It's Official -- No Bike Lanes on Peachtree in Buckhead

I saw the news in the Intown Atlanta news brief that showed up in my inbox Monday morning:

The Georgia Department of Transportation has officially removed bike lanes from its plans during the re-striping of Peachtree Road through Buckhead, and that’s just fine with the district’s city council members. Atlanta City Councilmembers Yolanda Adrean and Howard Shook said they support GDOT’s decision to remove the bike lanes after public outcry. “We’ve always advocated that the number one goal of this and all other road projects in Buckhead must be to move the most cars in the safest and most efficient manner,” said Shook. “This is that plan.” Adrean added: “The GDOT team has proven how well public input and great engineering can come together,” said Adrean. “And we are already developing exciting bicycle routes that will be much safer than the ones originally proposed for Peachtree.” The start date for the re-striping work has yet to be determined.

So there are several things about this statement from City Councilmembers Yolanda Adrean and Howard Shook that are notable.  In particular, Howard Shook's comment that "the number one goal of this and all other road projects in Buckhead must be to move the most cars in the safest and most efficient manner."  That's it -- the purpose of roads is to move cars.  Let's take bikes out of the discussion, since the very thought of bike lanes on Peachtree generates a degree of antipathy that I have found quite extraordinary.  The GDOT proposal that is now off the table would have also improved pedestrian safety.  There's nothing in this statement about vibrant streets, or making Peachtree lively and walkable, nothing about Peachtree as Buckhead's Main Street that ties the community together -- just moving cars "in the safest and most efficient manner," which presumably means without any pesky pedestrians trying to cross the street.  They might want to consider asking GDOT to make Peachtree a limited access expressway through Buckhead, if that is really their
goal.

On Tuesday, the AJC had an editorial/commentary from Richard Dugas, Jr., chairman and CEO of the PulteGroup, a developer with headquarters in Buckhead (incidentally, PulteGroup is the company that has proposed the redevelopment of Elizabeth Ann Lane).  Mr. Dugas said that access to MARTA rail was a key factor in the company's decision to relocate to Buckhead.  "By making access to MARTA -- and bicycle facilities -- a priority, PulteGroup has become an even more attractive employer of choice for the next crop of managers and CEOs, the millennial generation."

There we are, back to bikes. Have no fear, Mr. Dugas, Ms. Andrean says that "we are already developing exciting bicycle routes that will be much safer than the ones originally proposed for Peachtree.” 

I can't wait. 

Irrationality in Buckhead

Let me get this out right at the beginning - I really don't like Buckhead.  Any neighborhood built around high-end retail and soul-crushing traffic is not really a place I am going to enjoy being.  Of course I am sure the people who run Buckhead don't care what I think so that's fine.  Let's move on from there.

And any moving to be done in Buckhead is going to be done very slowly, by car, because Buckhead residents and the business leaders in the neighborhood have come out strongly against a plan by the Georgia Department of Transportation that would replace the underutilized inner lanes, both north- and south-bound, with a center turn lane and use the other lane to add bicycle lanes on each side, between the traffic lanes and the curb.  Originally the plan had been, I think, to extend this configuration northward but now it is only proposed for Peachtree between Deering Road -- just north of I-85 -- and Peachtree Battle (between the small red circles I've added to the map below).

Now in terms of bike infrastructure this is not nothing --the Beltline crosses Peachtree about in the middle of this segment -- but it is not fabulous.  But given the outrage in Buckhead, you would think the road was being permanently closed to vehicular traffic.  Former mayor Sam Massell, president of the Buckhead Coalition, compared public sentiment in Buckhead over this proposal to that generated by the proposal to put a highway through intown neighborhoods in the 1970s and the extension of Georgia 400 through Buckhead.  I find this an astonishing analogy, given that then peoples' homes were being destroyed for new highways.  In this proposal, there will be a dedicated left turn lane and new bike lanes to replaced two underused lanes that are responsible for more than their share of accidents.  The new design will be safer for drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists, but the residents of Buckhead are outraged by the proposal.

That's the word used to describe the reaction to a presentation by an engineer from GDOT at the October 8 meeting of the Board of the Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods.

In the Q&A session, meeting attendees expressed outrage. The apparently unanimous response was solid opposition to the GDOT proposal, though reasons cited for opposition differed. Some felt that bikes had no place on Peachtree since motor vehicle traffic was already very congested and getting worse. Others felt the congestion on fewer traffic lanes on Peachtree would flood their quiet neighborhood streets with cut-through traffic. Some questioned if there were even enough Peachtree area bike traffic to justify having bike lanes. Others expressed concern for the safety for bike riders who would only have a four-foot lane, bounded by a ten-foot traffic lane on the left and the curb on the right. Some argued that Ponce de Leon was a poor model for what should be done to Peachtree since PDL’s right of way was wider than Peachtree’s. And so forth.

