TRANSIT ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT is the exciting new fast growing trend in creating vibrant, livable communities. Also known as transit oriented design, or TOD for short, it is the creation of compact, walkable communities centered around high quality train systems. This makes it possible to live a higher quality life without complete dependence on a car for mobility and survival.

FACTORS DRIVING THE TREND

-Rapidly growing, mind-numbing traffic congestion nation-wide
-Growing distaste for suburbia and fry-pit strip development
-Growing desire for quality urban lifestyle
-Growing desire for more walkable lifestyles away from cars
-Changes in family structures: more singles, empty-nesters, etc
-Growing national support for Smart Growth
-New focus of Federal policy

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Confirmed registration for Rail~Volution Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, September 11-14.

Rail~Volution is about "Building Livable Communities with Transit." The 2003 Conference "will feature top innovators from all walks of life. They will challenge us to look for new ways to make our communities better places to live, work and play by incorporating transit into the basic fabric of our everyday lives."

Get more info and register online at www.railvolution.com.

BeltLine superior to more road-building

The BeltLine is the biggest "no brainer" for solving congestion problems and spurring brownfield development Atlanta has ever seen. Anyone suggesting the money be allocated to further road work should be made to run through a belt line of the "whuppin' " kind.

~ Burke Sisco

- As quoted in Letters to Horizon, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 07/21/03 in response to Connecting the Dots: Potential of proposed 22-mile Belt Line transit loop excites proponents.
By Julie Hairston, Atlanta Journal Constitution, July 14, 2003

"You always told me to stay off the freeway. You told me it was suicide."

- Trinity to Morpheus, The Matrix Reloaded

The machines are taking over our cities. And the byproducts of our auto-dominate society threaten quality of life in ways we never imagined. Consider:

> Smog, sprawl, gridlock, and road rage.
> Ugly, dirty, dangerous cities built for cars instead of people.
> A recent Emory University study drawing a clear link between health epidemics like obesity and asthma and Atlanta's sprawling car culture.
> The human toll. At over 43,000 US traffic fatalities per year, the human carnage is equivalent to a 9/11 every month.

And yet we seem to be blissfully unaware, cocooned in our SUVs...

www.atl-trailandrail.net

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

...Robert Frost

I felt a strong sense of disenchantment with the American built environment after having lived in Augsburg, Germany for two years. Augsburg is a great walkable city built on a fairly dense scale. I traveled everywhere by some combination of walking, trolley, train, and bus. I didn't even own a car while living there.

Years later I'm surveying the sprawling car-culture of Atlanta, the city where I live. I've decided that I'm at a point in my life where I want to do something about it. I hope this blog will help me clarify my thoughts, inspire change, and connect with the community of like-minded individuals I know is out there.

Helping Atlantans overcome auto-addiction isn't going to be easy -- but it'll be worth it. There are some very positive trends that lead me to believe we're at a tipping point to Atlanta becoming a world-class transit metropolis: Recent ARC TOD Funding, a growing Belt Line coalition, and PATH Foundation's continued progress, are but a few.

As a citizen, I want to do my part in helping to spur this change through education and activism. As a real estate counselor, I've decided to specialize in transit- and trail- oriented real estate. I call it "trail" and "rail" estate (www.atl-trailandrail.net). It may be the road less traveled, but in the end, I believe it'll make all the difference....