Perimeter regional leaders discuss growth, future

For an hour on Feb. 19, community leaders and government officials from Chamblee, Doraville, Dunwoody and Sandy Springs came together to discuss the future of a northern DeKalb region.

The Perimeter Business Alliance (PBA), a volunteer organization based in north Atlanta, hosted a luncheon at the Hyatt Regency Perimeter Center, where the mayors of Chamblee, Dunwoody and Sandy Springs answered questions about the region’s growth.

“Each of these folks has a great history of public service in the private sector, the public sector and the military,” said Robert Voyles, chairman of the PBA. 

Mayors Eric Clarkson (Chamblee), Denis Shortal (Dunwoody) and Rusty Paul (Sandy Springs) took turns answering questions prepared by the PBA regarding expansion, infrastructure improvement and transportation. The questions come ahead of the various cities “State of the City” addresses coming in the next few weeks.

The mayors began by explaining their main areas of focus for the upcoming year. Paul said congestion relief in the region would be his primary concern. Chamblee Mayor Clarkson echoed this concern in addition to reinventing Chamblee from an industrial town to a full-fledged modern suburb.

“Chamblee has grown over the last couple of years. We went from just under 10,000 residents to 28,000 through two annexations,” Clarkson said. “Our focus will be continuing what we’re doing, promoting a more walkable community.”

Shortal, who has only been mayor for 45 days, kept his answer quite simple. Before talking about improving roads through pavement, Shortal stated continuing partnerships was a number one priority.

“My No. 1 goal is personnel wise: I want to continue to create an atmosphere of mutual respect between our citizens and leadership, our residential community and business community, and our city’s leadership and leadership of neighboring cities,” Shortal said. “We’re all in this together.”

The second question dealt with the presence of MARTA stations in each city as well as the prospect of future MARTA plans, including bus lanes throughout the I-285 and GA 400 corridor and additional rail stations in each city. The mayors were questioned about how they plan to deal with future public transit expansion, primarily in regards to construction.

“The word ‘collaboration’ is something we all need to focus on,” Clarkson said. “You have to look outside of your borders and work together. We need to keep up basic communication and find out where those challenges will be and educate folks about them.”

Shortal brought up the prospect of synchronizing lights, collaborating with transit officials and opening up to the possibility of changing things on an instant. The mayor even brought up the idea of working with mobile apps.

“Awareness, advertising campaigns–we all have to work on making our citizens aware,” Shortal said. “How about incentivizing work pools and carpools? This is going to require us to think outside the box.”

Paul stated that 102,000 trips go out of the region daily, 84,000 come into the region, and 7,000 stay within the region. Paul said that reducing congestion by a mere 10 percent would help traffic flow by leaps and bounds.

“If 70 percent of residents could get to where they needed to go in an efficient, safe and timely manner, they would prefer to not use their cars,” Paul said. “That’s the level of frustration and the level of congestion we face on a daily basis.”

Paul concluded by stating the leadership within the region would be “stupid” not to consider alternative means of transportation other than rails and automobiles. These included above ground train systems and even gondolas.

The PBA is a partner of the Perimeter Community Improvement Districts (PCIDs) originally founded in June 2012. The organization operates within a four-square-mile district encompassing the cities of Brookhaven, Dunwoody and Sandy Springs. According to the organization’s website, the PBA focuses on issues pertaining to “attracting and sustaining a quality workforce and quality businesses” in the northern Perimeter area.

For more information on the PBA or PCID, visit www.perimetercid.org/pba or call (770) 390-1789.