Georgia support needed in rail growth

No one expected the crowds. 

No one.

But there they were. Hundreds upon hundreds of folks who had come out to their train stations along the Gulf Coast to welcome a train, a special train, a train that had been missing from their communities for over 10 years.

This train was full of national, state and local politicians, government officials, Amtrak officials, mayors, county commissioners, city council members, business representatives, chambers of commerce staffers, members of Congress and even one U.S. Senator, Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi. Yes, you heard correctly, a Republican. Really.

The train had left New Orleans at nine on the dot. Its mission was to carry all of these dignitaries and advocates on a journey to measure the desire of local folks to have a passenger train once again serve their communities.

Our first stop, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, is a town of about 11,000. As the train rolled in, we were greeted by what seemed like most of the city’s population, along with cheerleaders, a high school marching band, people dressed for Mardi Gras, city and county officials and hundreds of just plain folks who were there to say, we want ... we NEED our train back!

Every town after that tried to one-up the one before. Enormous 50-foot American flags were suspended from ladder trucks. One town put two pumpers on either side of the tracks to form a water arch for our train. Hundreds lined the tracks, even where the train did not stop, with signs saying “Welcome! We are so glad you’re here!” and “When’s the next train?

But so what? Why did these cities and towns want a train, anyway? Until the devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 ended it, these Gulf Coast communities had been served — if a three-day-a-week train that was chronically late is entitled to that verb — by Amtrak’s Sunset Limited. By the time Katrina blew away the tracks and bridges, the Sunset had been running that route for 22 years.

It was America’s first true transcontinental train, but it was plagued with scheduling and equipment problems. Thanks usually to delays on the western part of the run, lateness was chronic; there was even one time when the train was 24 hours behind schedule. So when Katrina forced Amtrak to annul the Sunset east of New Orleans, they were not in any particular hurry to bring it back.

However, the communities on the Gulf Coast thought otherwise. 

Rebuilding stat-ions that had been destroyed and renovating damaged ones was a top priority for these small cities. In spite of the limited service they had before the storm, they wanted to keep their rail connections. It took the CSX railroad five months and $300 million to rebuild the 40 miles of track and the score of bridges that were gone. Within a year, most of the affected communities had their stations ready for Amtrak. But Amtrak was not ready, and so they waited.

It took an independent organization, the Southern Rail Commission, to get the ball rolling. This commission, known as the SRC, is made up of representatives from the states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana who are appointed by their state’s governors. It is tasked with restoring passenger rail throughout the South.

Florida and Georgia have standing invitations to be part of the commission; Florida is now taking the steps it needs to take to join. Georgia, on the other hand, has refused to be part of it, possibly because our leaders are worried that the SRC might actually get some trains running or something, which of course is some kind of Democrat — if not actually Communist — plot to make us give up our automobiles. After all, in Georgia the only allowable answer for all that ails us is more and wider roads.

The SRC is not stopping its efforts with a Gulf Coast train. In addition to planning a new service from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, they are homing in on another new service that would be accessible from Georgia: splitting the daily New York-Atlanta-New Orleans Crescent in Meridian, Mississippi and sending half of the train on to Dallas, Texas.

But to do that, the SRC needs Georgia’s support, especially its political muscle in Washington. Georgia should join the SRC, but not through our DOT. Hopeful statements and occasional studies to the contrary, GDOT has no interest in rail, or really in any other mode that is not a road. If Georgia is to join the SRC, it should be through our Georgia Department of Economic Development, because, as the people on the Gulf Coast know, passenger trains can be engines of economic growth and success.

Just ask them. They’ll tell you.

(This column originally appeared in the April 2nd edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  Click HERE to go to the article on-line.) 

Save the United States!

Those who know me know that I love trains.  But I also love ships. And airplanes.  And automobiles.  In fact, I pretty much love anything big that moves. And one of the biggest things I ever saw move was the S.S. United States. I saw her putting to sea in 1946 in New York when I was five years old.  To retain that memory 51 years later means it must have impressed me very much.

