises that something must be done about this.  I  have no doubt that numerous telephone calls have been made to DeKalb County officials about this neighborhood eyesore, yet it remains.  One of the attendees at the January 17th meeting got up and complained about the state of Buford Highway, and a lot of people, myself included, thought of this apartment complex.

Fixing something like Buford Highway calls for significant spending.  This at a time when finances are tight, and the proponents of the City of Brookhaven say that the taxpayers will save money.  Something doesn’t add up.

The Shared Experience – In many ways, the proposed limits of the City of Brookhaven echo DeKalb County itself.  The “Brookhaven” of those who are in the Murphey-Candler Park neighborhood (who are promoting the formation of a City) have very little in common with Buford Highway.  In fact, they have very little in common with the good people of Brookhaven itself.  There is no established connection of any consequence; no common thoroughfare, no shared market place, no common experience, no common lives. It’s just not there.

Alternatives? – In part, my questions about the possible City of Brookhaven center on the motivations of those who want a new city.  In looking at the map, you have to wonder why this northern area of the proposed City of Brookhaven wasn’t annexed by Dunwoody or Chamblee.  And, some of us are getting the sneaking suspicion that the northern sector of the proposed City of Brookhaven, which is where the push for a City of Brookhaven is centered, wanted to be annexed by Dunwoody but were turned down.  And, there’s the sneaking suspicion that Chamblee isn’t good enough for them.  Just a guess……

I Want to be Romanced – As “Brookhaven”, we’ve got apparently very little to gain and potentially a whole lot to lose by becoming a City.  So far, there’s been no compelling reason to make this jump.  Yes, to determine our own course of action is fine, but at what costs?

In short, what the real Brookhaven seems to want, or at least what my Brookhaven wants, is to be romanced a little bit.  To be told that we’re wonderful and that good things will come from a relationship.  We haven’t heard that in all the rush.  To create a City with a sense of being “there” takes time, more than has been allotted.

What’s the Rush? – The pro-City of Brookhaven types are in a big hurry about this.  To be sure, this is partially directed by the legislative schedule environment, which requires that certain things be done in a certain way.  At the same time, DeKalb County officials are expressing concern about the speed of the process, even seeking to have a moratorium on the formation of new cities.  Why shouldn’t they?  They’re facing a significant loss of revenue while still trying to figure out who’s in charge of the government.

To me, however, things are going too fast, especially in light of the fact that nobody seems all that interested in my little neighborhood of 750 homes.  And, I am reminded of a quote from a Hollywood movie, Operation Petticoat.  Lieutenant Nicholas Holden, played by Tony Curtis, heads out from the boat with a crew to “requisition”  items necessary to get their submarine out of port before the enemy attacks them again:

Lt. Cmdr. Matt T. Sherman: Where is Lt. Holden?

Lt. Watson: When the air raid started they took off. All he said was “in confusion there is profit.”

I am concerned that the rapid pace of the City of Brookhaven movement is also an opportunity for legislative mayhem.

Trash Talk – The other thing that I am concerned about is the negative talk that is associated with the City of Brookhaven proposal.  There is a tendency in modern politics to make it personal; the same stuff happens in sports.  “Your mama’s so old that her memories are in black & white“.  So, both proponents and opponents of the cityhood proposal have taken to commenting on some of the politicians.  Granted, this is an old American tradition.  And there’s more than a little anecdotal evidence to support that talk, but in the larger sense, it is a distraction.  Rather than concentrating on the possible merits of a City of Brookhaven, we’re focusing on the people involved.

One of the classic problems with the current state of American politics is that everybody hates Washington and Congress, but they like their own elected officials.  Well, I personally can’t say that about several of our former Congresspersons, but I think you get my drift.  I actually like our two County representatives; they work hard in a difficult environment.  Not that it’s perfect mind you, but I have found them to be engaging and cooperative.  Their challenge is that their position is framed by the fact that they must represent a larger number of people than just our neighborhood.  And that is the core of the discussion about the City of Brookhaven.

The Wave of the Future?

I’ve attended several meetings about the City of Brookhaven proposal, often with a friend.  It’s helpful to do that because you can debrief each other afterward on the way home.  For a while, his opinion was “Maybe it is time to lessen the power of DeKalb County.  Maybe its era of dominance is over“.   That idea is currently popular around the world.  Even Scotland is thinking about declaring its independence from England.  The discussion always seems to center on the nature of representative government.

My friend has since changed his opinion, now believing that a City of Brookhaven is not a good idea, but knowing him, he is also still thinking about the issue.  If things come to pass in the General Assembly, he and I will have six months to think this matter over before a vote in July.  So do you.

My Conclusion on the City of Brookhaven Movement

It’s too soon to vote on the matter, but it’s a great way to get the DeKalb delegation to the General Assembly to actively work on DeKalb County governance issues.  We have time to discuss this before we vote on it.

So it is with the approaching transportation sales tax referendum in metro Atlanta.  While the entire state of Georgia is having similar referenda, Atlanta really is the center of the action.  In any case, when the subject was first raised about funding regional transportation projects with an additional 1% sales tax, I mistakenly assumed that there would be regional solutions offered.  Silly me.

Instead, the “projects” chosen by leaders outside of I-285 were a hodge-podge of lane widenings, intersection improvements and the like.  As I ran down their list of these transportation projects, I realized that in many cases, I had no idea where these projects were located.  Even more so, I probably had not driven over any of those stretches of highway in recent decades, if ever.  Yet, I was being asked to support them.

Not to be outdone, inside of I-285 “leadership” chose similar projects, but at least I was somewhat familiar with some of them.  The projects chosen by the City of Atlanta were primarily devoted to the Beltline, which will not produce improvements in Atlanta’s traffic situation for many years, if not longer.  And, rather than devote all their financial energy to one segment of the Beltline that would serve a goodly number of people, they chose to split things up into two disparate segments for political expediency.  If you’re interested, my earlier coverage on the Beltline project is located here.

This Beltline expenditure proposal was made after already having received a substantial amount of Federal transit money.  That money, along with local funding, has been allocated to a project that will do nothing for the average Atlanta commuter.  Not a great moment for the Atlanta region.

I find myself in the awkward position of agreeing with one of the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s more liberal opinion columnists.  In the January 8, 2012 print edition of the AJC, Jay Bookman writes “Region should run transit“.  He’s right about a couple of issues, most notably:

• Rather than take the political risk of deciding what projects should be built and which should not, they forced that decision upon local elected leaders in the region.

and

• If the money to fund transit is to be raised from taxpayers in this region, with no state aid involved, then those taxpayers should have a regional governing authority that they can hold accountable. And if elected leaders from the Atlanta region are required to put their jobs on the line in designing a regional transit system, those same leaders should have substantial authority over how that system operates.
  

