Do yourself a favor and check out this short video from PBS’ Blueprint America series that aired in just the last few days. The overall package is about “disappearmarks” — earmarks totaling millions in the last federal transportation bill that have never been allocated or spent, according to the Sunlight Foundation. But this from Atlanta focuses much more specifically on how unsafe, incomplete streets and outdated transportation planning has resulted in a major road in Atlanta (and countless others) where pedestrians take their lives into their own hands each and every day, just to get to work, school, or the closest bus stop.

Clayton County, one of metro Atlanta’s five core counties, will terminate all transit service in 14 days. The transit service, which provides over 2 million rides each year on buses “full to bursting” with riders, according to MARTA CEO Beverly Scott, will shut down service entirely, leaving the 50% or more of C-Tran riders with no regular access to a car stranded.

Transit riders in Metro Atlanta will soon require a new system map, because the current map is about to be ancient history. Of course, this would only apply to those who still have a bus or train to wait for after MARTA potentially cuts a shocking 25-30 percent of all their service.

The Georgia Department of Transportation has been (finally) moving towards plans for a commuter rail line south from downtown through the southern suburbs to the city of Lovejoy. This week, they got some bad news from the Federal Transit Administration, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. But the most alarming nugget in the story was completely buried in the closing paragraphs of the story. “…DOT’s Intermodal Division has 23 employees handling rail, transit, aviation and waterways, in an agency of 5,400…”

With the Environmental and Energy Study Institute and a few of our key partners this morning, Transportation for America held a briefing on Capitol Hill about Complete Streets — and how putting complete streets into the next transportation bill will go a long way towards improving health, safety and livability for Americans. Decatur, Georgia Mayor Bill Floyd, one of the panelists, told the story of how building complete streets in Decatur have made the city safer and more livable for its residents and visitors.

A prolonged gas shortage in the South is prompting even more commuters to ride public buses and trains, and transit agencies are feeling the impact through longer lines and bigger crowds. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution –  Patrick Fox)

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution‘s Jay Bookman pushes state leaders to realize the gravity of transportation issues in the Atlanta Metro region and work together to solve them.