Decatur, GA
I’ve lived in Decatur, GA now for about a year and a half. Like many of our area’s senior citizens I moved here to be close to younger family members.
I’ve learned that the city is designated as a Lifelong Community. But what does that mean to someone, like myself, who arrives here at the age of seventy-two?
Before coming here, I spent over two decades developing and running non-credit courses and programs for adults and children at a state University. I decided that I should apply that same spirit of lifelong learning to community issues in my new hometown.
Decatur prides itself on being a city that plans and is aspirational. One goal is for Decatur to be “10 minute city.” I assumed this meant anyone should be able to get from point A to point B within Decatur in 10 minutes. I discovered it actually refers to a resident being a 10 minute walk from a greenspace. But why shouldn’t “10 minute city” measure ease of mobility?
I think that in a 10 minute city you would not be stuck in traffic. City walking and biking would have to be safer – right now many of our sidewalks are narrow and uncomfortably close to moving traffic. The state roads that run through Decatur create congestion; when these streets are not congested cars speed to catch the green light. I downloaded the MARTA app and found that MARTA buses service Decatur but the routes don’t include multiple points all around the city. Rather, the buses travel out of Decatur heading, west, east, north or south.
I own a car, but prefer not to drive. All the roads are new to me. Parking can be hidden, and private parking is not cheap. I worry about polluting the air while idling in traffic. Certain major intersections here are high risk for both drivers and pedestrians. Because public transit just doesn’t’t go to enough of the places where I need to travel, I use Lyft to cross the city. That’s not a long-term solution.
Decatur, which is 4.5 square miles, is divided into five commercial districts. Music, food events and festivals are numerous. But grocery stores are outside the city limits. Walking from one district to another can be impractical for a senior; you need to drive. My husband and I avoid frequenting places outside of downtown because of traffic and parking. I long to be liberated by a transit system that unites these neighborhoods and helps make all of Decatur accessible for all ages. People over 65 make up about 13.33% of Decatur’s population. We need convenient and cheap transportation to live independent lives and to take advantage of the services and activities designed for seniors in the city of Decatur and our surrounding county—DeKalb.
I am nostalgic for the circulator service I used when living in Bethesda, MD. With circulator service you can count on grocery stores, businesses, health services and restaurants to be destinations. When properly funded, circulators liberate riders from a tight schedule, because the service is dependable and frequent. This is the kind of city-wide service that is missing from Decatur and DeKalb County.
In recent years City of Decatur planners have under-taken two pilots looking for solutions, one pilot was point to point van service with a private provider, and the other involved repurposing Dept. of Parks and Recreation vehicles. The city government determined that the options are too expensive at present, leaving us with no viable plan.
With all the highway construction underway – it seems crazy that we don’t have the money to create circulator buses and hire drivers. That’s what’s needed to offer new and longer routes and to increase frequency. Looking into the problem, I have learned that our federal and state governments have biased capital expenses over operations funding, and funding highways over public transit. This has to change to meet the needs of lifelong communities of which there are hundreds so designated across America.
Our County’s Congressman Hank Johnson has put forward federal legislation to change things and sufficiently fund transit operations. I hope we can count on other members of Congress to sign-on and put transit operation into the next transportation reauthorization!