West Trinity Place, Decatur GA (pic submitted by DM)

The AJC teased this story online Friday afternoon and then followed up with a front of the Metro section feature this morning.

Decatur High School parents are reconsidering a proposal to name a campus garden in honor of a longtime volunteer who killed himself after being indicted for child pornography.

The Decatur High School 
PTSA has collected more than $6,100 in donations in honor of architect Bruce Fabrick, who helped start the community garden at the school. The PTSA was looking at a way to memorialize Fabrick, who died in December, by possibly naming the garden after him or adding birdhouses with his name.

Patch also reported on the story this morning.

Early on Friday, MrFixIt wrote this comment in FFAF…

I very much appreciate our Decatur police. However, for the next few months, I’d like to see them spending more time on the square dealing with the criminals who are selling drugs to our high school and middle school kids and less time handing out traffic tickets. Also, isn’t the square within 1000 feet of a school?

I followed up with Decatur’s Deputy Police Chief Keith Lee, who responded…

We have recently expanded our downtown business district patrol from 1 officer to 3. The officers work overlapping schedules to allow us to cover the area throughout the day and evening. We have made several arrests for violations of drug laws in the area over the past year. It is standard operating procedure to charge anyone who is arrested within 1000 feet of a school for drug violations with the additional charge.

Crimereports.com shows three drug-related arrests around Decatur Square since last October.

Going simply by the requests of public officials in the Atlanta metropolitan area, the idea of more widespread mass transit isn’t just a yuppie-duppie, ITP sorta pipe-dream anymore.

Based on the Atlanta Regional Commission’s compiled Atlanta metro wish-list of projects to be paid by a Transportation Sales Tax, mass transit is a top priority, not just for old hats like Fulton and DeKalb, but also for many of the most populous counties outside I-285.

The AJC’s summary of the 436 project list shows that the 12 county region asked for over $13 billion in mass transit and $8.5 billion in road improvements.  (You can view the full project list yourself, HERE) These numbers mean next to nothing, since local governments weren’t asked to prioritize projects and those reticent of mass transit would use that larger number to argue its outrageous expense just as quickly as supporters would use it to demonstrate its need.

However, a closer look at individual county projects shows that once-hesitant mass transit counties, like Cobb and Gwinnett, are now more than ready to get into the train game.  Cobb’s most expensive requested project is a mass transit line from the Arts Center MARTA station in Midtown to Town Center/Acworth/KSU.  Gwinnett would like $1.1 billion to build a light-rail line from Doraville to Gwinnett Arena.

So what has changed?

The obviousness of the answer makes the question almost rhetorical.  Cobb and Gwinnett are very different counties today than they were in the 1970s.  Atlanta’s growth has subsumed them, MARTA or no MARTA.  Populations have soared and traffic has gotten appreciably worse as a result.  And as is so often the case – boring as it may be – need tends to trump ideology most days of the week.

Now, I’ve surely gotten ahead of myself.  This list is only representative of the wishful thinking of public officials, and not necessarily the voting population.  But based on this initial sign from Atlanta’s outer-boroughs, mass-transit is really less about Left or Right as it is about need.

And with gas approaching $4/gallon and cars providing flexible but slow commutes during rush-hour, the need for faster, cheaper alternatives might finally win out in a few counties where such options were once quite unnecessary.