Thursday, February 09, 2012

a tale of two cities

valentines day is coming up and i wanna spend it with my sweetheart...which we can do the weekend prior or the weekend after sure...but not easily the day of. why? because we live in two different cities, about 60+ miles apart. now granted, the national average shows that the longest, and in my opinion ridiculous, commute is in the ATL at 66 miles daily, one way. wow.
now, while i would never arrange my life with such a daily commute to work in mind, and never have to date, i would absolutely support transportation solutions for folks who do have to travel that far for work. a commuter rail train from birmingham to atlanta to athens and on to augusta is one option, a high speed rail running between major cities like charlotte, chattanooga, atlanta, macon, savannah is another. right now the only thing i see leaving athens daily for atlanta is groome airport van shuttle and WINGS or whatever they call the small regional airflight vendor nowadays.
but alas, we don't have those commuter options and our state might not succeed in convincing voters to support a special transportation tax this summer as a first-step sort of manner to help get them. and the fed might slash any "non-asphalt creating" transportation funding across the nation unilaterally anyway. "if it aint a road, and preferably a wide one with lots of lanes and bridges, we dont want it and we aint gonna fund it b/c the nation don't need it."
well let me tell you something state/fed legislators, georgia has a wide road, with lots of lanes, 23 to be exact, and bridges, and it runs smack thru the heart of downtown ATL and is the most dreaded, congested, ugly piece of road money can buy. dressing it up with lexus lanes doesn't work, painting pretty bridges doesn't work, flanking it with entertaining billboards doesn't work, it stinks and it sucks the life out of commuters who have to get to work in ATL by car. nobody here likes it, in fact its god awful as southeners say.
so i don't reckon i'll spend my valentines day, commuting during rush hour, fighting that crowd to spend a lovely dinner with my wonderful partner. no we'll just chat on the phone and make plans for what city we can move to where infrastructure has kept up with population and the built environment supports a pleasant way of life, a lovely commute, and easy dinners out on a weeknight.
sorry sweetheart, that community is NOT Atlanta or towns adjacent to it.

love you, smooch!

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