|
Club Helps Secure Rail Transit for Beltline (cont.)
Meanwhile, Club organizers worked to secure funding for
BeltLine through the creation of a special Tax Allocation District. "The
BeltLine plan had to be a smart one to pass the city council, the
school board, and the Fulton County commissioners," says Georgia
Sierra Club organizer Anna Cherry.
Club volunteers fanned out door-to-door
around the city, spreading the word about BeltLine. "We went
to festivals, public events like the Sweet Auburn Springfest in
the neighborhood Martin Luther
King was from," Cherry says. The Club worked with Georgia
Standup, a partnership for working families, to promote affordable
housing along the BeltLine.
In late 2005, the Atlanta City Council
and the Atlanta School Board voted for the special tax district,
but the Fulton County
Commissioners had yet to act as the December 31 deadline approached. "We
flooded their office with phone calls like they'd never had before," Cherry
says. On December 27, the commissioners voted for the BeltLine
tax district.
But with it, Cherry says, there came a shift away
from the grassroots-driven vision of the BeltLine to a more developer-friendly
project. Transit,
the original heart and soul of the idea, began taking a back seat
to other large-scale development, and Gravel and Woolard left the
team, creating the need for a transit watchdog. The Sierra Club
filled that need.
In early 2006, MARTA prepared to apply for matching
federal funds for the BeltLine tax district. The first order of
business was
to decide on a "locally preferred alternative" as to
the mode of transit and the exact route BeltLine would take. "Some
saw this as a chance to put in place a cheap transit system that
would leave more money for other things," Cherry says.
The
powerful Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce promoted Bus Rapid Transit
as the "best" (i.e., cheapest) mode for BeltLine,
even though all along it had been presented to the public as rail-based
transit. Additionally, two of the four routes MARTA proposed omitted
a full quarter of the BeltLine loop.
 |
|
 |
| Sign
me up to help protect our community's environment
and public health. Together we can put in place solutions
that work for our families and our future. |
 |
|
 |
Up to Top
|
