AJC Atlanta Forward: Making the case for regionalism (Marietta, College Park: home, to live)

[bu2]

Originally Posted by cqholt

People should not be doing left turns in heavy traffic, across a double yellow line, if they cannot see on coming traffic. Just because someone waves you thru, the driver of the left turning car is responsible for yielding when entering a roadway.

I'm talking about residential streets where there is no double yellow line. The only way for people to get out of some of those streets is if someone lets them out (and usually people stop completely blocking the streets so you can't get in or out). The road is curvy, limiting visibility, and traffic also makes it hard to see vehicles coming from the other direction. North Decatur is the only way out of some of those neighborhoods.

[jero23]

Originally Posted by bu2

Well they have allowed Decatur to reduce lanes on Ponce and Clairmont. Briarcliff got some extra much needed sidewalks and an unneeded bike lane, but the only improvement for auto traffic was repaving. Brookhaven appears intent on allowing major development in Executive Park without any suggestions for improving the traffic flow there at N. Druid Hills, Briarcliff and I-85. Traffic there sometimes backs up through the various traffic lights from Briarcliff to the North side of I-85. The exit ramp off I-85S is dangerously short, creating a bad situation with crossing traffic between those exiting I-85 and those on the frontage road and sometimes backing traffic onto I-85.

The Brookhaven situation sound like textbook example of the municipality not talking with GDOT and the County on the potential impacts the development would have on the infrastructure. It seems like a number of municipalities does this with annexed islands or peninsulas of land where they plan on developing in this region.

[arjay57]

Regionalism makes sense on certain aspects of water and transportation planning, but otherwise I lean toward local government. Small governments tend to be more flexible, adaptable and accountable.

[jero23]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Regionalism makes sense on certain aspects of water and transportation planning, but otherwise I lean toward local government. Small governments tend to be more flexible, adaptable and accountable.

Uh, no they are not... I've seen more unaccountable actions, unable to adapt, and inflexibility with the smaller governments than larger ones. Another reason why they can get away with these things because nobody is paying attention to them especially the local media.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by jero23

Uh, no they are not... I've seen more unaccountable actions, unable to adapt, and inflexibility with the smaller governments than larger ones. Another reason why they can get away with these things because nobody is paying attention to them especially the local media.

One thing that I believe is this. Alot of the smaller governments are out of touch with what some of the residents might want. Regionalism could work out if more people want it. If more people paid attention, then there would indeed be more things done. A metro of 5.5 million people should have a more united transportation system than it has.

This is I believe the metro should be run. Bigger services like transportation, need to be run by the region. Education should be run by smaller governments. Certain services should be allocated to a regional role. Others should be allocated to the municipalities.

One other change to consider is how municipalities are done. Take Kennesaw for example. Much of what seems like Kennesaw is unincorporated Cobb County. It's more developed than the actually city. I'm wondering if it would be better for all places with "mailing address Kennesaw" to be incorporated into the city of Kennesaw, and places with "Marietta mailing address" to have the same thing?

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by green_mariner

One other change to consider is how municipalities are done. Take Kennesaw for example. Much of what seems like Kennesaw is unincorporated Cobb County. It's more developed than the actually city. I'm wondering if it would be better for all places with "mailing address Kennesaw" to be incorporated into the city of Kennesaw, and places with "Marietta mailing address" to have the same thing?

That's a contrivance of the Post Office more than anything else.

[jero23]

Originally Posted by Gulch

That's a contrivance of the Post Office more than anything else.

Well sort of, I used to be a GIS analysis whom worked with the addressing of individual properties and the delivery of that updated information to E-911 and US Postal Service. I remember working with now-archived historical shapefiles created by the US Census Bureau and US Postal Service for local areas used by counties and municipalities. In the past, the US Postal service attempted to name places after individual locales. Due to contractions of their services and number of post office locations over the years, they just simply consolidated many places under the umbrella of the nearest incorporated place or county seat to save money.

[Clayton white guy]

Wow, if postal zones were incorporated, Marietta, Jonesboro, Fairburn, College Park, Decatur, Fayetteville, lots of places in the metro would suddenly have 100,000 to 200,000 people! Holy annexations Bat Man!

[Clayton white guy]

Incorporating all postal zones would also make Vinings, Cumberland, Druid Hills, and most of the Northlake area City of Atlanta.

[skbl17]

Yeah, the mailing addresses v. city limits thing is a result of USPS actions, not the State of Georgia. For instance, I used to live in "Decatur", but closer to the City of Stockbridge than the City of Decatur. Here in Dunwoody (and I'd wager most locations near or inside the Perimeter), we can use "Atlanta" as a mailing address.

Originally Posted by Clayton white guy

Incorporating all postal zones would also make Vinings, Cumberland, Druid Hills, and most of the Northlake area City of Atlanta.

Well, that solves the "MARTA to Cumberland" problem, at least.

- skbl17