I admit, I have expressed extreme frustration with transit, transportation, and connectivity in Atlanta. Apparently the Beltline concept was conceived when I was finishing up high school, which was A PRETTY FRIGGING LONG TIME AGO, frankly. I remember seeing a Beltline advocacy booth at an outdoors event 5 years ago, and getting excited to talk to someone about it. I asked what, specifically, we could do to help, and at the time, all they had was “well, you can go to our website and register to get email updates.” A little disappointing.

But lately I’ve been getting excited about the Beltline. We’ve finally started seeing progress – there are actual trails you can walk (or mountainbike, but after my first experience with those stupid little rocks on a bike I’m going to wait for some pavement), there are gorgeous parks and a skatepark underway, there’s a mile paved in the Northwest bit, the art is making people talk, and this weekend Mayor Reed accepted some major checks from Kaiser Permanente and the PATH Foundation to create a bike trail from Dekalb Ave to Piedmont Park.

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i used to be really up on the beltline. if you remember, and if you don’t who can blame you, the beltline is supposed to be a network of transit, parks and trails utilizing old train tracks and right-of-ways to create a circle around the city, or a “belt”, get it?

i have kind of given up on the beltline, which is supposed to run right by my house, but it seems like every few weeks i get an email from whatever city office is running this thing, where i am once again invited to some planning meetings, or community meetings, or task force meetings.

so i guess now the beltline isn’t really a network of transit, trails and parks anymore, it’s just a bunch of emails and meetings. today i got an email inviting me to a study group of a master plan launch for subareas 10 and 8. is the communist party of the soviet union running this thing?

on the homepage of beltline.org it says “the beltline is coming!”

which is suppose is true if by coming you mean coming to a study group for a master plan launch for subarea 8.

sad. and the reason why nothing gets done about transit in this city.

no will. no will at all to do anything about the problem.

oh well.