Maria Saporta asks some great questions today in her regular Monday column at SaportaReport.

Namely, why did civic groups and private businesses rally to save Grady Hospital but no one is rallying to save MARTA or C-TRAN for that matter?

Maria quotes Mayor Kasim Reed as saying recently, “I…want to send a message to the economic development community and business people.”

‘If budget cuts force MARTA to cut back service to six days a week, he said, it will weaken metro Atlanta’s economy, especially tourism, and it will weaken the state’s attractiveness to business.’

“If Atlanta is going to remain dominant, if Atlanta is going to continue to be the economic engine that drives metro Atlanta and the State of Georgia, how are we going to do that with a train line that runs six days a week?” Reed asked.

(Or half the number of buses that run now, for that matter).

You can read her column here.

There was also a great op-ed about MARTA recently in the AJC by Jim Durrett, who is executive director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District and sits on MARTA’s board.

Thanks to kind reader Darin, you can see Durrett’s piece here.

What caught my eye was that the Buckhead is home to many businesses and residents that don’t rely on MARTA, and yet this group is smart enough to know that transportation is key for any community.

Durrett makes so many great points. For example, he says:

“The state Legislature should do three things. First, pass long-term transportation funding legislation (that has been considered for four years now) that includes transit operations and maintenance as allowable uses of the new funding. Second, permanently eliminate the 50/50 restriction on the MARTA sales tax revenues. Third, provide short-term funding assistance to MARTA during the next three years, such as state-supported bonding for capital projects, which, coupled with elimination of the 50/50 restriction, would help MARTA to make ends meet.”

So many smart people here in Atlanta and yet MARTA may have to cut 30 percent of its service next fiscal year (i.e., in July) and C-TRAN is on life support.

At this rate, I think I’ll stop trying to be smart because all of these “smart” people are giving smart a bad name.

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Leary’s appointment was announced Wednesday; he replaces Terry Montague.

I will share one little nugget of her story that meshes with discussions we’ve had here.

Maria asked Brian about density, and here’s how he responded.

“It’s unfortunate that density in general has been given a bad rap. Density is a more efficient way to use our natural resources. A great deal of the economic model for the BeltLine is tax increment financing. It’s going to have to be densified.”

Density is a more efficient way to use our natural resources. Hmmmm…..

Hope you guys know how to swim. It’s weather for ducks out there!

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