Author Archives: jimgilvin

Congratulations Mr. Lowery you did it. Now it’s time to put the deck of race cards away.

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The referendum on Georgia’s transportation tax increase won’t be on the ballot for more than a year but the Reverend Joseph Lowery is already playing his race card. In writing about the process surrounding the transportation project selection Mr. Lowery writes:

Originally, the committee was composed of all white men, mostly from the suburbs. This glaring imbalance prompted Rep. David Ralston, Speaker of the state House of Representatives, to intervene and request that Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed be added to the executive committee.

The painful truth is that Ralston, a white Republican from the north Georgia mountains, should not have been involved in such a local issue.

It’s also telling that other committee members failed to recognize that they did not reflect the region’s diverse demographics. It certainly was obvious to many average citizens in Fulton, DeKalb or the City of Atlanta, who collectively represent 40 percent of the vote within the 10-county region.

A similar misstep was brought to light by Mayor Reed last month. During a meeting of the Regional Roundtable, Reed pointed out that a team of consultants selected to manage the $5 million referendum campaign is also exclusively composed of white men.

You can read Mr. Lowery’s column here.

Of course the appearance of the race card during the transportation tax debate isn’t the only time Mr. Lowery has used it lately. Just a few months ago the news broke that the Reverend filed a lawsuit to dissolve cities in the state of Georgia because of he believes the incorporation of the cities were racist acts. You can read about that issue here.

It is sad to see a man with such a proud history stuck in the past. I have spent nearly 5 decades living in Georgia and I remember how things used to be. I am also well aware of the role that Mr. Lowery played during the civil rights movement. I respect what he did and I am grateful that my children will never be exposed to the kind of racism Mr. Lowery fought.

But with all due respect, this is 2011 and the world is not the same as it was in the 1950’s and 60’s. Children born today are 50 years removed from the segregationist policies that Mr. Lowery fought so valiantly. The vast majority of young white people think of segregation as something that might as well have happened in the stone age.

I am 46 years old and the Civil Rights Act was passed before I was born. People born today are farther removed from institutionalized racism than I was from the Great Depression and the depression seemed like ancient history when grown ups talked about it back then.

Time moves on… so do societies. Leaders need to move on as well.

I’m not saying that racism has been wiped off the face of the Earth any more than greed, lust or avarice have. But the world of 2011 is nearly a half a century removed from the racism that the Reverend Joseph Lowery is still fighting. Someone needs to help him understand that he tarnishes his place in history by continuing to fight battles that are already won. Incorporating a city and raising the taxes on every Georgian are policies we can debate but that does not make them racist acts.

Congratulations Reverend Lowery. You did it. Racism may not be extinct but it has been vanquished. It’s time to put the deck of race cards away.

Is transportation the new housing?

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Kyle Wingfield wrote a column discussing crony capitalism in the case of Fannie Mae that gave me an epiphany of where the next government created disaster will occur.

Kyle’s column explored the idea that political elite of both political parties in the United States have been guilty of spending taxpayer money to benefit themselves, their friends and their supporters. Wingfield used Fannie Mae to point out that the crony capitalism inherent in our current political system is the driving force behind our nations rush toward bankruptcy and that the backlash to this unsustainable trend has given birth to the Tea Party movement. I suggest you read the whole column here.

One particular section of Kyle’s column struck me because I see a clear parallel between what occurred with Fannie Mae and what is now going on with the sudden rush to subsidize transportation and transit projects with more taxpayer money. Below is the section I am referring to:

Fannie Mae co-opted relevant activist groups…. Fannie ginned up Astroturf lobbying campaigns….

Fannie lavished campaign contributions on members of Congress. Time and again experts would go before some Congressional committee to warn that Fannie was lowering borrowing standards and posing an enormous risk to taxpayers. Phalanxes of congressmen would be mobilized to bludgeon the experts and kill unfriendly legislation.

Fannie executives ginned up academic studies. They created a foundation that spent tens of millions in advertising. They spent enormous amounts of time and money capturing the regulators who were supposed to police them.

A government entity co-opting activist groups, ginning up academic studies and spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to finance astroturf lobbying campaigns? Well that might have happened when Fannie Mae spent hundreds of millions creating a housing bubble that drove this nation into a depression…. but something like that couldn’t happen again. Could it?

Surely government organizations like the Federal Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Authority and the Environmental Protection Agency would never spend hundreds of millions of dollars promoting ideas and policies that will lead this nation further down the path toward bankruptcy… would they? Well according to the Center for Transportation and Livable Systems:

The U.S. Department of Transportation supports a network of University Transportation Centers throughout the nation to advance technology and expertise in transportation through combined efforts of research, education, and technology transfer. Within the federal SAFETEA-LU legislation, the Center for Transportation and Livable Systems (CTLS), formerly the Center for Transportation and Urban Planning, was designated the University of Connecticut’s University Transportation Center in August 2005. CTLS began its first year of operation in 2007 and since then has supported dozens of researchers and students through its research activities and helped inform the public and the scientific community in its workshops, seminars and symposia.

