Free-For-All Friday 4/22/16
Decatur Metro | April 22, 2016 | 7:38 amFeel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local topics not yet discussed here over the past week.
Feel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local topics not yet discussed here over the past week.
James
Chris Billingsley
MelissaM
Robert Butera
Robert Butera
Decatur Metro
Robert Butera
At Home in Decatur
Julie
altmod
Parker Cross
Steve
first?
Just curious, does anyone know who owns the lot next to Joe May Valet at Howard and Church (just off W.Trinity)? Does anyone know if there are plans for that lot? In the big scheme of things, that is a very valuable piece of property.
Assume you mean Howard and Candler, and I don’t know.
It’s still owned by the folks who own The Champion newspaper, I believe.
My damned kid lost his brand new winter coat trespassing in that building about twelve years ago.
For what it’s worth, and probably doesn’t affect many Decaturites, MARTA has “temporarily” moved the termination of the Route 36 bus to the east side of Decatur station on Church St where all the buses used to load before the loop was built off of Commerce Dr on the other side. They say it was done due to impending construction at Avondale station, where Route 36 used to terminate.
Looking at that route map, though, I can’t see why it couldn’t terminate on the loop also, eliminating the traffic and congestion on Church St, which is why the buses were moved in the first place.
Here’s the route map.
http://www.itsmarta.com/BusSchedules_StreetMap.aspx?route=36
Floating the idea of an adult Four Square tournament in Decatur. Like this comment if you’re onboard/interested and reply with your suggestions about how to make this ridiculous event idea even more fun and/or interesting.
Could be a great fundraiser.
Fantastic idea!
Make it neighborhood based. Get permission to block part of a street in your n’hood for a couple of hours and run brackets to determine quarterfinals…
Run Semifinals as two teams from North of downtown (Great lakes/Clairmont heights?) /2 teams South of dowwntoan (OAK /WP)
Find a spot downtown (maybe a sponsor pub wth a lot?) to host finals. Best of 5 or best of 7.
Wear bee suits.
Ooooh. I like this idea.
Yes, one of 4 corner squares wins! Genius.
I would point out that by some estimates 10% of the city’s population lives downtown (using every chance I get to break the 4 quadrant neighborhood perspective that dominates Decatur civic engagement)
So the downtown team, as host, gets a bye 🙂
If you’re looking for something fun to do this Saturday morning, please come by the Decatur Toy Park from 10am-1pm. The TEARS Foundation is hosting their annual walk and fundraiser. There will be a silent auction, food, music, face painting, children’s crafts and Home Depot will be there doing one of their famous kids’ workshops. All money that is raised at this event will stay in Georgia to help support families after the loss of a baby.
The TEARS Foundation’s Rock & Walk
Saturday, April 23rd 10am-1pm
Decatur Toy Park
133 Nelson Ferry Road
(Parking is available on the street or at First Christian Church of Decatur)
Does anyone know if the lines on the street on the curve of Commerce around the new apartments will remain that way?
The left hand lane turns into the turn only lane for Clairemont and people have to try and cut into the right hand lane to go straight. Then at rush hour, the right hand lane goes straight and backs up as it becomes the left turn only lane onto Church. It is creating a horrible traffic mess.
BTW – this is not easy to describe – sorry!
This is a road diet and the backup is by design. Just wait for the McDonough road diet. The straight and left turn lanes will be combined into one going south over the tracks.
And the DeKalb Ave “road diet”; that one is going to be a joy as well. I guess the plan is that people will just quit driving.
Is this for real? That intersection is already pretty slow to get through, not sure it needs a “diet”.
It’s busy at peak times – show me an intersection that isn’t – but the intersection generally works well overall. As someone who walks/runs that stretch of Commerce often, I see cars going way too fast. I’d appreciate slower traffic and wider sidewalks. If that frustrates commuters wishing to speed through my community: oh well, find another route.
I believe he was referring to the McDonough intersection. Nonetheless, I personally don’t understand how creating congestion makes anyone safer. I also don’t understand how all of the people are speeding on Commerce. It’s a pretty tight circle with stoplights every couple hundred feet. Not to mention the congestion. If cars can get through intersections more smoothly without creating backups wouldn’t this make the area safer for walkers & bikers?
Ah, ok. Missed right over the McDonough reference. I never understood why McDonough is 4 lanes wide from tracks north when it is 2 lanes wide from tracks south. I have no issue with a diet here either. And people do tear around that curve on Commerce.
My point still stands: if your goal is to get through downtown quickly, then find another route. People have little problem restricting traffic in single family neighborhoods. Downtown is a neighborhood now.
Most of my issues with that intersection are coming north through it– and the alternate route to the high school from my house has been permanently closed. I have kids at the high school and cannot completely avoid driving there sometimes. I avoid driving them to school in the morning because it takes about 30 minutes to drive the mile between my house and DHS. Most of the delay is on McDonough. I feel for the residents of that street though.
I don’t know what stretch of Commerce you live on but taking the east side of Commerce is how I avoid “downtown”. I have not noticed much speeding but I get stopped at nearly every light. What alternate do you suggest?
The entire McDonough intersection is a mess and I think this is trying to make the best of a bad situation. I’m no traffic engineer but I can imagine that with some traffic light sequencing it might not be worse than it is now. There’s a lot of traffic turning from Dekalb to McD to College and this sharply limits the volume of traffic that can move through there.
