Back in 2010, the Decatur City Commisson outlawed riding skateboards, kick scooters, rollerskates/blades in downtown Decatur after receiving resident complaints “about skateboarders who disregard pedestrians and cause unsafe conditions on crowded sidewalks and in crowded public areas”, along with damage that was done to the Celebration Statue on the MARTA plaza.

And while the damage to public and private property is inexcusable, the ordinance went far beyond that, making it illegal to ride any of these vehicles in the downtown “pedestrian zone”, which is basically most of downtown Decatur.  Here’s part of the ordinance wording…

No person shall operate or cause to be operated a coaster, roller skates, skateboard, in-line skates or similar device in or upon any public street within the pedestrian preference area, any public sidewalk, path, streetscape, or driveway adjacent to any public street within the pedestrian preference area, or any municipally owned parking lot adjacent to any public street within the pedestrian preference area.

Four years hence, there’s a resurgence in these alternative forms of transportation around the U.S., as urban populations increase and folks are looking for car-alternatives (you’re welcome that I didn’t write “car-ternatives”).  The Wall Street Journal recently reviewed a slew of electric skateboards aimed at “yuppie commuters”. A recent post on The Atlantic’s City Lab website featured a video that argues “Skateboarding is Transportation, Too”.  In the densest cities, like NYC and San Fran, more commuters are choosing kick scooters to get around.  (On top of all that, I saw a guy riding a scooter through Emory Village a few weeks back and thought, “man you can’t do that in Decatur!”  That’s a data point!)

This seems a relevant discussion for Decatur, which has mainly focused on accommodating pedestrians and cyclists.  While walking and cycling are certainly the most popular forms of alt-commuting, Decatur’s downtown MARTA train station would seem a good reason to take a second look at this broad ordinance.  Taking a legal form of transportation – like a bike – on a MARTA train is certainly more cumbersome than taking a kick scooter (aka Razor scooter), a skateboard or a pair of rollerblades on the train. But to do so, you’d only be able to ride the board/scooter/blades to the outer limits of the pedestrian zone and then walk to the station from there.

So, here’s the question: should Decatur’s ordinance be so broad as to make it illegal to ride all of these alternative forms of transportation all the time in downtown Decatur?

You may recall the Atlanta-Decatur Bike Share Feasibility Study that was released in January 2013, which got folks buzzing about a bike share program that stretched across Atlanta and into downtown Decatur.  Don’t recall?  You can still pour over it’s PDFed pages HERE.

All caught up?  You also may have heard just a month or so ago, that Atlanta was moving forward with the purchase of 500 bikes that will be installed at 57 locations around the city.

“So what about Decatur?”, Peter recently asked us.

City Planning Director Amanda Thompson tells DM that Decatur is not involved in Atlanta’s bike share at this point and doesn’t have plans of participating in the next fiscal year.  Says Ms. Thompson, “It is still quite expensive to operate and we would need to identify a source of funding.”

Graphic courtesy of AtlantaBicycleShare.com

A couple of weeks back, Bryan sent in a note saying that during the November he had noticed that morning rush hour trains out of East Lake Station were “so crammed with passengers…that several people had great difficulty holding on, boarding and unboarding.”

He wrote an email to MARTA inquiring as to what was up and was told that data analysis has shown a decline in ridership and that the East/West line no longer required 8-car trains during the morning commute.  As such they had moved to sending out 4, 6-car trains each hour.  You can read the full letter HERE.

We contacted our friends at Decaturish about this development and they were good enough to follow up with MARTA to see if they had comment about this car reduction.  MARTA told Decaturish that this new plan would be in place for the foreseeable future, but that they would “continue to monitor ridership and make adjustments, as needed”.

Funny…I just this past week openly wondered on the status of this transportation project.

At tonight’s meeting, Decatur’s City Commission will vote on an agreement between the city and the Georgia Department of Transportation for the Clairemont-Commerce-Church Street Pedestrian Safety and Bicycle Trail Improvements.  The agreement, which was originally announced way back in November 2011, will provide $2.1 million for the project from the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Livable Centers Initiative program.