I have been fortunate to have sailed on three liners:  

My first voyage was aboard the T.S.S. Olympia, of the Greek Line, from New York to the Northern Maritimes to witness the solar eclipse in 1973.  The Olympia was ultimately operated by several different companies and had several different names, but in 2010, after one of the longest sailing careers in history - 56 years - was towed to India and scrapped. Wikipedia: TSS Olympia / Regal_Empress

My second ocean trip came the next year as we departed New York for a two-week transatlantic voyage to the coast of Africa aboard the P&O liner Canberra, to see that years total solar eclipse. She was one of the most beautiful ships of the old school, where you laid a keel and built up from there, and sailed from 1961 until 1977, when was scrapped in Pakistan.  Wikipedia: SS Canberra

My last (at least for the moment) cruise was with my wife and children aboard the M.V. Wonder of the Disney Steamship Line.  She is by far the largest ship I've sailed upon, and while she was built using modern-day pre-fabricated modules (which in my humble opinion has given us some very unpleasant-looking ships), she was painted to give the impression of the lines of a traditional liner and much of her interior is an homage to the great liners of the Cunard Line.

I have also stood upon the flying bridge of the R.M.S. Queen Elizabeth (another 1964 memory) as my family and I bade bon voyage to my grandmother, Rosetta, as she sailed to Europe.  A beautiful ship and sister to R.M.S. Queen Mary, she was sold to become a floating university, but in 1972, during refitting in Hong Kong harbor, caught fire and capsized from all the water poured into her to fight the fire. The following year she was scrapped where she lay.

So, those are my Ocean Liner bonafides.  And now, on to the subject of this blog entry:
                      Saving the United States

I've never sailed aboard the United States, but as I said, I did see her getting underway.  In transatlantic service from 1952 until 1969, the United States was the fastest liner afloat, and one of the fastest ships of any kind in the world.  Equipped with a power plant similar to those of the New Jersey-class battleships, United States broke all records on her maiden voyage, powering through the water at over 40 mph.

Now, that's a Big Thing that moves!

In the 1994 she was towed to Ukraine where all of her innards (especially all of the asbestos insulation) were removed, and that's why she's just empty inside--except for one wall, it seems, and the boiler and engine rooms.  Also, because they no longer met specifications, all of her lifeboats stayed there as well. Then she was towed back to Philly where she sits, looking somewhat emaciated without her boats, waiting for a new mission.

You can see an awesome video of how she looks in the inside today here.

Although she looks pretty awful with no interior, one plus of this is that she will be much easier to adapt to new needs if they can take her to NYC and a new, if albeit stationery, life. 

I continue to hope that this great ship, this symbol of our national drive, will be restored to her former glory and given a new life where she can tell her story as the fastest ocean liner ever. She is an icon of our country, and she needs to be treated as such.  She is our Flagship; our "Ship of State".  She MUST be saved, and it is looking like she may have smooth seas ahead, if this story from Philly.com is any indication:

Click on the image to go to the story...

Additional stories about this possibility for restoration are below...

CBS TV - Deal Struck to save Historic Ocean Liner

NJ.com: Historic ocean liner SS United States saved under new deal

And lastly, click on this logo to go to the SSUS Conservancy....

I joined several years ago.  You should too.

Let's Save Our Ship!

Atlanta Streetcar helping to energize historic Auburn Avenue

The Streetcar ain't so Bad

With all the Nattering Nabobs of Negativism passing judgement on the Atlanta Streetcar, saying in essence that in the year that it’s been in operation it hasn’t solved all of our traffic problems throughout the metro, and neither has it brought people together in peace and harmony; nor has it solved the problem of homelessness.

An yet, in spite of the negative press the Streetcar has been getting of late, there are some good things coming from the investment, and fortunately CNN’s Emanuella Grinberg, looking for good news, went and found some.  And not only that, but she tied it into Dr. King's legacy as well.

Progress? Definitely.

www.cnn.com/2016/01/16/living/king-historic-district-auburn-avenue-feat

Life returns—slowly—to MLK's old neighborhood

By Emanuella Grinberg, CNN

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Ricci de Forest is proprietor of the Madam C.J. Walker Beauty Shoppe Museum on Hilliard Street between Auburn Avenue and Old Wheat Street. The site of an original Madam C.J. Walker salon, the museum features antique hair-care products and marketing memorabilia from the era when Walker was one of few entrepreneurs targeting the African-American haircare market. In addition to curating the haircare exhibit, de Forest, a stylist, sees clients in the salon and broadcasts a radio show under the call letters WERD, the first black-owned radio station, which started in the Prince Hall Grand Lodge

Above the salon.

