While many in the Emory area are jazzed that the Clifton Corridor MARTA line was one of the second largest recipiant of transit funds allocated by the Atlanta Transportation Exec Committee, “E” points out in a comment that two smaller projects, which made the list apply specifically to the City of Decatur.

The first: “Decatur to Clifton Corridor ‐ Transit Connectivity and Safety Improvements” would receive $5 million – instead of the $10 million requested.  Here are a few deets from the project submission…

Commerce Drive, Clairemont Avenue and Church Street will be redesigned to provide safe bicycle and pedestrian facilities like sidewalks, bicycle lanes and streetscaping. The intersections of Church/Commerce and Clairemont/Commerce will be reconfigured to reduce vehicular congestion and increase pedestrian safety through the use of roundabouts, narrowed pedestrian crossings and/or improved signal timing. The design of improvements for Church Street and the two intersections at Commerce Avenue will be complete by summer of 2012.

The second: “US 278 (College Avenue) from Adair Street to North Clarendon Avenue ‐ Corridor Improvements“, which spans Decatur, DeKalb and Avondale, would also receive $5 million – instead of the $8,281,000 requested.  A few details that project submission…

The project consists of adding bike lanes, sidewalk, crossings to transit and businesses, infrastructure improvements to shoulders and pavement, as well as enhancements such as street lighting, landscaping. This project will be consistent with all design recommendations in the LCI’s of Avondale and Decatur. The project will also include the realignment of the intersection of Adair at the CSX RR crossing on the west end of the project. The intersecton improvement of College/Covington @ Clarendon will be included on the east end of the project. Improving traffic signal/ITS for the corridor and side streets.

Of course, these projects have to survive tinkering (or complete revision) by the full 21 member roundtable and still pass the 2012 public referendum before they have a chance to be built, but at this stage, it’s better to still be on the list than off!

Thanks to Ken Edelstein of Green Building Chronicle for helping me locate these projects this morning.  He’s got a great synopsis of the transit “winners” and “losers” in the transportation penny sales tax game over on his site.  (Spoiler Alert: The Clifton Corridor is a “winner”, though it will still have to figure out how to bridge a $400 million shortfall if approved)

Your DeKalb Farmers Market, DeKalb County GA (pic submitted by Amy)

Decatur Deputy Chief Keith Lee sends along the info and an application for Decatur residents – 21 and older – to enroll in the Police and Fire Department’s “Citizens Public Safety Academy”.  This year, the class will meet Thursdays from September 22nd – November 10th.  The class meets in the evening from 7:30p to 9:30p.  The application deadline is Friday, September 9th.

Here’s bit of the program summary from the application.

The Citizens Public Safety Academy (CPSA) is an exciting way to learn about police work and how the community can respond to emergencies. Through a well-prepared curriculum, taught once a week for 8 weeks, students will learn about all aspects of police operations. Academy participants will meet many of the men and women who serve in the Decatur Police and Fire Departments as they explain the functions of patrol officers, investigators, administrators, and firefighters. Academy participants will also learn how officers are trained and how one can protect against crime and fire hazards. Interesting demonstrations will illustrate the many skills and abilities police officers and fire fighters must have to effectively protect Decatur.

And speaking of the application, HERE IT IS in Word format.

Beth writes in that she recently spoke with the City of Decatur’s Lena Stevens about Latham Home Sanitation’s recycling guidelines, and “long story short, pizza boxes with minimal food contamination are now acceptable to recycle here in Decatur.”  She also notes that the city’s recycling webpage has been updated to reflect the change.

My wife also recently noted that envelopes with plastic windows are also now accepted.  (That wasn’t the case before, as I recall.)

I’m trying to get clarification regarding milk cartons, since they aren’t on the city’s lift, but the PDF flyer on the website clearly shows a picture of an OJ and milk container under “paper”, even though they aren’t listed.