Growth of Atlanta has resulted in crisis
Regarding “Business boosters admit Atlanta in ‘crisis’ amid effort to boost city’s economy” (ajc.com, June 25), the article is correct: Atlanta in crisis is not a message I would expect to hear from a group of people who have been living with their heads in the sand.
Anyone who has been to Five Points, much of the downtown area or the south side of the city in the past 25 years knows Atlanta has been in a crisis.
The growth of Atlanta could be likened to smash and grab — without regard to the water system, street services, the feel that made the city “beautiful,” and last (but certainly not least), proper education for our children.
ALLYANA ZIOLKO, ATLANTA
Explain the logic in restriction argument
Would someone please explain to me how selling or giving guns to Mexican drug cartels was supposed to (or will) engender gun-restrictive legislation in the U.S.?
We ship hundreds of thousands of guns, planes, missiles, bombs and other lethal toys to more than 100 countries in the world — often resulting in maiming, killing, genocides, fratricides, civil wars and organized criminal activities.
Not once in my memory have gun-control advocates pointed to Somalia, Serbia, Syria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq or Lichtenstein and said, “See, we need new assault-weapon restrictions,” or “Proof: Private ownership of bazookas and RPGs should be looked at down on the farm.”
BOB KLEPAK, CONYERS
There’s a better way to solve traffic woes
Forget the “forever” tax T-SPLOST creates.
Close your eyes to the millions our civil servants will ultimately grant their associates, via development of so-called transportation enhancements.
Consider only the fact that this tax is touted as the cure for bad traffic in regional Atlanta — and for that reason alone, vote against this fantasy.
I have lived, worked and commuted in Atlanta for more than 20 years. There is one simple reason traffic in Atlanta is bad and getting worse: All roads lead to the center.
Look at a map. If you want to go anywhere in and around the greater metropolitan area, you must come into I-285 or downtown and then back out.
Build more highways from east to west that bypass the existing throughways and you will bring relief to our traffic woes.
All the trains, buses, beltways, diverging diamonds, commuter tolls and emergency-lane conversions that continue to funnel down the existing corridors will do nothing but add to the mess.
I am an “old-school” guy, and I still prefer a map to GPS.
Maybe the DOT should open one up and take a look. Maybe you should, too.
PAUL T. SPENCER, MARIETTA
