Winnona Park Elementary Field, Decatur GA (pic submitted by Greg)

Daren writes in…

Looks open now, tables and umbrellas are out. Guy sweeping up tells me 3[pm].

Terry Michel wrote a similar report on Twitter.

Wow.  That was fast!

The Atlanta metro’s one-cent transportation sales tax has a VERY long way to go before it even has a chance of being put before voters for a vote in late 2012.  However, as Thomas Wheatley points out, tomorrow is the deadline for cities, counties and a certain transit authority to submit their “wish list” to the state.

Wheatley notes that Atlanta will most likely wait until the very last minute to submit their list.  However, MARTA’s already submitted their list.  According to the AJC, the list includes: a new rail line from Lindbergh Station to Emory ($685 million), an extension of the Gold Line from Doraville Station outside I-285 (Cost: $145 million), an extension of the Blue Line in both east Cost: ($522 million) and west ($582 million), and a $1 billion “mass transit lane” (bus or rail) along eastern I-20 from “central Atlanta” to Candler Road.

I’m checking with the city and Mayor Floyd (who’s one of five voting members on the transportation sales-tax exec committee) about whether Decatur has submitted a list of projects.

Until I hear back, what’s on your Atlanta transportation wish-list?

Looks like MARTA Bus #2 will soon return to Decatur Station at select times.  From an AJC article primarily focused on the restoration of the Braves Shuttle…

In addition to the shuttle, the MARTA board voted to add service to bus routes 2, 87, 99 and 181.

The original item under consideration regarding Route #2 was “…selected trips between North Avenue Station to Decatur Station via Ponce de Leon Avenue on all service days”.

Thanks to Steve and Craig for point this out!

See, you don’t need a historic structure like the Sweet Auburn Curb Market to cater to smaller food operations in your community. All you need is a parking lot.

From Anthony Bourdain’s “Medium Raw”…

If any good comes out of all the pain and insecurity [of the Great Recession], I can only hope the Asian-style food court/hawker center is one of them.  This institution is way overdue for an appearance (on a large scale) in America.  Scores of inexpensive one-chef/one-specialty businesses (basically, food stalls) clustered around a “court” of shared tables.  When will some shrewd and civic-minded investors (perhaps in tandem with their city governments) put aside some parking lot-size spaces (near commercial districts) where operators from many lands can sell their wares?  Sharing tables, as in classic fast-food food courts?  Why, with our enormous Asian and Latino populations, can’t we have dai pai dong – literally, “big sign street”, the Chinese version of the indigenous food court, like they do in Hong Kong – or hawker centers, like in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur?  Or “food streets,” like in Hanoi and Saigon?  The open-to-the-air “wet” taco vendors and quesadilla-makers of Mexico City?

Food preparation areas could be enclosed, as they are in Singapore, so food handling and sanitation issues can hardly be an unsolvable impediment: Singapore is the most rigorously nanny of nanny states – with the most vibrant hawker culture.

Where would you put one of these?