The entire C-Streets project is estimated to cost $4.2 million.  So where will the rest of the funding come from?  A letter from Deputy City Manager Hugh Saxon details the sources…

You may recall the post from a couple days back where I said I was checking with Decatur’s city staff about how transportation funding would be spent IF the 1-cent transportation sales tax passed in July.  Well, city planner Amanda Thompson was good enough to provide us with a very thorough response regarding how much money Decatur is projected to receive, and which projects would receive top billing when decision time came around.

So, first things first, how much money is Decatur projected to receive if T-SPLOST passes?

Current GDOT estimates show that Decatur will receive $360,880 in 2013 per year for our 15% direct share from the sales tax. If this estimate remains steady over 10 years that will result in $3,608,800. A list of all the 15% estimates can be found here:

http://www.atlantaregionalroundtable.com/documents/discretionary_Money.pdf

Secondly, what is Decatur’s plan for spending the local share?

The City Commission recently reviewed a 10 year Capital Improvement Program to discuss funding options for various building and transportation projects. As part of this review, they considered how to spend the TIA local share. If the TIA is passed there are two ways Decatur will benefit – Portions of the Clairemont/Commerce/Church Street improvements and pedestrian improvements to East College Avenue are included in the large, multi-county project list. There are also three MARTA stations within the city limits that will receive upgrades as part of the large project list. Decatur will divide its 15% local share between the following categories: unfunded transportation improvements, Transportation Enhancement and Livable Centers Initiatives grant matches and maintenance of existing bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.

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If you attended the city’s open house on Monday this is all old hat to you.  But if you didn’t, you’ll want to check out this new city webpage which features maps, fact sheets and a general overview of pedestrian safety and bike improvements to the Commerce/Clairemont/Church Street corridors.

There’s even a questionnaire that was handed out at the session, which you can fill out and return to the city if you want to give official input to the project.

The developmental future of Commerce Drive is interesting to ponder.  It was built as a way to funnel cars around the heart of downtown Decatur.  It’s massive width tells the most ancient parts of your brain that it’s built for speed.  These mockups seem to indicate that transportation is still a key element of Commerce’s future, it’s just that peds and cyclists take up a larger footprint on the landscape.

But could Commerce ever become downtown Decatur’s third (Trinity is the second, IMO) east-west “A” street, extending the city’s downtown of walkable shops and restaurants? (Just to be clear, this is my question, not the city’s)

Never say never, but urban development around Commerce is all rather new, with no older, ped-friendly examples to get the ball rolling.  Slowing traffic and allowing more shoulder room for peds and cyclists is certainly a step in that direction.  But maybe I’m being too pie-in-the-sky.  For now, perhaps it’s best to focus on baby steps.  Mitigate the car’s footprint and its speed and then slowly over time, see what other urban elements grow up around it.

h/t: Patch

Patch and Dateline: Decatur both report that the city showed a mock-up of a roundabout at Church and Lucerne Streets – at the entrance of Glenlake Park – at last night’s community workshop addressing ped and bike safety along Commerce, Church and Clairemont.  (Patch has a pic of the roundabout mockup HERE)

Patch reports that Deputy City Manager Hugh Saxon explained at the meeting that a majority of the project would be paid for by GDOT, since they believe that roundabouts improve traffic flow.  As for the larger scope of the C-Streets project, Patch’s Ralph Ellis adds…

Overall, officials said, the streets will get narrower because bike lanes will be added in places. Sharrows, bike boxes and other safety measures for bicyclists would be added.

Dateline: Decatur has a nice video of the evening, including interviews with Mr. Saxon and City Commissioner Fred Boykin.  In the video, Mr. Boykin notes that implementation of any of these plans is at least 5 years away, as is the cast with any GDOT project.  (McDonough Street improvements, anyone?)

And before anyone brings up the West Ponce/Nelson Ferry/Northern roundabout idea again, I remind you of Planning Director Amanda Thompson’s reply to us on that…

This project is not identified in the Community Transportation Plan or the 2010 Strategic Plan. So it would need significant community support to become part of our transportation program and for the City to pursue funding. Occasionally, the Georgia Department of Transportation will help fund roundabouts if the City prepares a concept study showing whether or not the roundabout will work.