Jackson McGrady Smith Jr. remembers the first time streetcars rolled through the streets of Atlanta, connecting his African-American neighborhood on Auburn Avenue to the seat of white leadership downtown.

Not that he had much use for them growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, when Jim Crow ruled the South and restricted where African-Americans lived, worked and socialized. Besides, Smith says, he had just about everything he needed up on Auburn Avenue, then the center of black life in Atlanta. In 1956, Fortune magazine dubbed it the "richest Negro street in the world."

Last surviving Atlanta Streetcar
operates at the Seashore Trolley
Museum in Kennebunkport, Me.

When the last streetcar rang in 1949, Auburn Avenue and other parts of the Old Fourth Ward brimmed with black-owned grocers, banks, churches, cultural institutions, restaurants and offices. The trolleys returned in late 2014 to serve a different group.

A modern Atlanta Streetcar head towards downtown
on Auburn Avenue.  The spire in the background
is Big Bethel AME Church.

Today, an electric streetcar shuttles tourists from downtown Atlanta to Smith's old stomping grounds -- now a separate neighborhood from Old Fourth Ward called "Sweet Auburn" -- and the nearby King Center, which pays homage to the neighborhood's most famous resident, the Rev. Martin Luther King. Jr.

Smith agreed to hop aboard the new streetcar on Thursday, a day before annual weekend-long celebrations of the civil rights leader kicked off. As the streetcar hummed past the funeral home where King's body was prepared, Smith launched into his life story, pointing out landmarks from his childhood.

Smith's journey from Auburn Avenue to Morehouse College to regional division manager of the Federal Aviation Administration is in many ways a realization of King's dream of upward mobility for African-Americans.

The story of Auburn Avenue, however, and the Old Fourth Ward has not been as linear.

Much has been written about the decline of Auburn Avenue after desegregation, which led families and businesses to leave the neighborhood, and its struggle to rebuild. In the past five or six years, the narrative has taken a cautiously optimistic turn as new businesses and residential real estate open in the area and Georgia State University's footprint in the neighborhood expands.

The streetcar has been touted as a crucial piece of this renaissance by bringing visitors to the area. What will they find when they get there?

Smith's father owned the gas station at the corner of Auburn Avenue and Jackson Street, where the family lived. Across the street is Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King's father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., baptized Smith at age 5 and presided over Smith's wedding. Smith watched MLK grow from a young man known as M.L. to Rev. M.L., then Rev. King, and, finally, Dr. King. As a teen, Smith mowed King's lawn and inherited his old suits and wing-tipped shoes.

Today, the gas station is gone, replaced by a shopping plaza with a barber shop and a store selling homeopathic remedies, both popular with the seniors who live across the street in Wheat Street Towers. Ebenezer is still there, adjacent to the King Center, and King's birth home is up the street. The landmarks are the main destinations for tourists disembarking at the King historic district. Due to its relative high foot traffic, the streetcar stop attracts panhandlers offering tour guide services in exchange for donations to get them a bed at the Atlanta Mission.

Down the road, derelict buildings now jostle for space with new hipster bars, upscale restaurants and cafes, embodying tension between past and present in an area experiencing gentrification in some parts and stalled development in others.

An irrepressible booster for Atlanta -- "the most beautiful city in the world" -- Smith proudly holds himself up as a product of Atlanta in the civil rights era, as well as Ebenezer and "Daddy King."

Will today's residents of King's neighborhood benefit from the same supportive environment? Smith has his doubts.

"I think Dr. King would be disappointed in the poverty that's still showing up on Auburn Avenue," he said, slowly choosing his words, as the streetcar rolled through the Georgia State campus.

"He would be disappointed in all the violence that still goes on and the crime. He would've thought that we would've advanced more toward peace and liberty and respecting everybody's rights. I know we're not there yet."

What would MLK's father, "Daddy King," make of it?

"He believed in entrepreneurship. 'Daddy King' would be disappointed at the slow economic development that we've been able to take advantage of," he said.

Change for the better?

A ride down Auburn on the streetcar bears testament to Smith's concerns, as well as signs of progress. Plenty of business owners share the entrepreneurial spirit of "Daddy King" along Auburn and Edgewood Avenues.  But for every mom and pop shop there's a crumbling storefront or empty lot serving as reminders of what the neighborhood used to be and could be again.

