Newspaper Page Text
awl:
M,
I ost of us just don’t think about it.
We get in our cars to get to work, to school, to go to a movie, to
get a loaf of bread. On the way we pass acres of parking for a new
strip mall, where there once was farmland and a stand of trees. The
lot is mostly empty, as usual, since it was designed to meet demand
for Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping. But they sell good bur-
ritos there.
Half a mile up the road there's another empty blacktop, and a
vacated strip mall to go with it. The burrito joint used to be there,
but it moved to the new strip,
along with most of the other
businesses.
There's half a church, where
some of Athens' first residents
gathered to talk and worship
every week. The rest of the
building was cleared for asphalt
a few years ago—parking for
condominiums. A couple of
blocks away, more apartments
are going up, after they bull
doze the rest of those run
down houses.
Suddenly, traffic comes to a
grinding halt. Stop and roll. We
turn up the AC, take a sip of
Aquafina, and sigh heavily.
Finally seeing his chance, a guy
walking in the tall grass along the shoulder of the road darts by,
across the lanes of idling cars. Then we see the obstruction: some
jerk on a bicycle. No, there's more than one—must be, like, over a
hundred of them. We nearly drop our sticky burv reaching for the
horn, screaming "Get the *!@# off the road!"
Yep, it's Tour de Sprawl time. A three-day event culminating in
a 15-mile bike and bus loop around Athens, the Second Annual
TdS aims to get us thinking
about how the city can be a
safe, inviting and accessible
place for all of its residents,
and how it can grow up without
growing out.
"The whole purpose of the
Tour is to raise awareness that
seemingly separate issues are
inextricably bound," says Jason
Henderson, president of
BikeAthens, the local multi-model
transportation advocacy group
that helped organized the event.
To that end, the Tour itself will
feature speakers on community
identity, alternative transporta
tion, affordable houmng, water
quality, traffic congestion and
University growth. All of these
topics are currently and con
stantly making news in Athens,
and one doesn't have to think
too hard to realize the fight
against gentrification in the
Garden Springs neighborhood
lately goes hand in hand with the
seemingly unending struggle for
more bike lanes and sidewalks.
"It's all interrelated," says
Henderson. "I don't think many
of our Commissioners understand
that."
For example, Henderson cites
the recently approved Barnett
Shoals widening project, a $4.5
million plan with no definite pro
visions for bike lanes, and few
for pedestrians. As approved by
the Commission on October 2,
Barnett Shoals will be converted
to a five lane highway, where
drivers will be able to make left-hand turns wherever they want, but
nearby residents still won't be able
restaurants just yards from their homes. The Tour includes a stop in
that area, near the Eastside Kroger shopping center.
The Barnett Shoals project will be financed completely with local
dollars—the state Department of Transportation bowed out after
Thursday. Oct. 11
Athens Music Fundraiser
40 Watt Club, 8 p.m.
Admission: $7, $10 suggested donation
Featuring Circulatory System (see story on p. 22), Art
Rosenbaum, The Squalls, Jack Logan, David Barbe
friday.-Q.ct, 11
Andres Duany,
'The Decline of the American Community'
UGA Fine Arts Theatre, 7 p.m.
Admission: $2 suggested donation
Lecture, followed by a reception and book-signing at the
Founders Garden at 9 p.m.
Saturday. Oct. 13
Tour de Sprawl 2001
All Over Athens, 9 a.m.-l p.m.
Cost: $15, $25 (with T-shirt)
Registration and sign-in is at College Square (College Ave
and Broad St.) at 8 a.m. Ride begins and buses leave
promptly at 9 a.m.
• Stop 1: Lyndon House Arts Center. Marianne Craemer, UGA
School of Environmental Design: "Community Identity."
• Stop 2: Dudley Park. Carl Jordan, ACC Commissioner: "East
Side Rail TraiL"
• Stop 3: Triangle Park Shopping Center. Toni Antrum, UGA
Small Business Development Center: "Affordable Housing."
• Stop 4: Waste Water Treatment Facility. Doug Haines, State
Senator and Executive Director of Georgia Legal Watch:
"Effects of Sprawl on Water Quality."
• Stop 5: Barnett Shoals Shopping Center. Jack Crowley, UGA
School of Environmental Design: "Sprawl in Athens."
• Stop 6: UGA Ramsey Student Center. Danny Sniff, UGA
Architects Director "Alleviating Campus Sprawl."
Athens-Clarke refused to draw in a center median. But just weeks
before the Commission ag eed to pay millions to five-lane that
stretch of road, cyclists we r e told it will take 25 years to implement
the county's Bicycle Master Plan due to a lack of available funds.
On the plus side, at least Athens has a Bicycle Master Plan, and
by all accounts, is at least somewhat ahead of the game-on the bike
lane front when compared to most urban areas its size. And earlier
this year, Athens-Clarke County convened a committee of
Commissioners and alternative transportation advocates to explore
converting the abandoned Eastside CSX rail line into a bike-pedes
trian trail. Ultimately,
BikeAthens hopes to see the cor
ridor transformed into an alt-
trans link from downtown Athens
to Winterville.
It can be done. Just over an
hour from Athens, the Silver
Comet Trail stretches 38 miles
along an old rail line from
Smyrna to Rockmart, and
attracts scores of cyclists, in-line
skaters and pedestrians every
day. Last month, the rail-trail
committee led an excursion to
the Silver Comet.
The Dudley Park trestle,
along the CSX line, is another
stop on this year's TdS. In addi
tion to its historical signifi
cance, the trestle is also a tourist draw, having been featured on the
jacket of R.E.M.'s debut album. Murmur. Such landmarks help give
Athens its sense of place, says Henderson, which local leaders are
often quick to sell short.
"Athens is a gem in the Southeast," he says. "It is a unique
place because it still has a quality of life—although it's threat
ened—that a lot of people desire, and it's got a huge potential. And
it's just giving it away."
Instead of zoning for more
sprawl and heavy industry, says
Henderson, "We should be saying
Wre going to pick and choose
what we get.'"
An Athens industry often
overlooked in suit-and-tie circles
will kick off the TdS weekend on
Thursday when the 40 Watt Club
hosts the Tour's Music Fund
raiser. The following evening,
New Urbanist giant Andres Duany
will speak on "The Decline of the
American Community" at UGA's
Fine Arts Theatre, followed by a
book-signing at Founders Garden.
Then comes the Tour itself.
Registration begins Saturday at 8
a.m.. The ride starts at 9 a.m.
sharp. Starting and ending on
College Square downtown, this
year's Tour will take cyclists and
shuttle bus passengers to Lyndon
House, Dudley Park, the Triangle
Park Shopping Center in East
Athens, the Bailey Street water
treatment plant, the Barnett
Shoals shopping district, and
UGA's Ramsey Student Center.
The Tour should wrap up around
1 p.m.
Co-presented this year by
BikeAthens, the Athens Grow
Green Coalition and the Upper
Oconee Watershed Network
(UOWN), the TdS promises a mix
of recreation and politics—which
is, unfortunately, what alterna
tive transportation has to be
about these days. But Henderson
asks critics not to pigeonhole
groups like BikeAthens, UOWN and Grow Green.
"We're not anti-growth," he says. "We're about how we grow. We
can add 50,000 people to this county without paving another inch
of it. And that's the kind of vision that we need."
Brad Aaron
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