Presumably, the voters already sense that this process is badly flawed.  Thus, people like Sam Massell, a respected local political expert, view the upcoming transportation tax vote as unlikely to pass.  So do many of the  local political pundits.  Right now, there’s just nothing compelling for the average voter to choose to add another 1% sales tax to an already high burden.  Add to that the fact that Fulton County and DeKalb County have already taxed themselves 1% for decades for local transportation.

[It should be noted that former Mayor Massell, although he is unsure of the possibility of this tax's passage, is sure that such a tax is necessary.  Please see his op-ed, "Mass transit brings freedom" in the January 17, 2012 edition of the AJC.  Also, please see John Sherman's Q&A, "More feasibility research needed" in the same edition. ro'c]

Regardless, when the subject of Atlanta traffic comes to mind, this is the poster child:

However, the hard reality of this situation is two-fold.

• We could add 50 lanes of highway in each direction and it would eventually look like this again during rush-hours each weekday and on game days.
• Many of the people stuck in this traffic do not vote in elections held in Atlanta; they’re from someplace else.  Besides the suburbanites, this traffic is filled with people driving to Florida.  They’re from the snow-belt, and they don’t vote in Atlanta.  Or they’re driving a tractor-trailer truck making a local delivery (or, just as likely, sneaking through the center of town to shave off an hour of drive time, even with the backed up traffic).

No.  By leaving transit decisions in the hands of local politicians, the inevitable outcome was a melange of projects designed to garner local political support.  People driving from the snow belt will never see one of our local elected best snipping a ribbon at the opening of a new highway.  Nor will they care.  Much less vote for them.

The voters themselves have apparently signaled that they view this process as bogus and will presumably respond appropriately when the transit tax comes to a vote.  The elected class also seems to understand that things are going awry.  There is talk of change in the air, and with the State General Assembly beginning its annual session, there may be change.

We need leadership on this issue.  In part this leadership needs to be cheer leading for transportation improvements.  And those improvements need to make some sense.  If we’re being asked to tax ourselves, we need to feel that the money is being properly allocated and not going down some rat hole for the benefit of some politician’s brother-in-law.

Everybody talks transparency, but delivering it is much harder.  We need to overcome our problem with reaching consensus about political matters.   In our information age, reaching agreement about political matters has become problematic at all levels of governance.

In this case, we need leadership to address a problem which is killing Atlanta, one rush hour at a time.

*****

Our world is filled with unintentional consequences, of actions taken in good faith that result in unplanned events.  Certainly, the United States Tax Code, currently around 16,000 pages long, is an excellent example.  Every time Congress “fixes” one problem in the Code, creative individuals come up with some new way to bypass it.  Likewise, consider this earlier blog about the effects of MARTA on downtown Atlanta.

There are numerous other examples of unintended consequences.  Kudzu comes to mind.  For those who are not from around here, kudzu is the vine that ate the South, originally brought in for erosion control.  Other examples of unintended consequences include the scene which followed the opening inning of 10¢ Beer Night in Cleveland.  Or the free Frisbee night at one ball park, where the Frisbees were handed out to the first 20,000 attendees, as they came into the park.  Baseball can be a slow game; placing flying disks into the hands of potentially bored patrons just added to the mayhem.

At the heart of any unintended consequence is the notion that such an outcome was not deliberate.  Yet, Atlanta’s Perimeter Highway, I-285, is a monument to unanticipated outcomes.  What started out as a beneficial highway project also resulted in a chasmic divide between people in the Atlanta region.  And there are moments when you have to wonder if it wasn’t an opportunistic motive that was deliberate.

It has been opined that the world is divided into two groups; there are those that divide people into two groups and those that don’t.  All sophistry aside, we often find ourselves being grouped into some sort of identifiable entity.  Men and women, for example.  Republicans and Democrats.  Conservatives and liberals.  Vegetarians and omnivores.  Sports enthusiasts seem to be especially prone to this issue; Georgia versus Georgia Tech for example.  Sometimes it takes on geopolitical tones, such as along the border between Illinois and Wisconsin.  No need to repeat their colorful terms, but eventually things evolve into “Us” and “Them”.

In some cases, having a group identity is helpful to us, but in other cases, one group is “identified” for the purposes of manipulation or discrimination.  There’s a lot of that going on right now for political purposes.  And more than a little of that is being used to create fear for political gain.  It’s not pretty under any circumstances, and it is this notion of division that stands in the way of Atlanta coming to some sort of reasonable decision about whether to tax itself for transportation projects or not.

There was a time when the State of Georgia was solidly under the rule of the Democratic Party.  You have to be really old to remember what it was like.  The process of political change began in the 1960′s, with a Republican candidate for Governor,  Bo Callaway.  At that time, his candidacy was an oddity.  In fact, being a Republican was, in itself, an oddity.  Yet the political tectonic plates have slowly shifted, with Georgia slowly turning into what we now call a red state.  Mind you, it’s the same politicians in many cases, it is just that party loyalties have changed.

That said, I-285 (Atlanta’s Perimeter Highway) is likely to be an example of unintended consequences that have been put to political use.  Completed in the late 1960′s, the Perimeter now clearly serves to define the Atlanta region.  Locals refer to someone as being ITP (Inside the Perimeter) or OTP (Outside the Perimeter).  And there are a lot of cultural differences that have resulted.

As a progressive friend recently observed about the redistricting of our neighborhood into a probable Republican district: “I’ve always kind of regarded living inside the perimeter as living on a reservation for liberals in a conservative state“.   Yet, small fingers of red are working their way ITP.   Now, there’s even a Wal-Mart inside the Perimeter.

Consider the map of  MARTA’s heavy rail rapid transit lines:

It is no coincidence that almost all of the MARTA heavy rail lines are inside I-285; one short length extends outside to the Perimeter Mall area, as it is with a shorter line extended outside to Indian Creek.  It’s not a coincidence because a heavy rail project such as MARTA requires extensive Federal political support.  And such political support is at the whim of the political ruling class.  Federal support for such a transit project means political patronage, labor unions and labor intensive operations.  In short, a massive amount of spending to reward political support.  And, oh by the way, also providing favored political groups with services not available to others.  And the construction of projects such as MARTA’s useless Green Line, built to satisfy a constituency that no longer exists.

This is not to say that those outside of I-285 actually wanted MARTA in the first place.  Nope.  They had a chance to vote for it in the 1960′s, and turned it down flat, which points to a political divide that was simply formalized by the construction of I-285.  It is interesting to look at the original conception of the MARTA system, drawn up in the 1970′s.

