So I’m back, and with a continued reverence toward my friends who are able to find something to blog about at least once a day.

While I was “away,” an article appeared in the AJC about yet another development doomed to tragic shortsightedness:

Cousins Properties has filed plans with Fulton County for a possible 30-story condo tower next to the landmark “King” and “Queen” office skyscrapers in the Concourse office park at Ga. 400 and I-285.

The Cobb County developer has asked the county to rezone an 11-acre corner at Concourse to allow for two buildings with as many as 650 condominium units, some shops and restaurants, and about 1,800 parking spaces at the intersection of Hammond Drive and Peachtree Dunwoody Road.

Anyone who knows Dunwoody, especially the near-pill-hill section, knows what a mess traffic tends to be around there. Even worse is the inadequacy of the Medical Center MARTA station toward mitigating any of that mess. For anyone who may use the station, its primary advantage is that if you already have a monthly MARTa pass, you don’t have to drive your car to any of the nearby hospitals and pay to park. An added benefit: as long as you’re going to the hospital to get healthy, the least you can do is walk there.

As long as Cousins wants to build residential units in the area — which is not a bad idea on its face, considering the wealth of other uses in the area — it would be a much better idea for them to push to build as close as possible to the Medical Center station. It would reduce their need to build more of these expensive, ugly parking decks, and it would reduce the need of Atlanta commuters to drive just to get anywhere.

Cousins, and all the other developers have recognized the need and demand for dense urban living in this town. The key phrase is “linking transportation and land use planning.” I heard that phrase mentioned at a recent RTIA meeting, where regional heads of local governments shuddered at the idea, as though the last thing many of them wanted was healthy communities in their cities and counties. I also read of the idea several times over the course of the research I was doing for my class the other week.

I read a fairly large pile of research that’s already been done out there in the field. Cities have been poked and prodded, compared and contrasted. Some of these papers agreed on some things, but not others. Of all the reasons why people choose to ride rail, personal characteristics — race, gender, income — were not highly rated with very strong correlations. Income had the strongest correlation among the personal characteristics throughout the literature, but the correlation wasn’t huge.

The structural environment was the single most influential factor nearly everywhere in the literature. Ming Zhang pointed out that there is a bit of a debate in the literature between folks who say “Get the land use right” and folks who say “Get the pricing right.” The “price” folks claim that if the price of each mode of transportation reflected the real costs of that mode, then there would be more people using transit. It’s an argument that makes sense only as long as real choices exist in the marketplace. What Dr. Zhang found in his research, among other findings, is that mode choice under the land use model shows varying effects depending on the densities of origins and destinations, and whether different modes were used for work or non-work travel. The effects of travel costs, meanwhile, are more uniform across the other variables. Zhang’s essential finding, which has strong policy implications back here in Atlanta if we want to get our transportation right:

Pertinent implications of the Hong Kong experience lie in the fact that Hong Kong’s land use offers desirable attributes for nondriving travel, but the city still needs a strong fiscal policy to restrain the growth in demand for auto use. This means that land use is necessary but not sufficient to influence travel. This implication is essential to the current policy debate. If the advocates of “get the land use right” want to make land use a more effective mobility tool, complementary policies such as transportation pricing should be adequately incorporated. If the advocates of “get the price right” want to improve the feasibility of implementing pricing policies to reduce driving, providing viable travel options is the place to start—which requires deliberately planned and designed nondriving-friendly land uses. The two form a pair of tactics that are more feasible and effective in combination than either implemented alone.

…

In the search for policy solutions to the growing demand for driving, the debate between “get the land use right” and “get the price right” should focus not on which one is more effective, but on how the two can be integrated as complementary policies.”

It seems an obvious solution when you think about it. Here in Atlanta, our developers would have a key role to play in getting the ball rolling: push a build up of all areas that surround existing transit stations.

Once again I have to remove myself from civilization for a few days to write a paper. This time, it’ll be the longest paper I’ve ever written, and it’ll be on a subject I don’t feel I’ve adequately researched.

Really, this is just to let you know I’m still here, but I’ve been too harried to blog lately. Things will return to normal after Tuesday.

In the meantime, speaking of Tuesday, all y’all need to go to Park Tavern on Tuesday night to see a free showing of Taken for a Ride.

