After another recent discussion here about Decatur’s tuition students – and Decatur class sizes vs. the extra cash they bring into the school system – I thought I’d bring this to everyone’s attention.

I came across a pretty interesting article in the AJC hard-copy yesterday, titled “Cobb high schools sell marquee space”, which focused on Cobb County’s Lassiter High School efforts to sell local advertising on its marquee along busy Shallowford Road.  The article states that a full rotation of ads could make the school system $50,000 in a given year and that recent funds were used to pay for new turf for the athletic field.

According to the article, other school systems around Atlanta – including DeKalb – have yet to consider advertising, while Forsyth County recently deemed it inappropriate.  However, those in favor of such a set-up note that school sports venues have long allowed advertising.  Is there an ethical difference between an outfield wall and a school marquee?

In this time of ongoing education penny-pinching, should more school systems look into allowing local advertising outside of schools?  Or is it too sticky a situation?

Here’s something to chew on while you wait along the MARTA platform, traveling from Fulton to DeKalb and back again.

Cobb County held a telephone town hall meeting on Tuesday like the one DeKalb held last night, which Allison described in the previous post.   And guess what?  They showed preference for a rail project over a road project.  From the Mayretta Daily Journal…

A slim majority of poll respondents said connecting Cobb County to Atlanta via rail was more important than improving the Windy Hill Road and Interstate 75 intersection, though a quarter said neither of the two options took priority.

The poll was conducted during a telephone town hall regarding next year’s voter referendum for a 10-year, 1 percent sales tax to fund transportation projects in the 10-county metro Atlanta area. More than 16,000 Cobb residents participated.

Sure, pitting a single intersection against an entire rail line is sorta unfair, but still, more could’ve said neither was important, right?

So that “slim majority”.  Is that like 51%?

….during the call, a poll asked listeners “What is the most important for transportation investment that could be made in Cobb County?”

Just over 60 percent said connecting Cobb to Atlanta via rail was the highest priority, while 13.5 percent of responders said the county should improve the Windy Hill Road and Interstate 75 intersection. However, 25.5 percent said neither option was the most important. There were no other choices for the poll.

I’ll be damned.

Going simply by the requests of public officials in the Atlanta metropolitan area, the idea of more widespread mass transit isn’t just a yuppie-duppie, ITP sorta pipe-dream anymore.

Based on the Atlanta Regional Commission’s compiled Atlanta metro wish-list of projects to be paid by a Transportation Sales Tax, mass transit is a top priority, not just for old hats like Fulton and DeKalb, but also for many of the most populous counties outside I-285.

The AJC’s summary of the 436 project list shows that the 12 county region asked for over $13 billion in mass transit and $8.5 billion in road improvements.  (You can view the full project list yourself, HERE) These numbers mean next to nothing, since local governments weren’t asked to prioritize projects and those reticent of mass transit would use that larger number to argue its outrageous expense just as quickly as supporters would use it to demonstrate its need.

However, a closer look at individual county projects shows that once-hesitant mass transit counties, like Cobb and Gwinnett, are now more than ready to get into the train game.  Cobb’s most expensive requested project is a mass transit line from the Arts Center MARTA station in Midtown to Town Center/Acworth/KSU.  Gwinnett would like $1.1 billion to build a light-rail line from Doraville to Gwinnett Arena.

So what has changed?

The obviousness of the answer makes the question almost rhetorical.  Cobb and Gwinnett are very different counties today than they were in the 1970s.  Atlanta’s growth has subsumed them, MARTA or no MARTA.  Populations have soared and traffic has gotten appreciably worse as a result.  And as is so often the case – boring as it may be – need tends to trump ideology most days of the week.

Now, I’ve surely gotten ahead of myself.  This list is only representative of the wishful thinking of public officials, and not necessarily the voting population.  But based on this initial sign from Atlanta’s outer-boroughs, mass-transit is really less about Left or Right as it is about need.

And with gas approaching $4/gallon and cars providing flexible but slow commutes during rush-hour, the need for faster, cheaper alternatives might finally win out in a few counties where such options were once quite unnecessary.

As Decatur considers installing railroad “quiet zones” at the Candler and McDonough road crossings, Alvin points to this AJC article which reported yesterday that two teen boys were hit by a train in a “quiet zone” in Kennesaw.

It’s very important to note that police have not yet determined whether the quiet zone had anything to due with both boys being hit by a freight train, resulting in one death.  Both were reportedly sitting on the tracks when the accident took place, but it’s not clear whether they heard/saw the train.

A while back, I read a bit into the NY Times in-depth, 2004-05 investigation entitled “Death on the Tracks” – a great read in its own right – and while it was quite clear that investigations conducted by the railroad companies were often incomplete and suspicious, I could find no solid evidence either way about the safety of “quiet zones”.