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eral money for bus service has been "in steady
decline" even as demand for it has increased,
and said he'd like local governments at least to
be able to earmark a local tax for it. And if com
muter rail is ever to become popular, "you've
really got to train the next generation for that to
become their norm," Reddish said. "I can't think
of a better place than having a terminal point be
Athens with 35,000 students sitting right here."
f f students get accustomed to using passenger
*iail, "not only will they take that back to their
communities in Georgia, they'll take that all over
the country," he said. Congressman Broun also
heard concerns about reduced federal "block
grant" funds which are spread thinly among lo
cal nonprofit groups. "We just can't pick up the
difference," said Mayor Heidi Davison. "We don't
have that kind of revenue stream to fall back
on." Davison also pleaded for support for proven
early-childhood education programs, while
Commissioner (and high school teacher) Kelly
Girtz criticized the reduction in vocational pro
grams in the schools. While in Athens, Broun also
attended a UGA football practice and met with
UGA President Michael Adams. He said he will
soon open an Athens office on Atlanta Highway
(next to Zaxb/s). Broun told commissioners he
wishes congressional races were non-partisan,
and decried the partisanship in Congress. "It
makes me ill what's going on up there," he said.
John Huie jphuie@athens.net
Crossing the Road
It Pays to Be Chicken
Early one Tuesday afternoon in May of this
year, Justin Kau walked out of the Daily Groceries
Co-op on Prince Avenue a'nd—though there
was some traffic, and he typically avoids doing
this—he took a tentative step onto Prince in the
crosswalk in front of the co-op. Seeing Kau there
(and also, presumably, seeing the possibly beat-
up sign reading "State Law: Stop for Pedestrians
in Crosswalk"), the car in the lane nearest the
curb stopped for him. He looked the other way,
towards downtown, and saw that the cars in both
lanes coming from there were stopping. Then
he kept walking, and in the second lane of the
two heading downtown, a Toyota Sequoia hit
him. He "bounced off the bumper," in his words,
and landed on the pavement. The impact of the
bumper against his left hip gave him a massive
bruise and a tiny fracture there, and worse than
that, the lower part of his left knee was broken.
Kau has spent the three-plus months since
then on crutches, mostly at his parents' suburban
home, and only in mid-August moved back to the
room he rents on Pope Street. Having planned
on only part-time employment through the sum
mer, he didn't miss too much; he's now able to
go back to work just in time for a seasonal test
scoring job on campus to pick up steam. He's
BIO DEFENSE INFO
Things have been kinda quiet since
the July announcement that Athens made
the short list for a new National Bio and
Agro-Defense Facility to be run by the
Department of Homeland Security. No
more! There are two public meetings com
ing up for those who are curious:
UGA Community Relations Director Pat
Allen has organized a Q&A with local envi
ronmental groups; audience questions will
be taken, too. That's at the Georgia Center
for Continuing Education (room K-L) on
Thursday, Aug. 30 at 7 p.m.
Next month, there will be a big meeting
coordinated by homeland Security. That's
at the Georgia Center's Mahler Auditorium
on Sept 20; more details to come.
kept in fairly good spirits about the accident,
which he knows could have been worse. In a blog
post on his MySpace page a few days after the
accident, Kau noted his relative good fortune: his
accident took place only a few weeks after cyclist
Sam Lane sustained brain injuries in a collision
with a DUI driver—who was indicted last week
by a Clarke County grand jury on felony counts
related to that accident—only a few yards from
the same spot. And the quiet summer gave him
plenty of time to sit around and read, which he
says he's inclined to do anyway. Still, the experi
ence has firmed up his opinions of crosswalks
like that one.
"I think people—they're just working on the
assumption that there's not gonna be anybody
in the street," Kau says of Prince Avenue driv
ers. "[The driver who hit me] was probably doing
20-something miles an hour, which, considering
the speeds people do on Prince, isn't that fast."
He says his typical strategy when crossing Prince
there was always to wait for traffic to clear. He
did otherwise that one time, and of course re
grets it. "Suddenly the pedestrian feels like he
should go, because this person has stopped for
them, and you've got to look out for these three
other lanes of traffic." While it was nice of some
drivers to stop for him, he feels like the system
at a mid-block crosswalk with four lanes of traffic
doesn't work. "Now, if it ever happens again, I'll
just wave the car along," he says.