What does it say when Maria Saporta referred to rail as the “third leg” of our nation’s transportation system? In what I honestly thought was a column not nearly up to her normal, high standards, Maria wrote about why our nation needs to invest more in rail transportation. She wrote the column in a tone that nearly spoke of this concept as self-evident. I wish it were self-evident, because more funding for rail (or less funding for roads and air, take your choice) would be a much easier lobby.

Nevertheless, judging from the letters sent to the AJC in response to the column, her writing got many Atlantans to think about third legs. I recently received a copy of a letter to the editor sent by the president of GARP, Steve Vogel. This response to the responses, I felt, made for a better case than Maria’s column:

Regarding the dialog currently taking place in the AJC about Amtrak
and commuter rail, I offer the following responses:

• In his LTE last Saturday, Mr Daryl Polster questions the veracity of the poll that says 70% of Americans support Amtrak. The actual figure in a poll conducted by the respected Gallup organization is 69% (sorry for the error), including 62% of those who said they would not be personally affected by the total end of Amtrak.

• Mr Polster also suggests that Amtrak should raise its fares to eliminate the “subsidy”. Would he ask the same of the airlines, who are being subsidized by being allowed to declare bankruptcy, thus eliminating debt and pension liability, not to mention the $5 billion in loan guarantees after 9/11?

• Furthermore, Mr Polster states that highways are “almost completely paid for with gasoline taxes, which are, in essence, a user fee”. This is in sharp contrast to a Brookings Institution study that shows only 54.5% of highway support comes from gas taxes and user fees. And, that study didn’t include things like the cost of policing the highways.

• There is a telling remark in Ms Frankston’s piece about the Lovejoy commuter rail line. Dana Lemon, the DOT board member from the area that would benefit the most from the line says, correctly, “We cannot build enough roads to reduce congestion in Metro Atlanta.”.

The DOT and ARC’s own figures say that highway commute time will continue to increase in the future. Guess what? A train trip that take 40 minutes today, will take the same 40 minutes in 10 or 20 years.

• Rep Steve Davis, the vocal opponent of the rail line, received substantial campaign contributions from automobile interests, including dealerships and oil companies. Is it any wonder he wants more roads?

• In a remark that, in my opinion, borders on irresponsibility, DOT board member Sam Wellborn is reported as saying that he “is against government subsidizing public transportation systems”. I guess Mr Wellborn would discontinue the money from Georgia’s General Fund that goes to the DOT, as well as things like the air traffic controllers who guide airplanes. All transportation, public and private, is subsidized to one degree or another. Who is paying for the 5th runway at Hartsfield-Jackson, the cost of which, BTW, would fund a complete Georgia intercity rail network that would benefit Georgians, not those who happen to be changing planes.

• I do agree with Mr Wayne Westmoreland in his LTE from Monday’s Horizon in that rail service will not solve the congestion problem. But no one is saying that it will. It will offer alternatives, however, and commuter rail has shown itself to be viable in many US cities, including several start-ups in the last dozen years. Indeed, Atlanta, with one exception, is the largest city in the country without commuter rail service. Mr Westmoreland also brings up the tired mantra about rail service that “pays for itself”, which I have already addressed.

When the nation, Georgia, and Atlanta realize that passenger rail is, in fact, the third leg of the transportation stool, we will all benefit.

Steve Vogel
President,
Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers
Decatur, GA

In addition to the “Brookings Economics” link you see to the left, I’m adding “Brookings Transportation. Once I saw this article, I thought it would be worth taking some time to recontemplate the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2005 (SAFE-TEA). Brookings analysts were not pleased with the results, as they lacked these clear guiding principles:

Transparency. Congress should require states and metropolitan areas to disclose their programs and spending decisions in a transparent, accessible, frequent, and continuous manner. Incredibly, it continues to be easier for citizens to discern where private banks and thrifts lend than to determine where public transportation agencies spend.

Accountability. At a time of economic uncertainty and fiscal stress, transportation spending must be held to a higher standard of managerial efficiency, programmatic effectiveness, and fiscal responsibility. To that end, reform efforts should establish a new framework for accountability that includes improved performance measures and rewards for exceptional achievement.

