The Mayor Gets it Right

Among the things coming out of last night's session of the ACC Commission is some movement on one of our favorite issues - public transit. Heidi is ready to push it through next year (don't get too optimistic, we've heard that song before), but in a shock to no one, certain of the Commissioners aren't so sure. For instance Carl Jordan, who sez, "I think all of us have some fine-tuning we'd like to do to various parts of it before we go any further."

Now, depending on the Commissioner in question, "fine-tuning" could mean many things. From certain Commissioners, it means we might actually get an improved plan. For others, it means we're going to stall and stall until improving public transportation is a lost cause, and the precious status quo is maintained. After all, we wouldn't want those smelly poor people to be too mobile, else they might end up in our neighborhoods. (We're not naming any names though. We'll leave that for the comments, but seriously, the lengths to which some Commissioners will go to protect the status quo surprises even us.)

For Carl Jordan, we're betting that he wants to make sure the buses don't have headlights.

The point (or one point at least) is this. We've been going round and round here at AP about poverty in ACC. There are certain things the government can do to alleviate poverty. This is one of them. It's also environmentally friendly, good for neighborhoods and traffic congestion, and keeps the roads safer.

If Athens Transit has failed in any aspect of their push for more funding, it's in failing to act on those facts and build a coalition of advocates for the poor, advocates for the environment, and advocates for neighborhoods to rally up support from the M&C. Strength in numbers, especially when you're playing interest group politics.

Oh yeah. Blake writes it up here. Also some zoning and stuff.