Decatur Metro

With our help, 10-year old Decatur phenom Sydney Rhame has made it to the semi-finals in Kudzu’s “Amazing Kids” contest with her “My Turn” performance at Kavarna.

But now Sydney needs our help more than ever.

Her previous competition, a young John Lennon impersonator, is nothing compared this latest nemesis; a 2 year-old boy in his PJs singing “Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer.”

Cute?  Maybe.  Amazing?  Come on!  He can’t even stay on pitch or finish the song without the help of his dad!  And if his best rendition of this holiday classic includes a coughing-fit at the end, I can’t say I’m all that amazed.

So please click over to Kudzu and with a single click you can give Sydney your vote and help her move on to the finals for her chance to win $1000!

Through all our talks of transportation solutions in Atlanta, we often sneer at the lowly bus, and talk with the greatest enthusiasm about rail.  We envision an intricate web of hard steel, stretching across our metro-landscape, allowing cheerful residents to jump from trolley, to train, to trolley and back again.   There’s an undeniable nostalgia attached to the train and trolley, but is it the best and easiest solution for a city’s transportation problems of the 21st century?

On it’s front page this morning, the NY Times profiles the new, extensive bus service in Bogota, Columbia called the “TransMilenio” and deems it an undeniable success.  In response to fears of global warming, smog and congestion, the paper writes…

“Bus rapid transit systems like Bogotá’s, called TransMilenio, might hold an answer. Now used for an average of 1.6 million trips each day, TransMilenio has allowed the city to remove 7,000 small private buses from its roads, reducing the use of bus fuel — and associated emissions — by more than 59 percent since it opened its first line in 2001, according to city officials.”

Could such a system – which according to the Times article costs 30 times less than a subway to build and requires a third of the budget to operate – be the answer in the U.S.?  Despite the praise the given to Bogota, the Times reporter hedges his bets when it comes to native soil.

But bus rapid transit systems are not the answer for every city. In the United States, where cost is less constraining, some cities, like Los Angeles, have built B.R.T.’s, but they tend to lack many of the components of comprehensive systems like TransMilenio, like fully enclosed stations, and they serve as an addition to existing rail networks.

Huh?  So, buses aren’t the answer in cities where it’s not executed properly?  That doesn’t really exclude anyone, except those municipalities that suffer from genetic incompetence.  It sounds to me like if you really went whole-hog on a B.R.T., it could work anywhere.  That entails things detailed in the article like fully enclosed stations and dedicated bus lanes.   And to appease the aestetic crowd, we could buy cool, iconic buses.

I haven’t completely sold myself on the idea that this could be implemented anywhere successfully, but this article’s example gives me more reason than ever to doubt my own “train-skewed” vision.   In an era of record debt, maybe it’s time for the U.S. to swallow it’s collective pride and take a lesson from the second and third world.

Many walkabouts will see Atlanta’s #22 “walkscore” ranking among the nation’s largest cities as evidence that much more needs to be done for our two-footed friends.  And as a BIG fan of walking, I obviously support these efforts.  However, at the same time I’m kind of surprised that Atlanta ranks even 22 among 40 (and that doesn’t include Decatur in case you’re wondering).

Among the cities that Atlanta walks all over: Houston, Detroit, Austin, Kansas City, Memphis and Nashville.  And for all the recent talk about Charlotte, they still have a way to go according to Walkscore.com, ranked down at #38.

Yes, San Fran, NYC, Chi-town and Boston top the list, but what really smarts for Atlanta is how much higher the cities that we so often find ourselves competing with for “worst traffic” are ranked above us in  “walkability”, notably D.C. and L.A.

P.S.  Downtown Decatur scores a “83″ on Walkscore, which ranks right up there with #2 NYC.

h/t: Atlanta Unsheltered

Make no mistake about it.  The AJC is stoked about movie and TV filming in Georgia.  While entire counties now go without local coverage, the amount of stuff written about Lifetime’s locally filmed “Drop Dead Diva is eye-popping.  Did you know that Paula Abdul and Liza Minnelli were guest-stars?  Of course you did!

So needless to say, it was in the AJC that I discovered that the Lifetime pilot will air this Sunday at 9pm.  Much of this episode was filmed in Decatur and Midtown, so make sure to set your Tivos/DVRs/VCRs/recordable laserdiscs, so you get all giddy about seeing all your favorite Decatur locations in HD.

Oh, and the other thing I learned from the AJC’s in-depth article: filming has now permanently moved away from Decatur/Midtown to Peachtree City because of “traffic”.  They’ve even built “a courtroom modeled after a vintage one in Decatur, save for the marble, which is not earthquake-code compliant” down in the golf-cart mecca.  ehm…Lame!…cough..cough…

Alex writes in…

Met up with some friends at Eddie’s last night. I left a little past 11, walked across the Square to go home and was stunned to find an encampent of homeless people who had made their beds for the night, right there on the Square, just beside the ’steaming’ children’s statue.

There were seeral adults, two of whom were stretched out on the benches, covered in blankets, catching their z’s. As I glanced to the right, I saw a stroller. Oh lawd.

I called the police non-emergency number and the dispatcher seemed to be confused about what I told her. When I told her that the folks were camped out by the children’s statue on the square, she paused and then asked if I had an address for that. I got a bit flustered and said, “Well, it’s where Sycamore dead-ends…..you know, The Square!”

She kept trying to put it together and I kept wondering how much more clear I could be than “the square”. But, true to form, Decatur PD arrived in about 10 minutes, asked a lot of questions and moved them along.

I’m not even sure what to say about this.  Things must be getting pretty bad out there if people haven taken to sleeping in well-lit, well-patroled areas.

Might want to gather up the kids for this one…

Over of The Decatur Minute, Special Events Coordinator Cheryl Burnette has a very cool post that could be described as a July 4th picture diary; detailing the setup and execution of Decatur’s fireworks from the DeKalb County parking deck.

It’s the one day a year we can say “Thank goodness!” for that hideous parking deck.  Can’t set off fireworks from the top of that stupid Swanton House!

Maybe next year it can be part of a summer session of Decatur 101!  Speaking of which, did you hear that the state’s wealthiest city, John’s Creek, has started a similar program in the past year?

The ballot for this year’s Creative Loafing “Best of Atlanta” awards just went live!

Click over to the ballot page on the Creative Loafing site or on Facebook to vote Decatur for all categories!  Best Suburb? Decatur!  Best Beach Retreat?  Decatur!  Best Neighborhood to Live in Without a Car?  Decatur!

But seriously, head on over and vote for all your favorite Atlanta spots/people/things among 5 categories: “Cityscape”, “Poets, Artists & Madmen”, “After Dark”, “Oral Pleasures”, and “Consumer Culture.”   And FYI, you have to fill out a minimum of 10 slots in order to submit your vote.

And if you’re at all interested in showing DM a little love, you’ll find the “best blog/blogger” and “best blogger” entries near the very bottom of the “Cityscape” section.

XOXO in advance.

The 9th Annual Decatur BBQ, Blues and Bluegrass Festival takes over Harmony Park in Oakhurst on August 15th this year, and will be headlined by Atlanta-native Michelle Malone.

In a note to DM, BBB Chairman Bryan Swann promises more barbecue than ever and notes that the festival “has raised nearly $100,000 for the Decatur Community in the last 3 years alone.”

Watch Malone jam at the Attic after the jump…

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