I first spotted this at Peach Pundit, but here’s Maria Saporta in Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed says he’s staying — not joining Obama administration:
Although there has been rampant speculation that Reed would be offered a position in the Obama administration, apparently that is not in the cards.
“He’s been pretty clear on that,†said Sonji Jacobs, who heads communications for the mayor. “He is running for re-election, and he wants to be mayor for second term.â€
The mayor also reaffirmed his commitment to explore light rail opportunities for the Atlanta BeltLine despite the defeat of the regional transportation sales tax on July 31.
Reed even went further than that. He said he will be working to get a high speed rail link between Atlanta and Savannah so that the trip could be done in just one hour.
Reed expended a lot of political capital in recent months in his support of President Obama’s re-election. Obama was also generally supported in urban centers generally and had a solid win for the second time here in Savannah.
There’s already a passenger rail study up and running at Armstrong.
Imagine the exchange of human capital, ideas, and commerce that would be possible if we had HSR between Savannah and Atlanta. The cultural opportunities would be endless.
Sure, it would be expensive, but Georgia is hoping to have $652 million to expand the port of Savannah and — at the same time — hundreds of millions more on road construction to accommodate movement of goods (including cheap imports).
A similar investment in moving people would be a worthy investment.
This is one post I’ll be following up on.