Next month, Atlanta residents will be asked to head to the polls and allow the city to go on a long-delayed civic spending spree.
The money, $250 million, would fund normal infrastructure improvements like bridges, new streetscapes, pouring asphalt and even a grand indoor swimming pool. It would tidy up some of the avenues in the neighborhoods just west of downtown, areas that have languished for years. And more than a quarter of the money — $67 million — will be divvied up among the 12 council districts, because you’ve gotta spread the love.
The 23-page list of projects is just a quarter of the city’s to-do list. Repair work has languished in Atlanta and now that the city has improved its financial picture, there’s lots of shovel-ready on the drawing board. There are two categories in the plan that really caught my eye: They say they’re going to synchronize traffic lights! And public art is coming to a corner near you.
The traffic smoothing would take $37 million. The art will come in at $11.8 million.
While talking to the AJC recently, Mayor Kasim Reed spoke frequently about “investing” in the city. Art, I would proffer, is actually more of a “splurge.” I can already hear the critics: Do you know how many cops you could could hire for 12 million dollars? Or how many miles of bike lanes could get re-striped?
But I must hand it to Hizzoner on this one. He knows man does not live by asphalt alone. All World Class Cities are known for their art. In fact, a city marks its greatness by erecting obtuse works that cause the public to stop, stare and shrug. Is it a bird? A nude woman? Or just a mass of twisted Formica.
New art would give trolley car passengers something to glance at other than Georgia State students or homeless people. I did some reckoning and found that the 6-to-8-foot statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. being considered for state Capitol lawn would cost between $100,000 and $300,000. Taking the lower figure into account, the city could sprinkle 118 bigger-than-life statues across the city, or 10 per council district. (Councilwoman Felicia Moore, naturally, would only get eight until she decides to join The Team.)
Evocative art conveys both pathos and joy. For the latter we could have a statue of Arthur Blank spiking a football outside his new Falcons’ stadium, the one the city helped make happen. For the former, it could be a child outside Turner Field wistfully looking north towards Cobb County where the Braves have gone, a bronze baseball glove on the ground settled at his gym shoes.
Why not a likeness of Tyler Perry forever standing guard outside Fort McPherson? Or former Mayor Sam Massell scouting the old Buckhead party scene making sure people behave themselves?
Mayor Reed got all artsy after talking with former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. “Their expenditures moved the needle in terms of how people feel about the city of Chicago,” he said of my hometown.
The visionary Chicago urban planner Daniel Burnham once said “Make no small dreams,” a statement that has become sort of a motto for The Windy City. So is “Don’t get caught.”
A few colorful murals or soaring metal objects can make for an engaging and inspiring city. And if you go with the lowest bidder, it’s sure to make it all the more interesting.
The other exciting component to the infrastructure effort is the plan to make traffic flow. This is such a good idea that I would almost like my DeKalb County neighborhood to get annexed into Atlanta so I could vote for it. Almost.
The effort seems to go against the trend of “traffic calming,” the now-popular public works strategy that has cities cutting down five lanes to three and telling us it’s for our own good.
The city will spend $18 million “to optimize signal operations and (the) communications network” on a couple dozen thoroughfares. Another $20 million would go to replacing traffic signal LEDs, monitors, wiring and timing systems all over the city.
Yeah, right, you say. They’ve been promising that forever, but it seems every time you speed up to make a yellow light, a red is waiting at the next intersection.
They’re getting better at it, however, said Alan Davis, the state signal engineer at the Georgia Department of Transportation.
“The idea is to synchronize so you don’t hit a random traffic light,” he said. “The worst thing is you stop and there’s not another car going the other way.”
Exactly! That is the worst.
Well, then, how do you stop that from happening?
Three things, he said. 1) Set up a communication system to get data to and from signals. 2) Create a vehicle detection system to determine if cars are at intersections and to measure the flow of traffic. 3) Properly time the lights for each corridor.
And then program that technology to pick up changes in traffic flow and be able to respond to such changes.
“A lot of our systems are smart enough to adjust when something is out of the ordinary,” said Davis, who will sit at an intersection and get peeved by a left turn light that wastes five seconds per light rotation. It all adds up, he said. Multiply that savings across the city and we’ll have hours per year to do something else.
Mike Geisler, Atlanta’s COO, said the bond effort won’t bring a tax increase. Rising city revenues and budget cuts have freed up extra money.
Geisler said the long-delayed projects make the $1 billion in infrastructure wish list “a moving finish line. And we’re at the starting block.”
It promises to be a journey with fewer red lights. And intriguing sculptures.
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