MARTA as originally conceived

You will note that several of the heavy rail lines were designed to extend out into the suburbs of Atlanta.  In part, this was based upon the notion that Atlanta is the center of the world, an idea not necessarily shared by all living in the region.  Of course, it did not turn out that way because of the cultural differences between ITP and OTP.  Those ITP have been paying 1% for MARTA since the 1970′s; those OTP have not.

But that’s ancient history.  Now, the big challenge for the Atlanta region is that everybody is being asked to vote for a regional transportation sales tax.  And, as of this writing, there has yet to be a clear voice of support for the proposed transportation projects because the projects themselves reflect the individual tastes of those ITP and OTP.  Inside, the major project, the Beltline, looks like an urban renewal project.  Outside, the emphasis is upon road construction,  Connections to the center of Atlanta via light rail lines have been vocally opposed.  It is the same region with two different voices.

And until there is a clear compelling voice of support, the probability for passage of this tax remains unclear.  At this writing, there is too much that divides us and not enough that reminds us all that transportation really matters for Atlanta.

Downtown Rockton, Illinois

Rockton, Illinois

Rockton is a small town (population 7,685) located in the Rock River Valley in northern Illinois.  It’s a pretty town on the normally placid Rock River.  In past years, Rockton was the site of the Wagon Wheel Resort, started by the late Walt Williamson in 1936 as a gas station and restaurant.  It grew into an over 300 acre resort:

Like so many other things, the Wagon Wheel survived because of the entrepreneurial leadership and personality of one person.  When Williamson died in 1975, the resort began a slow decline.  By the later 1990′s, it was a sad abandoned site.  Curtains hung out of broken windows.  Piles of debris were everywhere.  Arsonist vandals had taken a liking to the place; there were several mysterious fires.

The Wagon Wheel at the End

The City of Rockton finally was able to demolish the structures which remained on the site.  A vision had made this place alive and when that visionary passed on from this life, the idea finally died.

A New Start

Now, on the top of the highest hill of the Wagon Wheel site stands a modern-day structure:

This 30,000 square foot building is in the architectural style of our day, with clean lines and large windows.  But when you approach the building, you discover that it is empty, abandoned as was the Wagon Wheel before it.

You draw close to the entrance.  The sign on front says “fatwallet.com”:

Fatwallet.com

The building is empty, but there is the hum of HVAC machinery.  Inside, everything is tidy, but there are no people, no furniture, nothing but the structure itself.  It is in a beautiful place:

Fairness

Why would a company leave a place such as this?  FatWallet.com is still in business, but left Rockton, Illinois as a result of a stroke of a pen on March 10, 2010.  On that date, Illinois Governor Pat Quin signed the Illinois state version of the Main Street Fairness Act.  To wit: 

Under the new law, called the Main Street Fairness Act, online retailers must collect and remit sales taxes on purchases made by Illinois residents if the online retailer has a physical presence in the state. The new law expands the meaning of “physical presence” beyond a warehouse, factory or office to include affiliate companies, typically deal and coupon website operators that earn commissions for directing shopping traffic to an online store.

And:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that companies without a physical presence in a state aren’t required to collect state sales taxes.

And:

Amazon, based in Seattle, sent a letter to its affiliates in Illinois [including FatWallet] on Thursday telling them that the company will terminate their contracts April 15. Its affiliates will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com or SmallParts.com, the letter said.

Needless to say, Illinois’ interpretation of “physical presence” has been expanded.   FatWallet, faced with a loss of revenue, quickly resolved the issue by moving two miles away into Beloit, Wisconsin.  Wisconsin does not charge a  similar sales tax.

FatWallet.com

To quote FatWallet.com’s founder, Tim Storm: ““We exist to help people save money.”  In so many ways, FatWallet is the classic start-up, begun in its founder’s basement in nearby Rockford with capital of $100.00 (the cost of a domain name for three years).  Along the way, the business was built up into what it is today.  The company started with one employee, and now has around 60 employees.  Those people brought money into the local economy, paid taxes, added value.  Their story is here.

In the larger sense, start-up companies such as FatWallet exist because they are willing to look at things in a different way.  The company happened to do so at the right moment.  At the same time, the State of Illinois was in its own process of expansion by increasing taxes.  More than a few companies including Caterpillar are making plans.  The increases in taxes also affected individuals.

How you feel about these moves depends upon your political perspective, but what many politicians are unwilling to acknowledge is the fact that people are not necessarily going to sit there quietly and pay those new taxes.  It is not against the law to minimize your tax exposure; there are countless estate planners who work very hard at this every day.  Lawyers are standing by, too.  In short, if the tax situation becomes unfavorable, people will respond by either lowering their exposure or by moving.  FatWallet moved to another state.

Hidden Taxes

You can’t turn around without running into hidden taxes.  Every time you rent a car, or stay in a motel, there are little fees and taxes enacted by local governments.  At the same time, you have no elective voice in the governments which have enacted these taxes.  You simply return the car at the airport, get on a plane to leave (paying more taxes along the way) and go home.

The notion of state taxation of interstate commerce has now moved to the national level courtesy of Dick Durbin, Senior Senator from the great State of Illinois.  The proposed law’s name, as was the State’s law, is the “Main Street Fairness Act”.  It sounds so wholesome.  You can just see it in your mind’s eye.

• Ed, the town’s pharmacist is out in front rolling down the canvas awning of his store.  Miss Primm, the town’s librarian says hi to him as she walks to work.  Down the street, Flo dusts the books on the shelves of her little shop, while Buddy sweeps out his hardware store.  Jim and Earnest sit on nail kegs playing checkers out in front of the barbershop.
  

Even the Senator is joining in the fun:

Senator Durbin at Work

It needs to be fair for the good folks of Main Street! 

Like so many other political fantasies, you do need to take this sort of thing with a grain of salt.  Or three.  Consider that big stores like Wal-Mart actively support the Main Street Fairness Act because they are both brick & mortar and online.  As opposed to Amazon, that is only online, selling interstate and not paying taxes to the state governments.   Is this fair?  Your call, but when tax collections go up, the money has to come from somewhere.  And there are consequences to tax increases.

In the larger sense, FatWallet is simply a pawn in the game of life, but the pawns are truly the most useful players because they determine the strategic flavor of a game.  A well placed pawn can help win a game, a poorly placed one will lead to quick defeat.

FatWallet is part of a larger process of how we obtain goods and how we look at our world.  They are nimble and able to change their business model to reflect the needs of a free market.  And they generate jobs and related income at a time when we most need it.  While not big in the financial sense, FatWallet and other such operations are giving people information which helps them save money.  And money not spent on one thing can be spent on something else.  Or saved for future use.

