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The Immortal Game lives in Atlanta!  Chess is among the longest lasting, most powerful contests humanity has created, and Atlanta has a chess culture.  It’s not talked about or covered in the paper, but people here talk about chess, think about chess, and support institutions that let it thrive.   It’s an underground movement.

Here then are three of the most important places on the chess circuit in Atlanta:

1. The Atlanta Chess Center is a great resources.  That there is a cultural center dedicated to chess here speaks highly of the city.  Annual memberships are only $100 and you can sit in and play a casual game for $2.  They sell chess clocks, sets, books, and videos as well as a variety of snacks!  It’s a great place to do play actual people rather than a computer or on line.  It’s also a chance to get some instruction if you want to move your game to the next level.
2. Woodruff Park.  The Southwest side of the park is Chess Hustler Central.   Again, no chess hustlers, no real city.   The chess here is often for money, is fast and furious, and transcends all.  This is where the well-healed and the homeless meet on equal turf.  Everyone’s King is equal and everyone’s a pawn.  Just be ready for the kibitz that will surely come your way.
3. The Village Bakery.  This is the chess players’ tavern in town.   There are four sets in the the building including one that is a meter square!  Located at Memorial Drive and Ponce in Stone Mountain, the German food is excellent, the beer is fresh, and the proprietor, Clause is a great guy.  He’s also not a bad player!  On a recent visit the bar was not crowded and friendly people stopped by to check out the boards in play.  Places such as the Village Bakery deserve community support as they are the real deal.  This might be the true thinking man’s tavern.

Hopefully, Atlanta will begin to acknowledge the broad based support for the game.  It would be great to see Creative Loafing or Sunday Paper carry a regular column on chess.  It would be even better if all the Starbucks and other coffee houses in town which had chess boards on their tables went to their local dollar stores and bought a couple of chess sets.  It would create community for the coffee houses and symbolize the city’s commitment to more than one kind of Queen.

The suburbs love to pick on the City of Atlanta. They claim Atlanta is inefficient, wastes money, etc, but underneath, secretly, they want the city.

Witness the City of Atlanta workers rebuilding the Sandy Springs pipes on Dunwoody Place. City workers are using city equipment to help the suburbs. Why? Because the city employees know more and even the City Council of Sandy Springs know that private contractors just don’t have the experience.

This is just another example of the the hypocrisy the entire state has regarding the city. It’s the engine of the state yet, no other government comes in for so much criticism. They chide MARTA, but more than one suburban public transit systems uses them for maintenance.  County hospitals send their indigent and homeless to Atlanta facilities all the time.  Grady is the only level 1 trauma center in the entire state.

It’s time for Atlanta to get its due.  It is time for the rest of the state to put its mouth where its money is going.

One hundred fifteen friends of James Marlow are about to be in pain!  After Tuesday’s election, voting indicates that Democrat Marlow in in third place, trailing his nearest Republican opponent by 115 votes.   The margin is so close that Marlow can ask for a recount, but that’s not the point.

Turn out was dismal.  According to the Secretary of State’s Office, less than 55,000 voters participated in a district that includes a slice of metro Atlanta, Athens, and Augusta.  The people who ought hang their heads here are the Democrats!  Where were they?  If the results are to be believed, for every three Democrats in the 10th district there are eight Republicans.  This seems unlikely.  While the legislature redistricted to give Republicans a change to win, this is a bigger margin than they need.  They’d have moved  Some of the Republicans into a more competitive district.

Nope.  The answer here is the Democrats did not come out and vote.  It appears that they couldn’t even get their guy into a run-off.  Moveover, where was the party?   If they party had induced even one of the two other Democrats to get out of the way, the citizens of the 10th could get a real run-off featuring two candidates that disagreed with one another.  Debates here will be meaningless!

Jim Whitehead must be ecstatic!  He’s on his way to congress because the guy running against him agrees with him on ninety percent of the issues!

10 years ago, the Democrats in the state were a powerhouse.  Now?  Their the mat on the back porch that Republicans use to wipe their muddy feet.

