UPDATE

I have been traveling a lot lately – to Atlanta, San Diego, San Francisco – and unfortunately it has been eating into my blogging time. Fortunately, however, I have been taking thousands of photos of these places. I also have a lot to write about each of the places and the people I have met along the way.

First on my list to review is Atlanta, Georgia. A few weeks ago, I was in the Atlanta area for a friend’s wedding. I had never really had the chance to roam around Atlanta before, so I wanted to see what was happening in this fast-growing region in terms of walkability. Some other bike/ped experts told me that there was not much to see, with the exception of maybe Midtown. I happen to agree with them almost completely, but I did stumble across some very promising things. Yes, there is some “goodâ€? on the walkable neighborhoods front to report on about Atlanta. Since I am an optimist for the most part, I will focus on the good about Atlanta from my observations. I will follow up with a future article about the “bad and uglyâ€? I observed while there (there was a lot – I will not deny it).

Perhaps my favorite thing in Atlanta was their passenger rail service called MARTA. It reminded me a lot of the BART system in the San Francisco Bay Area, but better (although less expansive). The service also connects to the Atlanta Airport, which public transit connections to airports absolutely thrill me when I travel to other cities (take a hint, Sacramento. The Yolobus is nice, but does not cut it). Along my ride I noticed that most of the transit stops in the southwest part of the city were in lower-density industrial areas, and I was disappointed about that. However, as I traveled north, I became amazed at the number of Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs) that were popping up near the rail stations. The trains were very clean, and the stations were pleasant and had several pieces of public art at many of the stops. >>Continue Reading This Article>>