There is a downside to having so much information available, but the process started before the Internet.  In the movie “You’ve Got Mail“, the tiny soulful little children’s bookstore gets eaten up by the big evil megastore.  A lot of the little book stores have fallen by the wayside because of big brick & mortar stores such as Barnes & Noble and Borders.  Yet, even the big, bad super bookstores are now feeling the pinch, too.  And it wasn’t necessarily the Internet that did it.  You have to acknowledge that popular tastes change with time.  A free market changes.

Crony Capitalism 

While a free market changes in response to demand, there are a lot of forces out there trying to push things one way or another.  We live in confusing times, and there are a lot of special interests out there who are playing everything for what it’s worth.  Yet, we as a society have relied upon the for-profit entrepreneurs to affect change.  And for the government to largely stay out of the way while they did it.

Consider that if movie theater owners in the 1950′s had been able to limit their competition, there might not be television.  At least not television as we know it.  Likewise, if there had not been Ted Turner, there might still just be ABC, CBS and NBC and boring “educational TV”.  I trust the free market to handle things better than I trust a small group of politicians who are being constantly pulled in different directions by special interest lobbyists waving money at them.

This is not to say that the market always makes the right decision.  The war between the 1980′s video formats of Betamax and VHS is an example.  While Betamax was technically superior in video quality, it was VHS which won the market place.  There were a number of reasons why, including the presence of pornography on VHS, yet however wrong it might have been, the market spoke eloquently.  Now, upon sufficient reflection, video tape seems so, uhh, 20th Century.  The free market moves on.

For years, while the economic bubbles were swelling, we heard the mantra “There must be reward for risks taken.”  Now, however, when the risks turned around and started biting these “entrepreneurs”, they have fled to the government to bail them out.  Rather than accept that the risks they had taken were unjustified which led to their financial losses, they now have sought the taxpayer to make their investment pay.  They now try to stifle the actions of a free market.

Likewise, the clear line between private enterprise and public service has been blurred, if not erased.  People work in government service for a few years, then hop right over to industries that they once regulated.  Or people work in private enterprise, make a bunch of money, contribute to a candidate and then they miraculously get a nice government posting.  This has been going on for years, with both political parties, but now it seems that people make big political contributions and now become vendors to the government.  Or get big loans from government agencies to support their private businesses.  This is not right, and most everybody knows it, but the practice continues.

People who read these pages know that I’m a private-capital, free-market guy.  Not that its been all that easy in recent years, but I continue on, probably because I’m not all that bright.  I trust a free market to provide the best answers.

If an idea is a bad one, it needs to fail.  If an idea is a good one, it needs to succeed.  FatWallet appears to be a good idea for the moment.  When confronted with unnecessary governmental interference, it responded in a perfectly legal way.  The State of Illinois saw yet another opportunity to raise revenue, yet the consequence of its actions may prove to generate even less revenue.  Time will tell.  Perhaps one day, all of the states will be collecting taxes for activity that has taken place in another state, but it hasn’t happened yet.  And if that day comes, how many entrepreneurs will simply move to another venue?  Or not produce at all?

And, in related news, the VC (Venture Capitalists, not the Viet Cong) have discovered FatWallet.com.  The company was purchased in early September by Ebates.

When words elude, leave it to the Austin Lounge Lizards to fill it in:

Artist's Conception

Popular tastes change.  Sometimes they change because people want to do something differently.  In other cases, change is helped along by unseen hands.  Consider downtown Atlanta.

There was a time when downtown Atlanta was a vibrant place.  Then there was a time when it was decidedly not a vibrant place.  In my recent visits to downtown, all one of them, it seems to be alive again, but with an entirely different cast of characters.  Where once it was the local populace of Atlanta, now it appears to be those who are visiting from other places.  Things change.  A local saying was: “Then grits ain’t groceries and Peachtree don’t go to town.”  For most residents of Atlanta, Peachtree no longer goes to town.  Why should it when every neighborhood in Atlanta has any number of fine restaurants, grocery stores, theaters and just about everything else that a soul needs?  Yes, traffic patterns change, but the change in downtown Atlanta’s personality was helped along by an unintended consequence.

There was a time when the paper bus transfer played a key role in downtown Atlanta’s daily life.

Bus Transfer

The above slip of paper comes to us from the City of Cincinnati, but every town with more than one trolley or bus line had them.  The idea was that you got on the bus to ride across town to a destination, but this required riding on two different buses.  So, when you got on the first bus, you paid your fare and asked for a transfer.  This from the Roanoke bus system:

• Transferring to Another Bus Route

1. Free transfer slips are available for passengers who need to take more than one bus route to reach their destination. Ask the operator on your first bus for the transfer slip when you pay your fare.
2. The transfer slip is good for 30 minutes after the time your first bus reaches the end of its route.  This transfer slip is only valid at our Campbell Court transfer center, or at a connecting end-of-the bus line.

Bus Transfers

Notice the phrase “The transfer slip is good for 30 minutes after the time your first bus reaches the end of its route.”  So, you get to downtown Atlanta, where your first bus terminates.  You’ve got twenty minutes before your continuing bus arrives.  Or, perhaps, a bit longer.  In many cases, bus drivers could be persuaded to extend the life span of the bus transfer by merely slipping it just a bit further down before tearing it off.  You’ve got plenty of time.  What to do?

For many years, in downtown Atlanta you ducked into little grocery stores, or food shops, or a tailoring shop, or a watch repair shop, or a bank.  Lots of shops.  At that time, downtown Atlanta was alive because it was the center of commercial activity.  In addition to the tall buildings with lawyers and business executives, Atlanta was alive with the vibrancy of an active community of small businesses.

The unintended consequence came when the MARTA heavy rail system was built.  Once the system grew into its present state, buses which used to go all the way into town now were routed into the various rail stations of the system.  Bus transfers are still issued, but where once the point of transfer occurred in downtown Atlanta, it now occurs at a distant MARTA station.  The people that were once in downtown Atlanta because of bus transfers now ride underneath the streets through downtown.  Under the place where stores used to be.

It was probably nothing deliberate on the part of the system’s designers.  And the decay of the old downtown Atlanta was already well under way when MARTA came to town, but I’m old enough to remember a little French restaurant on a side street in what we now call Fairlie-Poplar.  It was Emile’s, and it is long gone.  Paul Hemphill declared his independence from the newspaper there.  Like so many other institutions in downtown Atlanta, Emile’s went away.  It is highly unlikely that Emile’s relied upon the paper bus transfer in the first place.  It wasn’t that kind of restaurant.  But the vibrant downtown Atlanta scene that once was has changed because the bus transfer traffic went away.