History hides in plain sight; blink and you might miss the explanatory signs hanging on poles and historic plaques on sides of buildings. One block from Smith's childhood home -- past Atlanta's two oldest black-owned funeral homes, a fast-food seafood joint and a convenience store -- is the masonic hall that was home to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's first office and its new Atlanta headquarters. Around the corner is a restored Madam C. J. Walker salon featuring antique hair care products.

Separating the businesses from the historic cluster is a dilapidated building and a desolate lot offering a view of the former site of the WheatStreet Garden Apartments (not to be confused with the Wheat Street Tower). The homes were a unique partnership between nearby Wheat Street Baptist Church and the city to provide affordable housing to low-income families displaced by urban renewal policies that replaced slum housing with stadiums, civic centers and highways—including I-20 and the I-75/I-85 connector.

http://atlantablockparty.blogspot.com/2014/12/wheat-street-gardens.html

Today, it's home to a community urban garden which started in 2010 and has proven sustainable through community farming initiatives.

In winter months, however, plants in the ground and barren trees on the lot don't offer much of a view. On Thursday, a former resident of the apartment happened to be visiting the neighborhood with her daughter and stopped to take it in.

Donyale Printup left the neighborhood in 2007 for Stone Mountain, one year before the buildings were demolished. She has fond memories of growing up with her extended family in the homes. But when drugs became rampant in the late 1990s she decided it was time to leave.

She's happier in Stone Mountain, where it's quiet and "I don't have to worry about all the noise," she said. Her daughter, 19-year-old Kasey, misses the energy of the city.

Printup said something needed to change on Auburn but the neglected buildings are barely an improvement.

"Wouldn't it be nice if they got a Target or Ross or somewhere nice to shop? The little trolley comes through but there's nothing to do. If people are coming here from all over they should have something to see," she said.

"I'm just overwhelmed by all the changes," she added, "but the thing is, what are the changes for?"

Ricci de Forest, proprietor of the Madam C.J. Walker Beauty Shoppe Museum , remembers when his salon looked onto the Wheat Street Garden Apartments, recalling with fondness the tight-knit community of extended families living among drug dealers and "crack addicts."

https://www.facebook.com/themadamemuseum/

A professional stylist who moved to Atlanta in the 1980s, de Forest was enchanted by the abandoned storefront with the salon's original signage miraculously preserved. Even better were the antique hair care products left behind.

He moved his salon into the shop about 10 years ago and put the antiques on display, transforming the space into a time capsule. On the other side of the room, vintage vinyl fills tall shelves. When he learned that the space above the salon in the Prince Hall Masonic Temple http://sweetauburn.us/princehall.htm  was home to WERD,America's first black-owned radio station he was inspired to revive the call numbers and start a radio show.

He said he brokered an understanding with the drug dealers and users that led to peaceful coexistence. Streetcar-related construction was a bigger disruption to his business before it started running in late 2014, he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/us/atlanta-hopes-streetcar-route-will-grow-into-a-traffic-fix.html

"There's no doubt it's a crucial piece in revitalizing Auburn Avenue," he said, a glass of red wine in his hand as jazz from his radio broadcast filled the salon. "We have built it so they will come. Now we need to work on bringing more businesses and vitality to the neighborhood.

"Progress didn't start with Dr. King, and it didn't end with him."

Signs of progress

Down the street near the Dobbs Plaza streetcar stop, past more Instagram-worthy "ruin porn and a walk beneath the 14-lane highway, is another survivor.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/12/architecture/what-ruin-porn-tells-us-about-ruins-and-porn/

Ten years ago, Sweet Auburn Bread Company http://www.sweetauburnbread.com/ owner Sonya James moved from the Sweet Auburn Curb Market on Edgewood into the Odd Fellows building http://sweetauburn.us/oddfellows.htm, the former headquarters of the Atlanta Chapter of the Grand Order of Odd Fellows. The building's Jacobean revival architecture recalls the grandeur of the era when it served as a hub for black businesses and the site of a black social club.

James makes the most of the bakery/storefront, squeezing into the tight space a display case of tempting pastries, shelves of preserves and framed newspaper clippings of the time she presented President Bill Clinton with her famous sweet potato cheesecake.

