Church Street, Decatur GA (pic submitted by Invisible Summer)

As the Medlock Park Neighborhood Association blog points out, MARTA has issued its official recommendation for the Clifton Corridor transit, after months and months of open houses and discussion with the surrounding communities.

Light Rail Option 1 would run transit from Lindbergh Center all the way to the Avondale MARTA Station.  As you can see from the map above, there would be 10 above-ground stations, including ones along the way at North Decatur and Clairmont, Suburban Plaza and DeKalb Medical Center.  In the Decatur area, there are also optional stations planned for DeKalb Industrial and at the old DeVry campus on North Arcadia.  A note from MARTA posted on the MANA site, points out that this option “would allow an alternative means of for high-capacity evacuation from the CDC in the event of an emergency situation.”

MANA has posted a more detailed map of Light Rail Option 1 on Google Docs HERE.

According to MARTA’s website, the plan is pending approval from MARTA’s Board of Directors. It will be presented to the MARTA Planning and External Relations Committee on March 26th and to the MARTA Board on April 9th.

And just an FYI: Obviously, the near-future execution of this project is entirely dependent on the outcome of the July T-SPLOST vote.

The Hunger Games!

“The Hunger Games,” the most anticipated film in the history of Little Shop of Stories, comes out on Friday.  For the super eager, most every theater, including AMC North DeKalb 16, will be having midnight showings tomorrow night.  (Plug: Little Shop is hosting a Hunger Games Party on Thursday at 7 p.m.)

The movie is based on the first book in Suzanne Collins’ young adult trilogy, which has been a publishing phenomena.  For the uninitiated, the books are set in a post-apocalyptic future in which the the known world has been reduced to twelve districts.  In retaliation against an uprising, the sadistic government invented the Hunger Games, a reality television program in which 24 teenage contestants — one girl and one boy from each district — meet in a fight to the death.

Though this is an undeniably unusual premise for a YA novel — and the books are indeed dark — the series is extremely compelling and the epitome of great storytelling.  Scholastic creatively marketed the novel (as has Lionsgate for the movie).  I have no doubt that Katniss Everdeen, the series’ narrator, will long be regarded as one of the great characters of children’s literature.

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• Georgia Bikes offering community grants for bicycling signage [Land Matters]
• Atlanta ranks 15th on “Most Stressful Cities List” [ABC]
• The origins of famous words according to OED [BrainPickings]

Beltline eastside trail construction photo courtesy of Atlanta Beltline Blog