Speaking of political dynamics, DeKalb County is, as usual, in a political uproar.  This time, it’s about transportation funding.  As we approach the October 15th “deadline” for agreement on the proposed transportation projects, a squabble has broken out over rail transit in South DeKalb.  The most recent coverage is here.  The central issue appears to be:

• Chief Executive Burrell Ellis wants to fully fund the $522 million project by pulling money from a popular road project in north Fulton County. A county commissioner has countered that the county should instead cut back spending on another rail line in central DeKalb.

Actually, cutting back spending “on another rail line in central DeKalb” is a very good idea.  The “another rail line” is the Emory Shuttle line, and it could use some cutting.  I wrote about this earlier, but it’s worth repeating:

Consider the Emory Shuttle project.  There had been background discussions about building a shuttle line from the MARTA Lindbergh Station to Emory University.  Perfectly fine, especially if you have recently tried to find a parking space in the Emory area.  Any parking space.

In its first public appearance, Kyle Wingfield reported:

• For a combination heavy- and light-rail line from the Lindbergh MARTA station to Emory University, $92 million per mile.

Fine enough.  It’s about 4 miles, so 4 x 92M = $376 Million.  The number did make me curious, so I contacted a friend who had retired from a management position in the track department of a major railroad.  How much does it cost for a mile of railroad track?

His reply:  “Attached is an estimate form for track construction costs in 2009, probably pretty close today’s cost considering the economy.  What are you building? “  Let’s face it, we don’t go down to the corner store and buy a mile of track every day.  Since I know that you’re curious, the 2009 bid for a mile of track came in at $1,159, 352.00 per mile.  Property acquisition, bridge construction, signals, support buildings, locomotives & cars not included.

So, how did we get from $1,159, 352.00 per mile to $92 million per mile?  But wait, there’s more.  Now that MARTA has become involved, the cost has blossomed to $700,000,000.00 (or about $175 million per mile).  If you don’t believe me, it’s project TIA‐M‐028 on the “constrained” list.

What is interesting is the fact that the original plan cited by Wingfield was $92 Million per mile, but if you look across the county line at the Beltline projects, they come in at about $66 Million per mile (the east side line) and $80 Million per mile (the west side line).  And, $92 Million can possibly be justified because the Emory Shuttle line will have several bridge structures, which are costly.

MARTA has two tools in their kit; heavy rail and bus service.  There already is bus service to the Emory area, which wends and twists its way from one heavy rail station, through Emory and then twists its way to another heavy rail station.  And, apparently, it has never occurred to MARTA to create an express bus service from the nearest heavy rail station directly to the Emory area.  This is just further evidence that MARTA has evolved into a bureaucracy that has difficulty doing anything quickly.

By bringing in MARTA, the cost of the project has easily doubled, and we’re just talking about the estimated costs.  Just wait until they start pouring concrete.  The point being that MARTA has all sorts of attendant costs that a simpler design would not.  There are any number of things that will add to the cost of a MARTA heavy rail line to Emory.  All sorts of things.  There will, of course, need to be artwork:

Art

There will be countless studies, compliance officers, sub-contractor documentation, impact studies and much, much more.  This is not to say that a $93 Million per mile project doesn’t have such things, but the proportions get much bigger with a heavy rail line.  And, if you want art, there are lots of free-lancers out there with spray cans that are eager to help.

This is a classic case of mission creep.  Where something starts off at one level and then everybody starts piling on.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  Consider the Princeton University “Dinky”:

One train, traveling three miles, from the four track, high-speed NE Corridor:

The "Dinky" at Princeton Junction

Through the woods to Princeton University:

Right to the edge of campus:

Princeton University Station

Since it is the only train on the line, the Princeton Dinky only needs signals at street grade crossings.  It is not a high-speed train, merely a system which takes people from point A to point B, from the high speed trains of the NE Corridor to the ivied corridors of a major university.

Woodrow Wilson and Albert Einstein rode the Princeton Dinky.  And it doesn’t take a nuclear physicist to figure out that an Emory Shuttle doesn’t need to be $700,000,000.00 undertaking.

The design of HB 277: Transportation Funding virtually assures the give and take of political discussion.  It is the politicians who are deciding which projects are going to be on Atlanta’s list, but it will be the voters who decide if they’ve done a good job. In the language of the day, we no longer use the term “spending”, now it’s “investment.”  As in the Transportation Investment Act of 2010.  And, we don’t use the term “1% sales tax”, it’s a “penny sales tax”.  As in “For pennies a day, you can support a stalled commuter  in Atlanta.“  But I digress.

It’s a daunting reality, since I will be voting on projects in places that I do not know.  And others from places that I do not know will be voting on projects that affect me.  As a resident of the Brookhaven Free State (north DeKalb County), I do take an interest in some of these projects, even though they do not directly improve my life.  The Atlanta Beltline is one such issue, and I’ve covered parts of it earlier.  The original concept of the Beltline was that of a continuous ring around the City of Atlanta.  Built in splendid isolation, the line would not connect to any other line.  There would be no street running.  From the beginning, the line was a gauzy combination of park, running trail, electric railroad and urban development plan.  Reality was bound to stick its head in eventually, but I respect what the Beltline planners were able to accomplish, which is to get Atlanta to think about its transportation structure.

In my opinion, the first phase of the Beltline should have been constructed from the Lindbergh station complex down to DeKalb Avenue.  Doing so would connect two MARTA heavy rail lines with Ansley Park, the Botanical Gardens, Piedmont Park, Grady High School, whatever they’re calling the old Sears building on Ponce, the new 4th Ward Park, the Carter Center and lots of residences along the way.

Of course, that would never do.  Out of respect for the political implications, the City of Atlanta’s leadership has broken the Beltline project up into two parts.  There will be a short segment of about 2 miles on the east side of Atlanta.  And there will be a short segment of about 3 miles on the west side, along with another short segment of about 2 miles that connects the west side to the Atlanta Streetcar Project.

The cars used on the Beltline will probably similar to this Charlotte car:

Siemens S70 Type

The plan is to share storage and maintenance facilities with the Atlanta Streetcar project.  Because these cars ride on flanged wheels rather than rubber tires, getting them out to the Beltline requires rail lines.  For the east side Beltline, a 0.7 mile-long right of way runs from the Beltline along Irwin Street and Jackson Street, connecting to the Atlanta Streetcar at the corner of Jackson and Auburn.

