The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, February 02, 2009
It was going to be a bright and glorious new day, the dawn of an era of cooperation and consultation and trust.
Just a few weeks ago, at a transportation summit, the Georgia Department of Transportation, MARTA, the Atlanta Regional Commission and state, city and county officials from the metro region all pledged a new way of doing things.
[an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive]
No more inter-agency feuding over transportation. State, local and regional transportation agencies would no longer push their own secret agendas at the expense of the larger good.
When they talked with officials in Washington, they would speak with one voice, a voice that was loud and clear and communicating a single message. If they sent conflicting messages to Washington, as they had in the past, they would lose the federal money they all needed.
But alas, golden eras can end so quickly.
Within two weeks of that meeting, the state DOT filed a last-minute objection with a federal agency that threatens to torpedo Atlanta’s cherished Beltline, a transit project the city has spent millions of dollars and years of effort nurturing to fruition.
If that wasn’t enough, DOT also recruited muscle in the form of Amtrak, which is threatening to use its federal authority to try to condemn the property from Atlanta.
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin responded with an angry letter to U.S. Rep. John Lewis, complaining that the DOT’s “boorish behavior” puts the city’s future at stake.
DOT Commissioner Gena Evans then warned that Atlanta’s behavior could endanger any hope of bringing commuter rail and high-speed rail service to the city.
So much for speaking in one voice to Washington.
In brief, here’s the issue: The northeast quadrant of the Beltline, known as the Decatur Belt, is a 4.3-mile piece of railroad right of way formerly run by Norfolk Southern. Running through residential areas and along Piedmont Park, it is the most commercially valuable property on the 22-mile Beltline; the city’s plans for financing the project depend heavily on private investment in that area.
But before the property could be freed for other uses, Norfolk Southern had to get an OK from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to abandon it as a railway.
The DOT, while supportive of the Beltline, believes that preserving the Decatur Belt as a railway is essential to eventually bringing high-speed rail and commuter rail service into a proposed multimodal station in downtown Atlanta, near the Five Points MARTA station. It also believes that the Beltline property could accommodate all three uses —- Beltline, high-speed rail and commuter rail.
So earlier this month, without apparent warning to the city, the DOT filed a last-minute objection with the Surface Transportation Board to try to stop abandonment. If it succeeds, and if Amtrak succeeds in condemning the land, it could kill the Beltline project altogether.
So let’s try to answer a series of questions:
Was the city betrayed, misled or ambushed by DOT? Evans says that DOT staff have warned city staff for years about the importance of the property for future passenger rail; the record supports that claim, but only to a degree. It suggests that DOT and city staff have discussed their various viewpoints on the matter in the past, but they have been talking to each other without really listening to each other.
However, knowing how central the Decatur Belt property was to Beltline plans, and how important those plans were to the city, the DOT should have made it consistently clear that it would not allow those plans to go forward.
So now what? What are the merits of the case?
The DOT argues that the Decatur Belt is the only means possible to bring high-speed rail and commuter rail into downtown.
It is not. It is the easiest route, the currently fastest route, the cheapest route. It is clearly the best route. But it is not the only route.
Furthermore, it’s hard to ask the city to greatly compromise or abandon its Beltline plan —- a project core to Atlanta’s vision of itself —- because the DOT may someday get its act together on commuter rail. The agency has paid lip service to the concept of commuter rail for years, but even the lip service has been half-hearted.
For example, an environmental assessment of a downtown multimodal station was completed back in 1995, the same year DOT completed its so-called “Commuter Rail Plan Final Report.” But nothing has happened to make those plans real.
In fact, an $87 million federal appropriation for commuter rail between Atlanta and Lovejoy has been sitting untouched for more than five years, awaiting matching money from the state that has never come.
Last year, Gov. Sonny Perdue did hold a news conference to announce that he was suddenly a supporter of commuter rail in general and the Lovejoy line in particular.
“Let’s move out aggressively,” Perdue said. “Once I’ve made up my mind, I’m usually impatient.” Since then, silence. Once again, there is no money for the Lovejoy line in the impatient Perdue’s 2010 budget.
Franklin put the situation pretty well in her letter to Lewis:
“We have invested far too much in the Beltline and have seen too much growth and investment for it to be stymied by the actions of a state agency that does not have a viable plan or funding for commuter rail … let alone funding for projects to which it has already committed.”
In its own filing to the Surface Transportation Board, Amtrak cites a similar case from Detroit as a precedent for its request to condemn the Beltline property. In that case, a short piece of inner-city rail line was proposed for abandonment; Amtrak intervened, telling the board the property was essential to connect to a proposed downtown transit and commuter rail station.
That case was decided in 1986 in Amtrak’s favor. However, the Detroit commuter and inter-city rail station cited by Amtrak to justify its claim was never built.
Two other notes are also important:
> Neither the proposed Lovejoy line nor the “Brain Train” to Athens —- the two commuter lines most likely to be built sometime this century —- would use the Decatur Belt property needed for the Beltline.
> A high-speed rail line with trains traveling at 80-100 mph through dense intown neighborhoods is a questionable proposition at best. It would certainly rule out bike and walking paths and other amenities along that line.
For the moment, the Surface Transportation Board has issued a temporary stay in the case, giving time for heads to cool and negotiations to begin. If compromise can be found, great.
But asking Atlanta to set aside its Beltline dream for gauzy plans by state officials who have shown no real commitment to passenger rail —- that’s asking a lot.
Prev
Linear Mode
