Brain Train on track
February 14, 2007 at 6:05 pm by Web Editor in News
Emory_1
Light snow was falling on the steps of the Capitol in the frigid cold Wednesday morning as Emory Morsberger, chairman of the Georgia Brain Train Group, yelled to the crowd, "It’s a good day to be on a warm train!"
Activists, many of them brandishing signs supporting construction of a commuter rail line emanating out from Atlanta, roared their approval.
Geoffrey Boyce, a student at the University of Georgia, said he was there to present a petition in support of the Brain Train to the governor, and to lean on his legislators. "UGA students and Athens want and need the Brain Train," Boyce said.
Leader in the fight for commuter rail, Morsberger wants lawmakers in this session to allocate $10 million, which the state Department of Transportation would get the federal government to match. The funds would enable the state to begin initial land acquisition for the station stops between Atlanta and Athens. It adds up to 152 acres, according to Paul Snyder, spokesman for the Georgia Brain Train Group.
Additionally, Morsberger wants all the parties to come together to build the multimodal train terminal envisioned for Atlanta.
"It can be up and running by 2011," Morsberger said of the Brain Train, so called because of the colleges and universities that would be linked by the commuter rail line.
Biola
Lee Biola, president of Citizens for Progressive Transit, backed up Morsberger at the microphone.
"A strong Georgia begins with investment in commuter rail today," Biola said.
And Wayne Shackelford, former commissioner of the Department of Transportation who had a reputation cast in solid asphalt as a champion of more road construction, also took a bow as he threw his support behind the Brain Train.
The Brain Train Group estimates the project will ultimately cost somewhere in the ballpark of $383 million, and that includes double tracking built on an existing right of way.
"We believe we need to keep it in the forefront and this is the way to do it," Snyder said. "There’s so much logic to it and people think it’s a foreign idea. Think Chicago. Think the Long Island Railroad."
Following the presentation by Morsberger and the signing of a big Valentine’s Day banner proclaiming everyone’s love for the Brain Train, the activists stormed the Capitol, driven double-time up the steps and into the halls of government by the intense cold.
Balfour
Anna Cherry, regional conservation organizer with the Sierra Club, found Sen. Don Balfour, R-Snellville, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee.
"We feel traffic is a quality-of-life issue," she said. "The most effective way to reduce traffic congestion is to get the cars off the roads."
"You’re preaching to the choir," Balfour said, as more activists crowded in behind Cherry and asked the lawmaker for his support.
Someone thrust into Balfour’s hands a Citizens for Progressive Transit map of what Atlanta’s "world-class transit system" could look like in the future.
He accepted it cautiously.
"What I’m saying is you have to be careful where you build the first of those spokes running a train line out of Atlanta," said Balfour, eying the dream map of arteries radiating everywhere out from Atlanta. "If you get the money to build a line and you build it and then no one rides the train, you’re not going to get the money to build the second line. But if you build that first line in the right place and people use the train, then we’re already on to the next one. That’s going to be everything."
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