In addition to the Beltline trackage itself (2.6 miles), the west side line requires a connection to the rest of the system.  So the west side of the Beltline project will continue, operating on D. L. Hollowell Parkway to Northside Drive, then to North Avenue, ending at the North Avenue MARTA Station (2.2 miles).  A short segment (.7 miles) connects the west side line to the Atlanta Streetcar line at Centennial Park.  Here, the specifics of these two projects, complete with breathless bureaucratic prose:

TIA-AT-004

The red line is the Beltline right of way, the yellow line is the connector line to the Atlanta Streetcar project.  Here’s the pitch from the promoters:

This project will improve rail transit access to multiple regional employment and activity centers, including downtown Atlanta, by extending the TIGER II‐funded streetcar to the northeast Atlanta BeltLine corridor. The project includes the construction of a streetcar line with stations approximately every ½ mile and 10 years of operations and maintenance funding. It also includes upgrades to the TIGER II‐funded streetcar light maintenance facility at Edgewood Avenue and I‐75/85 as necessary to support a larger vehicle fleet. This project is included in the Atlanta BeltLine Redevelopment Plan, Connect Atlanta Plan, and PLAN 2040. The project begins at the eastern terminus of the TIGER II‐funded streetcar and proceeds through the King Historic District to join the BeltLine corridor at Edgewood Avenue or Irwin Street. The alignment follows the Atlanta BeltLine corridor across North Highland Avenue, SR 10 (Freedom Parkway), North Avenue and US 78/278 (Ponce De Leon Avenue). It terminates north of the intersection of 10th Street and Monroe Drive, which is the southeast corner of Piedmont Park. The project connects Centennial Olympic Park, Downtown Atlanta, Georgia State University, Inman Park Village, Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, Peachtree Center MARTA Station, Piedmont Park, Ponce City Market (AKA City Hall East), The Carter Center, and Woodruff Park.

The observant will notice that they’ve squeezed in some money for the Atlanta Streetcar Project in the form of improvements for the yet-to-be built service facility which will be located under the Downtown Connector.  In any case, the hard numbers: $173,941,758.

•  Total Mileage: 2.6 miles
• Cost per mile: $66,644,351.

TIA-AT-007

The red line is the Beltline right of way itself, the green line is the necessary connection to the balance of the streetcar system, which will be a revenue generating route.  The yellow line is the connector line to the Atlanta Streetcar project.  And, the breathless prose:

This project will improve rail transit access to multiple regional employment and activity centers, including downtown and midtown Atlanta, by extending the TIGER II‐funded funded streetcar to the southwest Atlanta BeltLine corridor. The project includes the construction of a streetcar line with stations approximately every ½ mile, an infill station on the MARTA Green Line and 10 years of operations and maintenance funding. It also includes upgrades to the TIGER II‐funded streetcar light maintenance facility at Edgewood Avenue and I‐75/85 as necessary to support a larger vehicle fleet or a new light maintenance facility on the west side of Atlanta. This project is included in the Atlanta BeltLine Redevelopment Plan, Connect Atlanta Plan, and PLAN 2040. The alignment begins at the intersection of SR 139 (Ralph David Abernathy) and Cascade Avenue and follows the Atlanta BeltLine corridor north across I‐20, Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive and Joseph E. Boone Boulevard. At US 78/278 (Donald L. Hollowell Parkway), the alignment transitions to the street and follows US 78/278 (Donald L. Hollowell Parkway, Northside Drive and North Avenue) east to Luckie Street. At this point, the line splits with one branch turning south on Luckie Street to connect to the TIGER II‐funded streetcar at Centennial Olympic Park and the other branch continuing east on US 78/278 (North Avenue) to the North Avenue MARTA Station. The project includes an infill station on the MARTA Green Line at Joseph E. Boone Boulevard. The project connects Centennial Olympic Park, Downtown Atlanta, Georgia Aquarium, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia State University, Historic West End, Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, Midtown Atlanta, Peachtree Center MARTA Station, the Coca‐Cola Company headquarters, Washington Park, Woodruff Park and the World of Coca‐Cola.

The cost, tag, tax and dealer prep:  $427,950,719.

• Total mileage: about 5.4
• Cost per mile: $80,283,673.

The cost per mile for this project is higher because of all the street trackage.  One interesting addition is the “ infill station on the MARTA Green Line at Joseph E. Boone Boulevard.”  At this location, the Beltline right of way is occupied by the underutilized MARTA Green Line, so they’ll have to have parallel trackage because the Beltline cars and the MARTA cars are not compatible.  Since there will be track work built in close proximity to the MARTA line, they might as well build a station there.  Of course, it’s only 3/4 of a mile down the track to the Bankhead station on both lines, so you wonder why they’re building this.

As I said at the outset, my sentiments are toward the construction of a longer segment somewhere, rather than a series of shorter disjointed segments everywhere.  But that’s not the way the politics plays out.  And this is all about politics.  Also, there’s a lot of dewy-eyed optimism here, especially for the North Avenue to Bankhead Station segment.  You can just hear the promoters sighing “If you Build it, They Will Come“.  This quote comes from Field of Dreams, and it is helpful to remember that the movie was a work of fiction that centers on the absolute improbability of the events shown in it.  Say what you will, the political process that accompanies this vote, however messy, at least exposes proposed projects to the scrutiny of those who will be paying for it.

The bigger questions remain unanswered.  What is the intent of the Transportation Investment Act?  Does the Beltline fit into this intent?  How long will it take for the Beltline projects to have an effect upon Atlanta traffic?

A couple days ago, there were two op-ed pieces in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which I covered, here.  The subject centered on the Atlanta Beltline, which has a decided interest in the money collected by the proposed sales tax for the Atlanta region.  In one corner, mayor of the City of Atlanta Kasim Reed; in the other corner, mayor of the City of Sandy Springs, Eva Galambos.  In her op-ed piece, Galambos stated:

A close examination of the Beltline website maps reveals an astounding fact: Not a single segment of the proposed Beltline intersects the MARTA system at MARTA stations.

As it turns out, that wasn’t exactly right.  In today’s AJC, Thomas Weyandt, Jr., Senior Policy Adviser For Transportation in Mr. Reed’s office, called her on that statement.  As it turns out, there are now three proposed connections to MARTA.  They are, according to Mr. Weyandt, located at North Avenue station, Peachtree Center station and Joseph E. Boone Boulevard.  By the way, I had to look it up, but Joseph E. Boone Boulevard used to be called Simpson Road.  I’m not sure where the MARTA connection is on Boone Boulevard; it is possible that Mr. Weyandt is thinking of the MARTA Green Line station on Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway.  (If you’re curious, that used to be Bankhead Highway…).

