Opinion Talk

By James

May 22, 2008 10:47 AM | Link to this

I would pay $10 per gallon of gas if I could just have my muscle car back - 1969 Plymouth GTX, 440 c.i., 375 h.p., 3.73 rearend, Hurst 4 speed with no console, ram air induction, dual distributor, rear adjustable air shocks, red with black vinyl top and black interior and K&E mags ! What a car !

By Jeff

May 22, 2008 11:33 AM | Link to this

John Timpane is an idiot. What solutions does he propose? Oh, typical big media thinking - he DOESN’T propose any real solutions!!! He just expects Americans to stop working at nice jobs, stop living in a nice suburbs, stop living their lives… I guess he just wants everyone to live three blocks from a dingy bookstore, get soggy walking to work in the rain every day and make $20,000 a year, all in the name of stopping the “car culture.” Give me a break! There are responsible ways to improve things. No. 1, the market forces will soon lead to a massive amount of fuel-efficient, hybrid-type cars on the road. In 5 years, you’ll see a ton of Toyota Priuses, and probably NO Suburbans or Escalades or Envoys or Expiditions. You will see employers finally giving workers more flex time, more telecommuting options and more flexible schedules, so that 10 billion people aren’t on the roads at the same time every day. And maybe you’ll see more communities like Atlantic Station, geared for middle class families, near metro areas like Atlanta. Difficult situations lead to changes in American society, they always have…. but they need to be NATURAL, market-related changes, NOT artificial ones imposed by the government. That in a nutshell is the difference between conservative and moderate thinking and those who bend to the left. In my own life, my wife recently started a job that gives her a 90-minute one way commute each day. As a result, we are changing our life and moving closer to where she works, and I am changing careers. It’s all a matter of making adjustments in life…. our society will do just that, but with what the car represents (freedom, commerce, flexibility and independence), America’s car culture will not soon disappear.

By Copyleft

May 22, 2008 11:57 AM | Link to this

As Jimmy Carter saw back in 1970s, Americans are spoiled rotten, and they scream at the top of their lungs anytime the concept of “live with less” is mentioned.

But that sense of entitlement can only go on so long, until you eventually have to face reality. How much longer can we afford to treat an extravagantly wasteful lifestyle as “my right as an Amurrikin”?

By Peter

May 22, 2008 2:03 PM | Link to this

The water shortage in Atlanta is an indication that the elected government representatives have no vision. Not until the water is all gone with they look for solutions (after trying to steal a river in Tennessee). Conservation/rationing is the progression.

The decades of avoiding public transportation as an alternative and lack of State financial support of MARTA has put Atlanta behind the curve. (While the money is still being designated to more roads and Lexus lanes are congestion solutions.)

I expect more military investment to “encourage” resource management (like in Iraq.) Diplomacy is a last resort.

By Totally Screwed

May 22, 2008 2:28 PM | Link to this

One needs to do nothing more than drive to or from work in Atlanta or any other overly automobile-dependent American city to see that the car culture ain’t dead, but it sure is taking some vicious blows about now. $4-a-gallon gas, gridlocked expressways and a faltering economy sure does make automobile-over dependence look less and less attractive everyday. I sure wish a town like Atlanta, whose population has gone from under 3.5 million before the olympics to about 5.7 million now, had invested in A LOT more in all forms of transportation infrastructure (toll roads, freeways, light rail, commuter rail, buses, etc.) in the past 15 years or so. Instead our freeway system, which hasn’t been expanded since the completion of GA 400 since the mid-‘90’s, is in many instances a parking lot at rush hour and what few commuter buses we have are turning people away in droves because of overcrowding. So here we sit, with little choice but to pay increasingly cost-prohibitive escalating gas prices so that we can drive on overcrowded roads to get back and forth to work from jobs to get income that increasing covers less and less of our surging living expenses. We have now reached the point of unsustainability and this run-up in the cost of living cannot continue much longer before we see some real pain. How in the hell did we get ourselves into this one?