In this space, she weathered streetcar construction, the economic recession and a 2008 tornado which took out several historic structures, includingthe Herndon Building http://sweetauburn.us/herndon.htm> across the street—former home of NAACP offices, The Savoy Hotel, the Atlanta Urban League and B.B. Beamon's, a white-table cloth restaurant for blacks where Smith brought his prom date.

A native Atlantan, James is proud to continue Auburn Avenue's legacy of black entrepreneurship.

"This is my home," she said as she prepared food for delivery in a small space behind the display case. "When people come all the way to visit historic Auburn Avenue we have to give them something to see."

Right across the street is a relative newcomer who has made it past the one-year mark in an area of high business turnover. The walls of Sweet Auburn Seafood <http://sweetauburnseafood.com/> are decorated with pictures of neighborhood landmarks -- King's birth home, the Royal Peacock, Big Bethel AME Church –and past Atlanta mayors.

General manager Douglas Jester, another Atlanta native, remembers when Auburn was the epicenter of the civil rights movement. Some of the pictures hanging on the restaurant's wall are of politicians—Maynard Jackson,

Andrew Young -- who visited Jester's school in the nearby Summerhill neighborhood to talk to students about black pride and the value of an education.

He also remembers when the neighborhood "lost its charm" in the 1980s as disinvestment coupled with nation's drug epidemic made Auburn Avenue an urban blight.

"We want to be a viable partner in the community," he said. "Because I'm a native it means a lot to me to know that this is home."

On the other side of the street, the Royal Peacock marquee remains, advertising twerking contests and DJs at a nightclub now known as M. Next door, another historic facade lingers, the hand-painted lettering on the window of Silver Moon Barber Shop -- "the oldest barbershop in Atlanta"—even though the inside has been abandoned since 2012.

As Georgia State University approaches near the Piedmont streetcar stop, students lugging backpacks and bags of takeout walk past a beauty salon, a Caribbean restaurant, niche retail stores. After sitting empty for nearly seven years due to tornado damage, the Atlanta Daily World building—former home of the country's oldest black newspaper -- reopened in 2015 with a juice shop and, later, a coffee shop.

This is the part of Auburn that gives Smith hope.

The gentrification debate

As the streetcar passes through Centennial Olympic Park, a panhandler who tried to offer us a national historic site pamphlet for the King Center tries his luck on Smith. After declining politely, Smith ponders why his people are still struggling, especially in King's hometown.

It's two things, he said.

"You're a product of your environment. I'm a good example of that. I would not have advanced in my life like I did had it not been for the environment I grew up in with Ebenezer and the Kings, feeling that failure is not an option," he said. "Then, there is systematic organized racism, against males and females and Hispanics and it's not getting any better with this presidential stuff we got going now. I think Dr. King and "Daddy King" would disappointed with some of the rhetoric we're hearing and the anti-Muslim stuff."

The solution? "The black church played such an important role in the advancement of our people," he said. "We need more social activism, more leadership to help guide our people like I've been talking about. How 'Daddy King' guided us at Ebenezer."

The streetcar turns onto Edgewood Avenue, ground zero for Atlanta' s gentrification debate. Through some see it as a positive bellwether for Atlanta' s revitalization hopes, others see it in another light.  Sister Louisa's Church of the Living Room & Ping Pong Emporium is a popular destination for ping pong and church organ karaoke.

"('Daddy King') would probably be a little disappointed that there's not a lot of black businesses up and down Edgewood there," Smith said.

It's just one block away, but unlike on Auburn Avenue, white-owned businesses have anchored Edgewood Avenue for decades, many of which are still standing, said Joe Stewardson, president of the Old Fourth Ward Business Association. Even if white-owned businesses outnumber black-owned businesses on Edgewood, he says it's still among the most diverse business corridors and neighborhoods in Atlanta.

"Change is hard and you can call it whatever you want and no matter what you do there's always going to be some groups or individuals that have problems with those changes," said Stewardson, a property owner on Edgewood who's also on the board of the Sweet Auburn Works initiative.

"At the end of the day, what's really important is that whoever we attract legitimately wants to have a great neighborhood where everyone can live, work and play in a safe environment. "

As day turns to night, revelers fill the sidewalks, lining up outside bars that draw patrons of all colors from throughout the city and suburbs: blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians.

Progress? Maybe.

