Meeting Agenda
Introductions
Major Shaw and Sgt. Valerie Sellers – Safety in Buckhead
Mary Norwood – Overview and Distribute Handout
Robert Patterson – Enhance Transit Options for Benefit of Commuters, Neighborhood Residents & Buckhead Businesses
Robert Sarkissian – Traffic Technology to Protect Neighborhoods
Neighborhood Traffic Plans:
Gordon Certain – North Buckhead
Katie Taylor – Collier Hills
Cynthia Davison – Tuxedo Park
Sam Leneaus – Workforce Housing – Existing Inventory
Q&A, discussion and Task Forces for Traffic – Transit – Housing Adjourn
Introductions
Meeting attendance was very good but is not reported this month since many didn’t sign in because of the unusual way the sign-in sheets were made available at this meeting.
Major Shaw and Sgt. Valerie Sellers – Safety in Buckhead
Major Shaw told us that City-wide, crime was down 7% year to date compared to the same period last year. The crime rate in the Zone 2 Precinct was down 14%. Shaw advised us to stay vigilant about our security environment and do things to keep yourself safe, such as keeping your doors locked and security system turned on (even though it may be a little inconvenient) and keep your shrubbery trimmed. Never open your door to see who it is if you are not expecting visitors. Be careful when getting gas for your car as slider crimes are a problem.
Mary Norwood – Overview and Distribute Handout
The theme of the meeting was Let Buckhead Breathe
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- Enhance Transit Options – Easier for commuters to choose transit
- Protect Neighborhoods – Easier for neighborhoods to control their streets
- Provide Affordable Housing – Easier to live near work
Robert Patterson – Enhance Transit Options for Benefit of Commuters,
Neighborhood Residents & Buckhead Businesses
It is easy and will get even easier to take transit to Buckhead for a larger and larger portion of metro Atlanta residents:
- Already lots of ways to take transit to Buckhead
- Many additional projects are on the ARC Concept 3 Regional Plan
- There are other potential improvements:
Commuter buses from Cobb, Gwinnett, and other areas directly to Buckhead
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- Path 400 (partially complete)
- Commuter Rail into the MARTA system from various extended areas
- Rail from Cobb to Lindbergh or Arts Center
- The Concept 3 List:
North Fulton
RTV-005: ART and BRT from Roswell to Buckhead
RTV-006: Extend transit up 400 from North Springs
RTV-007: Roswell to Downtown Express Bus: change to include stop or termination in Buckhead
Gwinnett
RTV-057: Extend Heavy Rail from Doraville Station into Gwinnett
DeKalb
RTV-015: Clifton Road Light Rail
Atlanta and Clayton
RTV-046: Peachtree Road BRT from Five Points to Brookhaven
Multiple More MARTA projects
RTV-018: Transit service from Clayton County to East Point Station
Cobb
TRV-035: BRT from Kennesaw State to MARTA. We will lobby to go to Lindbergh.
Robert Sarkissian – Traffic Technology to Protect Neighborhoods
Robert spoke about a congestion tax much like London and more recently New York City have implemented. Many cities and states have implemented effective reader technologies that show it would be very easy to implement a such a tax. It could be imposed for particular routes and times of day. He also spoke about adaptive signal technology, which involves using smart sensor systems to adapt traffic signal timing to meet moment-to-moment traffic conditions.
Neighborhood Traffic Plans: Gordon Certain – North Buckhead
Gordon spoke about the North Buckhead Master Plan which was adopted by the City Council in 2015. The master plan was the first and only such plan thus far in Buckhead. North Buckhead is very large in land area and now has a population reported to be around 13,000. It has a large number of streets (109 different street names) with about 38 miles of roads, and a GA400 interchange and MARTA train station inside the neighborhood. The plan covers the complete array of neighborhood issues, ranging from transportation, enhancing bicycle and pedestrian traffic, land use and zoning, parks, etc. The plan includes many specific traffic issues and includes a comprehensive bicycle network. Traffic congestion is North Buckhead’s most serious challenge. The plan sets out dozens of proposed transportation projects.
Neighborhood Traffic Plans: David Gylfe – Collier Hills
David said that Collier Hills had contracted with TSW, the same consulting firm that prepared the North Buckhead Master Plan but they chose to have TSW’s work focus on traffic. Collier Hills is in south Buckhead, next to I-75. They get traffic leakage from I-75 and congestion related to Northside Hospital. Their 40-page plan sets out many traffic improvement projects including intersection turn restrictions, speed humps and pedestrian crosswalks.
Neighborhood Traffic Plans: Cynthia Davison – Tuxedo Park
Tuxedo Park’s traffic problems are characterized by extremely heavy and speeding taffic on Habersham Road and increasing throughout the neighborhood. They have also been impacted by the closure of the bridge on Powers Ferry Road. The are also working on a transportation study. See image below:
Moores Mill Traffic Plan 
“Maureen” Becker talked about extremely heavy traffic volumes in the Moores Mill Road area. Among the changes she mentioned was a possible change by Cobb County to add a left turn sign. It seems that many different agencies and governments need to get involved in our traffic problems.
Sam Leneaus – Workforce Housing – Existing Inventory
Much of Buckhead’s traffic problems are due to the fact that 98% people who work in Buckhead reportedly don’t live in Buckhead. Why? Because there is said to be not enough low-cost housing. There have been recommendations to subsidize building new affordable housing in Buckhead. Mary and Sam wondered if the numbers going around were accurate. Sam has carefully surveyed the real estate market and found that there were many more housing units suitable for workforce housing. The figure below shows the counts by neighborhood. With this new count of current and proposed housing, the situation is far better than expected. Hopefully, businesses will choose to subsidize the rent of their workers while they are employed here. That is a much better approach than building new low-cost housing units that might be permanently occupied by people who don’t work here.
Adjourn