To be fair, not everyone in Buckhead actually is outraged.  I know one person who is a Buckhead resident who has been advocating on the other side of this issue, and Jim Durrett, executive director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District, has provided very supportive comments to The Saporta Report.  But Sam Massell has gone on record "opposing any restriping of any part of Peachtree in Buckhead (between I-85 and Club Drive) that includes bike lanes at this time."  (I can't figure out how to attach the pdf of Mr. Massell's letter to the GDOT Commissioner, so I will put the text at the end.  It is available for download with the AJC story.)

I am astonished at the intensity of opposition that this proposal has generated.  Perhaps people who live and work in Buckhead don't go anywhere else, and don't know that real cities that want to create places that people value are making space for bicycles and pedestrians.  (A few examples below from Minneapolis, Washington, DC, and Chicago and also this link.)

Minneapolis

Minneapolis

Empty bike rental rack - Washington, DC

Chicago

Chicago

Chicago

Perhaps spending so much time staring at the brake lights of the car in front of them has made them not completely rational, and the idea of a person on a bicycle speeding past them, while they are stuck in traffic that they have helped create, elicits irrational rage.  I don't know, but I do know after learning a little more about this issue, Buckhead is now inextrictably linked in my mind with irrational people who would rather have car crashes and dead bicyclists than lose one traffic lane they weren't really using anyway.  Is this a part of town you should feel safe visiting or doing business in?  And any forward-looking business looking to relocate should not go to a part of Atlanta that is so manifestly irrational.  There's plenty of commercial property available where people are not so crazy.

How disappointing that leadership in Buckhead (with the exception of Mr. Durrett) is unwilling to actually lead in a forward-looking way.  It will probably change, eventually, but until then, I'm planning on spending as little of my time and money in Buckhead as possible.

Text of Mr. Massell's letter to Russell McMurry, Commissioner, Georgia Department of Transportation

Dear Russell:

When I worked at City Hall in the 1970s I instituted what we titled the Pedal Pool with donated bicycles for staff who had trips to make downtown.  I have long been a dues supporting member o the Atlanta Bicycle Bicycle Coalition and I support its principles.  We were one of the first to contribute ($5,000) to the Path Foundation to help provide early path work at Chastain Park.  I make a special effort to publish routes (about 11.5 miles) of bicycle lanes in our Annual Buckhead Guidebook.  I have written articles encouraging more respect between auto drivers and bicycle riders and I defend the rights of each group to use our public streets as regulated by local Ordinances and other regulations.

In what seems to be a relatively short period of time, our Community has come some distance in welcoming the growth of this mode of transportation.  I'm confident we will continue to increase the practicality of coexistence between bikes and cars.  This is particularly true in Buckhead as Millennials continue to become a larger percentage in the population profile.

However, from our Members and from the General Public, it appears that the argument we face concerning adding bike lanes now to part of Peachtree separates at about age 30 for those in favor against those opposed.  On a popular vote we believe that would calculate to as many as 63% being in opposition.

The Mission of the Buckhead Coalition is "to nurture the quality of life of those who live, visit, work and play" in this Community, and as such we see our position must be to oppose any restriping of any part of Peachtree in Buckhead (between I-85 and Club Drive) that includes bike lanes at this time.  As such, we respectfully urge the State, our City and our CID to discontinue any further consideration of adding any such bike lanes on this Public right-of-way.

Sincerely,

Sam Massell
President

Rezoning Elizabeth Ann Lane

The developer's request for a variance at Cumberland and Wessyngton was on the agenda for the Neighborhood Planning Unit (NPU) meeting on Monday night of last week.  It's not that I thought it wouldn't go through, but I was curious what would happen.  It ended up being passed with very little discussion.

But there was a huge crowd -- a fill-up-the-sanctuary at Virginia-Highland Church-sized crowd -- and long lines to get in because they were verifying addresses on the way in. The reason for the big crowd was a rezoning request in the Lindridge Martin Manor neighborhood, which is part of our NPU.  (Lindridge Martin Manor is one of the neighborhoods that's been doing great work with the South Fork Conservancy on trails.)  Even though this didn't really have anything to do with Virginia Highland or Morningside, the notice went out widely through the neighborhood email lists that this proposed rezoning was a threat to our neighborhoods and we should show up. 

Elizabeth Ann Lane is a dead-end street off Sheridan, behind FedEx Plaza (on Cheshire Bridge, just south of I-85). 

There is commercial development to the north and west of it, a development of barely detached houses and another development under construction to the south, separating it from the strip mall where the Tara Theater and the Publix is.  So this street is nearly surrounded by commercial development.

All of the homeowners on Elizabeth Ann Lane and the adjacent area of Sheridan Road want to sell their houses to a developer who is proposing to put 89 townhomes on the site.

