Road & development plans

Two items from the ABH today:

1. The state Department of Transportation will hold an informational meeting this afternoon about a proposed interchange at the Athens Perimeter intersection with Peter Street and Olympic Drive.

   The meeting will be held from 5-7 p.m. at Stroud Elementary School, 715 Fourth St.

   Visitors will be able to view interchange plans, ask questions and make comments. There will be no formal presentation.

2. Oconee [county] approves Epps Bridge shopping center despite environmental & traffic concerns:

Oconee commissioners voted 3-1 Tuesday to rezone the site from agricultural use to allow the shopping center. Commissioner Margaret Hale voted no.

Commissioners were more concerned about the problems visitors to Epps Bridge Centre will create for already-clogged traffic in the area, especially if plans for a new state road never come to pass.

The entire project hinges on a road that hasn't been built, the Oconee Connector extension, with which state Department of Transportation officials still have not moved forward.

Oconee officials hope the shopping center, if approved, and the road - if it's ever built - likely will be finished about the same time, early in the next decade.

But, the potential lack of access, along with environmental concerns, kept a regional planning organization from recommending the project last summer.

The Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center found in its nonbinding July review that Epps Bridge Centre would not be in the best interest of the region.

Bus ridership sky high

As a result of the hurricane-sponsored gas drought, many more Athenians turned to the bus last month. Flagpole reports:

According to Athens Transit Director Butch McDuffie, last month’s ridership figures are up 20 percent over September of last year, and up 15 percent over August of this year. The bus system logged almost 195,000 individual rides this September. Over 30-plus years, “It’s the highest recorded ridership in any one-month period that Athens Transit has ever experienced,” McDuffie says.
...
“I would hope and anticipate that after this gas crunch goes away, that we will maintain 50 percent of that increase - because people will see that the bus does work,” McDuffie says. “Now that they’ve figured out that, ’Wow, it works,’ I think they’re going to stay.”

Let's hope so, and let's hope the Commission formally approves the ads-on-buses revenue program, that the state legislature moves quickly on allowing a transit-focused TSPLOST program, and that the federal government pulls us out of our exploits for dwindling resources and puts a fraction of that money toward rebuilding our nation's paltry public transit systems.

Bailout plan includes tax breaks for bike commuters

Odd & surprising mention of a tax break for bicycle commuters in the new 1-trillion dollar iteration of the Wall St bailout bill:

Wind power developers, disaster victims, college students, teachers and millions of taxpayers and businesses stand to see substantial benefits from the tax relief package that lawmakers added to the huge financial rescue plan.

So will more narrowly focused groups, including motor sports racetrack owners, film producers and bicycle commuters.

Bike Commuter Benefit: Allowing employers to exempt from taxation what they spend on some fringe benefits for workers who commute to work by bicycle, for example reimbursing the cost of parking the bikes. Cost: $2 million.

The bailout seems like a staggering case of corporate welfare to me (free marketeers are suddenly not so ideological when things go really sour...), but this rider is an interesting recognition of the benefits of bike commuting.

"Five @ Five" - 5 Points 5 K Run/Walk on 10/12

Starts at 1690 S. Milledge Ave, Athens, GA.

See www.friendsoffivepoints.org for more information.

Reminder: River of Bikes Ride tomorrow

River of Bikes Ride

In support of the eco-conscious touring practices of Okkervil River
(playing at the 40 Watt on 10/2/08), BikeAthens is organizing a twilight
group ride from downtown, along the Greenway, and back to downtown.
Afterwards, we'll convene at Max Canada's patio for refreshments before
the show.

The ride begins at City Hall at 7 pm - be sure to have a helmet, lights,
and water.

We hope to see you there!

Privatized roads - follow up in CL

Creative Loafing further explores Sonny Perdue's in-progress trip to Europe, where he is meeting with reps from a road-privatization company. See our earlier post for links to more information.

Excerpts from CL:

Road privatization is a cause celebre for free-market idealists who argue everything government can do, private enterprise can do better. Private roads have long been common in Asia and Europe, and are gaining traction in the United States.

In such a deal, a private company pays the state – sometimes billions of dollars – to take control of an existing road or to build a new one in a congested area. The company agrees to maintain the road, often for as long as 99 years. In exchange, it reaps the revenue from drivers, and in many cases, sets the tolls.

...

The fine print of privatization contracts usually includes noncompete clauses, dictating for example that a government can't build another road or transit system nearby to compete with the toll road. Georgia Motor Trucking Association lobbyist Ed Crowell says some lawyers in Indiana have opined that merely resurfacing a nearby road could be considered "competition."

And with Georgia's newfound focus on rail projects – the "Brain Train" commuter rail, the Beltline, a high-speed line to Chattanooga – the state could find itself in a similar spot to Indiana's should it not vet the contract.

Hearings for new transit plan

Athens Transit will host public hearing Oct. 15 and 29 to take comments as it revises its five-year transit development plan.

The plan update will assess the operations of Athens Transit to ensure that the system meets the needs of the community. Comments are welcome about routes, schedules and transit amenities.

The hearings will be held from 3-4:30 p.m. and 6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 15 and 29 at the Athens-Clarke County Library, 2025 Baxter St.

For more information, call Athens Transit at (706) 613-3430.

Link to story.

BikeUGA student org forming

New Student Organization: BikeUGA

Organizational meeting on 9/30, 5-6 pm @
B116 Life Sciences Building, UGA campus

See the flyer (pdf) and come check us out!

Privatized roads in Ga's future?

Creative Loafing reports on Gov. Perdue's upcoming trip to Europe (9/27-10/3), where he will "meet with executives from Cintra, a Spanish company considered a global leader in privatized roads."
From the official press release, Perdue says:

Europe has some of the world’s most innovative ideas on financing transportation infrastructure. We will see some of these ideas first-hand in order to understand what approaches could be used here in Georgia.

Before he gets all fired up to privatize public infrastructure, Perdue should take another look at the other innovative ideas on transportation that Europe has developed.

Kids plea for bus stop on Timothy Rd

The following letter to the editor was published in the ABH today:

Dear editor of the Athens Banner-Herald: Hi. We are third-graders at Timothy Road Elementary School. We are writing because we need a city bus stop in front of our school. There are a lot of events at Timothy that require parents to come. Without a city bus stop, some parents can't come. Sometimes their cars break down or they might not have a car. They might not have any money for gas.

If parents didn't come, then kids would be heartbroken. Kids also feel embarrassed when parents can't come because they don't have gas money or a car. If kids are sad and embarrassed, then they can't learn. Please help us learn by writing to the commissioners of Athens to convince them to put a city bus stop in front of Timothy. Please contact our school counselor, Ms. Saundra Arnold-Smith, if you have any questions.

Thank you for helping us.

Christopher Dellaria

Sylvia Primm

Brian Lee

• The writers are students in Kari Speakman's third-grade class.

It doesn't get more direct than that. Funding transit and providing a full range of transportation choices is fundamentally a social justice issue.