So there was an election this week in which an estimated 24 percent of registered voters participated. Pretty depressing.
But there was also a ton of transit and transportation news we couldn’t get around to covering. So we present it here. Catch up time!
Dave Williams from the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports:
The State Transportation Board instructed the agency’s staff Thursday to put rail projects on its wish list for TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grants, part of the federal economic stimulus program, after learning that the department’s original list contained only highway projects.
“We don’t ever consider (rail projects) as part of our process,” board member Emory McClinton of Atlanta complained during a staff update on the DOT’s plans for federal stimulus funds. “At some point, we have to change this mentality.”
But there’s a catch. Williams has that for you at the Chronicle’s site. Some of the state’s commuter rail projects include the Athens-Atlanta-Griffin (and eventually — hopefully — on to Macon) line and the long-planned downtown train terminal proposed in the Gulch.
Terminal Station
The Infrastructurist has a great post examining some of the country’s most beautiful train stations that were demolished to make way for bland developments or parking lots.
Atlanta receives shout outs for Terminal Station and Union Station. Both buildings were razed long ago to make way for the Richard B. Russell Federal Building and a parking lot, respectively.
About Terminal Station:
Atlanta was once the largest rail crossroads in the south. Travelers could get virtually everywhere quickly and conveniently by rail. Built in 1905, Terminal was the grand portal to the city. It had two Italianate towers and a huge train shed behind. When the station was razed in 1970, it was replaced by a government office building. These days Atlanta’s intercity rail depot is a small former commuter rail station located far north of downtown, adjacent to a 16-lane highway.
For another beautiful photo of Terminal Station, visit the cleverly named Terminal Station, an Atlanta blog focused on urban issues and development.
UPDATE: A reader whose family member works in the railroad industry sends word:
The statue you see in front of the station (on the little grass island) was placed in front of the Norfolk Southern Railway office building on Peachtree St. just a few weeks ago. It’s of Samuel Spencer, the first president of the Southern Railway. The interesting part is that it was sculpted by the same artist who did the Lincoln Memorial, Daniel Chester French.
(H/T to Dominick Brady, Photo courtesy GSU via Infrastructurist)
For most of the Beltline’s history, concerns about displacement have largely focused around slowly gentrifying neighborhoods in Southeast and Southwest Atlanta. The land and homes are less expensive and ripe for the picking by a developer agog at the thought of a project near the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit.
But at Monday morning’s Atlanta City Council meeting, councilmembers heard from concerned residents who feared a plan to save a key part of the $2.8 billion project would potentially uproot them from their homes.
At yesterday’s special-called meeting, council unanimously OK’ed a deal reached by the Georgia Department of Transportation, Amtrak and Beltline officials that saved residents near the Piedmont Park the headache of high-speed trains lumbering nearby on tracks called the “Decatur Belt.” The move also saves the entire Beltline project — late last year, the city poured money into the area when it purchased the property from a Gwinnett County developer for at least $66 million.
But the vote came without some last-minute amendments thanks to Marietta Street residents who said Amtrak, GDOT and Beltline officials’ plan to save the Decatur Belt merely shifted the burden of high-speed rail on to them — and placed their homes at risk. According to rough plans presented to GDOT’s board last week, the alternate plans for high-speed rail serving Atlanta involve expanding the tracks and potentially seizing property. The buildings and lofts in which the residents could very well be some of those.
On Feb. 2, nearly 30 officials from various local, state and federal transit agencies, most of whom were locked in a bitter dispute over Beltline tracks near Piedmont Park, sat down with Congressman John Lewis’ staff in his Atlanta office. Their purpose: Let’s figure out what we’re going to do with “The Decatur Belt,” a segment of city-owned property near Piedmont Park that includes tracks vital to the Beltline project.
Officials have declined to comment on what was discussed at the meeting and how things have progressed. In a joint press release issued the day of the sitdown, agency officials said they would work toward a common solution and report progress in 30 days.
According to MARTA’s notes of the meeting, obtained by CL in an Open Records Request, some of the transportation agencies sound — contrary to many of their comments after news of the dispute broke — seemingly unsure of their options. And they really didn’t want to involve the media. What’s more, the notes suggest a disappointing — but not entirely surprising — reality: Local and state transportation agencies, at least prior to the Feb. 2 meeting, were not communicating with each other in a productive manner.
But with federal funding and millions of dollars in taxpayer and private investment on the line, the officials said they needed to figure this one out.
Download the meeting notes here. To see who attended the sitdown, download the meeting’s sign-in sheet here. UPDATE: GDOT has responded with its notes from the meeting. They’re much more detailed than MARTA’s. In them, GDOT says it wants to explore what other parts of the city would be suitable for a train terminal into which commuter rail or inter-city rail could operate. That transcript is pasted after the summary.
If you’re adverse to downloading the files, I’ve written a rather lengthy rundown of the meeting after the jump.
