MM: Join Team Decatur, Decatur Graduate Opts For Academics, and Apparently We’re a Cursed Sports City
Decatur Metro | June 5, 2015 | 9:40 am
- Register for Team Decatur! [Be Active Decatur]
- Decatur senior chooses academics over sports [Neighbor Newspapers]
- Revolution giving away free doughnut with purchase for National Doughnut Day [Facebook]
- Where bike commutes could potentially rise in Atlanta [ATL Urbanist]
- Civil war trench discovered in Cobb County [WABE]
- Atlanta is 2nd most cursed sports city [NYT]
Photo courtesy of Be Active…Decatur
Guess it’s a good thing the Braves played the Indians in 95: two “cursed” sports cities facing each other so something had to give. But, as the article notes, Atlanta likely takes the top spot if Cleveland manages to beat Golden State. And given Georgia’s size and the number of great athletes from here, it’s kind of crazy that there hasn’t been a national title in football (and never in basketball) since Georgia Tech’s shared one 25 years ago.
My reply is to
“Where Bike Commutes Could Rise…
5 miles (commute distance) : 556,630 (participants)
As the study notes, this is all very pie-in-the-sky number crunching without the proper infrastructure. It would require a complete network of protected bike lanes…”
Pie in the Sky Indeed! Let me explain how this will roll in Decatur. The city will spend millions to build bike paths on Church Sreeet and other major roads (the Big A and other up and coming municipalities that want to be like Decatur will do the same) but will find that TA-DAH, the number of bike commuters is dramatically lower than projections. What to do? Sensible people might favor less spending on a failed transportation experiment but that’s not what will happen. Transportation elites will say, “The problem is that we didn’t spend (or regulate) enough. What we should do now is blah, blah, blah, which translates into more taxes and regulations that will force people to rely less on automobiles.
In my opinion, it is foolish for Decatur and other municipalities to spend millions on transportation projects that will only be used by a tiny minority. But if the cities choose to do this, let them pay 90% or more for the project and then see how many Decatur taxpayers support bike lanes.
The weird thing about Decatur is that all these misguided city leadership boondoggles have somehow added up to a place so desirable that everyone is complaining about rapid price escalation. It’s like the Commission is so diabolical, they’ve managed to trick the 60%+ of Decatur residents without kids and no interest in schools into thinking this place is good. 😉
+1. And Decatur is hardly unique in that regard. Across the U.S. (the world, really) the places that are most pedestrian and bike friendly are the places people want to live.