Ken Edelstein’s Green Building Chronicle has provided some of the best, in-depth coverage of the Atlanta transportation sales tax process to-date.

Just two days ago, Edelstein did a rather extensive analysis that showed that even though transit requests made up over 65% of the original project requests from local governments, all three proposed scenarios from the Atlanta Regional Commission – even the transit-heavy one – gave transit less than 50% of the total $6.1 billion available funding.  And a bit closer to home, none of the proposed scenarios funded the $1 billion+ Clifton Corridor MARTA line with more than $50 million.

However, today there are signs that the roundtable wants to dedicate more money – at least 50% – to transit, and big transit projects at that.  Ken reports that these were the seven transit projects that were “approved” – though approval apparently means nothing – at today’s roundtable…

• • $825 million for a rail line from Midtown to the Cumberland area that eventually would be extended to Town Center Mall,
• • $700 million for a Clifton Corridor rail line, connecting the Lindbergh MARTA station to Emory University,
• • $600 million for to go toward rail lines proposed by the Atlanta Beltline,
• • $500 million to keep MARTA in a “State of Good Repair,”
• • $185 million to replace the state’s share of operating funds for Georgia Regional Transit Authority bus service,
• • $100 million to restore Clayton County’s recently shuttered bus service, and
• • $100 million to plan and begin implementation of light rail northeast up I-85

According to Edelstein, one definite hurdle with this allocation brought up by GDOT’s Todd Long at the meeting is that none of these projects are fully funded at these levels, so it’s unclear where they would make up the difference in order to be constructed.  However, the fact that large transit projects are back on the table, with the Clifton Corridor receiving the second largest chunk of funding, will certainly be a positive sign for transit advocates dismayed at the backseat that transit had taken in the ARC’s recommendations.

Over on his new site, Green Building Chronicle, Ken Edelstein reports that only 24 members of the general public attended a GDOT meeting earlier this week considering route options of a potential high-speed train from Hartsfield-Jackson Airport to Chattanooga, TN.

Ken theorizes on why turn out was so low in Atlanta – general cynicism of transportation projects, no AJC coverage, a focus on other rail projects around Atlanta – but really I think it comes down to an unclear message of “Why exactly are we looking at high-speed rail to Chattanooga?”.   The recent $4 million grant to connect high-speed rail to Charlotte currently makes a lot more sense at first glance.  The map above shows that a Chattanooga line would only connect to Chicago in the “long-term”.

I’m not sure we can sell a rail line north on promises of quicker trips to Cleveland.

Ken Edelstein reports over on MyGreenATL that Decatur and Atlanta are interested in offering Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing to homeowners looking to invest in cleaner energy projects.

The financing option became legal in Georgia after Gov. Sonny Perdue signed House Bill 1388 on May 21st.  How does it work?  Ken explains…

A city or county issues bonds. Homeowners or commercial property owners apply for loans funded by those bonds. The loans must be used to invest in efficiency or clean energy projects. And each property owner pays back the loan over 15 or 20 years (with interest, of course) through a special assessment tacked onto his or her property tax bill.

By attaching the loan to the property instead of making a homeowner take out a personal loan, PACE allows the cost of the project to transfer with the house if it’s sold, instead of being stuck with the original property owner.

It’s not a sizable state tax credit, but hey it’s somethin’.  We’ll have to see if the city commission brings this up at a meeting in the near future.

Former Creative Loafing editor – and current blogger – Ken Edelstein is quoted in this morning’s NY Times, in a piece about the future voice of the AJC’s editoral staff. Ken reacts to Cynthia Tucker’s move to DC…

“It’s definitely a move to the right, and it’s a real change for a paper that was the most important progressive voice in the South for a long time.”

In same same article, the AJC editor Julia Wallace says this…

“We have moved to a different kind of editorial that’s much more about community issues and less about, ‘let me opine on national issues,’ ” she said.

Elsewhere on the interweb, GriftDrift is still struggling with another recent quote by Wallace and has submitted this question to the AJC…

Given the reaction of the online community as well as the rise of such local websites as inDecatur and DecaturMetro while the AJC continued to close local bureaus, do you regret stating the following in 2007?

“Online, we will show that we know Atlanta best, providing superlative news and information and becoming the preferred medium for connecting local communities”

A couple quick thoughts:

1. Communities might be willing to settle on having large, all-knowing (better-than-you) corporations become their “preferred” connection to their neighbors IF there’s no other option. But guess what? Its always going to be better when communities do it themselves.

2. I don’t read much editorial in the AJC these days – can’t say I ever did – so I can’t judge any nefarious move to the right. But I do know the paper has a long way to go if they want to be a “community” paper/site. They gotta go well beyond the well-researched article.

As a case in point: the comments section. I’m sorry but nothing says “community” less than a bunch of semi-racist, off-topic snipes attached to each article. Community online is built through respectful discussion. But BREAKING NEWS, it works the other way too. Real world communities can be destroyed by disrespectful online discussion. So step one: stop treating your comments as a throw away and take responsibility for your site.

Steve Fennessy over at Cityscape reports that Andisheh Nouraee is also leaving Creative Loafing, in editor Ken Edelstein’s wake.

“What happened today is just one symptom of the overall reason, that I don’t want to work there full-time anymore,” Nouraee said.

Aside from Nouraee being an integral cornerstone of the publication, that leaves CL with just three news writers and NO editors, according to Fennessy.

Lord, the wheels seem to be coming off.  This sucks.