Another item on tonight’s Decatur City Commission agenda.

Updates on the pedestrian and bike improvements for the C-Street area from a  “scoping phase report” for the Atlanta Regional Commission.  You may recall the city held two work sessions for residents on this project back in September 2011 and January 2012.

According to Asst. City Manager Hugh Saxon’s letter, “Concepts receiving support include shortening walking distances and eliminating traffic conflicts at the 2 intersections, implementing a road diet on Commerce Drive, and providing a 2-way bike track or multi-use trail on Church Street, while reducing it permanently to 2 vehicle lanes with on-street parking.”

Saxon goes onto note that a traffic circle at Church, Forker and Medlock was “discussed” and that future land use options for commercial land north of Commerce on Clairemont and Church were illustrated at the meetings.

Also, conversations with GDOT about a road diet for Commerce Drive are ongoing, according to Saxon.

The preliminary budget for the project is $3,750,000.  The note say it will be funded by the city’s bond fund and grants from GDOT and the ARC.  (You may recall that this project was previously up for some specific funding allocations if the T-SPLOST passed.)

Rendering courtesy of Decatur City Commission meeting materials.  Click the link to see all four rendering options along with a list of pros and cons.

From Asst. City Manager Linda Harris…

The City of Decatur announces the launch of streaming video for the Decatur City Commission meetings beginning Monday, August 6, 2012.  The option has been in the Pilot Testing Phase and goes live Monday night.

“This feature is part of our ongoing commitment to offering a variety of ways to access our City Commission meetings and information,” said Mayor Bill Floyd.  “We hope that those who have an interest will take advantage of this new service.”

To access the streaming video option, visit www.decaturga.com and click on City Government, City Commission, Streaming Video.  Once the service moves out of the Pilot Testing Phase at the end of August, there will be a button from the front page of the website that will take viewers directly to the streaming video page.

The City Commission meetings continue to be broadcast live on Comcast Channel 25 in addition to this new service.  We encourage your feedback and suggestions during this testing phase so that we can make any needed adjustments.

On the agenda for tonight’s Decatur City Commission meeting, Asst. City Manager Andrea Arnold proposes significant changes to Decatur’s much discussed public wi-fi, which has been around since 2008.

In suggesting $165,000 worth of upgrades to the already obsolete network, Ms. Arnold suggests pulling out of residential neighborhoods, with upgrades limited to downtown Decatur, the Oakhurst business district, as well as Glenlake, McKoy and Oakhurst parks.  As we know, single-family residential area wi-fi has been a big challenge for the service providers due primarily to our annoying tree-infested neighborhoods.  (That’s my humorous description, not anyone else’s.)

Additionally, Ms. Arnold notes that Decatur has never provided free wi-fi access and suggests a one-year pilot program in the outdoor public spaces listed above.

Operational costs for the network will be around $24,000 – $5,000 of which would be provided by the Decatur Downtown Development Authority.