—end—

Railroads are Ahead of Congress

This came over the transom this morning from POLITICO:

BLUMENTHAL WORKING ON RAIL LEGISLATION -

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), newly installed as the chair of the Commerce Committee's surface transportation subcommittee, told POLITICO he plans to introduce a rail bill sometime this year that will look at both safety issues and attracting investment. "This subcommittee has a historic opportunity to move our railroads into the 21st century," he said. Blumenthal said he wants to look at creating a railroad trust fund or an infrastructure bank, but he isn't only looking at more spending. Some of the incidents that have plagued Metro-North, he said, "involve clearly inept leadership."

Blumenthal doesn't have a specific timeline for introducing a bill and said he wants to allow NTSB and FRA investigations of the Metro-North crashes to proceed so the results can inform his bill. But he does aim to introduce legislation in the next few months. He also said the hearing taking place this morning would be the first in a series looking to hold both the railroads and federal regulators accountable. While House Railroads subcommittee chair Jeff Denham has been working on a bill for months, Blumenthal's hearing is the first public step the Senate has taken towards legislation.

While we should all be pleased that Congress is trying to do SOMETHING, I daresay that the railroads would tell Sen. Blumenthal that they have already moved into the 21st century and they'd be happy to show him how. 

Looking at his on-line bio, I doubt that--other than perhaps riding Amtrak on the NEC--he has had much contact with railroads, so a show-and-tell by the railroads for the Senator might have some salubrious effects.

Sadly, if he's like most of his Congressional colleagues, he'll be too busy bringing the railroads into the 21st century to learn from them what really needs fixing.

Utility of Transit vs Cost of Transit

I have long preached on the need for our city's transit systems to have high utility.  By that I mean that people who use transit can get where they want to go (or at least nearby) easily and quickly.  Low utility is what we have now for the majority, not just in Atlanta but in most of the world.

Here are some of David Henry's ideas on how the new Atlanta Streetcar project can be better.  The first one, especially, is absolutely correct - the higher the frequency; that is, the less time a person has to wait for a car -- the more useful the streetcar will be. 

Atlanta will have four streetcars, but right now only plans to run two at a time.  This likely means headways of up to  20 minutes.  In 20 minutes a potential customer could very likely walk to his or her destination.  Most certainly they could drive that distance.  Of course the obstacle is not a lack of streetcars, but rather the high cost of people to operate the cars.  I'm not against paying a fair wage people to drive our buses and our trains, but this is why we can't have nice things.  We simply cannot afford enough people to give our bus lines high utility, and we barley afford to keep headways on our heavy rail within decent intervals. 

And therein lies the rub.  If we cannot run enough buses on enough routes to feed the rail and then distribute from the rail,  then we have low utility.  Low utility put fewer buts in the seats, which reduces farebox income and increases dependency on the public purse.

As it's said, it takes money to make money.  If we are not willing to raise the utility of the streetcar, much less all of our transit systems in and around Atlanta, then we are left with a system that costs the taxpayers more because we are not willing to make the needed investment on the front end.

I'm not sure what can be done about this.  Education isn't working, as touted as that solution to everything is -- we are still electing people to office who ought to know better to and yet do not.  Perhaps when gas gets up to $5 a gallon, we might...perhaps...start to see a change in our public policies.  But I'm not going to hold my breath for that either.

Catch-22 in Minnesota

Minnesota's Northstar Commuter Rail 'System' (I'm not sure that one route constitutes a "system", but I digress) is seeing growth in ridership, though it has not increased as much as supporters -- and even those who do not support the project -- would like, writes Sarah Horner in the Pioneer Press on July 21st.

The Catch that Northstar finds itself is this: "Ridership must reach 4,000 average weekday rides before talk of extending the line to St. Cloud can be restarted."  Although June's ridership hit 3,000 trips, its year-to-date average is down around 2,700.

The unfortunate thing about this requirement is that if the line went to St. Cloud now, it would likely average far more that 4,000 weekday rides. 

I am encouraged by the realism of opponents as expressed by Anoka County Board Chairman Rhonda Sivarajah, who never supported the project:  

"The gains make it easier to make "lemonade out of lemons," she said. "We now have an obligation to try and bring that subsidy per rider down as much as possible. That's the only thing we can do as a county board to try and improve what I think is kind of a bad situation."

