Comment

Train to Atlanta: A Contrarian’s View

originally published April 5, 2006

As long as I’ve lived in Athens, people have talked of the need for a railroad service to and from Atlanta. It’s been assumed that the justifications for the project are self-evident, but they include making the commute to Atlanta easier, reducing the number of cars on the road (thus reducing fuel-consumption), providing an easier way for UGA students to get to and from home without the need of a car on campus or in the Clarke County community. Such a service would be good for business in Clarke County, the argument goes, because it would make Athens more accessible to the largest population center in the Southeast. A committee called the Georgia Brain Train Trust, populated by 20 north Georgia business leaders, has formed to consider this idea once again.

Estimates of the startup cost for the Athens-Atlanta rail service begin at $383 million. That is probably a conservative estimate. The current idea is that the existing rails in use by CSX could be upgraded to allow for commuter rail service. Every time CSX has been approached about allowing its rails to be used for a commuter service, it has shown little interest, but those CSX rails remain the best candidates for the rail line to Atlanta because the cost of building the service from scratch would be far more than the conservatively estimated $383 million.

Why does Athens need a rail service to Atlanta? Would Athenians use it? Could it pay for itself? Would it save fuel and remove cars from the road? Would it mean more visits to Athens from Atlanta residents, and vice versa? Would it solve one set of problems and create another?

We ought to ask those questions and others and think about them all carefully. I’m no expert on these matters. I’m just a citizen of the county, someone who might or might not use the rail service. But I am smart enough to recognize that when the Atlanta rail service line is discussed, a lot of assumptions are made as if they are facts beyond dispute. They need more study and discussion than they have received.

For the sake of friendly argument, and to be difficult, I want to question four of these assumptions:

1. The rail service would make the commute between Athens and Atlanta easier. How many people commute to Atlanta from Athens on a daily basis? I bet the number is relatively small, even when students are included. Is that small number sufficient to justify the projected expenses? And can we be certain that those commuters will choose rail transportation over their own automobiles or other transportation? Would rail service increase the number of daily commutes to and from Atlanta?

   If the (unstated) aim is to create more potential for people to work in Atlanta and live in Athens, is this what we want? Atlanta is growing fast. It’s only a matter of time before the metropolitan borders of Athens and Atlanta merge. Do we want to accelerate this process by greasing the way for Athens to become a bedroom community for Atlanta?

2. The rail service would remove cars from the roads between Athens and Atlanta, reducing fuel consumption and increasing smooth traffic flow. One of the prime goals of MARTA was to reduce the number of cars on the road. MARTA is a relatively successful commuter rail service, but it has definitely not done much to unclog Atlanta’s clogged roadways. Atlanta rush-hour traffic is among the worst in the nation. Athens traffic is, obviously, hardly in the same league. In fact, compared to Atlanta, Athens really doesn’t have a traffic problem.
3. The rail service would be, could be, self-supporting. I want more information on this point. MARTA fares increase on a yearly basis. AMTRAK still relies on government subsidies to keep it solvent. In general, local and federal taxes support two-thirds of the national cost of mass transit systems; commuter fares cover only one third of these costs. What makes supporters of the rail service to Atlanta believe it could be self-supporting? More likely, it would require continued subsidies from local and state government augmented by frequently increasing fares.
4. The Athens community would benefit from a rail service to Atlanta. The benefit assumed here is one of enrichment - cultural and economic enrichment. Easier transportation to and from Atlanta would offer more opportunities for Athenians. What we should consider in addition to benefits is potential damage. The small-town atmosphere Athens used to enjoy is long gone. The city and surrounding areas are being developed at a rate that threatens to obliterate the distinctive character of Athens-Clarke County. Developers seem little bothered by this prospect, as long as the area fails to adopt significant zoning codes. Is it possible that, by allowing for more opportunities for economic development, the proposed rail link will hasten the disappearance of all that we love about this area?

Another unstated assumption is that the expenditure of $383 million in funds that come from commercial and private investments as well as tax dollars would be worth it. Could these funds be better focused on local needs, not only here in Athens, but elsewhere? Why not use them for continued renewal of the downtown area, improvement of the deplorable state of our public schools, enhancement of local roadways and general urban and county renewal.

If reducing traffic flow and improving fuel economy are really aims of the rail project, why aren’t other steps being taken to achieve them? Why doesn’t Georgia require automobiles registered in the state to be more fuel efficient, as California does? Why aren’t speed limits enforced, thereby improving fuel efficiency of cars on the roads? Why not use a combination of upgraded municipal bus systems combined with HOV highway lanes? Why doesn’t the University of Georgia prohibit first- and second-year students from having cars in Clarke County? That would certainly improve traffic flow in this city and the unnecessary use of gas as students drive to and from classes.

