Thursday, June 11, 2009
News Beltline walking tour on Friday
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 1:30 PM
Have you been itching to tour one of the country's largest smart-growth projects? One that might transform the city and cost an estimated $2.8 billion? You're in luck, my friend!
On Friday, ubiquitous smilemachine Angel Poventud, whom you might remember from our recent Happy Issue, will lead morning and evening Beltline tours that will cover some northern and southern parts of the project.
Poventud's started a Facebook page with information about the two urban hikes. Included are details about the trail routes and recommendations about what to wear or bring on the two tours.
After the jump, some details about the morning and evening excursions for those who haven't caved in and joined the social network site.
Details for the morning tour, which will cover much of the project's northeast quadrant near Piedmont Park:
The first [tour] will be from 10am to 2pm walking from the corner of 10th and Monroe Drive north and then west over to Piedmont Hospital. This section is about 4 miles long, so 3 hours of walking and about an hour to get back to the starting location on Marta.
Here's a map of that area.
And the evening hike:
The second will be from 530pm to 930pm walking from the West End Marta station east along the southern arc of the Beltline over to the Inman Park Marta Station. This section is about 6.5 miles long, so 3 hours for walking and about an hour to get back to the start location at the West End Marta Station. The sun doesn't set till 8:46pm, so we will get the whole walk in during daylight. Also, we will be walking through the Reynoldstown neighborhood which is where this Saturdays Wheel barrel festival is being held. Just thought I'd mention it.
And here's a map of that area.
Poventud, who's a kind-spirited and well-informed man about town, knows the Beltline and is a great tour guide. His contact info is on the Facebook page. If you're not a Facebook member, feel free to send him an email.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
Comments (7)
Showing 1-7 of 7
I just had a moment of sadness/frustration reading the line about allowing "about an hour to get back to the starting location (from Piedmont Hospital to 10th & Monroe) on Marta." How screwed up is it that it would take about an hour to go a distance of about three miles on MARTA? But it's true. Those bus routes are wacky, and necessarily so because of the even wackier east-west transportation routes in that part of Atlanta. It just shows to go you how bad we need the kind of transportation help we will hopefully get with the Beltline.
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The operative word in Darin's note is "hopefully." Unless you're currently in kindergarten, you likely won't see the transit piece of the Beltline. And as Georgia Tech reviewers explained years ago, the Beltline cannot speed you across town because its links to MARTA are so clunky. Nor does it connect points that you are ever likely to want to travel between. It is and always has been a boondoggle for transferring tax money to land owners / speculators - the winners being Norfolk Southern, the Bellwood Quarry owner, and, in first place, Mr Forty Million himself, Wayne Mason. Oh, enablers and cheerleaders have done all right out of it, too. Liz Coyle for District 6, anyone?!
Everytime I see a beltline related story, I just get depressed about the 2030 estimated completion date. Lots of brochures to be had at festivals until then i suppose. Don't get me wrong -- I'm happy something is being done, and I assume part of the long timeline is ensuring it is done smart(ly).
a friend went on a similar walking tour of the beltline recently - http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=97884&id=515366862&ref=mf
First of all, it isn't quite an hour to take MARTA rail from Inman Park to West End. Even at 9:30 PM a half-hour is a very conservative guess (and that assumes 10 minute wait times at Inman and at the Five Points transfer, both of which are unlikely). Both MARTA's trip planner and the excellent Citizens for Progressive Transit A-Train trip planner can give you more details. And not to play devil's advocate or anything, but transit on the Beltline is going to be about access, not speed. Its route is more easily understood than bus lines, and providing transit access to property with development potential can allow more development to happen there (and whether you like density or not, an increased residential development yield does mean that the city has more leverage to require a set-aside of affordable housing as well as retail and office space, all of which are objectives the city is trying to accomplish). But MARTA rail will still be the fastest game in town. Beltline, due to its alignment and the types of vehicles being considered, will simply not travel as quickly. The good side of that is that it can stop more frequently and give better service to neighborhoods.
JFM, if you read the Tech report on the viability of Beltline transit you'll see that it makes no sense. Like the Beltline itself, this discussion goes around in circles. Faith-based supporters of a fantasy refuse to look at the facts of where homes and jobs are now and will be in future. One can be - and many of us are - in favor of density and mass transit without being duped by Beltline boondogglers. The density in downtown, midtown and Buckhead, much of it near MARTA stations, is quite promising. But by diverting billions of tax dollars to the Wayne Masons and McKenna Longs of the world, Beltliners are ensuring an impoverished, high-tax city that plain folks won't want (or be able to afford) to live in.
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