Kau wrote on his blog after the accident: "The
crosswalks create an illusion of safety, and in the
minds of the lawmakers responsible for them an
illusion of progressive change toward the city be
ing more pedestrian- and bicyclist-friendly."
At least according to ACC records, the story
of Kau's injury fortunately is not representative
of a particularly common trend. Data supplied
by the ACC Transportation and Public Works
Department—tallied solely from incidents for
which police reports were written—show just two
pedestrian-car crashes at that particular cross
walk since it was installed in August of 2003.
One of those two was the one that sent Kau to
the hospital; the other happened in January,
2005. (There was also one such crash at the
adjacent intersection of Prince Avenue and Pope
Street, some time between January 2001 and
August 2003.) A crosswalk across Thomas Street
near the Classic Center is similar to the co-op's:
there has been one reported pedestrian-car crash
there in 2002, and one in 2007.
Other "mid-block" or non-signaled crosswalks
in town are quieter: there have been no reported
crashes since 2001 where a crosswalk follows
Jackson Street across Dougherty Street without a
stop sign or stop light, and similarly none since
2001 at the Prince Avenue crosswalk near Newton
Street, in front of The Grit. Mid-block crosswalks
on Lumpkin Street have just been re-installed
after disappearing for long periods during road
construction, and Baxter Street has newish brick
ones; numbers for those weren't available for
this story. The exception to the group is Jackson
Street^long UGA's North Campus, where there
were four reported crashes from 2002 to 2005.
The increase there is most likely due to the
greater volume of all types of traffic on Jackson
Street, according to ACC Transportation and
Public Works Director David Clark.
Still, Grit employees and Clark note that plen
ty of close calls can be observed in front of that
restaurant. One waiter said last week that a cy
clist was knocked off a bike there, but rode away
unharmed and the accident was unreported. Clark
says, based on his own observations while dining
there, that most close calls involving pedestrians
are precisely of the type seen in Kau's case: one
car stops for the pedestrians, but others don't.
"I've seen that type of pattern happen several
times," he says. A lot of the problem on a four-
lane road is that the first car blocks pedestrians'
view—and blocks the pedestrian from the view
of other drivers. That's precisely the reason that
staff have not encouraged building mid-block
crosswalks on four-lane roads, Clark says.
Placement of the crosswalks on Prince was
approved by ACC Commissioners in 2003, and as
of now they are there indefinitely; any alteration
would require Commission action.
Ben Emanuel ben@llagpole.com
WE'RE SPECIAL
Here in Georgia, we like to think that we're
something special. When it comes to congressio
nal elections, we are. Georgia is in a special posi
tion going into the next election year that sets
us apart from almost every other state.
Nationally, Democrats think they can add to
the majorities they won in the U.S. House and
Senate last year by winning more seats currently
held by the GOP. Polls consistently show that
the Republican brand name has been so badly
damaged by the stresses of the Iraqi occupation
and the shortcomings of the Bush Administration
that the Democrats might be able to accomplish
that goal.
But in Georgia, where Republicans hold
seven of the state's 13 House seats and both of
the Senate seats, it may be just the opposite.
Things are looking so good for the Republican
Party here that there doesn't appear to be a
single GOP congressman who could lose
to a Democratic challenger. The only
Republican even remotely in danger
is the newly elected Paul Broun,
but if he loses it will be to another
Republican in the primary. When
January 2009 rolls around, it's very
likely that the current seats occu
pied by Republicans will still be in
GOP hands.
Unlike the rest of the country, the
only vulnerable seats here are the ones
held by two Democratic House members:
8th District Rep. Jim Marshall and 12th District
Rep. John Barrow. If any seats change partisan
control in this state, it will be those two.
Marshall and Barrow have already survived
one attempt by the state's Republican leadership
to knock them out. The GOP-controlled legisla
ture redrew the lines of their districts in 2005 so
that they include more Republican-leaning voters
and fewer Democrats, but Marshall and Barrow
both squeaked to victory by razor-thin margins
in 2006. Republicans are going hard after them
again. The National Republican Congressional
Committee has recruited a retired Air Force gen
eral, Rick Goddard, to go up against Marshall.
