Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Atlanta's Urban Planning is to Blame for this Icy Mess


I (Paul) normally just post about our travels on this blog, but I couldn't resist sharing my thoughts about the current disaster taking place in metro Atlanta. And yes, it is a disaster. It's 29 hours after it started snowing, and there are still traffic jams in the suburbs, abandoned cars on the highways, and people who have yet to try to leave their office to go home. As of the governor's press conference around 11AM, there were still over 2000 students in Fulton County alone that had not yet left school.

School buses caught in the mess
Trucks couldn't handle the icy curves
GA-400 was a parking lot overnight
So what happened?

Urban sprawl, that's what happened. Metropolitan Atlanta is one of the most sprawling areas on earth. We have close to 5.5 million people, but they're spread out across a massive area (more than 8000 square miles), with only 630 people per square mile. For comparison, the Chicago metro area is more than twice as dense and New York is more than three times as dense, and both have comprehensive transit systems and large central cities. Meanwhile, the city of Atlanta only has around 450,000 people... it's less than 10% of the metro in terms of both population and land area. There are an astonishing 28 counties in metro Atlanta (according to the US census bureau), and the Atlanta Regional Commission plans for 18 counties.

Area road closures at midnight. Red triangles mean all lanes are blocked.
What does this mean for commuting in the region? The vast majority of people live in the suburbs, and most of them commute (by car) to various employment centers. The population of the city of Atlanta more than doubles each day, up to about 1.2 million people. MARTA, the local public transit agency, is only supported by two counties (Fulton and Dekalb), so it's simply not an option for most people living in the region. The state government does not fund the system - it's by far the largest transit agency in the US that does not receive state funding. So when pretty much every local business and school closed shortly after noon on Tuesday, the streets became gridlocked.

Traffic went from good to disaster in a very short time span
In our metro, the average commute is over 30 minutes each way. People drive long distances on the highway on a daily basis. Complicating the situation is that two major interstates, I-75 and I-85, join together and cut through the heart of the city. This not only destroyed some historic neighborhoods, it also resulted in a perpetually gridlocked highway as it's not only commuters on the road, it's also anyone driving from Michigan to Florida or North Carolina to Texas. Sprawling suburbs, long commutes, lack of a cohesive urban plan, poor highway design, lack of communication and cooperation between jurisdictions, and a scatter-shot transportation plan all contributed to this mess.

Spring Street on Monday afternoon

This lack of density in Atlanta (in both housing and jobs) makes transportation planning a nightmare. When people chose to live in the Atlanta suburbs or exurbs, they contribute to the problem. A cheap suburban house comes at a greater price. Increased greenhouse gas emissions, bad air quality, contaminated storm water run-off, obesity, decreased social capital... these are just a few of the ills that are exacerbated by a car-oriented suburban lifestyles. And now, add icy transportation disasters to the list.

This situation isn't unique to Atlanta. Birmingham had all of the same problems, just on a smaller scale because it's not nearly the size of Atlanta. In other sprawling southern cities like Dallas and Houston, the same thing easily could have happened with an ill-timed snowstorm. But those cities also are more cautious - Atlanta usually gets about 3 inches of snow per year. So while it's not super common, it's not something that always necessarily shuts down the whole metro. Meanwhile, Houston gets snow so rarely that even the threat of a light dusting would cause the city to preemptively shut down schools and businesses and urge residents to stay home.

Stalled car blocking traffic on Peachtree Street on Monday
Another thing to point out is that the comparisons to the ice storm in January 2011 are off-base. 2011 happened on a Sunday evening, one of the least busy traffic periods of the entire week. All schools and almost all employers were closed for several days. Every city and county in the region was inept at clearing the ice, but nobody was stranded because they were all at home. This time around, the city of Atlanta (I can't speak for any of the suburban areas) has actually done a great job at getting the streets salted and plowed. By Wednesday afternoon, the major streets in our neighborhood were completely clear:

Peachtree Place near the MARTA station
Spring Street in Midtown
So what could have been done?

For starters, area schools should not have been in session. Superintendents should be held responsible. We knew this was coming. The National Weather Service (NWS) was issuing alerts on Sunday. By Monday afternoon, the NWS updated their message to say that icy conditions were likely for all of metro Atlanta, starting Tuesday morning. Overnight Monday it was upgraded to a full winter storm warning. Some agencies and businesses, including the Atlanta Regional Commission, were completely closed on Monday. Schools and businesses should have followed suit. There's really no excuse. The governor should have encouraged schools and businesses to close. Instead, all of them closed at noon, and the situation unfolded as it did. But when it comes down to it, the real culprit here is decades of bad urban design and an ill-conceived car-based transportation plan. Let this ice storm serve as yet another example of why we should be moving toward more compact, walkable, transit-oriented cities. Supporting smart growth policies, investing in our transit infrastructure, and living in walkable communities can help to prevent this from happening again.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

We Choo-Choo-Choose Chattanooga!

