CSX Track – West College Ave Near East Lake, Decatur GA (photo courtesy of David)

Decatur’s big on activity centers (nodes, in case you’d like to join me in geekland). All of our growth plans are rooted in them. Downtown. Oakhurst Village. East Decatur Station. These are the centralized, walkable places that serve (or will serve) as hubs for their surrounding neighborhoods.

However, another important component of city organization is corridors — which serve to connect activity centers — and Decatur’s got a good one: The CSX railroad tracks, from East Lake Marta to the Ice House.

The reason I bring it up is because, while we were all focused on other things, this corridor started gelling into, uhhhh, something. Something good. Some pieces that have been around a while, some new, some to come. Consider this:

PATH
A significant (albeit “private”) linear park
Infrastructure for peds, bikes, runners, cars, trucks, transit and trains
Wahoo!
Ink & Dagger
Lawrence’s Cafe
Ale Yeah!
Revolution Doughnuts
Avellino’s Pizza
The Imperial
Corrina’s Corner
Yoga Central
Candler Park Market
Thinking Man Tavern
Core Fitness
Atlanta’s United Tae Kwon Do
The arts collective businesses around Church / Howard / McDonough
  – Decatur School of Ballet
  – Various music instruction services
  – Color Wheel
Agnes Scott College
Harbour Bar
Twain’s
Trinity Triangle
DQ
Trackside Tavern
Kimball House
Las Brasas
MAR
Some groovy office rehab of the tire store
Fellini’s
Whatever’s going in the Ice House
Some salons and other things I’ve probably missed

Dang! That’s a healthy dose of groovy, and yet this area has no name (that I know of). Which identifies a void that, as I see it, is our responsibility to fill.

The obvious contender seems to be something like “The Rail District” but that might rankle the folks in Avondale, who’ve put a lot of effort into their “Rail Arts District.” So what do you think?

Better name a district!

William sends in pics and a report of a moving truck that got stuck trying to go over the train tracks at Trinity.

6:30PM on Monday, August 10

Around 6:30PM on Monday traffic was being diverted around the East College and East Trinity intersection because a “low-boy” moving van was stuck on the railroad tracks. Once the tow truck arrived things moved along quickly. A tow cable was attached to the rear of the van and the entire truck was pulled backward until the rear wheels were placed firmly on the ground. The manager at the Dairy Queen said that he’s seen this happen several times, but never when a train was nearby.

One more pic after the jump gives a better sense of the truck’s dilemma. Read the rest of this entry »