I didn't go into the NPU meeting with any particular opinion about this, although maybe I was included to oppose it on general principle, since the Virginia Highland Zoning Committee seemed to feel so strongly about it. 

The developer's representative made a brief presentation and implied that the houses were run down and an eyesore and they were doing the neighborhood a favor by getting rid of them.  On the subject of traffic, he said that there are fewer cars on Cheshire Bridge now than there used to be, and really, this wouldn't really make it worse.  Personally, I did not find this a highly persuasive argument.

But then the representative of the homeowners spoke.  They want to sell their houses to the developer, and the implication was that they are being offered enough for them that they can get the bigger houses they need for growing families, including accommodating other family members with special needs.  It was a good deal for them, but it wouldn't happen without the rezoning.  And already there is commercial development on two sides of them, so really, the site probably shouldn't be zoned R-4A anyway.

Then the opposition spoke, led by a (I think) a spokesperson for one of the zoning committees.  The arguments were (1) it's not consistent with the Comprehensive Development Plan; (2) it will take away some relatively affordable housing in the neighborhood; (3) the homeowners have no right to expect to make more from the sale of their homes than their value as single-family detached homes, given current R-4A zoning; and (4) the traffic is bad.  Then a man who identified himself as a professor of urban planning at one of the local universities said very emphatically several times that this was just "bad planning," without ever saying what about it was bad, and someone from the neighborhood said that traffic is so bad that the trucks that pick up trash sometimes skip his home.

While the discussion was going on, I looked up Elizabeth Ann Lane on Google Maps on my phone, and saw the map that I inserted above.  If this is what the Comprehensive Development Plan wants for this particular street - well, my thought was, that's bad planning.  And if the concern is affordable housing, the city could require the developer to provide some below market-rate units to school teachers, firefighters, and police officers.  And although the traffic may be bad, in the long run we do need density, and the developer cited in their proposal the proximity to bus lines on Cheshire Bridge and Lindbergh.

Last weekend, I went to Elizabeth Ann Lane.  Contrary to what the developer's representative implied at the NPU meeting, there was only one house that was in bad shape, and it was boarded up, unlike the derelict house near us on North Morningside.  Most of the houses look like the original houses on my street. 

Across Sheridan Road is a development called Sheridan Place, with pretty big houses with double garages that are really close together, and a new development called Sheridan Estates, with luxury homes "from the $800's" with (according to the signs) super pantries, mud rooms, and European appliances (I hope they work better than our Bosch dishwasher).  Incidentally I note that Sheridan Estates is being marketed by Muffley & Associates, along with their Dream Home program, which is where they pay a premium to buy up older homes that can be knocked down and replaced with other houses.  Given the discussion at the NPU meeting, apparently this is only permitted if the houses to be built are large, really expensive ones.

So I sided with the residents of Elizabeth Ann Lane, but the combined influence of all those opposing neighborhood associations had pretty well packed the meeting, and it was defeated, 189 to 124. I'm not completely sure this is the end of the story; I think the ultimate decision belongs to the city, and the developer's proposal concluded with the statement that any action other than approval would violate the developer's constitutional rights under the Georgia and U.S. Constitutions, so once the city makes a decision, it may still not be done. So we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, I have to wonder if anyone else looked at Google Maps before weighing in on this.

Getting There from Here

I hadn't heard of the MARTA Army until September, when they sat their recruiting station up across Boulevard from where I was working at Atlanta Streets Alive, back in September.  I was working at the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition table in front of Blueprint Church and between the Love to Ride group, that was loaning out bikes, and the new Atlanta bike share project, that had examples of some of the bikes that might be available in Atlanta next year.

Across the street were a couple of guys with a table and a tent and a sign that said MARTA Army.  I was working by myself at the ABC tent for quite a while so it wasn't until mid-afternoon that I was able to walk over and talk to them.  The two guys at the table told me that the MARTA Army was working to improve the rider experience on MARTA and their first project is an adopt-a-bus-stop project.  I didn't know that I wanted necessarily to adopt a bus stop, but I did sign up for their mailing list.

Later, I checked out their website ("Hey there, Metro Atlanta LET'S BUILD A WORLD CLASS TRANSIT SYSTEM")  Here's their vision:

The Atlanta region has been diagnosed with a bad case of urban sprawl and traffic congestion by urban planners and transportation experts. Out city needs better public transportation to become more accessible, equitable, and competitive. The Atlanta region's fragmented governmental institutions still lack the support to build the transit system we need. The initiative for world class transit system must come from citizens. Together, we can show that the Atlanta Region is ready for a world class transit system.

This sounded pretty good to me, so I made a small contribution and showed up for bootcamp at Across the Street in the Old Fourth Ward in mid-October.  I think I was the oldest person there (Georgia Tech graduate students seemed to be the major demographic group), but I signed up to get a schedule for the bus stop nearest me.  I didn't stick around long enough to pick it up -- printing and laminating the signs was taking a long time -- but an Emory graduate student offered to drop it by my house later, and I took her up on that offer.

