Author Archives: André Natta

Most people (including myself) are married to their automobiles here in Birmingham. We are a city that loves their cars, even though a major reason for the growth of the city during its boom period was the development of communities along our extensive streetcar system.

If our mayor gets his way (and based on yesterday’s public meetings he may) you’ll soon be wondering if your love of your car is as important as your love for balancing that checkbook.

There are many that believe that no one ever rides the bus. Well, if you get in your car at 7:30 a.m. and you drive 30-45 minutes to work in traffic to come into the city center then that would be the case, because by that time most of the folks that use what’s currently available to them have already passed through our downtown or they’re waiting at the station on Morris Avenue to continue their trip. For those that wonder how I know this to be true – the first place that I lived in Birmingham was at the corner of 1^st Avenue & 22^nd Street North, a location that sees many of the buses that constitute the current MAX fleet.

I never saw a crowd on them at 7 or 8, but if I was attempting to work out on an elliptical right next to the window at 6 a.m., there would be plenty of full buses and people from all over the county trying to get from point A to point B passing by my window.

Many who currently view the buses as a problem are generally “viewing” it as a spectator and not as a participant. I’ve only used our current bus system three times – including my visits to the city since 1998. It does make more sense to drive, though as a result, we’re all looking in at the problem without necessarily understanding all of the nuances. A change in perspective, as mentioned yesterday, would possibly give us a better understanding of what it could mean to overhaul how transit is done in the city of Birmingham.

Yours truly decided to crunch some numbers on the conservative side of things to look at just how much savings we’d see if we gave up our cars for a transit filled life:

We’ll assume that gas is at $3.50 for regular for demonstration purposes and that our tank can hold 15 gallons. We’re also assuming one stop at a gas station per week. For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll consider a car fully covered with monthly charges being about $85. We’ll also assume that we’re only taking the car in four times a year for an oil change (which is a lot, but we’re not considering unexpected costs which add up to be much more than what the totals will show. We’re also not considering car payments – a fact of life for many of us.

As far a transit goes, we’ll assume that the new authority created to run our transit system uses a daily rate of $1.25 for rides that include transfers. As a result, we’ll also run the numbers on the current MAX monthly pass rate of $44:

The cost benefit savings alone will not be enough to entice riders to trust in their bus system and few families can ever completely give up their cars here in Birmingham. Even now while I do not drive nearly as much as I did before, I am still dependent on my car for nights and weekends.

An overhaul of the way routes are run will also need to be considered. We currently operate most of our buses on what could be considered a spoke system. This means that every rider that needs to make a transfer in downtown and they need to be on a bus way earlier than is necessary for the amount of land covered by our current system.

Perhaps running a system that is based on what is found in an Atlanta, Georgia or an Ottawa, Ontario (and there’s is a mainly bus-built system) is more likely to see the results that most think of when they envision mass transit. Our current downtown bus (soon to be intermodal) station would still remain a hub, though it would now be based on actually being a crossing point for the system and not the center of its spoke-like system. It would allow for buses to service more of the community and allow those that do not necessarily need to come downtown from traveling out of the way of their final destination. Based on the mayor’s recent comments, it would also be a point where the existing system could connect with the city’s system.

There are many that would comment about on-time reliability, consistency and overall trust in the infrastructure of a system before they use it. They’d also want something flashier since they may not see bus rapid transit or other things like that as “sexy enough” for Birmingham. If it gets them to think about carpooling or something else, then we’re still accomplishing the goal. It may also get us to talk to each other more, and that could be the best thing to come out of it.

André Natta is the publisher and managing editor of The Terminal. To submit letters in response to this commentary or to contact for general information, use any of the methods listed on our contact page.

I was standing in line and overheard a conversation between a man that was part of a group of five behind me and the woman that was positioned the entrance to the Pompeii exhibit at the Birmingham Museum of Art. I was already pleasantly surprised about 20 minutes earlier when we encountered the long line as we purchased tickets to the exhibit. I was surprised again when I heard the woman say that 1,562 people had entered the exhibit as of 3:45 p.m. that afternoon. Based on a pure guesstimate, it’d be safe to say that more than 1600 people went through the exhibit the day after Thanksgiving.

This is only a taste of what could happen if the museum were to be allowed to expand onto the property currently occupied by the Boutwell Auditorium. Our newly elected mayor has announced publicly that he would like to transfer or sell the building to museum for the purpose of allowing them to expand. There are some that would ask why the Southeast’s largest public museum needs to be enlarged. An easy answer is the fact that the current facility only allows for no more than ¼ of the museum’s collection to be on display at any one time. An expanded facility would allow for more of the collection to be on display, adding to the potential of larger traveling exhibits to be available to the people of Alabama and the surrounding region. Those types of exhibits serve as reasons for the development of additional hotel rooms, restaurants and retail businesses in our central business district (probably a better answer), adding to our economy, whether or not a tax or business license increase were to happen.

The museum’s riding high right now with two well-received exhibits as they finish an incredible year. The ability to announce this potential for expansion right now would no doubt also allow the issue of arts funding to stay in the front of many residents’ minds as our Cultural Alliance enters an unknown territory – a year without financial support from the Jefferson County Commission.

Holiday weekends aside, the fact that the museum has seen consistent crowds during the Pompeii and Folk Art exhibits speak to the importance of the arts to Jefferson County in general and Birmingham in particular.

Two questions to consider: First – Does the building really need to come down? That is a question that is up for debate. A simple answer is no; while many may believe that the Boutwell is not an acoustically pleasing venue for concerts and events, the shell could be maintained and the interior gutted for the purposes of serving as a museum/gallery. It would be the least expensive option and it would allow the city to maintain a piece of its urban fabric. A clean slate created by demolition would provide the opportunity to create a world-class edition to a world-class museum, providing yet another reason to visit, much in the same way that Moshe Safdie‘s Jepson Center for the Arts provides an artistic work unto itself at the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia. Something to think about…

The other question that’s seems to be becoming the norm in Birmingham is “How are we going to pay for it?” As optimistic as I am for a city that I choose to live in, I am increasingly nervous about how we’re going to move forward alone. Talk of regional cooperation that emerged from this year’s BIG Trip to Denver seems to have disappeared in favor of the “this is mine, that’s yours” mentality that existed before. Our current per capita income was $15,600 (you can also take a look at the numbers listed in our profile in Money’s 2006 Best Places to Live report). We are a regional hub that can set the example of what can happen if we work together. It will take the region to support the numerous construction projects that are about to take place within our city limits as well as a revamped mass transportation network. There will be a time in the near future where folks over the mountain will end up needing to ride that bus over to the museum thanks to $4/gallon gasoline prices.

Before we set out on our own and become even more isolationist than we’ve been already been, let’s see if we can build on what appeared to be a sincere attempt to solve regional problems together. Regionalism will eventually happen; it must for the city to grow and reach its potential. It would just be a shame to not embrace it and suffer the consequences of doing stuff as a tiny kingdom before joining the party.

André Natta is the publisher and managing editor of The Terminal. To submit letters in response to this commentary or to contact for general information, use any of the methods listed on our contact page.