Entschuldigung, ya’ll. I’m back.
Tag Archives: atlanta
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Coming Along
19 Mar
The extensive renovation of the 103-year-old Imperial Hotel at Peachtree Street and Ivan Allen Boulevard is scheduled to be completed later this year. The building was converted to low-income housing in the mid-90s after sitting vacant for about decade and was purchased by Columbia Residential and National Church Residences in early 2011 when it was in danger of foreclosure.
Things I’ve Declined to Buy on the Street
29 Sep1. A rubber-banded bundle of MAC lip glosses (Not in the boxes)
2. A reduced-fare Breeze card
3. Several brands of baby formula
4. Newports
5. Mini-bottles of liquor
6. “Socks! DVDs! Socks! DVDs!”
7. A “gold” chain wadded up in a paper napkin
8. A plastic bag of costume jewelry and a “leather” jacket
9. A mix CD: $5, unless you only have $2, in which case he’ll take that
10. A copy of Creative Loafing
Mitchell Street bridge to re-open Thursday
22 Aug
The woman in the photo insisted on being “your helper for the day.” She immediately resigned from the position upon discovering that I had no money.
The Mitchell Street bridge in Castleberry Hill will officially re-open Thursday morning after a two-year reconstruction by the Georgia DOT. The bridge was closed in 2008 after transportation officials found it inadequate for the type and volume of traffic it was carrying, and construction began in 2010.
More than $8 million in federal stimulus funds were used to reconstruct the 88-year-old bridge, which now has bike lanes on both sides and parking along the south side.
Four Things for Wednesday
15 Aug
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Via Creative Loafing: A photo of one of the new vehicles for the downtown streetcar popped up on the Atlanta subreddit
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Via Buckhead View: NPU-B residents who oppose the new Lindbergh-area development planned for the east side of Piedmont Avenue are digging in for a long fight and have a new website
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Atlanta is among the top 20 tweeting-est cities in the world – one of only six American cities to make the list – according to a study by a French research and consulting firm
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I’d planned to write something about how rare it is in Atlanta to come across public places like the plaza behind Terminus at Peachtree and Piedmont. It’s breezy in the summer, protected from rain and has plenty of seating and a view in both directions. But nearly as soon as this photo was taken, a member of the Terminus security staff appeared and apologetically said that the building’s management doesn’t allow photography there. So much for public.
Things People Say If You Mention Walking Home from Work
1 Jul- “You do what?”
- “At night?”
- “By yourself?”
- “Aren’t you scared?”
- “In the heat/cold?”
- “Are you crazy/serious/kidding?”
- “All the way home?”
- “How far is that?”
- “It takes how long?”
- “Thirty-five minutes is a long time”
- “Do you have mace/pepper spray/a gun?”
- “Why?”
- “You live down here?”
Regional rider surveys reveal locations, destinations, situations
1 Jul
Research from the Atlanta Regional Commission suggests that while geography is a pretty good predictor of where to find the most frequent transit users, who those users are is harder to pin down.
The ARC’s research concluded that “the percent of those using transit to go to work doubles in neighborhoods with close proximity to transit, and more than triples in areas with ‘premium’ transit access.” In short, to paraphrase William Whyte, people tend to use transit where there is transit to use.
Those “premium” transit areas, which the researchers define as neighborhoods within a half-mile of a transit station, tend to be populated by a higher percentage of college graduates and renters than the 20-county Atlanta metropolitan region as a whole. But those areas also have more residents living in poverty and who have less than a high-school diploma compared to the rest of the region.
Despite their easy access to transit, only about 13 percent of the people who live in those transit-rich neighborhoods said that they usually take transit to work. But that relatively small number is still close to four times more than the region as a whole, at less than 4 percent.
People between the ages of 18 and 34 make up more than 52 percent of transit riders, while they make up only 24 percent of the region’s total population. Most of the trips riders took – almost 62 percent – were between home and work or school.
Although 71 percent of the surveyed riders said they had a driver’s license, 41 percent said they didn’t have a vehicle available. At the other end of the spectrum, 27 percent of riders lived in households with at least two available vehicles.
The survey also found that about 51 percent of transit riders had household incomes of less than $30,000. That’s more than twice the percentage of households in the region as a whole falling into that income range.
See a full summary of the data in the ARC’s May “Regional Snapshot.”
Megabus Atlanta debut set for November
26 OctA high-speed passenger rail network for the Southeast remains a “maybe” for the distant future, but low-cost express bus service will be here in time for the holiday travel season.
Photo courtesy of Megabus
Chicago-based Megabus, which offers amenities like Wi-Fi and electrical outlets on its coaches, will begin daily trips from Atlanta to 11 major cities in the Southeast on November 16. Buses will depart daily from a stop at Civic Center Station on West Peachtree Street.
The five-year-old Megabus service which operates an online-only reservation system with fares beginning at just $1, is popular with travelers in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.
To promote the launch of service to Atlanta, Megabus is giving away 10,000 seats on buses on the new routes for travel between Nov. 16 and Dec 16.
H/T to the AJC.
Never a dull moment
1 OctThe day started out normally enough. But within a couple of hours, streets were blocked, police were everywhere, helicopters were circling and at least 30 people were screaming on the sidewalk.
There’s nothing like an awards show to liven up the neighborhood.
The BET Hip Hop Awards were filmed at the Atlanta Civic Center today, to be broadcast on Oct. 11. Good news for hotel and restaurant owners, limousine rental companies and ticket scalpers. Not so good for people who ride the route 16 bus or who needed to drive – or even walk – through the intersection of Ralph McGill and Piedmont, Piedmont and Harris, or Courtland and Ralph McGill.
The street closings were originally scheduled to be from noon to 11 p.m., but as of right now, the limos have mostly disappeared, the screaming fans have dispersed and regular traffic flow has been re-established.
The Oppidan Omnibus 