Livable Centers Initiatives in Jonesboro and Forest Park staying on track
The purpose is to make the downtown area in each municipality more attractive with an emphasis on connecting homes, shops and offices and encouraging pedestrian traffic with more access to public transportation options. Read more...

Source: www.news-daily.com, Jonesboro, Forest Park working on LCI

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

- Trinity to Morpheus, The Matrix Reloaded

42,000+ Americans are killed every year in auto accidents. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that motor-vehicle accidents in the United States cause one death every 11 minutes, and an injury every 18 seconds. According to environmentalist Andrew Kimbrell, 90 million Americans have sustained disabling injuries in auto accidents, while more than 2.5 million Americans have died violent deaths on our highways. This represents more than four times the 641,691 Americans killed in World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam combined. This is the equivalent of a fully loaded 747 crashing every 3 days and killing every passenger, week after week, year after year! If this many planes did crash, the airline industry would be shut down (as it was on September 11), but little is done about the deadly automobile situation. WORLDWIDE, there are more than 2,500 fatalities and 50,000 injuries each day from traffic accidents. According to the World Health Organization, over 1 million people die each year in motor vehicle accidents.

Source: newurbanism.org

A feasibility study of running commuter rail between Canton and Marietta
should be finished before the end of November. Read more...

Source: Ahead of the Curve, Atlanta Journal Constitution, GA - Nov 23, 2003

A transit plan that breaks all kinds of molds

"Creative Loafing" reports on several factors contributing to the unprecedented traction the BeltLine Proposal is gaining, including:

> Innovative financing
> The growth of Intown Atlanta residential population
> Potential for stimulation of extensive brownfield development
> A magnet for federal funding
> Reduction in auto-dependence

Read the feature story here...

Source: Creative Loafing Online, "This is no loopy loop"

To learn more about the BeltLine, go here...

"The typical American male devotes more than 1,600 hours a year to his car. He sits in it while it goes and while it stands idling. He parks it and searches for it. He earns the money to put down on it and to meet the monthly installments. He works to pay for petrol, taxes, insurance, tolls and tickets. He spends four of his sixteen hours on the road or gathering his resources for it...The model American puts in 1,600 hours to get 7,500 miles: less than five miles per hour."

- Ivan Illich, "Energy and Equity," 1973

Pedestrian-Friendly Urban Areas Drawing Families Back to the City
Frustrated with suburban isolation, resentful of constant driving everywhere in bad traffic and troubled by sedentary lifestyle health effects, more and more families are moving to town centers and older neighborhoods, where they "make sidewalks, bike trails, and commuter lines their preferred thoroughfares," writes Boston Globe correspondent Matt Viser, citing 2000 Census data showing that fewer than eight percent of residents in many Boston suburbs walk or use transit, while 45 percent of Bostonians do so at least five days a week.

Source: The Boston Globe

"Once upon a time, walking and biking to school was commonplace; now it is a rarity. The Federal Highway Administration has reported that roughly half of all 5 to 18 year olds either walked or biked to school in 1969. The journey to school has changed dramatically in the intervening years. By 2001, nearly 9 out of 10 children between the ages of 5 and 15 were driven to school by either a parent or a bus driver, adding additional traffic to the morning commute and negatively affecting communities around schools. In Marin County, California, for example, as much as 21 to 27 percent of the county's morning traffic is made up of parents driving their children to school." Read more...

Source: bikewalk.org, Introduction to Safe Routes to School Initiative

Newest Section of Silver Comet Opens. PATH has completed most of the finishing touches on the next mile of the Silver Comet Trail. This new section is located between the Nathan Dean Sports Complex and U.S. Highway 278 near Buy Low Building Supply. This segment is unique in that it has a 450-foot-long boardwalk across a marsh. Read more...

Source: The Rockmart Journal

LAWRENCEVILLE, GA — If Gwinnett County gets money from a state grant, another key component to the county’s highest greenway priority will fall into place.

Commissioners are expected today to OK applications for transportation enhancement grants to build a portion of the Ivy Creek Greenway and to begin the design of a greenway along the Yellow River. Read more...

Source: Gwinnet Daily Post Online.

Ah, the joys of living in a walkable small town. Yesterday, after work, I closed my Main Street real estate office and walked south to the newly opened "For You Only" Antiques and Collectibles. I passed two recently opened businesses along the way. Locals envision a time when many needs, services and conveniences can be found within a short stroll of home.

I met my wife, Liana, and several neighbors who had walked over from our loft homes, just off of Main Street. Afterwards Liana walked down the street to join a few neighbors for a Bible Study.

One day residents will be able to walk to the Commuter Rail Station and connect with transit villages within the city of Atlanta and other walkable small towns along the way.

Visit us online at www.hamptontown.info.

MORE THAN A NOD FOR TOD

While everyone from urban planners to environmentalists and community activists are singing the praises of transit-oriented development, getting TODs actually built is still a difficult task. Livable Places has put together a brief fact sheet with a number of incentives cities and counties can provide to assist developers of TODs and encourage the creation of urban transit villages.

Full story: Encouraging Transit Villages

Source: Livable Places, Nov 05, 2003.