This is so true that even in town State Representatives in Liberal areas are changing affiliation!  The Democratic Party needs to get it’s act together.  They need to Fund YD groups and get the state thinking again.

Today is election day in the 10th Congressional district of Georgia.  Polls are open 7 AM until 7 PM and if you’re scheduled to work during the entirety of that time or if you cannot otherwise make it to vote, State Law requires that you get two hours off from work to go vote.

Go Vote.

There are ten!  Count ‘em, ten! Candidates from which to choose!  Six who affiliate with Republicans, three who affiliate with Democrats, and one Libertarian,  Clearly, a run-off will happen July 17th.

The big issue in this race is immigration.  Republicans and even some Democrats seem to be chiding the administration and the current Congress on the immigration bill.  Clearly, these folks don’t realize the impact immigrants have made to this country and will make.

Do we need fewer illegal immigrants?  Absolutely.  Conceptually, it’s far better to have people who are here legally than not.  However, This requires that the state and the country as a whole take a more realistic view of the value immigrants provide.  Georgia’s Legislature seems bent on not recognizing that fact and so do the voters of the 10th district.

Smart people can both want a more open process will let us admit more people who want to rule of law and like free societies with the skills we need and want those people to be here legally.   Let’s hope they vote in the election tomorrow.

A few key facts are worth extracting from today’s column by Maria Saporta:

• Metro Atlanta is the second-most expensive major city in the nation for middle-class families, a fact that directly contradicts the claims of Atlanta’s pro-sprawl boosters.
• Middle-class families spend a total of 61 percent of their income on housing and transportation together, with transportation taking the biggest chunk of income. Only San Francisco, with its housing prices, is less affordable.
• Sixty percent of metro Atlanta households own two cars, ahead of the national average of 58 percent.
• Atlanta’s average commute distance is 12 miles one-way, ahead of the average among its peers of nine miles.
• Among the top 17 major cities in the country, Atlanta has experienced the slowest income growth from 2000 to 2005, 5.1%, compared to a national average of 13.4 %.

As Saporta points out:

The evidence is clear. In order for metro Atlanta to be affordable to its growing population, it must make sure that its residents can reduce their transportation costs. Building affordable dense housing around job centers will enable people to live close to where they work. And by investing in an extensive public transit system, we will be able to free up our residents from having to rely on their cars to get where they want to go.

The facts here demonstrate only a few of the reasons why metro Atlanta’s current course for problem solving are making things worse, not better. Currently, the two most critical areas are transportation and zoning. The State, in its infinite wisdom, is pushing the Atlanta Regional Commission to favor the Northwest Corridor Project over all other transportation proposals on the table. Widening I-75 to 23 lanes and creating an inaccessible Bus Rapid Transit system are backward steps for the region. (Side note: it turns out the only reason for the BRT system is to use federal transit funds toward more highway building)

Residents within the City of Atlanta, especially many who have easy access to existing transit stations, continue to fight an absurd battle to keep density away from their neighborhoods. Midtown’s proposed historic district is one of the most blatant examples. Despite easy access to two MARTA rail stations and several well-served bus routes, a small band of homeowners have decided that the “historic look” of Midtown is more important than regional access and the public good. Allowing Midtown to grow would have a long-term benefit to regional affordability.

The solutions to these issues are already out there:

• to fund the Beltline and create transit-oriented zones near the stations
• to rezone the proposed Midtown historic district to create a mixed-use zone, not a breeding ground for McMansions (Note: the proposed historic district will not necessarily keep McMansions away)
• to build a world-class transit system for the region. It would cost approximately $10 billion less to build than the building giant toll tunnels under Atlanta. Not to mention, the transit system would be a more effective way to give commuters an opportunity to get out of traffic.

There are plenty of other solutions and resources available. The Livable Communities Coalition has a list of things you can do to help.

The Dekalb County Commission is trying to fight the power.  In a bi-partisan move at their recent meeting, the commission refused to adopt the plan put forth by County Engineers arguing that it puts the cart before the horse.  The road on which cart and horse are being placed is Clifton and the Clifton Corridor has become the poster child for what the Commission is trying to fight.