The bus stop closest to my house, at Wessyngton and North Highland, is a stop at which I'd never actually caught a bus, although I did get off there at least once during that week that I was a MARTA commuter, earlier this fall.  But Hannah dropped the sign off at the house, and later Tom and I put it up.  I didn't do it quite right -- the plastic ties were just a bit too tight -- but now the schedule is posted, and riders who don't have a phone or who don't want to use up their data (an issue I heard at bootcamp) can at least know when the bus is supposed to come.  More importantly, maybe, non-riders will take a look and think, you know, maybe I could take the bus.

When Atlanta Streets Alive came to Peachtree Street in late October, I had expected to be out of town, so I didn't volunteer to work.  Then the trip got cancelled and I thought maybe Tom would join me, so I still didn't volunteer.  But he didn't want to or couldn't (I don't remember the details) and ABC really needed help that day so I ended up saying I'd work and ended up assigned to a tent near the Midtown MARTA station.  I didn't have any idea where I could park -- and I am not brave enough to ride my bike there, even on a Sunday -- so I checked the schedules and One Bus Away and got there and back on the bus, from my very own bus stop.

I'm still a big supporter of bike infrastructure in Atlanta, and think it is part of the picture for what Atlanta needs, but what our city needs more than anything is a real transit system, so there is a real alternative to driving for most of us much of the time.  Younger people are driving less; maybe when they are older they'll move to the suburbs but somehow I don't think so.  Atlanta needs transit, and it needs citizens who will advocate for it and who will use it, now, to get to the places they can get to on it.

Last night we went to the symphony. The surface parking lot where we used to park is closed now so we had to park in the deck on 15th Street.  There's a MARTA station, right there, but no easy way to get there from here.  We paid $10 to park.  That's MARTA fares for two people, round trip.

So when you see a schedule on a bus stopm like this one at Highland and Amsterdam, check it out.  Maybe you can get somewhere you need to go, at least sometimes.  Maybe you too will join the army.  And there are a couple of bus stops on the other side of Highland that still need schedules.

A Halloween Intervention

It started with a query on the neighborhood Facebook page from one of our new neighbors - how much candy should we get for Halloween?  The responses were quick and depressing.  Not much.  Hardly any trick-or-treaters.  Some years, we don't even see most of the kids who live on our street, much less anyone else.

(Just now I started to write that "I can understand how some adults may not enjoy Halloween," but that's not actually true-- I don't really understand it.  Halloween involves outdoors and getting out in your neighborhood in the evening and non-threatening interactions with children you don't know, as well as a chance to decorate your house and yard and wear costumes, so I can't understand why anyone wouldn't enjoy it, but maybe some people don't -- dentists, for example.)

The best place I ever lived as far as observing Halloween was Baltimore.  In the late 1980s, I lived in the Hampden neighborhood in Baltimore, and at least at that time, they really knew how to celebrate Halloween.  I lived in a house on Roland Avenue that year, and -- like our new neighbors on Wessyngton -- didn't quite know what to expect in terms of numbers of trick or treaters I should be prepared for.  But it seemed like almost all the houses had Halloween decorations up, so I thought it might be a Big Deal, and got what I thought would be a sufficient amount of candy.  Then I reconsidered and got some more, just to be safe.  On Halloween night, the visitors to my door were pretty much constant throughout the evening.  I have no idea how many trick or treaters came around that night, but it was a lot.  I remember I was concerned I was going to run out of candy. I didn't, but it was close.

If decorating is the measure, Halloween is more of an event in our neighborhood every year.  More and more houses in Morningside have elaborate decorations of the type that used to be reserved for Christmas, with lights and inflatables and life-sized plastic skeletons and tombstones in the front yard.  Here are a few more or less random ones from North Morningside.

Now, based on the Baltimore experience, I would expect that this increasing interest in decorating would translate into hoards of trick or treaters, but it just hasn't happened, or at least not on Wessyngton. 

There were more houses with Halloween decorations on Wessyngton, this year, and some of us put our houses on the Treat Map that was on Nextdoor, but it's not like it was candy corn from Highland to Cumberland.  

What to do? I thought maybe some Halloween lights on our street signs would help, with the thought that trick or treaters have to make a decision to turn onto Wessyngton from Highland or Cumberland, and the houses with lights and decorations up aren't necessarily so visible from those corners. So on Halloween afternoon I went to the Halloween store at the development at Piedmont and Sidney Marcus, to get some battery-powered lights to put up on our street sign at Wessyngton and Cumberland.  

