Wednesday, March 20, 2002

A trembling voice for soft-spoken minority

By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
SallieS@juno.com

Getting up to speak to the Fayette County commissioners is a surprisingly unnerving experience, I learned recently. For one thing, the podium is uncomfortably high and makes you stand with your least elegant assets toward those who have gathered to commune with their elected officials.

Add to that a tendency to tremble in hand and voice when nervous, out of ardor for your subject or because of that darned three-minute timer, and you can make a pathetic spectacle of yourself. For me, the worst part was knowing I was speaking to a dead (for now) issue and from the viewpoint of a minority of those present.

I hope my written words likewise convey the passion I felt when I told the commissioners that they are wrong about a couple of things.

First among them is that oft-repeated falsehood that "No one in Fayette County wants public transportation," a.k.a. "We're not ready for public transportation here."

I know we pro-transits are in the minority, and have soft voices, but make no mistake, I am not alone in wanting transportation options in this community. And as the county's population ages, more and more will join me.

In ensuing articles reporting the commissioners' refusal of bus service for Fayette, I saw not one word about the contrary view I presented, not even in The Citizen. This omission helps perpetuate the myth that "There's just not a lot of support for bus service in the county."

(Ironically, I was less disappointed than I thought I would be, because the commissioners' decision means Fayette County will not be building $13 million worth of new roads anytime soon. Asphalt is counterproductive to reducing traffic and hence cleaning the air which, Commissioner Frady needs to be corrected, exceeded federal standards far more than "a day or two" in recent years.

The metropolitan area, which includes Fayette, earned smog alerts 20 days in 2001, 46 days in 2000, 69 in 1999, 22 in 1998. The county registered among the highest in the area on several of those days.)

In an AJC editorial response, Peachtree City's mayor argued that the building of too many roads produced the congestion the north metro counties are suffering, then proposed that the state buy up rights-of-way to attract economic growth on the south side.

Road-building in northern counties causes congestion; road-building in the southern tier alleviates congestion and makes public transit unnecessary? What odd reasoning.

The mantra, "If you build them, they will come," has been proven to apply to roads at least as surely as to baseball diamonds. Time and again, the expansion of highways has resulted in an even greater glut of traffic with its inevitable surge in bad-air days.

Our elected officials seem to think we want it that way. They are wrong.

Among those who would benefit most from public transit:

· Seniors leery of interstate driving and hard-to-find parking;

· College students who now have to choose between the high cost of living in Atlanta or driving daily from Fayette;

· Aficionados of Atlanta's cultural arts who don't wish to drive, especially at night;

· A small but deserving disabled population who cannot drive;

· A surprising number of people who cannot afford car ownership and are essentially stranded unless they can arrange rides with friends.

At first I thought Steve Brown was kidding when he promoted in his editorial what sounded suspiciously like golf carts as the alternative-fuel solution for our county's transportation needs. Sure, golf carts and the new street-legal hybrids are useful for local errands, but neither is going to get us outside the city limits.

Considering how much I've bragged on my planned hometown, I feel traitorous saying now that Peachtree City has done as poor a job planning for transportation as Fayette County itself. In our 1960s fervor to prevent downtown blight, we have eliminated downtown, distributing stores from Kedron nearly to Redwine Road, about seven miles. Except for quick golf cart trips to a food store near you, you cannot reasonably run errands here without a car.

There is not one hardware store or garden center accessible by golf cart. And even when you drive your car to a shopping center, you can't realistically carry purchases from one end to the other, from Kroger to Kmart, say, or from Williams Sonoma to Atlanta Bread Company, without driving.

The same is true in Fayetteville. No one is going to pick up fertilizer or a new screen door at Home Depot and then walk nearly a mile to Kohl's or Wal-Mart. You drive from one end of the Pavilion to the other.

Business with the county? The tax office is across a busy highway and a half-mile from court offices. Back in your car.

The commissioners' opinion notwithstanding, Fayette needs:

· An open-minded transportation authority or commission within the county to put together a transportation plan that relies on something other than cars and still more road construction;

· Designated walkways along city streets and across large parking lots;

· A tram circulating through our large shopping centers;

· A shuttle looping through the county, linking government offices, Fayette Pavilion, Peachtree City shopping centers, the hospital and medical centers;

· With our huge airline and frequent-flier population, links to Hartsfield, connecting with MARTA and downtown's entertainment, educational, and business amenities;

· Bus service, for openers, and eventually commuter and regional rail alternatives to air travel.

Only government is big enough to pull such services together, and GRTA appears to be the only likely agency at the moment. For openers, they must bring existing services, like the MARTA system, to accountability for safety, dependability, and well-maintained equipment.

Would public transportation be expensive? Certainly. Would it pay for itself? Of course not. Neither do sewers or highway systems. For local-transit success stories, look at Portland, Ore., Chattanooga and Knoxville where buses or trolleys circulate through downtown loops free.

Why does a community as large and well-off as this one not have even a rudimentary public transportation system? Check back on the profile I offered at the top of this column, then look at our county commissioners. They are non-commuters, do not have college-aged children, are well-off and own cars, and are mostly young enough not to mind driving to downtown events.

There were at least three people in the commissioners' chambers who agreed with me the evening I rose to speak. (Those who avoid driving after dark or do not own cars, obviously, were not there.) One was a 30-something white man who pointed out the demographics in the preceding paragraph. One was an older black gentleman who shook my hand and thanked me.

And one was a black student who stepped up to the mike after I did, and asked if Fayette County is worried about her relatives coming to visit. Perceptive, that child.

Local entities like Fayette's commissioners love to say we don't need big government to do our planning for us, that we can take care of ourselves.

Then why haven't we?

Back to Opinion Home Page | Back to the top of the page