The Clifton Road Corridor runs from Briarcliff to North Decatur Road and includes the CDC, Emory Conference Center, Emory University Hospital, and other elements of the Emory Campus.  It’s a very tricky busy road with lots of congestion.  The current Comprehensive Transportation plan for the county focuses less on making the corridor usable through improvements in transit and pedestrian access and more on adding vehicle capacity.  They want to widen the road and add items such as double left turn lanes, easing access into the pedestrian neighborhoods surrounding the road.

This flies in the face of the general Comprehensive Plan which emphasizes the importance of building around neighborhood centers that are less vehicularly focused.  Further, it flies in the face of the researchers in Dekalb county who believe that the Clifton Corridor is a central destination in Dekalb county that cannot sustain the level of vehicular traffic that proposed increases in activity and housing density would generate.

Rather they prefer to see Clifton as  transfer point between the first section of the Brain Train (running from Emory to Lawrenceville) and the rest of the transit market such as Emory loop shuttles, MARTA connecting service to Candler Park and Lindberg, and to the beltline.  One employee went so far as to say that, “Before I retire, my goal is to see the Clifton Corridor be served by transit.”  Those are pretty strong words.

There was considerable pressure that the meeting to adopt the plan, but a coalition of Elaine Boyer, Jeff Rader, and Kathy Gannon stopped the adoption in its tracks.  They’re even risking federal dollars for road projects in order to make sure that the philosophy of the general plan is carried in to the choices of projects to fund in the transportation plan.

The next meeting is June 12th and no doubt in the that time, the county attorney’s office and ARC officials will do some serious arm twisting to get the commission to bow their notion of what the county should be.  Will the Commissioners break?  Stay Tuned and Find out!

What does it say about a community when a Houston’s goes out of business?  Houston’s has been among the most successful restaurant chains in Atlanta history.  The restaurants made their name by being the best of the “glorified burger/fern bar” joints in the city.  Waits have been as long as two hours.  Now, the Ashford Dunwoody location has gone belly up.

According to several websites, a few elements precipitated the close.  First, websites noted that of all the Houston’s, the Ashford Dunwoody location had the worst customer service.  This apparently lead to the store being the worst financial performer of all the Houston’s in the metro area.  When J. Alexander’s (A Houston’s knock off) offered a substantial payout for the location, Houston’s accepted and closed.

It seems two trends have intersected to make this happen.  First is the national trend toward squeezing out the middle.  Houston is in a similar situation to department stores such as J.C. Penny’s, Montgomery Ward, and Sears.  These stores suffered from price competition from their downmarket rivals such as Target and Wal-Mart and lost upper end customers to Nordstrom and Bloomingdales.  The middle was squeezed out.  In the Perimeter area, the increase in property values has meant that staying competitive requires either high volume and profit items such as Chili’s or more upscale environments such as Garrison’s.  The middle gets squeezed.

The second element here is the quality of service deteriorated.  This seems to be one of the big subjects in Atlanta right now.  Quality waitrons are harder to find.  Bartenders don’t know their drinks, waitrons don’t know their food, and the shortage of qualified staff has lead restaurant managers to accept lower standards.   Restaurant such as Houston’s suffer disproportionately when the service drops because people are aware of their team concept and come with expectations.  Nothing hurts a restaurant with a good reputation more than poor service.

Still the neighborhood is suffering here.  Houston’s was the best of the fern bars.  If too many mid-list restaurants are removed the neighborhood has fewer reasonably options.  Further, it means that local, one of a kind restaurants have less chance of opening and surviving.  That hurts everyone.

People regularly complain about MARTA and yet, given today’s road construction environment, it seems the smart choice at the moment.

The Georgia Department of Transportation and all the local counties have begun their annual round of construction projects.  Often, it seems the goal of these projects is to annoy and aggravate as many people as possible.  For example, what makes the idea of shutting I-75 down to one lane on a Friday afternoon even remotely sane?  The last time they did major work on the connector, they at least had the decency to do the major work in the middle of the night.  Doing the work during the day is bad enough, but on Fridays?  At Rush hour?  That’s just hate.