Everyone else in the Atlanta metro area appeared to also have last minute Halloween shopping needs as well.  Even before I got into the store, there was a hint that it was going to be crowded, as everyone visible in the parking lot was converging on this one store.  When I arrived, the line for check out extended to the door and I decided I didn't want to buy anything there that badly, so went to the level below to Target where I found some battery-powered Halloween lights.  There were plenty of last minute shoppers there too, but it was a bigger store and they weren't so overwhelmed.  Once I got home, Iain and I put the lights up on the street sign and we hoped for the best.

We got some early trick or treaters -- mostly little kids who live on our street -- and they continued to trickle by throughout the evening.  Probably there were 20 or 25 who came by, more than I remember ever having.  Was it more houses with decorations, or the Treat Map, or the lights on the street sign?  I'm not sure, but probably all of the above.  And once it got dark, Tom built a fire in our new fire ring out on the drive way, and several of our neighbors stopped by. All in all, it was a very nice Halloween.

The next day, I went back to Target and got more lights (now 50% off), including another set of battery-powered lights for the street sign at the other end of Wessyngton.  

Next year, we'll do even better. I'll be sure to have plenty of firewood, as well.

A Request for a Variance

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I didn't get the letter, but one of my neighbors who did get it send me a photo of it. It was a request to support a variance to reduce the secondary side yard setback from 17.5 feet to 7 feet for a new home to be built at the corner at Wessyngton and Cumberland.  There's a duplex there now; it's been a while since I knew any of the people living there.

The variance request went before the MLPA Zoning Committee a week ago Monday.  Once we saw the site plan, it was clear that the 7 foot setback was not from the curb but from several feet inside the curb; the proposed house will be similarly placed on the lot as the existing house, although it will be facing Wessyngton.  There will be about a 15 foot setback from the curb, unlike the 35 feet setbacks for other houses on this side of the street.

A lot of us from Wessyngton Road came to the zoning committee meeting.  The spokesperson for the developer that was requesting the variance said that the more than 3,000 square foot house that they proposed to build would be in the style of an English cottage that would fit into the neighborhood.  (I am unaware of other English cottages on our street, but maybe I've missed something.)  There were questions about the trees that would have to be removed for the two car garage and the driveway. The speakers for the developer said they'd distributed some letters; they hadn't heard much back, they said.  There was a neighbor who was supportive, they said, and maybe they said (I'm not sure) there was one on Cumberland who had expressed a concern about rental houses.  The neighbor they'd said was supportive was there in person, and he said he was being misquoted, that he'd said he'd have to see the plans.

But there were a lot of us there from Wessyngton Road, and there were questions about sidewalks and a suggestion that they back off on the comments about rental houses.  And there were questions from the zoning committee members about why the house couldn't be farther from the curb, and about the trees that were going to have to be removed.  They ended up forwarding it to the MLPA board contingent on having the elevation and the footprint of the house on record with the city, and to see if a sidewalk was feasible.

Last night it went to the MLPA board and the developers' team was back to present it again, this time with the updated plans that had been submitted to the city.  They were talking among themselves before the meeting, and one of them was saying that the neighbors (that would be us) had come to the zoning meeting because we didn't understand what was proposed, and once we saw the plan we were all fine with it.  I told him that that at least some of us still had some concerns about having a house facing Wessyngton so much closer to the curb than any other house on the street.

The board ended up approving it.  One of the neighbors was strongly in favor of it, and one was strongly opposed.  The rest of us didn't say much.  It seemed pretty much inevitable.

Since then, I've done some thinking about what's really important to me about my street.  Honestly, the houses -- whether they are new English cottages or 1950s ranch houses or the apartments that used to be at the other end of Wessyngton -- don't matter that much.  What matters are the people who live in them; it's the people that make the neighborhood a good place to live.  Some of them are renters and some of them are homeowners.  Some of the renters have been some of the best neighbors, over the years, like our friend Mark, who was the best guitar player on the street.

So, fine, they can build whatever they want. Just find us a really good neighbor to buy the house.

Extra points if they can play guitar.

Carless in Atlanta

I haven't written anything here for months.  At least part of the reason is that Tom and I have been riding our bikes on weekend mornings pretty routinely.  We go through Piedmont Park to the Eastside Trail on the Beltline and then to Krog Street Market for breakfast.  It's a good length of ride for us -- just under 8 miles, I think -- and except for the hills at the very end on the way back, a pretty easy ride.

Sometime last month, Caroline's car (a very old Honda Accord that was old when Kathy and Steve gave it to us years ago) ended up in the shop for almost two weeks.  So Tom gave her the van to use while her car was in the shop, and he was going to rent a car.  I told him I didn't think that was necessary, that he could use mine, that I could walk to work, or whatever.  It's around 2 1/2 miles -- a little far to walk every day, even though I do like to walk, but I certainly could do it and have done it.  It's a perfect distance for a bike ride, except for (1) the hills, and more importantly (2) several stretches of road that are too dangerous for biking.  So that was out.  I did walk to work several days.  Some afternoons Tom picked me up, sometimes I walked home.