In any case, Ms. Galambos’ confusion is understandable.  I took the very interesting Beltline tour a couple years ago and at that point there was only one planned MARTA interface, at the Lindbergh Station complex.  During the tour, it became apparent that there were several other interesting problems that the designers were still wrestling with.  For example, there is no clear route between DeKalb Avenue and Memorial Drive due to the substantial presence of a railroad yard.  Another example is the stretch between the Water Works and Lindbergh Station.  Likewise, the Beltline will be operating near but not connected to at least two MARTA stations, one at West End and at Ashby.

Also apparent at that time was the fact that the Beltline system designers were dead-set against street running; that is, they did not want the Beltline’s cars going down city streets.  There’s a reason why:

In subsequent months, things have changed somewhat, but there has been precious little publicity of the changes.  Likewise, there are still issues.  Take a look at the maps for the Beltline, recently downloaded from the web site.

• The orange lines are the Beltline Corridor
• The yellow lines are MARTA heavy rail track
•  The blue lines are the route of the Beltline driving tour
• Black lines are walking and bicycling paths
•  The gray line inside the orange line is the likely rail right of way
  

Consider these issues:

Inman Park / Reynoldstown Station

The presence of the CSX Intermodal Container Freight yard is an intimidating problem.  Only the famous Krog Street tunnel goes underneath the main body of the yard.  In looking at recent Beltline maps on their website, it appears that some of the problems are being addressed.  Note, below, that the Beltline Corridor, but not the track, has been extended up to the Reynoldstown side of the MARTA station.

Corridor Connection to Inman Park/Reynoldstown

At the same time, the exact routing of the Beltline right of way in this area is still not established.  And is unlikely to be established any time soon.

West End Station

So, too, the Beltline right of way goes near, but does not connect to the MARTA station at West End:

West End

Ashby Station

Continuing northward from the West End neighborhood, the Beltline misses Ashby Station, too:

Ashby Station

So, what about Mr. Weyandt’s statement that the Beltline connects to MARTA at Joseph E. Boone Boulevard?  Here’s the map of the locality:

Bankhead Station

Note that while the Beltline Corridor bicycle path connects Bankhead Station to the Westside Reservoir Park, the actual rail component of the Beltline is several blocks away from the Bankhead MARTA station.  Also, substantial bridge and street work is already being performed at the corner of Marietta Boulevard and D. L. Hollowell.  Presumably the Beltline right of way has been incorporated into the design.

[Note:  Subsequently, I discovered that there is a station planned for the intersection of the Beltline and the MARTA Green Line at Boone Boulevard.  At that point, the Green Line occupies the Beltline right of way, which means that the Beltline will have a new parallel right of way at that location.  So, they have planned to build a station at this location which will interface with MARTA.  The larger question is ignored, however.  The 1.5 mile long stand-alone section of the Green Line will have three stations located within .75 miles of each other.  This is a service density worthy of downtown, serving 50-storey buildings, not a residential neighborhood such as the area that the Green Line serves.  RO'C]

And, what about the connections at North Avenue station and Peachtree Center station?  The Peachtree Center Station connection is actually part of the new streetcar line from Centennial Park to the King Memorial Center, discussed here.  And the North Avenue Station?  It is miles from the Beltline corridor.

North Avenue Station (Center)

There is a semantic issue here.  Does having the Beltline Corridor constitute a connection to MARTA even though the Beltline cars will not stop at the MARTA stations?  While Ms. Galambos might be wrong about the Beltline’s connections to MARTA, she does point to another interesting issue.  Just what, exactly, is the Beltline project?  Is it transportation or is it urban renewal?

In an AJC Article, Reed hits back at Beltline critics, there is this statement:

But ridership and traffic mitigation were never touted as the main goals of the Beltline, Reed said. Instead, they were job creation, economic development and quality of life. The project is intended to make pedestrian lifestyles in the corridor more feasible and attractive, and thus attract denser growth like condos and office buildings to increase economic development. Reed noted that supporting economic growth was established as a primary goal for project selection, as approved by the roundtable, and that the Beltline was approved as an eligible project.

The proposed sales tax is supposed to enable the Transportation Investment Act.  How much of what we call the Beltline is actually transportation?

In the next few days, a closer look at the two Beltline components of the proposed tax.

The City of Atlanta has always been rather proud of itself.  Tall buildings, a big airport on the south side of town, arts, entertainment and cuisine.  In so many ways, Atlanta offers a dose of sin for those deprived individuals who are not fortunate enough to call the City of Atlanta as home.  The City even promotes itself that way, “The ATL” and all that.  It’s like we’re a giant Stuckeys on the Interstate of Life.  “See the Two-Headed Calf!  The ATL Only 20 Miles”.  “Chenille Bedspreads.  The ATL Only 15 Miles”.  You get the picture.

Needless to say, this high opinion is not always shared by everybody, and there’s more than a little resentment from those outside of The ATL.  And, in some cases, the City of Atlanta serves as a cautionary tale who view us as a second-rate Gomorrah.  They’ve got due cause; consider that in the 1960′s the suburbanites would drive into town with their kids to stare at the hippies collected at 10th & Peachtree.

[Photo courtesy: Boyd Lewis]

So, in a few words, the City of Atlanta is both a source of entertainment and a source of irritation, all at once.  But, our view of the world is a bit shaded, like the “Map of New York”:

And Atlanta’s not even on their map.

So, the City of Atlanta’s view of the world can be pretty self-centered.  For example, consider today’s editorial page of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, in which the current mayor, Mr. Kasim Reed, avers that the Atlanta Beltline project is a regional transportation project and worthy of receiving funding from the proposed regional transportation tax.  To wit:

The Atlanta Beltline, with its direct routes into the heart of the city, provides critical last-mile connectivity to major activity and employment destinations in the downtown and Midtown business districts such as Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, CNN, the Georgia World Congress Center and Piedmont Park. There are more than 100,000 jobs within a quarter mile of these transit routes. In combination with other critical investments on the list, Atlanta’s transit project will strengthen the region’s core.

Key to this statement is the unspoken assumption that the MARTA heavy-rail system is a regional transportation system.  Which it currently is not.  Because of a variety of issues, MARTA remains a city system that might one day become a regional system.  It is not there yet.  Consider this statement from “Sales Tax Boosters Press for Transit Overhaul” (Atlanta Business Chronicle, September 16-22, 2011, page 2A):

Supporters of a 1-cent regional transportation sales tax are betting that downplaying the role a polarizing MARTA plays in Atlanta transit will convince voters to pass the tax referendum.