All these caveats and reservations may be ill founded. I certainly have no sympathy for those who stand with road building, automobiles and our nationally gluttonous fuel consumption. Maybe we do need a rail service to Atlanta. But if we do, we need to be fully aware of what we are getting, of all the costs and consequences appertaining thereto.

Old Smiley Old Smiley is a local citizen.

Old Smiley

Old Smiley is a local citizen.

Comment

The Banality of Bushworld

originally published April 5, 2006

Sometime in the past several months, I started avoiding the news. This is not a normal habit for me, and I don’t think it’s particularly healthy.

I started avoiding the news, because I can’t listen to George W. Bush anymore. I can’t listen to the endless gush of patriotic sludge, poisonous forebodings and pat answers. I can’t listen to him harangue the American public with the shriekingly obvious truisms, and I loath his arrogant chuckle as he pitches the one-liners that pass as his thoughts. I am repulsed by his condescension as much as I’m afraid of his ignorance.

Hell, I even hate repeating the reasons I think he’s dangerous. Even those have become clichéd. In a recent Time essay, Joe Klein had the same reaction while he listened to portions of Bush’s State of the Union speech: “The President’s addiction to tax cuts has become rhetorical boilerplate, so totally expected that it’s no longer noticed.”

After reading Klein, I realized that George W. Bush’s rhetorical success is the very meaningless, mind-numbing, soul-killing repetition that so puts me off. Stay on message is the mantra of the administration. Stick to the talking points. The unspoken corollary is that boredom enervates the opposition. We ask questions, the administration trots out Karen Hughes, and we’re asleep before we can counter her arguments. Some of us go to sleep merely hearing her name.

In sum, my antipathy to the administration remains, but the will to fight is gone.

Then I remembered such rhetorical flaccidity before. The President’s insulated clichés, reductive thinking and fixed expectations reminded me of Hannah Arendt’s portrayal of Adolf Eichmann in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.

Eichmann was Hitler’s logistics guy. He arranged trains, schedules and materials for the transport of Jews to concentration camps. He was captured by Israeli agents in Buenos Aires in May, 1960 and brought to trial in Israel in April, 1961. In covering Eichmann’s trial, Arendt was struck not by the man’s monstrosity, but by his absolute banality. Eichmann, she said, was incapable of expressing himself apart from a stock set of clichés. For instance, his judges accused him of speaking “empty talk,” of responses engineered to cover up what he really thought or believed. Arendt said that it finally struck her that his “empty talk” was not feigned. “Eichmann,” she said, “repeated word for word the same stock phrases and self-invented clichés… each time he referred to an incident or event of importance to him.”

Eventually, Arendt concluded that Eichmann’s speech reflected the essential hollowness of the man himself. “The longer one listened to him,” she said, “the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected to an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such” [italics added].

I like this idea as a plausible explanation for the President’s speech patterns. I used to think that he didn’t care enough to learn the clichés, but I’m not sure that’s the case anymore. I think he has isolated himself for fear of finding out that he’s not batting 1000, and I think that this isolation is responsible for making communication difficult with anyone who isn’t on the inside, who hasn’t assimilated the mandatory argot.

Again, the larger process is what Bush can’t (or won’t) see because the shiny moment (one purple finger offsetting 2,300 dead Americans) seems to reinforce the clichés that he brings to any occasion.

I don’t blame the President for his abject soullessness. Well, I do, really, but I don’t think that such a state is a conscious choice someone, anyone, would make. I do think, though, that his rhetorical resources are so threadbare and his need for immediate gratification so intense that what he says about the state of our country is little more than pablum that’s even been pre-digested for him.

Up to this point, though, banality has served the President as well as any of his advisors.

However, a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press suggests that even if one can fool some of the people all of the time, eventually even the dimmest among us wake up to smell the toast burning. In a survey dated Mar. 15, 2006, the Pew Research Center noted the decline in positive descriptors that likely voters used to describe the President: “Until now,” the analysis goes, “the most frequently offered word to describe the president was ‘honest,’ but this comes up far less often today than in the past. Other positive traits such as ‘integrity’ are also cited less, and virtually no respondent used superlatives such as ‘excellent’ or ‘great,’ terms that came up fairly often in previous surveys.”

Certainly, this decline may seem an instance of familiarity breeding contempt. However, the increase in less positive terms suggests that it’s not just a matter of our getting used to a consistent level of performance: “The single word most frequently associated with George W. Bush today is ‘incompetent,’ and close behind are two other increasingly mentioned descriptors: ‘idiot’ and ‘liar.’ All three are mentioned far more often today than a year ago”(http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=271).

Some of my personal favorites didn’t make the top 10, but I’ll report them in the interest of full disclosure: “ass” got eight; “jerk” and “stupid” got seven each and “selfish” and “untrustworthy” got six each.

Good news. And good reason to start paying attention again.

Sam Prestridge sprestri@uga.edu

Sam Prestridge

sprestri@uga.edu