The second week it occurred to me that I should at least try MARTA.  While walking up North Highland, I'd see the buses roaring past me, almost empty.  Clearly I would have gotten their faster if I'd taken the bus, even if the buses don't run quite frequently enough.  But taking the bus from home to work requires transfer from one bus to another, and it's not that far in the first place, and the transfer on the way home requires crossing two very busy streets, and the buses don't run that frequently, and I didn't really know how to do it anyway.  I take MARTA to the airport, sometimes, but I haven't taken a MARTA bus in probably 30 years or more.  (I am pretty sure I did take them many years ago when visiting my cousin Reaunell when she lived in Atlanta, but that was a really long time ago.)

When buses don't run so frequently, it matters a lot, having an idea how long it will be before your bus shows up.  In Chicago this summer, we used the text feature at the transit stops, where you texted one number to another number, and got right a reply back right away, how long it would be before the next buses or trains were expected.  It didn't make them come faster, but you did know (or at least had a pretty good idea) when the bus was going to show up.  I found the MARTA app and it had what they called a "real time map" which was helpful but still didn't really tell me whether or not I needed to leave the house now or I could wait five minutes.  I wasn't even completely sure where the nearest bus stops were.

But I found the bus stop and used my Breeze card (which I'd bought to ride the train to the airport) and did take the bus to work several times and home or partway home a time or two less.  The first bus never had many people on it, but the second one was crowded, and sometimes I ended up standing.  The ride wasn't long on either one and once I missed my stop because I was reading something on my phone.  Especially in the morning on the nearly empty bus the drivers seemed delighted to see me.  Standing by a bus stop sign at the curb with no shelter, no trees, nothing, is really uncomfortable, even if the weather is fine. And the "real time map" was helpful but I still ended up getting confused about where the bus was, and once I decided I'd missed it and headed off on foot, but I hadn't, and a few minutes later it drove past without me.

Then a week or two later I volunteered at one of the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition's information tents at Atlanta Streets Alive.  A couple guys showed up and set up a tent for the MARTA Army nearby.  I asked what the MARTA Army was, and learned it was a group that was working to improve MARTA through citizen-led efforts.  MARTA does need to be better  but to be fair about it many of the problems they have are not ones that MARTA can solve on their own.  But I'm all for citizen-led efforts, so I enlisted on the spot and agreed to adopt a bus stop, now that I know where they are.  I went to their meeting Thursday night and learned that there is in fact an app that will tell you when the next bus should come.

But as soon as Caroline's car got out of the shop, and Tom got the van back, I was back to driving to work.

Frog Magic

I wrote in May about how the dumpster in our driveway came to be inhabited by a frog.  Sometime after that -- it must have been in June -- I got a message from Tom that there were tadpoles in the dumpster.  Now in retrospect this shouldn't have been particularly surprising.  The frog calls that we hear loudly every night are (I believe - if someone knows more about frogs than I do, please correct me) an announcement that this particular male frog has a fabulous place, and all the lady frogs should come around and visit.

Over the last month or so, we've been in the tadpole relocation business.  I've made two trips to An Undisclosed Location to relocate tadpoles; there were about a hundred the first time and about 50 the second time.  We've offered them to neighborhood children, and several families have taken us up on the offer.  Steve put some in his lily pond and took some to a friend who lives in Dekalb County. And for the last several weeks we've had about thirty of them in a plastic tank in our kitchen.  The picture below was taken in late June; in the upper right, they are eating bloodworms that were just added to the tank.

By early July, we had our first frog.  In this picture, he (or maybe she) still had part of his/her tail but was terrestrial and had been relocated to the terrarium where previously the lizard had briefly resided.

A few weeks ago we found the U.S. Geological Survey's Frog Quiz on line, which had links to audio recordings of the calls of different species of frogs.  We started through the list of native frogs in Georgia until we found one that sounded like our frog; when we got to Cope's Gray Treefrog, we all agreed -- that was it.  That was our frog.  There's a nice write-up on Cope's Gray Treefrog from the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory; according to them, they are a common treefrog in our area.  They are most common in mature deciduous forests where they spend most of their time high up in trees, but come down during breeding season where they breed in fishless wetlands.  Or dumpsters, too, apparently.

The most interesting and incredibly weird thing about Cope's Gray Treefrog is that there is a species which is nearly indistinguishable from it. morphologically, the Gray Treefrog, with an overlapping range.  The Gray Treefrog is genetically a tetraploid version of Cope's Gray Treefrog, which has the normal (diploid) frog number of chromosomes; the Gray Treefrog has twice as many chromosomes as Cope's Gray Treefrog.  

