It’s tough to get there from here
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| Twin Lakes development/City of Peachtree Corners |
OK, you won’t have to pack a lunch every time
while getting to Peachtree Corners. It’s easy to zoom to the area during the
off-peak hours – say 4:30 a.m. on a Sunday. You would be amazed at how
Peachtree Industrial Boulevard is like Germany’s Autobahn at those hours. Yes,
be careful because both the cities of Doraville and Dunwoody set up speed traps
when one least expects them.
Let’s get back to Peachtree Corners. There
have been some items in the news that have been piquing the interest of those
who pay attention to the Atlanta metro area’s rapid growth. Aside from the announcement
of a unique bridge, the opening of high-end bistros and eateries like Pub Ten
and the upcoming Noble Fin, the city plans a multi-use development geared
towards those in the millennial generation. The 39-acre Twin Lakes development
will provide access to a lake and include a 295-unit housing complex and
pedestrian trails. Additionally, there will be hiking and biking opportunities along
with a pool and paddle boats. Two retail stores will also be a part of the
development.
The Twin Lakes idea is an excellent plan to
attract future generations to this already-growing city. Still, it’s tough to
get there from here. Peachtree Corners is nothing like the Perimeter Mall area
where that same idea of housing, retail and recreation are all within walking
distance of a MARTA station. The MARTA station links that ‘live-work-play’ area
to the rest of metro Atlanta. Indeed, a typical ‘millennial’ has plenty to do
in that part of Dunwoody, but he or she can easily get on a train to where
there is recreation and nightlife in Atlanta’s Buckhead Community and Midtown. Let’s
remember that ‘millennials’ do not like driving automobiles much. While there
will be plenty to do at Twin Lakes, a ‘millennial’ will still wish to get to
Buckhead or Midtown at some point. This is ‘can’t get there from here’ in
reverse. A typical ‘millennial’ doesn’t wish to sit in traffic on Peachtree
Industrial Boulevard get to Buckhead on a Friday night. And no, not every
Friday night is wrought with bad traffic, but even when one can speed down the ‘Doraville/Dunwoody
Autobahn,’ it’s a lot of driving that a ‘millennial’ doesn’t wish to do on a ‘night
on the town.’
Twin Lakes is a great idea, but the fact is it
will be a disconnected development. Both commissioners and citizens alike never
wished to link Gwinnett to the rest of the metro area through public
transportation. When it came up for votes, the majority of Gwinnett residents
voted down the idea of MARTA coming to the county, citing ‘exorbitant taxes,’
crime (okay, that’s for another blog post) and what they viewed as an ‘incompetent
agency’ running the transportation system. Those who voted it down claimed that
supporters of public transportation in Gwinnett had their ‘heads in the sand.’
Those people love using that term as a form of being condescending to those who
hold different opinions that conflict with their own narrow world view.
History proves that they were all wrong. One
need not look further than the Gwinnett CID area of Pleasant Hill Road. Travel
up the congested corridor and anyone can see that there’s a diverse set of
citizens who are a part of a great deal of foot traffic. These folks are
obviously not a part of this nation’s robust car culture and actually use the
sidewalks. I was once told by a county commissioner that they would not use the
sidewalks. They along with their neighbors could have easily benefited from
MARTA rail if it came up to their area. Imagine if MARTA was extended to that
corridor in the early 1990s and kept expanding behind that area, maybe even to
Athens. For years the Gwinnett CID has struggled to deal with the wrongheaded
decision to not bring MARTA or some type of public transportation to the area.
Sure, the Diverging Diamond put a ‘Band-Aid’ on the horrific Pleasant Hill Road
traffic situation, but the area needs a major re-working including access to
public transportation. Hmm, whose heads are ‘in the sand’ now? I know, I’m wasting
space pointing out the obvious because those people who turned down MARTA will
find a way to weasel out of the argument and the fact is that they will still
be wrong.
Understandably, saying that a county needs to
improve public transportation is easier said than done. Still, so much more
could have been done over the past quarter century. Gwinnett sat on its hands
while continuing its out-of-control growth by rubber-stamping more housing and
retail strip centers. Don’t get me wrong because growth is good, but what has
happened in Gwinnett and other metro Atlanta area counties is ‘Dumb Growth’ and
it never needed to happen. Developing ‘live-work-play’ communities is a good
idea, but the fact is that it doesn’t fully work unless there is access to
public transportation.
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