Integration. Congestion is a product of many factorsÑdispersed development, employment decentralization, shifting consumption patterns, market restructuring, and accidents. Previous federal reform efforts led by the late Senator Daniel Moynihan made some efforts, mostly ignored, to integrate transportation decisions with local and regional decisions on land use, housing, workforce, and economic development. Those efforts should be expanded.

Metropolitan governance. Congress should recognize the primacy of metropolitan areas where eight out of 10 Americans live and align the geography of transportation decisionmaking with the geography of regional economies, commuting patterns, and social reality. To this end, it should devolve greater responsibility and resources to metropolitan entities.

Market dynamics. The mounting transportation pressures occur at a time of severe fiscal constraint, pervasive frustration with congestion, and increasing opposition to road expansion. As in Europe, this requires a firm national commitment to make maximum use of existing road capacity and expand transportation alternatives. Efforts for using state-of-the-art communications technology to encourage market approaches to congestion relief, including road pricing should be augmented.

As the ARC board undergoes its Regional Transportation Institution Analysis, they should keep these principles in mind.

A few years back when I took my Intro to Sociology class, I learned an important idea about human relationships. The professor drew a bunch of dots on the board. Each dot represeted a person, and lines drawn between each dot represented relationships between the two people represented by those dots. The thicker the line, the stronger the relationships.

“Which scenario is better?” he asked. Is it better to have a few thick lines, or a whole bunch of thinner lines? In other words, is it better for a person to maintain a few strong friendships, or a large number of weak relationships?

Not to say that one is better than the other, but the evidence shows that the second option (many acquaintances) represents a strong social network — those folks are more likely to get better jobs, organize political and/or social groups, be open to new ideas, and possibly reap physical and mental health benefits. This is known as the strength of weak ties.

A recent report in the Washington Post gave a dramatic example of the importance of social networks in maintaining good mental health:

“If you have a cardiovascular problem, I would prefer to be a citizen in Los Angeles than in India,” said Benedetto Saraceno, director of the department of mental health and substance abuse at WHO’s headquarters in Geneva. “If I had cancer, I would prefer to be treated in New York than in Iran. But if you have schizophrenia, I am not sure I would prefer to be treated in Los Angeles than in India.”

It goes to show that despite whatever wealth and scientific knowledge has accumulated in the industrialized nations over the 20th century, there is still much to learn. To say that mental health is a purely chemical matter misses the point entirely.

I’ve read several independent sources now that claim to say that a combination of medication and therapy is the most effective way to treat most mental disorders. In depression, for example, certain core areas of the brain tend to shrink. Medicine such as Prozac helps those areas of the brain grow back, but therapy helps dictate how they grow back.

Schizophrenia is a different issue from depression, though it is related — it’s all about the brain. The Post article described the stories of people who recovered from schizophrenia without any need for drugs and therapy. Whether these patients actually had schizophrenia or one of another twenty disorders similar to it is unknown. Whatever the case, it is estimated that up to half of the homeless we see on the streets have the disease.

What I’ve heard from some knowledgable sources about the subject of schizophrenics on the streets is that in many cases, they can be given medication and would act “normal,” as though the disorder was not evident. Many have been given medication, but choose not to take it. The greater challenge for these cases is to show more compassion by doing more than just throwing pills at the problem. Taking pills that help the brain regrow without a way to help shape that regrowth can’t do a whole lot of good.

The United Way’s Commission on Homelessness is about to enter a major phase of showing the sort of compassion we need in our city through the opening of a 24-hour service center. Giving the homeless population a vehicle to establish personal connections based on trust — social networks, if you will — will be more effective than any previous effort at helping those in need here at home.

There is more, of course. In order to find housing for the homeless, that housing must exist. Establishing communities that are conducive to strong social networks (i.e., not suburbs) would be a start. Encouraging real estate developers to provide workforce housing within their developments is a tall order. But to solve this problem of homelessness, it also takes homes in strong communities. We could simply call it: connecting the dots.

Today is Independence Day. As Jen reminds us, it’s a good day to remember some of the things that made this place great — why so many from around the world still want to come here.

Today is the 229th anniversary of the day we declared our independence. We declared that the business of America is not business, royalty, or inequality. The business of America is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Emma Lazarus writes:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”