ATL Urbanist

For a brighter rail-transit future, Atlanta needs the streetcar to succeed

One thing became clear about the Atlanta Streetcar route from the moment the project was announced: a lot of people, even among public-transit supporters, don’t like it.

The criticism often boils down to people opposing the very idea of using  a streetcar as a tool for developing a blighted area — particularly when there is potential use for new rail in existing areas of density and economic vibrancy.

No matter what you’re opinion of this route, or of the whole streetcar-as-development-tool concept, one thing is certain: Atlanta needs this to work. If the streetcar fails, we’ll likely face an even more uncertain future for rail expansion than we do now.

Just listen to Ryan Gravel, the visionary behind the Atlanta BeltLine, as quoted in this Atlanta Magazine piece:

The next big test, he says, actually rests on another project, the Atlanta Streetcar, which is scheduled to begin service next year through the Auburn Avenue corridor and downtown.

“The success of the streetcar is important to regional transit in general and the BeltLine in particular,” Gravel says.

Very true. It will be much harder to qualify both local political initiative and federal monetary support for additional rail — such as an extension to and eventually on the BeltLine — if the downtown streetcar fails to attract significant development and riders. The future of Atlanta rail-transit expansion could, in large part, rest on a success here.

The need for investment on this route is well-stated in this excerpt from the streetcar project proposal:

“From a national perspective, the streetcar links the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site on the east side of Downtown Atlanta to Centennial Olympic Park on the west, via historic Auburn Avenue, the birthplace of our nation’s civil rights movement…It will also reconnect the eastern and western sections of Downtown Atlanta, which were effectively separated by the construction of Interstate 75/85 in the mid 1950s. The barrier of the I-75/85 overpass has left a negative, lasting adverse impact that destroyed the vibrant local economy previously existing in the Auburn Avenue corridor.”

When I walk from Woodruff Park east to the King center, I see clearly the way decades of neglect have taken their toll on this corridor. I experience the particularly unpleasant passage under the 75/85 overpass.

I think we owe a debt as a city to the rich history of this district to provide this catalyst. We’re not just building a transit line — we’re rebuilding a significant part of the city that should never have been allowed to get where it is now.

Streetcar construction photo by Flickr user ssinharoy

Restoration of Atlanta’s Proctor Creek includes building a trail from the Beltline to the Chattahoochee

This sounds like a great project: at a press conference today, the Environmental Protection Agency and Mayor Reed announce a plan to clean up heavily-polluted Proctor Creek in northwest Atlanta.

According to this news article:

Government leaders and land conservationists are working to develop a seven-mile trail along a polluted Atlanta creek that would link the city’s BeltLine trail system to the Chattahoochee River.

The cleanup effort will involve clearing the area around the creek of trash and improving its banks to help prevent flooding and further pollution

The effort will be part of the national Urban Waters Federal Partnership that is organizing several similar projects across the US. Creative Loafing covered this in-depth in a blog post a few days ago.

The environmental good of cleaning up Proctor Creek is significant. Part of the watershed for the creek is the notorious downtown Gulch, which is no doubt contributing greatly to the pollution. The creek is a tributary that feeds into the Chattahoochee River, so there’s a great need for lessening the pollution for the sake of plant and animal life (including people) who rely on it.

Also significant is the chance for an economic boost to NW Atlanta. A path that connects the Beltline to the river sounds, to my ears at least, like a promising tool for attracting all kinds of investment to the area.

Proctor Creek photo from Flickr user Alan Cressler

The Atlanta Beltline: a Brownfield Clean-up Success

The “Marketplace” radio series reports on the difficult work and the incredible rewards involved in converting the railroad brownfields of the Atlanta Beltline route into park space that attracts development:

Luring developers to rebuild on polluted land

Here’s a quote I like:

The old railroad town is in the midst of a huge rebirth, spawned by a 22-mile system of trails, parks, and transit known as the BeltLine. It’s been called “Atlanta’s best idea.” And it’s also one of the nation’s most successful brownfield clean-up stories.

You can listen to the full report here:

Atlanta is currently hosting the 2013 Brownfields Conference at the Georgia World Congress Center. (From my stroll on Peachtree Street last night, it looks like attendees are giving some good business to downtown restaurants, BTW.)

Beltline photo by Instragram user Sunterr

Mableton could be a prototype for suburban retrofit in Metro Atlanta

Mableton is a typical suburban community in Cobb County. The landscape is car-oriented, with winding residential roads full of detached homes separated from commercial corridors. It’s a sprawling model of the kind of use-based zoning that creates an environment hostile to pedestrians, particularly ones aging in place and increasingly less willing (or able) to drive.

So it’s no surprise that Mableton is getting national attention from a plan that brings dramatic changes, as reported by Atlanta Magazine:

Here’s the hoped-for future: retrofitting a suburban community so it becomes a new incarnation of an old-fashioned, walkable urban neighborhood. The new Mableton will have a town green, shops, and townhomes along a tree-lined boulevard. Parking lots will be transformed into parks. Mableton will become a “lifelong community,” where older residents can walk to a coffee shop, pharmacy, and farmers market while young families can walk to the elementary school, playgrounds, and puppet shows.

It’s a wonderful vision, one that fits in well with the goals found in “Retrofitting Suburbia” by Georgia Tech’s Ellen Dunham-Jones which, among other things, address the documented need for walkable places that accommodate an aging population.

The Mableton plan is long-term and very slow moving — the process of creating a new street grid alone will take several years. It’s entirely possible that another suburban community could pattern this plan and execute it more quickly. But that’s the best thing about what’s happening here: this one community, through its initiative and commitment, has shown what can be accomplished and has formed a blueprint for making it happen, one that can be copied and modified throughout the car-oriented sprawltburbs of Metro Atlanta.

Image credit: Duany Plater-Zyberk

Incredible time-lapse image of Atlanta’s metro sprawl

Google’s Earth Engine lets you view time-lapse satellite images from 1984-2012. It’s an amazing tool for seeing the expansion of our built environments over that time.

Take a look at the changes to the land in this time-lapse of the northern part of Metro Atlanta.

The sprawling development of the area, and the resulting loss of green space, is frightening to see, particularly with reports of a rebound in single-family home construction pointing the way toward continued sprawl.

Here’s some sobering info from the New Georgia Encyclopedia on our urban sprawl and the damage that happens when urbanization of land outpaces population growth via low-density development:

Metropolitan Atlanta is the least densely populated metropolitan area in the United States…Between 1982 and 1992 the amount of greenspace lost to development in the Atlanta metropolitan area increased by 38 percent.

Since 1987 the Atlanta region has lost an average of fifty acres of tree cover per day. Much of this loss is a direct result of encroachment by low-density sprawl development into forested and agricultural areas. This deforestation and loss of vegetation, coupled with increased pavement and rooftops, creates a “heat island” effect (temperatures can be up to twelve degrees higher in heavily paved areas of Atlanta) and contributes to the region’s air pollution problems as well.

Instead of getting excited about a rebound in single-family home construction, Metro leaders need to get interested in accommodating population growth and new development in a way that reduces environmental harm. The practices of the last few decades have caused too much damage. Instead of repeating those mistakes, we need to learn from them and commit to compact, walkable infill.