Yesterday some of the tadpoles died -- we had a problem with the water in their tank, that took a little while to get resolved -- but we've got 11 or 12 tiny frogs now in our terrarium.  We will be returning some of them to the outdoors this afternoon.  In the meantime, there are still a few tadpoles in the dumpster, although they are getting legs now and we've seen a few tiny frogs near the edge of the water.  Hopefully they will all be on their way to somewhere safer soon.

An Early Morning Bike Ride

Sunday morning, it was like an unexpected gift -- a cool morning in late June.  I woke up Tom, early, and told him that I was going to walk the dog,and then go for a bike ride.  He told me to wake him up when I was back from walking the dog and he'd go with me.  When I got back, he was already up, and dressed.

We rode to the Piedmont Park extension on the other side of Monroe, through the park, and on to the Eastside Trail of the Beltline to the end of the pavement on Irwin Street, and then on the way back stopped at Inman Perk for breakfast.  This is a ride we've done on several other recent weekend mornings; this is part of the reason I haven't posted anything in so long, as some of my early morning weekend time has gone to bicycle riding. It's best to get an early start, avoiding both heat and crowds, but the of course the fact that there are so many other people out doing exactly the same thing is part of what makes it so much fun.

On the Beltline, there are people on bikes and roller blades and skate boards.  There are people walking, jogging, and running. There are people with dogs and children.  There's a woman who walks the Beltline, playing the fiddle (we often see her there).  There are young people and older people, there are men and women, there are black people and brown people and white people, with all the diversity in every way that we see in Atlanta's intown neighborhoods.

Memorial Day weekend was the Atlanta Jazz Festival.  Last year Tom and I went for the first time.  Even though it's a free event in Piedmont Park and not very far away and we both enjoy jazz, somehow we'd never been to it.  Last year, we parked on Virginia Avenue and then walked to the park; Tom has bad arthritis in his ankle, and walking is painful for him.  Last year, I told him about the new traffic crossing light on Monroe, and how we could get to the park on bikes.  Of course, last year, neither of us had a bike.

Last fall, I bought a bicycle.  Soon afterwards, Iain got a bike, and he and I did a little riding together.  Then, a couple of months ago I was out of town for work and came back to learn that Tom had bought a bicycle too.  Even though he has arthritis, he can ride a bike without too much discomfort.  So we had planned on going to the festival by bike.  Friday night, there was someone playing that he wanted to hear, and he went by himself; Saturday, we went together, with a picnic, and Sunday, we went back with Pawel and Carolina.  It was a wonderful, glorious display of our city, and we never would have spent so much time there (or maybe even gone at all) if we hadn't ridden our bikes.

There is no doubt that biking -- even as little as we do it -- has made our lives better and made living in Atlanta more enjoyable.  And there is pretty much a direct sequence of cause and effect, from stumbling across Atlanta Streets Alive on North Highland in 2012 to finally buying a bicycle to our new weekend morning routine.  If somehow you've never made it to an Atlanta Streets Alive event, you're in luck -- the next one is September 27, with the same North Highland-Boulevard-North Avenue loop as last time.  Don't miss it.  You never know; it could change how you spend your weekend mornings, and how you see the city.

The Frog in the Dumpster

We have had a serious escalation at our house in the War on Stuff -- Tom got a dumpster which is now occupying our driveway.  He's been working on both the basement and the accessary stuff collection we have off site.  I have yet to make any substantive contribution to this but I do have good intentions.

The dumpster is inclined downward, like the driveway, and soon after we got it there was a foot or so of rainwater accumulated in the lowermost edge.  It became clear over the following days that the dumpster had become home to a really loud frog.  We only heard it in the evening, and I don't know for a fact that the frog was a permanent 24 hour resident or just showed up in the evening, like a musician in a subway station.  You can hear it -- but not see it -- in this video (I don't know how to make an audio recording on my phone, but I do know how to take video, which is what I did, even though it was dark).

One evening (when I had neither a camera nor my phone with me) I actually saw the frog.  It was grayish-green, and only about two inches long, immobile and silent on a nearly submerged cardboard box.  I ran to the door and called Iain to come out and see it, but of course it was no longer there when I got back.

Now this is not the only collection of water on our street that really isn't supposed to be there; where the basement of the apartments used to be, there's a deep depression that -- depending on the amount of rain we've had recently -- has more or less water in it.  At the moment there's lots of water there; I took the picture above yesterday afternoon.  This has been there ever since the apartments were demolished, and there's an equally noisy resident frog there, too.  I've never seen it, but I hear it often in the evening when I'm walking the dog.  It usually seems to be coming from the vegetation at the edge of the pond, rather than from the pond; that's outside the frame of this photo, on the left.  But it's the same sound as from our dumpster, and on a nice evening, I would hear the dumpster frog all the way to the middle of the block, and then -- like a pinging cell phone tower -- there would be a handoff to the pond frog.

