Griffin Wasdin

How long until the famous Reynoldstown Cybertruck is parking in the “traversable island”?

Exurban sprawl developers LOVE to name a multi-big box project “Town Center” and then it’s a 4 mile, fully 90 minute walk including an interstate crossing from the actual town center.

Mayor Tumlin (Marietta in NW suburban Atlanta) needs to go. In 2015, when observing a new development he had pushed to demolish apartments that housed low-income Brown & Black families, he said “It’s almost like a dream. It’s almost like it’s 1970 again." (See: #RedHotCity)

Scientific polling. In-person meetings are DEEPLY unrepresentative without doing extensive work to ensure demographic representation.

Yeah I made that distinction a little more on the blog.
"Some seniors are displaced purely due to financial need, and they are disproportionately renters rather than home owners. This policy does nothing for them."

safersandysprings.blogspot.com/2025/10/vote...

Old people? You mean the people hoarding all the wealth?

On metro Atlanta ballots: New property tax breaks for seniors? Three ballot measures would establish new homestead exemptions for homeowners over 65.

this is not an anti-displacement housing policy, it is about defunding schools. Especially for Fulton County.

Voting against the exemptions, but I'm pessimistic.

atlantaciviccircle.org/2025/09/24/a...

How does he blame bike lanes for this situation?

Apparently Dungeons and Dragons. Not sure where these 38 year old D&D diehards were when I was 15, but they’ve infiltrated all my friend groups and group chats now.

Between this and the convocation center parking deck (both added to the area with the HIGHEST ratio of parking to everything else), GA State is really showing their DNA as a commuter college.

Continuing to use this much land for surface parking -- next to MARTA's only significant expansion of high capacity transit (Summerhill BRT) in 25 years -- seems like a ridiculous waste.

We have to get serious about matching transit investments with growth in walkable density in Atlanta.

Poll: How bad is this new self-storage facility overlooking Beltline? Say hello to great big walls at doorstep of Piedmont Park, too!

INBOX: a second windowless self-storage facility has hit the intersection of Atlanta's Piedmont Park and BeltLine Eastside Trail, thanks to the years-long concerted effort of the Atlanta Botanical Garden to exploit a clerical error by City Council that temporarily erased a ban on such structures.

"I'm ok with contributing fractions of cents of my taxes so that other people don't die"

I wasn’t personally a fan, but I can empathize with the love and sadness - which I myself experienced with the closure of Carver’s in 2013. Ponce has grown and changed a lot, and I look forward to the next chapter of this parcel. I hope whatever it becomes earns the same kind of love as Eats.

God damnit. The first domino was Dekalb cops arresting a journalist and now we’re here.

Bizarre story! And it highlights the problems with GA's laws about LLCs: we can never really know who owns property in the city because the state offers them so much protection.

Knowing who owns land is important for cities. Meaning: this is another way the state prevents cities from succeeding.

This is NUTS. The reason the old Hand in Hand has been sitting empty for so long is because it’s a f#cking money laundering scheme for a f#cking Russian oligarch!

I’d also like to hear about trains. How can the PSC support MARTA especially after the failure of the proposed Clayton commuter rail? Can the PSC help cities manage overly long trains blocking at-grade intersections for extended periods? How can the PSC support new regional line development?

What does he see for the future of natural gas in GA? Can the PSC leverage Southern Company’s ownership of both Georgia Power and the former Atlanta Gas Light to create a decarbonization offramp to reduce natural gas as an energy source?

How does he compare GA’s regulated utility model vs deregulated energy markets in other states? What best practices in other states should GA adopt? What best practices should we share? Does he believe the regulated model is or can become the best option for GA ratepayers?

This is terrific.

Genuinely thought you were talking about present day until the second half of that post.

Atlanta mayor unveils $5 billion neighborhood reinvestment plan The Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative will begin in seven neighborhoods the city says suffer from historical disinvestment.

It's a $5 Billion tax hike on Atlanta residents to create a mayoral slush fund.
The entire promise, when the TADs began, was that our Schools & Public Services would get a big revenue boost after 25 years. Now residents are hung out to dry?
#GApol
www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2025/09/30/c...

I think this shows that conventional signaled intersections are 🗑️🗑️🗑️. They are optimized for the 30-minute peak traffic, but the other 23.5 hours they artificially slow all users. We should be ripping out every signal and placing a Dutch-style circle.

gdottrafficdata.drakewell.com/publicmultin...

Honestly, most of Atlanta's streets are overcapacity. The empty lanes lead to increase speeding from drivers.

💯 Playing around with the GDOT traffic database, 2017 was a clear peak, and outliers where car traffic increased are obvious suburban tourist attractions like Glen Iris leading to Ponce City Market

Atlanta discourse is inundated with accusations that we can’t build homes because new neighbors will make traffic worse, and that is **measurably untrue**. I genuinely believe we absolutely can add tens of - even hundreds of - thousands of new neighbors without placing a square foot of new asphalt.

One of the dirty secrets in ATL urban planning is that traffic is down (WAY down in some cases) despite adding tens of thousands of new residents. Here’s a pic of me easily riding my bike down the center lane of Peachtree during Monday rush hour, and there are more pedestrians than car drivers.

Folks, today’s the day! ⏰

Tired of status quo politics? Want to elect Atlanta’s first democratic socialist to office? Ready to win Beltline Rail, a green, walkable city, and an Atlanta for the 99%?