This past weekend we spent a few days exploring the city of Chattanooga, less than a two hour drive north of Atlanta. We've both been there before, but hadn't really explored the city or visited very many of the big attractions. So we took advantage of the MLK holiday weekend, found a great deal on a historic hotel, and hit the road.

The core of Chattanooga is quite compact and surprisingly walkable. There were four distinct areas that we explored:

Despite being somewhat sanitized and corporate, Downtown Chattanooga is rather attractive, very pedestrian friendly, and has a couple of big attractions. While it is the kind of place where a family can park their car in the garage of the Hampton Inn, see an IMAX movie, and eat dinner at Chili's or Applebees, it also has recently developed apartments and a rejuvenated waterfront that contribute to a lively atmosphere. The hotel we stayed in, the Sheraton Read House, is a historic structure built in 1926.

Overview of Chattanooga
View of Downtown Chattanooga from our hotel room
Champy's Chicken, just east of downtown. Delicious!
The Tennessee Aquarium is really nice
Tennessee Aquarium
Atrium at the top of the Tennessee Aquarium
PIRANHA!

Bluff View Art District, immediately east of downtown, has a number of galleries and restaurants, plus the large Hunter Museum of Art. There's also a nice bluffside sculpture garden. This is a really compact district (just a few blocks), but it offers great views and is a nice place to take a stroll or purchase art from a gallery.

Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge as seen from the Bluff View Art District
Driftwood horse
Hunter Museum of Art
Hunter Museum of Art on top of the bluff

The North Shore, just across the Tennessee River from downtown, is connected to the city center with a converted pedestrian-only bridge across the Tennessee River. It's a leafy, hilly residential neighborhood with a  number of quirky shops and new apartments.

Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge
Breakfast at Milk and Honey 
Yummy Clumpies ice cream. This is Thai Peanut and Chai.

The Southside is probably the most interesting area we visited. It's definitely a transitioning neighborhood, full of industrial uses and empty lots. But it has a number of beautiful old brick buildings that have been converted into lofts and restaurants. It's Chattanooga's version of a hipster neighborhood. We spent a lot of time on the Southside because it has a lot of the city's most unique food and drink options. Unfortunately there's a giant chicken processing plant that can cause quite an odor. I guess that gives the neighborhood a legit industrial feel.

"Southside Pride" red ale from Terminal Brewhouse
Brunch at The Flying Squirrel.
Bike Share!
Historic Chattanooga Choo Choo
There was a delightfully tacky miniature train museum inside the Chattanooga Choo Choo
Breakfast at Niedlov's Breadworks
Excellent tacos at Taqueria Jalisco. Seriously.

We also visited Lookout Mountain, just Southeast of the city. It has a couple of touristy attractions, including an underground waterfall. There's also a national battlefield site and lots of hiking options.  Lookout Mountain is an 80 mile ridge that traverses three states (AL, GA and TN).  It starts/ends at the Tennessee River in Chattanooga.  The mountain is primarily made of limestone and therefore has numerous caves.  We explored one of the caves at Ruby Falls.

Billboards with this message line the highways for hundreds of miles
It was a little hazy; I think we saw three states
Nailed it
Rock City had lots of slot canyons (aka fat man's misery)
What could be in here?
That's right, Rock City has some awesomely old-school blacklit fairy tale scenes
Hansel and "Grethel"?
Couldn't resist!
Don't look down!
Ruby falls was really neat
And yes, it also has tacky color changing lights and music.  Reminded us of Hwanseongul Cave in Korea.

Chattanooga might not be a buzzing metropolis, but it's an interesting mid-size city with a wide variety of things to see and do, mostly within walking distance of downtown. We'll definitely be back!

Some of our favorites that you should check out:
Taqueria Jalisco
Flying Squirrel
Terminal Brewhouse
Champy's Chicken
Clumpies Ice Cream
Milk and Honey





Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Arequipa, Lima, and Our Last Days in Peru

For our final few days in Peru, we left Cuzco for the southern city of Arequipa and then spent another day and a half in Lima before flying back to Atlanta to end our 11 day Peru adventure.

Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru, with around a million people.  The city is located in the Southeast corner of Peru and is closer to La Paz Bolivia than Lima.  It's the furthest south the two of us have ever been (16°S). Arequipa is built primarily using the local volcanic rock found in the region (sillar), so everything is white and very pretty, especially in the historic center of the city near the main plaza.  Overall, we found Arequipa to be a little sleepy compared to the big city of Lima and the tourist flurry of Cusco, but it was still a nice place to visit.


View from the plane on the way to Arequipa

Casona Solar, our hotel in Arequipa.  Only complaint: no windows so it got stuffy!

Courtyard of our hotel

Plaza de Armas and La Catedral

Colonnaded buildings line Arequipa's main square

El Misti volcano in the background

View of Chachani and El Misti volcanoes from the Cathedral roof

One of the most interesting sites in Arequipa was the Monasterio de Santa Catalina. It's a huge nunnery founded in 1580, taking up a whole city block. It consists of a series of streets lined with former nun's houses, cloisters, and other religious rooms. It's unique because the nuns, who were rather wealthy, all had their own houses inside the monastery. This was put to a stop by the pope himself in the 1870s, when the nuns were forced to take on a more humble lifestyle. It was a very peaceful and beautiful respite from the noisy, dusty streets of Arequipa.


A street in Monasterio de Santa Catalina 

Fountain and church in the monastery

A street in central Arequipa

Globalization in full force.  Kentucky Fried Pizza King!  Only missing Taco Bell.

Plaza de Armas at night

On our second day in Arequipa, we took an organized trip to Colca Canyon using Colonial Tours. They picked us up before 3AM, because it's a 200km drive on winding mountain roads and dirt roads to get to the canyon. The road leading to the canyon goes to a height of about 4,900m (more than 16,000 feet) at Patapampa pass. This is by far the highest elevation we've ever been to, and the air was noticeably thinner and cold. It's interesting being so close to the equator at such a high altitude - it's a dry desert environment with no snow/glaciers, just some small scrubby brush and moss. It was cold, but with intense sun.

Colca Canyon is (depending on how you measure) the world's second deepest canyon at 13,650 feet. We didn't get to see the deepest part because it's a long journey to get there, but our tour did go as far as the Cruz del Cóndor overlook. A family of threatened Andean Condors live there, and we saw a few of them soaring through the canyon. They're some of the largest birds on earth, with wingspans of 11 feet, and watching them glide on thermals is an impressive sight. The Canyon itself is impressive, but doesn't live up to the majestic views from the Grand Canyon, and we also preferred the lush green mountains of the Sacred Valley. Nevertheless, it's an interesting biome, and quite a contrast from the Cusco and Lima areas.

Canyon view at Cruz del Condor

Arid region of Peru at the Colca Canyon

Andean Condor

We took a hike along the rim

Agricultural terraces along the canyon

Hot springs.  Lots of lingering vulcanism in Peru!

Scary rope bridge over the river to the hot springs

The small town of Chivay

El Misti with llamas

We left Arequipa and returned to Lima for our final day and a half in Peru. This time we stayed just south of Miraflores in the neighborhood of Barranco, which we loved. It has a charming bohemian feel, with colorful restored houses and lively streets. It also has some really high-end condos along the ocean cliffs, and a wide variety of restaurants and bars.


Colorful houses in Barranco

A public square in Barranco

Pacific Ocean view from the cliff-top parks in Lima

Lots of neat historic details throughout the neighborhood

Dinner and drinks on the balcony at sunset


We saw a lot of these little buzzard-like birds

On our last day in Lima, we went to Museo Larco, which was probably our favorite museum of the whole trip.  The museum showcases a wide collection of artifacts, including jewelry, pottery, tapestries, and weapons.  Also, there is a nice cafe inside the museum that served some great food and drinks.  After the museum, we walked to a nearby park that houses one of Lima's two zoos.  The zoo is built around several Inca and pre-Inca ruins that are incorporated into the zoo itself.


Bling!

Cute!

Museo Larco Cafe

Peruvian Penguin!

Interesting fact: sea lions are called sea wolves in Spanish (lobo de mar)

An Inca site inside the zoo

Jaguar/puma

We thought we might see another llama birth, but this one really was just constipated

Peru is a wonderful country to visit. There's a wide variety of things to see and do - from the impressive ruins and vistas of the Sacred Valley, to the volcanic desert scenery near Arequipa, to the museums and Nuevo Peruvian cuisine of Lima (plus the huge Amazon rainforest portion of the country that we didn't have time to visit). It's relatively easy to get around, even with limited Spanish skills. The people here are friendly and eager to share their culture with the world. Start planning your trip!