The theme of the Center for Transportation and Livable Systems is Livable and Sustainable Transportation Systems for Smart Growth — a holistic theme that incorporates walking, bicycling, transit and automobiles in an integrated multi-modal system

But that must be an isolated example. It’s not like the federal government would spend $175 Million on some ridiculous initiative to expand transit into low density suburban and rural communiites. Would it? Apparently so according to this press release on the Federal Transit Authority website: 

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced the availability of up to $175 million in livability grants to help urban, suburban and rural communities develop transit options to better connect people to where they live, work and play.  Local transit agencies will be able to compete for livability dollars from the pool of up to $175 million. The competitive grant program will
begin accepting applications when announced in the Federal Register during the week of June 20.

It seems everywhere I look there are indications that the federal government along with many state and local officials have begun the process of screwing up America’s transportation infrastructure the same way they managed to destroy the nation’s real estate industry. But it isn’t just politicians. It is also their cronies in the infrastructure and real estate development industries that are helping to create this mess.

Remember the first scandal to break for Georgia’s new Speaker of the House, David Ralston, back in 2010? Maybe a clip from this AJC article will refresh your memory:

House Speaker David Ralston and his family spent part of Thanksgiving week in Europe on a $17,000 economic development mission paid for by lobbyists interested in building a high-speed train line between Atlanta and Chattanooga.

Commonwealth Research Associates, a D.C.-based consulting firm, paid for the trip, which also included Ralston’s chief of staff Spiro Amburn and his spouse, to Germany and the Netherlands the week of Nov. 21-27, according to records filed with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, formerly known as the State Ethics Commission.

The trip was the most expensive single expenditure reported by a lobbyist since at least 2005.

Coincidentally another article explains that Speaker Ralston is now proposing that the state of Georgia use the train those lobbyists wanted as leverage in the water wars between state of Tennessee and Georgia:

Georgia’s House speaker says leaders from his state need to sit down with Tennessee officials and discuss trading transportation enhancements for access to the water in the Tennessee River.

During a recent radio interview with WABE-FM in Atlanta, Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, said his state might be willing to offer improved rail, roads or other links between Chattanooga and Georgia air and sea ports in exchange for access to the river.

Isn’t that special? Sure is funny how the push for inefficient and unbelievably expensive trains shows up in the oddest places.

Between the early 1990’s and 2008 the federal government along with willing accomplices at the state and local level worked hand in hand with banks, governmental agencies, developers, builders, land speculators and a host of other cronies to create a real estate bubble that has staggered this country. In the process a lot of people made a lot of money at the taxpayers’ expense.

I see many of the same people doing almost the exact same thing now. The only difference is that now they are salivating over the billions of dollars to be made from creating a transportation bubble.

So the question I leave you with is this: Is transportation the new housing?

New link on Blogroll: That’s Just Peachy

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A few weeks ago I was contacted by a website that consolidates news stories and blog posts that affect the state of Georgia. The website is called Thatsjustpeachy.com and it is similar to the Drudgereport but with a localized perspective.

I spend a lot of time looking for articles that directly affect my family, my community and my state and Thatsjustpeachy has proven to be an excellent tool for finding many of those articles in one place regardless of the source. As a result I am adding Thatsjustpeachy to the GA Jim blogroll for any of my interested readers.

If you’d like to keep up with what is going on in Georgia but don’t have the time to scour hundreds of websites every day I encourage you to check it out.

Welcome to Alpharetta, Agilysis!

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The AJC had another great piece of news for the City of Alpharetta this week. This article explains that information technology company Agilysis is relocating its corporate headquarters to Alpharetta:

Al Nash, executive director of Progress Partners of North Fulton Atlanta, an initiative of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce, said technology companies are coming to the area because of low taxes and an extensive fiber optic system.

“That’s a huge sector for us,” he said. “We have a high concentration of data centers because of our fiber optics, as well as a good quality of life and low cost of doing business.”

I’m glad to hear Mr. Nash acknowledge that Alpharetta continues to attract new businesses by providing a superior quality of life in a setting conducive to businesses. In today’s world a high quality of life and healthy business climate are more endangered than snail darters and it isn’t an accident that in Alpharetta they not only exist, they thrive.

Alpharetta has a great quality of life and an extraordinary business environment because our residents (and until recently our elected officials) realized that those two elements will give us a competitive advantage in any economic climate. When you provide a great climate for business in an environment perfect for their employees’ family you don’t need trains. You don’t need skyscrapers. You don’t need bells and you don’t need whistles. All you need is good schools (which we have), relatively low taxes (which we have) and elected officials that aren’t suckered in by every Tom, Dick and Consultant that says he has a magic green potion to make Alpharetta better (which we had).

