Category Archives: Safety

Atlanta’s T-SPLOST

Atlanta at least included some public transport in its T-SPLOST list, although most of its list will more likely make problems worse for pedestrians.

Ariel Hart wrote for the AJC 15 August 2011, Regional transportation list approved

If the projects are built, in just over a decade passengers could be riding trains from Atlanta to Cobb County or to Emory University, or traveling new, swifter ramps through the Ga. 400/I-285 interchange, or finding countless arterial roads wider and less clogged, from Henry County to Cherokee County and all points in between.
New swifter ramps! Countless arterial roads less clogged! Well, except by pedestrians trying to scurry through the faster traffic.

Why, in the second decade of the 21st century, do we continue with a failed traffic model from the middle of the 20th century? Seems to me traffic safety should be pertinent and should include pedestrians. and instead of more unsafe roads making life unpleasant and unsafe for communities, we could go for roads that serve communities.

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30 jail deaths since 1994 to 2009 —George Boston Rhynes

Received today on Alabama bishops criticize ALEC’s immigration law -jsq
Churches and pastors need to view this video and see about these animals. That is since we read so much information about the Animal Shelter in our area about abused animals. What about these animals and the thirty deaths that no elected official, church, human being or orgnzations seem to care about.

Did you know that Valdosta-Lowndes County Jail is leading the State of Georgia in Jail Deaths for whatever reason. Yet, no one is talking about these people many of whom are military veterans that served their nation. So where is the humanity to man?

Yes, we have had 30 jail deaths since 1994 to 2009 and not the Lowndes County Attorney has put it in a letter in so many words

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NAACP calls for end to War on Drugs

Nafari Vanaski, wrote for Gateway newspapers 18 August 2011, NAACP calling for truce in nation’s drug war
If you grew up at the same time that I did, you’ll remember the “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign that became popular in the mid-1980s and early 1990s.

It manifested itself in many ways, from the posters and talks in class to the “very special episodes” of shows such as “Blossom” and “The Facts of Life,” where a character encounters a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who is pressuring him or her to try drugs. Inevitably, good prevailed and the druggie turned out to be from a broken family and needed only a good face-to-face with Nancy Reagan, the driving force behind the campaign, to overcome his addiction. (She appeared on “Diff’rent Strokes,” and considering the real-life histories of Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges and Dana Plato, she probably should have stuck around for a five-episode story arc.)

“Just Say No” was part of the larger war on drugs the Nixon administration declared in 1971. For grown-ups, that war symbolized a lot more than sappy primetime television. Especially for black adults. For them, it meant stricter laws for those found buying, selling and distributing illegal drugs.

To that end, the NAACP took an interesting step at its national convention last month. It approved a resolution to end the war on drugs because of its devastating effect on the black community.

Interesting how the headline writer watered that down: NAACP called Continue reading →

Retrofitting suburbia —Ellen Dunham-Jones

There are many jobs in this. The Five Points redevelopment is an example of what she’s talking about. It’s a lot better than building more sprawl: safer, less expensive, more jobs, less energy cost, more energy independence, better health, and more community.

Georgia Tech Professor Ellen Dunham-Jones spole January 2010 at TEDxAtlanta, Retrofitting suburbia

In the last 50 years, we’ve been building the suburbs with a lot of unintended consequences. And I’m going to talk about some of those consequences and just present a whole bunch of really interesting projects that I think give us tremendous reasons to be really optimistic that the big design and development project of the next 50 years is going to be retrofitting suburbia. So whether it’s redeveloping dying malls or re-inhabiting dead big-box stores or reconstructing wetlands out of parking lots, I think the fact is, the growing number of empty and under-performing, especially, retail sites throughout suburbia gives us actually a tremendous opportunity to take our least-sustainable landscapes right now and convert them into more sustainable places. And in the process, what that allows us to do is to redirect a lot more of our growth back into existing communities that could use a boost, and have the infrastructure in place, instead of continuing to tear down trees and to tear up the green space out at the edges.
Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Do we need more of the same unsafe roads?

Many T-SPLOST projects submitted by Lowndes County would make traffic safety worse.

More from Professor Ellen Dunham-Jones of Georgia Tech:

Even Buford Highway, she says, could be transformed with medians, trees and buildings set closer to the road. Changes that are known to slow traffic. But outside of the ivory tower, change does not come easily. Or quickly.

Last year Georgia spent more than two billion dollars on transportation, but only a tiny fraction, less than 1 percent, went specifically to pedestrian safety.