Regrettably, Georgia does not have a disparate impact law regarding construction projects that anyone is willing to enforce.  The value of people’s time needs to be considered in when and how construction is done.  It’s worth paying some extra money for the project if the overall impact to hundreds of thousands of people is lessened.  Further, there are tons of local problems that the equipment and day crews could be fixing while waiting for traffic to die down and do night time projects.  With the increase in Truck traffic from the Port of  Savannah, it’s only going to get worse.

MARTA, of course, is a great alternate, but if you have to drive, at least check Georgia Navigator before you go.

The DOT’s massive silliness does create one positive perversity effect… People who are now stuck in their cars an extra hour should want for transit.  The idea of taking a train, however, may not have occurred to them.  Hence, Gorilla action is warranted!

Imagine this:  Thousands of drivers are stuck and as they approach an overhead exit sign, a 3 foot by 1 foot sticker has been attached saying “If You’d Voted For Passenger Rail, You’d Have Been Home an Hour Ago!”   Wouldn’t that be a nice thought?

Recently, Mark McClain, who is the Director of Systems and Development for SignPost Network, gave a rundown of how the system works on MARTA, some of it’s flaws and what to expect in the coming days.  Informative stuff!  The reporting on this was done for the CFpT Yahoo Group by a Member who goes by Amazing Racer.  Bloglanta has edited, but every effort has been made to keep the editorial thrust of the piece in place.

[The System] works with MARTA simply feeding SignPost raw data saying where the trains are. [According to McClain] Much of SignPost problems stem from MARTA’s end. MARTA’s tracking system is largely from the 70s. Direction (Doraville, N Springs, Airport) is captured by receivers that read radio tags from the cabs. Some times they read from the front of the train, some times they read from the back of the train.   The back of the train is normally not coded the same as the front (MARTA’s issue).  Also, the receivers may simply miss because of interference.

MARTA knows where its trains are at all times, but it does not know what they are at all times. This makes SignPost have problems because sometimes all the data is faulty, and they can’t really do anything with the bad data. The result is errors or Ghost Trains. Also it takes 6 trains to produce an accurate forecast. So when condition change (wet/dry etc) it takes six passes to get the timing the right.

MARTA feeds the data to SignPost that converts into the info we see,  so that if a train is not listed, it’s because the system doesn’t know what the train is. The system knows the train is there, but the sign post won’t guess as to what train it is. They are working to make it default to Airport when this happens on the Southbound side because those trains only go one destination.

Full screen ads are required because, unfortunately, the signs do not support scrolling text. So to tell us the next train, they trick the system into moving the next screen.  When the sign goes into a full screen ad, it’s resetting itself to keep everything moving.  They are looking at shortening the ‘next train’ sentence.  Now each message is  nearly two and a half lines when fully typed out.

SignPost has looked at static messages which would just say, “N Springs 4 min”. Then show “Doraville 5 min.” instead of scrolling. SignPost prefers it because it would make the machines run more accurately.  MARTA, however, requires 3 inch text for ADA reasons. and 3 inch text only gives 24 characters. So they are looking to shorten the messages and keep it under 24 characters.

Marta is upgrading its train tracking system over the next 5 years so the times will get better.  MARTA is also revamping signage and announcements in all stations.

SignPost is also currently working on a web interface/application that would allow you to use your cellphone or computer to see when the next train would be at your stop. They have a working rudimentary version working right now.  It shows what time every train arrives at a certain station. They want to make it look better and be a little more user friendly than it now is. Expect that in the next few months.

Being in the ad business, they wanted to discuss their business model.  McCain discussed content, ads, targeting ads to stops (e.g. ‘Did you know there is a Starbucks at Peachtree Center?’).

McCain said Signpost has run into the same problems that MARTA has.  Companies still attach a negative stigma to public transportation and don’t see riders as good potential customers. They are hoping that MARTA’s negative image will improve.  Survey data from riders they have accumulated is quite shocking.  It trends right along with Atlanta in general. For example, the greatest growth in riders are those with an income level of $75,000+ level.  They hope to combine this with additional data from MARTA to make their case to advertisers more persuasive.