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Toll roads, Cobb transit and
affordable housing on Buckhead
council’s commuter traffic agenda
BY JOHN RUCH
johnruch@reporternewspapers.net
Charging tolls on commuters who
drive down Buckhead’s residential streets.
A new bus route or rail line between Cobb
County and Lindbergh Center Station.
Affordable housing incentive programs
to let lower-income
workers live closer
to their jobs.
Those were
among the big
ger priorities that
emerged at the
Buckhead Council
of Neighborhood’s
May 2 meeting at
Peachtree Presby
terian Church, as it
kicked off a study
of ways to “let Buck-
head breathe” rath
er than “suffocating”
on commuter traffic.
Formal recommen
dations will come no
sooner than September, but one message
was clear: the residential neighborhoods
see themselves as under literal invasion
by outsiders from the land of Cobb.
As one resident concerned about ever
growing traffic and pedestrian safety on
Moores Mill Road put it, “Anybody watch
‘Game of Thrones’? We have the White
Walkers and they're not walking, they’re
driving.”
Some of the initial policy ideas are
already getting outside reactions, pro
and con. Tolling certain neighborhoods,
known as congestion pricing, is among
many ideas that may be studied by the
city in a traffic management review re
quested by local City Councilmember J.P.
Matziglceit, and the notion has drawn
controversy.
Sam Massell, president of the Buck-
head Coalition, a group of business and
civic leaders, said in an interview prior
to the BCN meeting that he strongly op
posed the general concept of congestion
pricing for Buckhead.
“As a center of tourism, as Buckhead
defines itself with 1,500 retail units, I
think not only would it be a tremendous
economic detriment to businesses that
are here, [but] you could have riots in the
streets from people who want to come
here from across borders,” Massell said.
“...I just think it’s very distasteful.”
The idea of some type of improved
Cobb-Buckhead mass transit line, how
ever, got a good initial response from
some Cobb officials, according to BNC
Chair Mary Norwood and Robert Patter
son of the North Buckhead Civic Associa
tion. Norwood said she recently met with
Cobb County Commission Chairman
Mike Boyce about transit issues and that
he arranged for her and Patterson to meet
with county planning and transportation
officials in late April.
Mary Norwood.
From those talks, Norwood said, a
bus rapid transit route running between
Cobb and Buckhead on I-75’s HOV lanes is
“very much a possibility.” And while Cobb
has been infamously resistant to joining
MARTA, Patterson said, “When Mary and
I met with Cobb [officials] two days ago,
they said, ‘Don’t give
up on rail coming
from Cobb County.’”
MARTA and the
Atlanta-region Tran
sit Link Authority
had representatives
in the audience at
the BCN meeting, by
Norwood’s request.
They did not com
ment about the tran
sit talk.
The BCN coordi
nating a privately
funded transporta
tion study for all of
Buckhead or key cor
ridors was another
idea floated by Nor
wood.
The “Let Buckhead Breathe” initiative
came out of the BCN’s recently formed in
terest area groups, or subcommittees, on
such issues as transportation. Norwood
now aims to gather three “task forces”
of members to set priorities on its three
general goals: “enhance transit options,”
“protect neighborhoods” and “provide af
fordable workforce housing.”
Tolling and tech
BCN board member Robert Sarlcis-
sian led a presentation on how technolo
gy could aid the neighborhood-protection
goal. He said that at minimum, the BCN
should recommend local congestion pric
ing and “adaptive” traffic signals, which
change based on traffic conditions rather
than a simple clock. Such neighboring cit
ies as Sandy Springs already have wide
spread use of adaptive signals and Atlanta
has started installing some in Buckhead.
“One question is, can we implement
some sort of congestion tax” on people
driving through neighborhoods from out
side addresses, Sarkissian said. “The tech
nology for that is pretty easy now... I don’t
know popular that’s going to be.”
He also envisioned a high-tech future
where autonomous vehicles could be
synched with traffic signals and personal
data so that outsiders could be walled out
by red lights, a notion that drew applause
from the crowd.
Congestion pricing is used in several
large cities around the world, including
central London, and is a national discus
sion point due to New York City’s recent
study of the concept for lower Manhat
tan. However, those cities also have exten
sive public transit systems as alternatives,
well beyond metro Atlanta’s current sys
tems.
Massell of the Buckhead Coalition