I’m a fan of the Beltline, if for no other reason than it was the project that actually got average people to seriously think about transit solutions to Atlanta’s traffic problems.  But the Beltline’s fortunes are inevitably connected to the fortunes of the MARTA heavy rail system.  And to call the Beltline a “regional solution” flies in the face of the realities.  A “regional” belt line railway solution would go from Marietta to Douglasville to Fairburn, to Jonesboro, to Conyers, to Snellville, to Lawrenceville, to Roswell and back.  Now, that’s a belt line.

Needless to say, not everybody in the 11-County regional transportation voting district are as breathless as Mayor Reed.  Consider the words of Eva Galambos, mayor of the just-slightly suburban City of Sandy Springs, who points out an inconvenient truth:

A close examination of the Beltline website maps reveals an astounding fact: Not a single segment of the proposed Beltline intersects the MARTA system at MARTA stations.

In other words, folks who will be riding whatever transit system the Beltline might eventually adopt (possibly streetcars) will not be able to get off those conveyances to transfer to MARTA trains at the MARTA stations.

Actually, the Beltline will interface with MARTA at the Lindbergh Station complex, but, overall, it’s not like we haven’t been here before.  The City of Atlanta is already enamored with another streetcar project that will do nothing to solve the Atlanta region’s traffic problems; please see here.  However good and potentially useful the Beltline project might be, it is beginning to look like just another ego-centric City of Atlanta project to the other voters for the transportation tax.

And it points to the larger fact that we as a region are being asked to vote for a lot of projects that are not in our immediate area of life.  There’s nothing right now but a lot of seemingly unrelated projects that just sort dab small solutions here and there that serve the special interests of one area or another.  As of this writing, there is no common thread that everybody in the region can fix their hopes on.    What we seek is a plan for a comprehensive solution for our region’s traffic problems.

Pacific Electric Streetcar

If you’ve seen “Who Framed Roger Rabbit“, you pretty much know the story.

If the will is not found by midnight, Toontown will be sold to Cloverleaf Industries, which recently bought the Pacific Electric system of trolley cars…..  Since he owns Cloverleaf and Acme’s will has yet to turn up, he will take control of Toontown and destroy it with a mobile Dip-sprayer to make room for a freeway, then force people to use it by dismantling the trolley fleet.

Of course, what makes this interesting is that there really was a Cloverleaf Industries that bought the 1,000 mile long Pacific Electric and dismantled it, forcing people to the freeways.  In this particular case, Hollywood got it right:

Remaining Pacific Electric passenger service was sold off in 1953 to a company known as Metropolitan Coach Lines, whose intention was to convert all rail service to bus service as quickly as possible.  Jesse Haugh, of Metropolitan Coach Lines was a former executive of Pacific City Lines which together with National City Lines and General Motors acquired local streetcar systems across the country with the intention of shutting them down and converting them to bus operation in what became known as the Great American Streetcar Scandal.

The scandal goes kind of like this:

In 1935, the Congress of the U.S. passed a law forbidding electric utility companies from operating public transportation services; this is where the conspiracy begins. A group of companies had been formed earlier to begin to buy-up these trolley companies and municipal electric railways. Once in control of these conspirators, the push was on to convert the electric systems of public conveyance to gasoline and diesel powered buses built by the lead conspirator General Motors, under a subsidiary named “Omnibus Corporation”.

GM and other companies were subsequently convicted in 1949, of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products via a complex network of linked holding companies. (Some of the convicted co-conspirators included Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California and Mack Trucks, to name a few).

It should be noted that many of the fledgling street car companies and interurban lines had originally come into being because of the electric power generating industry.  It was a natural outgrowth of their business, starting in the late 1800′s and continuing for decades until the industry fell apart in the 1929 crash.

Nor was this process of dismantling confined to Los Angeles, it happened all over the country.  Including Atlanta.  Where once there were large systems of electric powered streetcars, National City and other companies soon replaced them with buses that ran on rubber tires and used hydrocarbon-based fuel.

Students of the nation’s streetcar systems usually shrug when people discover that this really happened.  You can’t change history.  Probably the bigger question is:

• Did National City and other such companies merely respond to market conditions?
• Or, did they deliberately destroy the streetcar systems to further their own marketing goals?

It’s an interesting problem, and there’s more than a little evidence to support each position.  Certainly in post-war America, people were ready for change.  And that change was in the form of the automobile.  Likewise, the trolleys had been around forever, making them a memory of the past rather than a view of the future.  So, too, the automobile represented freedom.

The Bus Ascendant

One of the key players in the Atlanta transportation scene from the 1920′s until the 1970′s was John C. Steinmetz.

John C. Steinmetz

In so many ways, Steinmetz was Greyhound’s man in Atlanta, but it was more than that.  In addition to purchasing and disassembling the Atlanta & Northern, mentioned in my earlier blog item, Steinmetz built up a series of bus routes throughout Atlanta:

Steinmetz Bus Routes, 1950

[It should be noted that the above route map shows the city's Interstate routes, but they are there for reference only.  In 1950, there was no Interstate highway system.]

In any case, these bus routes were eventually sold in 1951 to a subsidiary company of the Atlanta Transit Company, which itself had originally been a subsidiary of Georgia Power.  At about the same time (1949), Atlanta’s streetcars had been removed from the city, replaced with electric powered buses.

Atlanta Trolley Bus

By 1963, the trolley buses (also called trackless trolleys) would be gone too, completely replaced by diesel powered buses, most of them built by a General Motors subsidiary.

An Interesting Discovery

An interesting discovery turned up during research for this blog series.  I had read the text before but had not paid attention to what I was reading.  In Jean Martin’s “Mule to MARTA, Volume II” (Atlanta Historical Society, 1977), an entire chapter is devoted to John Steinmetz.

Martin states on pages 167 and 168:

“….he consolidated his bus ventures and ultimately expanded them to provide motor coach transportation from Miami to Chicago, from Augusta to New York, and from Atlanta to Birmingham and Montgomery.  Steinmetz was ably assisted in his scheme by William B. Hartsfield, his legal counsel and close friend, who negotiated the acquisitions of the diverse jitney lines in Georgia and other states to eliminate unwanted competition.

But aside from fashioning strong bonds of friendship between the two men, their frequent business trips by the coaches of Steinmetz also planted the seeds of Hartsfield’s strong advocacy of interstate highway construction programs and his support of the replacement of electric streetcars and trackless trolleys with city buses which he later championed as mayor of the city of Atlanta”.

Yep.  It’s that  William B. Hartsfield, mayor of Atlanta from 1937 – 1941 and 1942 – 1961.  No wonder the electric powered car lines of Atlanta went away.  The fix was already in.