I would love to see more consideration given to the use of traffic circles to ease some of the congestion. I know that this intersection isn’t necessarily an ideal one (but… who knows…) but a well designed circle can really route a high volume of traffic (assuming a little bit of driver education…)
That is just ridiculous. Who do we talk to about this? It is a great place to live – but it will become more and more like a suburb with the horrible traffic if we continue on this path.
How do you figure? The suburban pattern adds lanes in favor of accommodating more vehicles faster. Decatur’s been reducing lanes to prioritize pedestrian and bicycle safety while still accommodating cars. It’s literally the exact opposite approach.
I am not talking about the approach – the outcome is the same – gridlock and making it impossible to move around the city. We live in Oakhurst (1.5 miles from Kroger) – it can take 20 mins to get across to little Kroger at 5 or 5:30 in the evening.
Couldn’t agree with StevieRay more. Just moved two miles away–from Winnona Park to Druid Hills, after 14 years in CoD. The E Commerce traffic, planned road diet, and worsening traffic on Commerce played a role.
We live in town since we like the amenities and hate sitting in traffic. But it was taking 10-15 min to get in/out of Decatur. That stretch from E College to Clairemont on Commerce was the most stressful part of my 7 mile commute (which could be 45 min to an hour on a Friday afternoon).
Not sure what the answer is…I would’ve had to have a death wish to bike on Clairmont/N Druid….but Commerce is worse and worse. Until there is some sort of public transportation to Emory/Buckhead, I think road diets on Commerce are ill-advised.
Sadly, the only surefire cure for congestion is economic collapse.
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53dd6676e4b0fedfbc26ea91/t/56246d21e4b018ac1e02c6d3/1445227811619/?format=1500w
I understand that not everyone can bike all the time but depending on where you are in DH and where you’re headed, there’s a quite pleasant route that you can take by going over to Medlock Park and then Superior into Decatur.
In my mind, that’s the best part of bike commuting is limiting my exposure to traffic and making my travel time pretty predictable.
Heck, I often find my commute is the highlight of my day and try to stretch it out a little bit.
Given the number of new residents due to the building projects in downtown, the traffic is only going to get worse, sadly. No more the lovely little sleepy city with great amenities. Heavy traffic seems to be the future.
Getting to the Glenwood Publix from Oakhurst is a breeze compared to Baby Kroger.
The wife wonders whether, if yard workers must wear hearing protection, their blower equipment meets noise standards. Related to this, I wonder if the pollen/particulate pollution index would not be better served if workers used rakes and brooms. Does anyone else share these concerns? If so, have you discussed the matter with your yard service company?
No manual tools allowed when there is a gas fueled tool that can be substituted.
My favorite image was a team of DPW guys all with blowers on Mountain Street in Stone Mountain all aiming their blowers at gravel that was laid down during one of the ice storms a couple of years ago. The blowers weren’t actually moving the gravel and they were standing there blowing it looking like “We’re out of ideas on this one.”
It is truly annoying to listen to the gas blowers many times at hours at a time as they go from house to house. To make it even more obnoxious, a second gas blower is cranked up just so the customers can have a spotless yard for an hour or so. But, anyone within a couple blocks are forced to listen to all that noise and breathe the pollen and dirt blown into the air. If people really cared to be good neighbors they would request not having all this gas blowing yard work done. “Isn’t it gorgeous sitting outside listening to the light winds and birds eating lunch? Then … What the h… is that loud noise? Here we go again for the third day in a row with the gas blowers!” I miss the old considerate Decatur. It’s become yupsters and yard services who don’t care.
Brush Sushi Izakaya got their liquor license. Time to give it a try now!
Oh boy, that was stupendous. Even if you don’t like sushi, they’ve got lots of other traditional (cooked) Japanese dishes. We highly recommend one of the sushi tasting menus.
Food and Bar very well done. Another reason not to leave Decatur on Friday night.
Does anyone know if the management or ownership of Thumbs Up on Ponce has changed? Hadn’t been there for awhile, perhaps even a year – and met a friend there for lunch today. So many things were wrong with the experience that it seemed like a parallel universe to the Thumbs Up of yore. Didn’t recognize a single employee, in fact it seemed like substitutes were hired minutes before, who not only had never worked in a restaurant, but also had never eaten in one. No one overseeing the chaos (if “chaos” can be used to describe something erratic and confused, yet moving at the pace of injured snails…)
Fluke or new normal?
That pretty much sums up every experience I’ve ever had eating at Thumbs Up, so I’m not sure what to tell ya…
opposite of my experience but we always sit at April’s table.
Haven’t been at lunchtime, but I eat breakfast there most Saturdays in a month and the service is fast and cheerful and my order always prepared as requested. I usually see the same waitstaff there also.
Sorry if I missed any earlier discussion, but does anyone know what is going into the former Meldora salon space at the corner of E College and S Candler?
I believe they are closing the hair salon and expanding their retail business, Bleu Hanger.
Anyone know what’s up on the corner of College and Candler? They covered the windows, and now I see painting
A you talking about the Trackside Tavern building? A coffee shop is going in.
Can anyone fill me in on what happened to Sobban up on Clairemont past the VA?
It closed
It closed a while ago. I was pretty surprised. It was well-received when it opened and it always seemed to have business. Location was a bit weird.
The owners’ other business is all the way accross town (Vinings area, I think). If memory serves, it had something to do with wanting to focus on that location.
Anyone know what’s coming into Heliotrope? Can’t tell if that’s a bar or checkout counter that’s gone up inside.
Anyone know what is being built at the corner of scott/n. decatur/about 4 other roads? It looks like that chevron is being rebuilt because they haven’t removed the sign. But it seems to be an extensive project.
It’s going to be a Mattress store.