What we offer in Alpharetta is great technology infrastructure in a fantastic place to raise a family while you build a business. That may not be enough for every corporation in the world but we don’t have anywhere to put them all anyway.

Technology, families and business are what Alpharetta does very well. If those aren’t enough then there are hordes of cities out there that offer trains, high rents and high taxes. Changing what Alpharetta already does so well would doom us to more congestion, bad schools and higher crime while forcing companies that share our values, like Agilysis, to look elsewhere. No thanks.

Welcome to Alpharetta Agilysis!

You have chosen well and we are glad to have you as a neighbor. If there is anything we can do to help you settle in just let us know.

The Yin and the Yang of Senior Transit in Atlanta

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First there was Yin in the AJC:

Metro Atlanta seniors beware:  By 2015, 90 percent of area residents 65 and older are expected to live in neighborhoods with poor or nonexistent access to mass transit.  That’s the worst showing among metropolitan areas with more than 3 million people, according to a new study released Tuesday, “Aging in Place: Stuck Without Options.”

The study was conducted by the Center for Neighborhood Technology and released by Transportation for America, groups that advocate for sustainable development.

**************

According to the American Association of Retired Persons, when older people lose transportation options they make 15 percent fewer trips to the doctor and far fewer trips to family, friends and other places.

The groups called for a federal investment in mass transit expansion.

You can read the whole Yin here.

Then there was Yang from the CATO Institute:

Most seniors don’t ride transit. Census data show that more than 12.5 percent of all Americans are over 65, yet data from the American Public Transportation Association show that only 6.7 percent of transit trips are taken by senior citizens. The average American rides transit less than 34 times a year; the average senior citizen less than 18 times a year.

*****************

Transportation for America wants transit agencies to extend frequent bus or rail service to every remote suburb where there might be a few people over 65 — not because those people want to ride transit, but to simply give them “options.” In order to pay for service extensions to suburbs, many transit agencies have reduced transit service in the central cities where most transit riders are actually located. As a result, since 1985, per-capita transit ridership has plummeted in such major urban areas as Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta.

Congress expects to pass legislation this year that will decide how to spend $40 billion in annual federal gas tax revenues over the next six years. In recent years, 20 percent of those gas taxes have been spent on transit. Transportation for America’s goal is to further increase that share. But after decades of huge transit subsidies, per-capita transit ridership today is no greater than it was in 1970 — mainly because the subsidies have focused on extending transit service to those who don’t need it rather than providing better service to those who do.

Americans will be better off by privatizing transit. Private operators will provide better service to those willing to live in denser, transit-friendly neighborhoods without wasting a lot of money trying to attract a few suburbanites out of their cars.

You can read the whole Yang here.

I remember attending a transportation charade charrette once where I had a discussion about senior transportation with Alpharetta’s Director of Engineering and Public Works, Pete Sewczwicz. Pete suggested that it would good if the city of Alpharetta could use excess capacity in shopping center parking lots as transit stops for seniors that weren’t able to drive to the doctor’s office. I then pointed out to Pete that if seniors couldn’t drive to the doctor’s office they couldn’t drive to the shopping center either and it was doubtful they would be walking the several miles from their homes to catch a bus.

As the Yang points out, most seniors have no intention of giving up their cars and the only transit helpful to those unable to drive is the kind that picks them up at their house. MARTA already spends millions providing door-to-door transportation for some elderly residents but Georgia’s taxpayers simply can’t be expected to provide door-to-door transportation for every senior citizen in the metro Atlanta area. It might be nice if every senior citizen could get free transportation but unfortunately the service wouldn’t be free, it would be paid for by taxpayers that are already facing 10% unemployment in the worst economic environment of our lifetimes.

Yin may seem like a sympathetic cause but government’s attempt to provide for every possible need of its citizens is simply not sustainable nor desirable. Put me down for Yang on this one.

North Fulton In Case You Missed It (ICYMI) 6/15/2011

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Councilman Jim Paine officially declared his candidacy for Mayor of Alpharetta, Georgia this week: http://bit.ly/kukRBH

Fulton County made North Fulton county’s high school redistricting plan official: http://bit.ly/jcR8B3

The North Fulton CID enlists the city of Roswell to help them expand: http://bit.ly/jOTTkt http://bit.ly/ix5QeD

With advocates like that mass transit doesn’t need enemies

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A few years ago I was completely baffled by the fact that expensive, inefficient transit projects were sucking up billions of taxpayer dollars while more efficient methods of relieving congestion were constantly denigrated by politicians. As my curiosity led to some research I stumbled upon an entire subculture of people referred to as “transit advocates”.