And what Lowndes County has sent in for T-SPLOST funding includes: Do we need more of the same unsafe roads?

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Why should traffic safety not be a pertinent fact?

We’ve seen that traffic safety is a big problem in Atlanta and elsewhere, and Virginia is leading the way in traffic redesigns to fix such problems. Meanwhile, Lowndes County doesn’t consider it even pertinent:
Traffic on Old Pine will be regulated by the amount of people who use the highway; traffic on Bemiss since you and I moved out there forty years ago.
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I’m not going to argue Bemiss Highway, it’s not a pertinent fact.

That’s right, traffic and traffic safety are considered not pertinent to building subdivisions, according to the Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission, and the actions of the Commissioners and staff. The developer gets to consider only their one property and the neighbors get to deal with all the effects on all the related roads. Privatization of profits and socialization of problems such as traffic accidents. Does that seem right to you?

If not, it’s going to go on until more people argue and debate. In fact, many of Lowndes County’s T-SPLOST tax request would make the problem worse. See next post.

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Suburbia dangerous for pedestrians

Maybe people are starting to notice that far more people die in traffic accidents in the U.S.A. than in foreign wars. The projects submitted by Lowndes County for TSPLOST funding would make this problem even worse, except the bus system, which wouldn’t require road widening.

John Larson and others, PBS, 22 July 2010, Profiles from the Recession: [VIDEO] Dangerous Crossing: A new suburbia as economy changes:

In recent years a little noticed shift has been transforming suburbia: the home of the middle class has become the home of the working poor. As a result, roadways that were built for the car are now used by a growing population that can’t afford to drive. The consequences can be deadly.

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

According to a recent report, by two national transportation groups, about 43 thousand pedestrians were killed in the U.S. in the last decade; “the equivalent of a jumbo jet going down roughly every month.”

Of course, the problem didn’t start with an increase in pedestrians. Continue reading →

ALEC crafts state laws, including for private prisons and big oil

ALEC writes laws for big oil and for private prison companies. In the first LAKE post about the proposed private prison in Lowndes County, I pointed out that ALEC helped CCA lobby for that Arizona “anti-immigration” law that actually is stuffed with new jail, misdemeanor, and felony penalties that bring more “customers” to CCA private prisons. Georgia was just the first of 24 states lobbied by ALEC to pass such bogus bills for CCA’s private profit. Since then other people have dug into ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and found its tentacles everywhere, promoting profits for big business at taxpayer expense.

Alison Fitzgerald wrote for Bloomberg 21 July 2011, Koch, Exxon Mobil Among Corporations Helping Write State Laws:

Koch Industries Inc. and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) are among companies that would benefit from almost identical energy legislation introduced in state capitals from Oregon to New Mexico to New Hampshire — and that’s by design.

The energy companies helped write the legislation at a meeting organized by a group they finance, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a Washington-based policy institute known as ALEC.

The corporations, both ALEC members, took a seat at the legislative drafting table beside elected officials and policy analysts by paying a fee between $3,000 and $10,000, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg News.

The opportunity for corporations to become co-authors of state laws legally

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Dancing Around the Issue —Dr. Noll

Received this morning on Biomass plant land offer. -jsq
It is unbelievable that despite all the concerns in our community about biomass, the Industrial authority is still considering to sell the land to a company like Wiregrass Power LLC. This is the same company the Industrial Authority once stated it had no faith in anymore. This is the same company that just missed another deadline as stipulated by their contract. And this is the same company that apparently does not have the best interest of our community in mind.
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Lowndes County could stop biomass plant

VDT is not quite right when it says Only city can stop biomass. The Lowndes County Commission could do it.

According to Ashley Paulk, a few months ago VLCIA approached the Lowndes County government, asking them to ask VLCIA not to extend Sterling Planet’s contract for the biomass plant. Chairman Paulk refused to accept that hot potato and instead laudably told the community what was going on. Yet there was a bit of a good idea in what VLCIA was asking. Lowndes County could pass an ordinance such as VDT is suggesting banning the incineration of human feces.

Remember, Lowndes County rezoned the land for the plant. It’s time to review that rezoning to see if in light of new information it should be rescinded. According to the VDT, Wiregrass Power LLC supplied a fake timeline, so it wuld not be interesting to know what else they said wasn’t true?

For that matter, wasn’t the rezoning to build a certain biomass plant according to a certain plan which has no expired? Maybe the rezoning is already null and void and the Commission just needs to declare it so.

Short of that, the Lowndes County Commission could demand transparency from VLCIA:

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