More Atlanta Beltline stuff. . . I spent Saturday morning on a bus tour of the proposed Atlanta Beltline put on by the Trust for Public Land. The Beltline, once again, is a plan to link up 22 miles of mostly unused and abandoned railroad tracks into one continuous mass-transit loop around the inner city, combining neighborhoods and linking parks, while creating new greenspace for the city.

It was interesting to take a guided tour of my own home town, and I saw a lot that surprised me, from new development along Moreland Avenue south of Little Five Points to the terrific views of downtown from the appropriately named Capitol View neighborhood. The stretch of the Beltline that comes through my neighborhood is the still-active portion of rail on the northwest side, and there is a significant gap between the inactive rail lines at Simpson Road and the active lines on the northwest, and no readily apparent route for the Beltline to follow. Since construction of the Beltline is estimated to take 25 years to complete, I'll probably not live to see it pass through my neighborhood, the most difficult portion to complete.

Later on Saturday, I went to a presentation by the Atlanta Development Authority at City Hall where they rolled out the community involvement plan for completion of the Beltline workplan. Yes, that's right - a meeting to talk about a plan to prepare a plan to build the Beltline. Sadly, someone had to plan for that meeting, or in other words, to plan for a plan for a plan to actually do something. It's no accident that I'm not in government.

Monday, I'll be going to a conference put on by Park Pride, a greenspace advocacy group, that will discuss, to your not-so-great surprise, the Beltline. But at least I get to watch The Sopranos tonight.