By Philly Drew

May 22, 2008 3:27 PM | Link to this

I live near Philly and just got back from a business trip in ATL. Some observations from a person who doesn’t live there: 1) Most cities in the US with good public transit systems experienced their greatest growth either before or at the beginning of the ‘auto age’. Atlanta has experienced its greatest growth over the last 30 years when cars and car culture was prevalent. 2) Many cities with good transit systems such as NYC, Boston, Chicago, Philly, DC, etc. have large numbers of riders who CHOOSE to ride transit as an OPTION. In most other cities, transit is utilized mostly by folks who have no other option. In order for transit to be utilized by more people, then the overall mindset of the region must change. Transit must also be convenient, i.e. it must GO where and when people need it to go. 3) Most jobs in northern cities with good public transit are still in downtown. Atlanta has many downtowns: Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, Dunwoody, Decatur, Marietta, etc. If you were to devise a transit system then it would need to get from suburban residential areas to all of these places. Perhaps you should look at a rail line that parallels the Perimeter, with feeder bus and rail lines coming into and going out of the central business district. 4) Finally, if car culture is indeed on the way out (it is), then Atlantans simply need the intestinal fortitude to make positive changes on the region. People must CHOOSE to live closer to work, they must CHOOSE to get out of their cars, they must CHOOSE to elect leaders who recognize that quality of life is the reason people live and come to Atlanta in the first place. If quality of life is compromised because Air, Water and Traffic issues are not resolved, then eventually, all that wonderful growth will begin to subside. Please look at Metro Dallas, Metro Denver and Metro Salt Lake City. All 3 cities and regions made a major economic commitment to improve transit options for its residents rather than building new freeways. If Atlanta is going to survive the Post Car Culture America, then it must look to an integrated, multimodal transportation future.

By Ghost

May 22, 2008 3:44 PM | Link to this

From my cold, dead hands they’ll have to pry the steering wheel of my M5 or Corvette!

I may not drive them as much, but I will continue to drive them and also take them to trackdays.

I just ride my motorcycle more and carpool to save on commuting costs. But my pleasure driving probably won’t change much at less than $8/gal.

By Free to be me

May 22, 2008 5:27 PM | Link to this

Dear Totally Screwed, We got to this place because people are greedy, selfish, racist buttholes. We could have had transit in areas where we don’t now if folks weren’t afraid of the “undesirables” coming into their precious suburbs and now the “undesirables” have cars. We could have had transit if the greedy suburbanites had put up tax money to fund the system. Now they ride the rail and most of them don’t pay a tax to support it and the folks that did at the beginning have been forced out of the Atlanta area. Atlanta is heading for a fall because it has been run by greedy, selfish people pretty much starting back in the seventies and still going on with the Franklin regime. The powers that be should have seen this coming during the time the Olympics were here but they were too busy padding their pockets. We will end up like Ohio if someone doesn’t step in. Clark Howard, are you running for Mayor or what?

By DaveE

May 22, 2008 5:38 PM | Link to this

As Jeff correctly mentioned above, people are already making adjustments in their way of life to accomodate the increased cost of gasoline. Fewer SUV/trucks are being sold by car dealers, more interest is being shown in hybrid vehicles, people are moving closer to work and carpooling. If public transportation were: A.) Nearby. B.) Frequent. C.) Comfortable. (meaning, I didn’t have to put up with some deranged ghetto-dweller spouting off about whatever they felt like as though the other riders were their personal audience) then I might consider it. But if MARTA is any indication of what public transportation has to offer, then I think I’ll just stick with my car.

If we want to improve traffic conditions in this city, do the following: 1.) Deport illegal immigrants. These people clog our roads, schools and hospitals and shouldn’t even be in this country. Boot them and free up a good bit of space on our roads. 2.) Ticket people who drive in the left lane as though it were their personal cruising lane. The left lane is the passing lane - pass or gtfo. 3.) Put in turn lanes near intersections. Forcing drivers that want to turn right at the light to wait behind 3 or 4 cars that want to go straight at the light causes additional backups - let them turn right and take those vehicles out of the way of the drivers behind them who want to go straight through the light. 4.) Time the lights correctly. Atlanta has some awfully crappy intersection timing which causes massive traffic delays. I bet if some political bigwigs main donor lived just west of 400 on Holcomb Bridge, we’d have seen an improvement in those lights years ago.