Bus Ride to Buckhead

To gain some insight into the current state of city planning in Atlanta, I've been pairing some secondary readings with exploration of the Department of City Planning (formerly Urban Renewal Policy Committee) records at the Atlanta History Center. In particular, I've been juxtaposing these records (mostly focused on zoning and use allocation for properties central to Atlanta's transformation into a car-friendly 20th century city), with Christopher Seller's history of the intersecting movements for civil rights and what he calls "environmental citizenship," and Ryan Gravel's 2016 treatise on the Atlanta Beltline and other "catalyst infrastructure" projects written in a heady moment of urban optimism. 

I thought about these juxtaposed perspectives quite a bit while riding public transit from my home in Decatur to the Atlanta History Center's wooded Buckhead campus.  When I say "riding public transit" I really mean walking 20 minutes to the train from my house, taking two trains westward and northward to Arts Center station, and then taking a city bus all the way up Peachtree to its intersection with West Paces Ferry. A ten-minute walk past restaurants and condo buildings under construction completes the epic journey. 

Despite its 1.3 hour one way duration, I can say without a doubt that I preferred my public transit experience to driving my car through Atlanta traffic.  Nevertheless, the fact that more than a third of the journey consists of walking and taking a less-than-perfectly-reliable city bus speaks to the reality of transit accessibility (or lack thereof) in Atlanta 100 years after wealthy ATLiens began to terraform the city's streets for their automobiles. We're a long way from a pedestrian-scale city, but the whiff of that possibility is still exciting, at least to me.  On public transit, I can concentrate on my thoughts without having to worry about who might stop short in front of me, swerve into traffic, or cut me off abruptly.  I am not in charge, which is a blissful relinquishment of responsibility amidst all the "adulting" of my 40s.  

Oh how I'd love to see our cities become even more pedestrian-friendly.  I suppose my project to better understand public history and democratic deliberation may give a clue (for better or worse) as to the likelihood of that trend into the future. 

Georgia State's Greenway Expansion is part of this recent trend to move away from car-centered infrastructure...