Author Michael Barone discussed this “transit advocate” phenomenom in his recent piece The folly of fixed rail projects which appeared in the San Francisco Examiner. Mr. Barone concluded:

“as a form of transportation, fixed rail makes little sense in most parts of the United States. The fact that promoters of fixed rail almost inevitably produce hugely optimistic projections of cost and ridership indicate that we are dealing here with people who are less committed to rational argumentation than they are to the promotion of something which for them takes on the importance of a religious faith.”

Over the years I have reviewed numerous materials that “transit advocates” use to support their positions and I usually get a good laugh from them. Almost inevitably the document being cited documents that public transit is not the solution to transportation problems.

For example this morning I ran across this tweet from @Transit_Tripp on Twitter:

Study: “Roads Cause Traffic ”  http://tiny.ly/Rp1p

Yes I know the headline is nonsensical but that is to be expected on Twitter. Saying roads cause traffic is like saying roads cause drunk driving but the headline did get my attention so it was effective. I read the article and suggest you follow the link and do the same. Once you have finished come back and compare notes with what I read. I’ll wait for you here………

……….

……….

Ok, all done? So here is what I read:

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

The Toronto economists were careful to point out that adding transit options has no effect on highway congestion: so long as highway capacity is plentiful and free, there will always be new drivers to take the place of those who switch to transit. This doesn’t mean, though, that more rail routes and frequencies shouldn’t be provided, it just means that more transit won’t reduce congestion
unless it is coupled with policies that make it costlier or harder to drive.

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

So transit advocates tout the news that transit does not relieve congestion? And the transit advocate solution to traffic is to make it “harder and costlier to drive” thus forcing people onto trains that are expensive and inefficient? With advocates like that mass transit doesn’t really need enemies.

Kyle Wingfield: “One conservative’s approach to mass transit: Control costs”

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The Atlanta Journal and Constitution’s Kyle Wingfield has a great column on the astronomical expense of public transit projects. Read the whole thing here.

This is a sample:

  • For a five-phase light rail line parallel to I-85, from Doraville to the Gwinnett Arena: $70 million per mile.
  • For a combination heavy- and light-rail line from the Lindbergh MARTA station to Emory University, $92 million per mile.
  • Some kind of “fixed guideway” transit — light rail or possibly bus rapid transit — from Doraville across the top end of I-285 to the Cobb Galleria area, at $67 million per mile

 

Alpharetta to hold public meetings on new City Center project

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Last month the City of Alpharetta unveiled drawings of what they have planned for the new city center. At the time many people including this blogger were disappointed that all the city provided was some artist renderings and a number of $29 million that was apparently pulled out of thin air. The city was unable to provide any specific details about what they had planned but promised those details were to be provided soon. As of this writing there have still been no specific cost estimates for the project.

But on June 3rd the city did release a statement saying that they have scheduled 4 meetings to allow public input on the proposal. The excerpts below are taken from the city’s website:

“Our intent with the May 23rd unveiling was to capture the attention of the public,” said Alpharetta Mayor Arthur Letchas. “Now it is time to discuss details such as financing and timelines that have been identified and to hear from our citizens.” Letchas went on to explain that some details, such as architectural design and the types of uses residents would like to see in buildings proposed for future development by the private sector, have yet to be defined.

“Right now the conversation will be focused on the general vision, the costs associated with building the civic portions of the project, and how we can pay for it without increasing taxes,” Letchas said. “If the public supports the concept, we will hold additional public meetings to get their thoughts on what the buildings should look like and other details.”

*June 16 beginning at 5:30 PM
*June 30 beginning at 6:00 PM
*July 14 beginning at 6:30 PM
*July 25 beginning at 7:30 PM

All sessions will be held at Alpharetta City Hall and are expected to last at least one hour but may run longer, depending on questions and comments from the public.

I hope that the city will release the financial details of the proposal before the public meetings are held because without specifics my reaction will be the same as it is now: “Pretty pictures but not enough details to make an informed decision.”

 

Prospect Park under contract

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Rumors have been circling for the past few weeks and now the Atlanta Business Chronicle is reporting that Alpharetta’s defunct Prospect Park project is under contract to Cincinnati based North American Properties, Inc.

Three years after construction stalled on Alpharetta’s $750 million Prospect Park luxury mixed-use project, North American Properties Inc. has the 106-acre site under contract.

North American Properties will scale back plans of the project’s former developer, Stan Thomas, who once hoped for 750,000 square feet of retail, a hotel, 350,000 square feet of offices and 81 residences starting at $1.5 million.

You can read the whole thing here.

North American Properties is the same company that also purchased a central piece of Midtown Atlanta’s struggling Atlantic Station project earlier this year. You can read more about what North American Properties has done wtih Atlantic Station here, here and here.

As a resident of Alpharetta I can only hope that this sale will mean Prospect Park can now become the jewel that was originally promised.