A couple weeks ago Tom hooked up an aquarium pump and some plastic tubing and drained the dumpster. After that, we didn't hear the frog any more. I hoped it had just moved on to a wetter place and not become bird food.

The pond is likely to history, soon, too -- first the pile of rock and the utility locating markings appeared, and then the pile of large pipes, and then last weekend this piece of equipment. At least as of yesterday afternoon, nothing had happened yet but I am sure it will be soon, and then I expect the pond and the pond frog will be gone.

Since Tom drained the dumpster, it has rained more. And the frog is back.

Addendum from May 25:  Not a very good photo, but here he is.

Atlanta Streets Alive, Back in West End

It was a few weeks ago that the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition brought Atlanta Streets Alive - the Coalition's wonderful Open Streets event - back to the West End.  They had been there last spring for the first time.  That time, after I finished my volunteer shift in the information tent, and was walking around in my Atlanta Streets Alive logo T-shirt with "Volunteer" on the back, several people approached me to ask about the event.  What is this?  Why are the streets closed?  So I told them that it was an event to get all of us to experience our city on foot or on a bike, that it had taken place (thanks to the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition) over the last several years in other neighborhoods, but it was the first time it had come to the West End.  This time, my volunteer assignment was to be a greeter, so I approached people and asked them how they were doing.  Sometimes I asked if they lived in the neighborhood and if they said "yes," I asked if they participated last year.  I think every person I asked said "yes" to that. 

It had rained in the morning but the event was pretty much rain-free.  I suspect that the weather kept some people away who otherwise would have been there, but it didn't keep us away.  This was our first Atlanta Streets Alive on bicycles.  I had to work the first part of the event, so Iain took off on his own.  Early on he ran into Cole from Terminus Legion, and ended up riding with him around the route.  

The greeter business was slow, but I talked to the people I could talk to and got my picture taken many times by the Coalition's photographer, who once removed my backpack so the "Volunteer" would show on the back of my T-shirt.  I haven't seen any of his pictures, but here are some of mine.  Since the last Atlanta Streets Alive event, I bought a bicycle, so this was my first time to do the event on a bike.  As a result, almost all my pictures are from when I was working as a greeter.

Here's the group assembling before the bicycle parade.  I was glad to see the sousaphone players were back, but I didn't get to hear them play.

I told this woman she looked fabulous and asked if I could take her picture.  She graciously agreed.

Here's Chantelle Rytter on one of the famous phoenix bicycles.

And someone else on another one.

And someone on a three-wheeled bike without a phoenix.

This is the only picture I took after I finished my volunteer shift and headed off on my bike.  This area (near the Shrine of the Black Madonna) was very congested so I was walking my bike through the crowd and got to see these women playing drums, up close.

But mostly, once the volunteer shift was over, I rode my bike.  I traded my "thanks for volunteering" coupon for a can of Fat Tire beer and discovered that it's not that easy to ride a bike while drinking a can of anything, so I threw it out after a mile or so.  Somehow I missed the team from Free Poems on Demand who were there somewhere, but I didn't see them.

I was on my second loop around the route when I saw Iain seated at a picnic table having chicken and vegetables with Cole and some other people, including a couple of guys who used to live in the neighborhood.  This was  at the same community organization where we'd gotten food the last time, so I knew it would be good.  So I stopped and after I got my plate they made a place for me at the table and there was great conversation.  We had to leave before the others because Tom was going to pick us up soon.  

So it was another terrific Atlanta Streets Alive.  If it wasn't for this event, I probably would not have bought a bike.  And last week, while I was out of town, Tom bought one too.  So we'll be ready for the next Streets Alive event, which is September 27, on Highlnd.  Don't miss it.

Two Houses

There are two houses for sale now on our street.  Well, technically, there are three, and one of the two I'm writing about actually has a North Highland address; the Wessyngton house with a "For Sale" sign that I'm not counting is the brick dupex, still awaiting demolition; there's been a dumpster on the driveway for months, but not anything obvious going on since they removed the trees behind the house last fall.

The really large house that was built where Angela's house used to be -- the one that has really good views of all our back yards -- is now pretty much finished and there was an open house a couple of weeks ago. I was out of town and couldn't go.

The "text for information" sign has disappeared and the house is now listed as "active contingent," which I think means they are close to a deal to sell it.

The other house that still has a "For Sale" sign in front of it is the one at Wessyngton & North Highland, across the street from where the apartments used to be.  The house has been renovated and I've been wondering which one would sell first, this one or the new construction.  But when I checked the realtor's website a couple of weeks ago, they didn't even have information about the house posted., so I figured, no way it would sell before the other one did.

This morning when I went by, walking the dog, someone had just pulled up into the driveway.  He told me he was there to inspect the house.  For the buyer or the seller, I asked.  For the buyer, he told me.