Sometimes I really hate that AJC letters have to be so short. You can make all sorts of claims in your letters, but there’s no space to provide evidence. If I thought our fair city region was fairly represented by these letters, I’d be under the impression that Atlanta’s population is composed of a bunch of knee-jerk partisans.

Anyway. I still manage to write my letters to the editor from time to time, including this one:

Today’s editorial and equal time response carry the same burden of flawed logic: that adding highway capacity reduces traffic congestion. The reality is quite the opposite. There are no credible studies showing a reduction of congestion as a result of building more or bigger roads. For a more cost-effective results-oriented approach, our state and regional leaders should focus more on building a rail transit system. Every dollar spent on building a transit system would be much more effective than any more dollars wasted on building more roads.

My cousin, who is from New Orleans, created this t-shirt design that you should go check out. Here are his comments:

I have been working on this shirt since I had to evacuate from New Orleans in September. It has taken a long time mainly because all of my heart and soul has gone into it. The type means “Never Forget” in french.

I’m back out of school for now, but still exhausted. It may take a while before I get anywhere near a daily blogging schedule, but here is one for a start.

The Atlanta Regional Commission just released the new 2006-2011 Transportation Improvement Program list of projects. The actual document is about 557 pages long, full of lots of transportation programs, both good and bad. No document like this could ever be all good or all bad.

The new TIP certainly provides a wealth of blogger fodder. Here’s the first item I’ll point out:

Page 253, project CO-279. In Cobb County, right by my stomping grounds, is a proposed extension of Mount Wilkinson Parkway to go through the apartment complex on Crestlane Drive and the Drewsbury subdivision. Mount Wilkinson Parkway will run ramshod through these two neighborhoods for the sake of connecting to Campbell Road.

There’s little doubt in my mind that someday more neighborhooods will fall victim to the Parkway just to make the connection to Spring Road. Assuming I’m reading this thing right, the project is estimated to cost $21,557,600. $4,440,000 of that will come from the federal government. The rest will come from Cobb County taxpayers.

What was that I said about the Cobb SPLOST, again?