This is a good strategy for her and her fellow malcontents.  If Northstar ultimately fails, they can all wag their fingers and scold the rest with "I told you so!"  But if, as is more likely as the price of gasoline continues to rise, it succeeds brilliantly, they can say that much of the success is due to the efforts they made to make lemonade out of  lemons.

Also, it makes sense from a political point-of-view, which in the halls of 'gummint' is the one that often counts more than any actual success or failure. 

Across the aisle, those who favor transit initiatives tend not to have a good fall-back position like Chairman Sivarajah's, and when presented with a defeat or setback often resort to whining about how the world will end if their project isn't approved and built the way they want. 

It must be noted, of course, that Minnesotans are generally a less vitriolic bunch than most of their fellow Americans.  After all, they elected Al Franken, a known Comedian, to the United States Senate.

But regardless of the relatively level heads in the Land of Cheese, supporters of transit initiatives nationwide must develop similar strategies. If they do, they will find even more success at the polls for transit initiatives and expansion than they already do.

For Northstar, incremental improvements in ridership are better than none of course.  I just hope they will be prepared to handle the crush of riders they'll get when they do finally get to St. Cloud.

A Christmas Wish for Atlanta's Transit

By Doug Alexander

There was a time, not so long ago, when a person could get nearly everywhere in the City of Atlanta on transit.

Of course, that was when the transit system was privately owned by the Georgia Power Company and consisted entirely of streetcars.

The system was enormous; tracks went up and down most major streets, and extended out as far as Marietta and Stone Mountain.

The streetcars were safe and reliable.

When Harry Norman Real Estate Broker Necia Kelleher was just six years old, she could get on the streetcar near her home in West End and ride downtown all by herself to do her Christmas shop-ping at Rich’s Department Store.

She wasn’t unsupervised, of course: her mother, Thelma Knight, put her on the streetcar at the stop near her home; her Aunt Lucy welcomed her downtown (and took her to lunch at the famed Magnolia Room); and the streetcar motormen kept an eye out for the young lady throughout her trip.

Children were not the only ones who took “the Car” with ease. My grandfather, Cecil Alexander, Sr., had a hardware store on Pryor Street. He also had a little black Scottie dog named Snuff.

Each day, he and Snuff would walk a block from their home on St. Charles Avenue to catch an inbound streetcar on Ponce de Leon, and then walk another block to the store to open it up for business.

After the day was done, Cecil and Snuff would lock up, and catch the Car for home.

According to family lore, as Snuff “got on” in years, he began sleeping in at home. An hour or so after my grandfather had left for the store, Snuff would head out by himself. The streetcar would rumble and squeal to a stop, the door would open with a woosh as the steps dropped down with a whump, and the little dog would bound up into the streetcar and sit himself down for the trip.

Family lore also tells us that after a year or two of this, as Snuff became elderly (for a dog), he decided that he didn’t need to stay at the store until closing. Snuff began leaving about an hour before closing to catch the Car for home. Georgia Power even gave Snuff a lifetime pass to use the system as he pleased, though his master still had to pay full fare.

Of course, one has to take family lore with at least a few grains of salt, but we do know that the part about the pass is true; years ago the late historian Franklin Garrett found and showed my Dad and me the entry in Georgia Power’s pass records for “Snuff – a dog.”

By the time I came along, Atlanta’s streetcars and the trolley buses that succeeded them were long gone, replaced by buses owned by the city. They didn’t go to quite as many places as the streetcars had gone, and as years went by they became less frequent too.

Fortunately, I was blessed with a grandmother in New Orleans, so on visits as a youngster I did get to know what it was like to ride a real streetcar, and it saddened me that we didn’t have these wonderful rolling park-benches on our streets.

 When I was a member of the City Council in the 1990s, I began a conversation about bringing street-cars back to Auburn Avenue to help in the redevelopment of that famous street. That conversation has at last borne fruit: a brand-new streetcar line is being built from the heart of downtown to the heart of our civil rights heritage at the Martin Luther King Center.

And so, on this Christmas Day, my wish for our city is that this will be the first of many new streetcar lines, and that they will help to re-connect our neighborhoods and knit Atlanta back into to a place where six-year-olds – and the occasional dog – can get around town in safety and with ease.
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Published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Christmas Day - December 25, 2012

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