Barrow is expected to attract a top-drawer GOP
opponent as well, possibly someone like former
Augusta mayor Bob Young.
Can Barrow and Marshall win? Working in
their favor is the fact that they will have had two
years to establish themselves as the incumbents
to the new voters in their districts. Incumbency
isn't everything, but it's very helpful if you're
trying to win another term in office. Barrow and
Marshall, while they're nominally Democfats,
have also been voting more like Republicans on
the big issues this term. On five instances where
the House took important votes on withdrawing
troops or withholding funds for the Iraq War,
Marshall voted with the Republicans and against
his own Democratic caucus all five times. Barrow
voted with the Republicans on four of those five
occasions. Those votes are vital if you're trying
to strengthen yourself in a conservative district.
Marshall has one other factor working in his
favor: Mac Collins, the former Republican House
member who ran against Marshall last year and
lost to him by about 1,700 votes. Collins says
he wants to run again and has been doing
things that candidates normally do, such
as appear at a State Transportation
Board meeting last week when it was
considering a commuter rail issue
that's important to many voters
in the 8th District. If Collins does
enter the Republican primary race,
he has the name recognition that
could enable him to beat the party
establishment's candidate, Goddard.
Marshall would certainly prefer to run
against a familiar candidate he's already
defeated once rather than a fresh oppo
nent with a lot of money.
Working against Barrow and Marshall is the
fact that 2008 is a presidential election year and
presidential elections tend to boost the turnout
by Republican-leaning voters in Georgia. If you
have a polarizing Democrat like Hillary Clinton at
the top of the ballot, the turnout by conservative
Republicans on election day will be even greater.
So, yes, the possibility is certainly there for
Republicans to take away a couple of Democratic
congressional seats. If that happens, Georgia will
have shown once again that it's a special excep
tion to the nation at large.
Tom Crawford
Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol Impact’s Georgia
Report, an Internet news site at www.gareport.com that
covers government and politics in Georgia.
THIS MMlitH WMLB
IN iq6n, A GROUP OF RADICALS
HATCHED A SECRET PLAN...*
OKAY, DIG ITf WE'LL INfILTRATE
THE G.O.P.--AND SCREW THINGS
UP SO BADLY, CONSERVATISM IT
SELF WILL BE DISCREDITED FOR
GENERATIONS!
THEY EVENTUALLY MADE IT TO
THE WHITE HOUSE...WHERE THEIR
STRUGGLE BEGAN IN EARNEST...
X CAN'T BELIEVE IT.' THE TIMES
HAS ANOTHER FRONT PAGE STORY
ON THE "THREAT" OF SADDAM'S
WEAPONS Of MASS DESTRUCTION:
by TOM TOMORROW
AT TIMES, THEIR TASK SEEMED
ALL BUT HOPELESS.
IRAQ IS A DISASTER AND X MIGHT I
AS WELL BE USING THE C0N5T1TU-|
Ition FOR TOILET PAPER—
—AND THESE IDIOTS ON TV ARE
STILL TALKING ABOUT HOW LIKABLE \
X AM?
WE NEED A SURGE--
Of SCREWING THINGS UP!
*AS REVEALED BY THIS CARTOON
IN SEPTEMBER, 1005.
BUT FINALLY THINGS BEGAN TO
TURN AROUND.
IT WAS ALL DOWNHILL FRO/^ tmCR£.
THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT IS
IN MELTDOWN MODE! THE
REPUBLICAN PARTY IS IN COM-
PISTE DISARRAY! AND A MA
JORITY Of AMERICANS BELIEVE
THIS COUNTRY IS ON THE WRON6
PATH!
AND AFTER MANY LONG DECADES,
ONE WEARY WARRIOR DECIDED To
PACK IT IN.
6 FLAGPOLE.COM • AUGUST 22, 2007 NEWS & FEATURES I ARTS & EVENTS I MOVIES I MUSIC I COMICS & ADVICE I CLASSIFIEDS
1<fW?f?*W©2007~. www.thltmodemwortd.com