Stone Mountain Park Vs Piedmont Park (Atlanta, Kennesaw: bike, money, parks)

[arjay57]

It would be cool if you could move Stone Mountain to Piedmont Park. However, you'd need a lot more land and I don't know where you'd find that many Sikorsky's.

[MathmanMathman]

Originally Posted by arjay57

It would be cool if you could move Stone Mountain to Piedmont Park. However, you'd need a lot more land and I don't know where you'd find that many Sikorsky's.

That would be amazing! I was in a downtown skyscraper recently on its top floor and I could see Stone Mountain off in the distance as well as Kennesaw Mountain. **** sigh **** they are too far away.

I read up on Stone Mountain at Wikipedia, and according to it, there was some quarrying done there. Makes me wonder what damage was done? Apparently there used to be a stone wall on top built by the Indians/Native Americans but naturally over the years people took mementos, rolled rocks down the hill (yikes! Nice excitement for the people below ), and the quarrying operations damaged it as well.

But we could move Stone Mountain to Piedmont Park, cut block by cut block. Interesting problem to figure out how long that would take.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

I read up on Stone Mountain at Wikipedia, and according to it, there was some quarrying done there.

There was a lot of quarrying done there. If you walk around the back side of the mountain there's an exhibit on the quarries. There are photos and some of the tools they used.

There was also a great deal of quarrying down around Arabia Mountain, which is part of the same granite formation. Much of the curbing and foundation stone you see around the city came from those quarries. The Venable family owned Stone Mountain in the old days and built the big stone mansion on Ponce which is now a Lutheran church.

In my yoot we'd occasionally sneak off and go swimming in one of those quarries. They were technically off limits but in earlier times people were more lax about matters of that nature.

[vegetablebiscuits]

I think it would be cool if we could have a chain of parks to connect Piedmont and Stone Mountain. Start at Piedmont, go down the Beltline to the Freedom Parkway parks, Candler Park Golf Course, up to the Druid Hills parks, the Druid Hills Golf Club, Emory Campus, Lullwater Park. Mason Mill, Medlock, Little Creek. After this, we need to rip up Stone Mountain Freeway(SR 410 not SR10) and make that all parkland, while adding land along South Fork Peachtree Creek and connecting with Twin Brothers Lake, the Smoke Rise Country Club, and other parks. That would make a very long line of greenspace that would follow close to how the Stone Mountain Tollway was going to go. I would also throw in some light transit along this route if possible.

BTW, with the moving of Stone Mountain, are we just moving the part above the ground or are we moving the underground part as well?

[cwkimbro]

Some quick sources on the Stone Mountain Quarrying

- Stone Mountain
- http://quarriesandbeyond.org/states/...st_ga_1954.pdf
- http://www.stonemountainpark.org/tex...ources_001.pdf

Also, Google Map Stone Mountain and follow the railroad tracks.stone mountain, ga - Google Maps They were originally made as a spur out of Stone Mountain (city) to transport Granite. On the east side of the mountain where there use to be a Quarry you can see 3 or 4 older off loading tracks. A few of them are used for train storage for the tourist train around the mountain. stone mountain, ga - Google Maps

[MathmanMathman]

Originally Posted by vegetablebiscuits

I think it would be cool if we could have a chain of parks to connect Piedmont and Stone Mountain. Start at Piedmont, go down the Beltline to the Freedom Parkway parks, Candler Park Golf Course, up to the Druid Hills parks, the Druid Hills Golf Club, Emory Campus, Lullwater Park. Mason Mill, Medlock, Little Creek. After this, we need to rip up Stone Mountain Freeway(SR 410 not SR10) and make that all parkland, while adding land along South Fork Peachtree Creek and connecting with Twin Brothers Lake, the Smoke Rise Country Club, and other parks. That would make a very long line of greenspace that would follow close to how the Stone Mountain Tollway was going to go. I would also throw in some light transit along this route if possible.

I'd like a bike path so one could bike the whole way (safely) from say Centennial Park to Stone Mountain. That's about 20 miles. Or we could make a route from Buckhead to Piedmont Park to Stone Mountain Park and have a annual Stone Mountain marathon. If we really wanted to be mean, you'd have to finish the race by running up Stone Mountain. And don't laugh, there actually is a Pike's Peak marathon.

BTW, with the moving of Stone Mountain, are we just moving the part above the ground or are we moving the underground part as well?

Just down to the base. Let's be practical here. Moving all that underground rock would be just plain silly. We'd probably have to number all the cut blocks and store the pieces all around metro Atlanta until we were ready to reassemble the mountain.

Next on my list is the feasibility of diverting the Chattahoochee down Peachtree.

[Newsboy]

Y'all are crazy silly!

[cwkimbro]

Umm... ok... wide array of issues... ripping up Stone Mountain Freeway is absurd. Dekalb does not have a good system of arterial roads to handle through traffic for that own part of their county. US 78 allows outside traffic and local Dekalb traffic to get by without good arterial roads fairly easily. It would be a nightmare without it. Alternative infrastructure to fix this problem would be much more intrusive of local neighborhoods.

As far as a greenway/bike trail goes... It is somewhat in the works.
Here is Stone Mountain city's trail connecting to the park using the old railroad spur: stone mountain, ga - Google Maps

North out of the city of Stone Mountain they built the Stone Mountain Trail following East Ponce and the railroad tracks.

Finally, ending in Clarkston near I-285: stone mountain, ga - Google Maps

But on the other side of I-285 the trail picks back up and proceeds towards the Avondale Marta station: stone mountain, ga - Google Maps

The catch is ... the trail ends at Old town Stone Mountain, so there is a a two clock separation between the trail to Clarkston and the trail to the park. There are sidewalks and you can use 2nd st for biking, but they need to work out a safer bike connection. (I haven't look up any of the long-term plans for this area).

The other issue is there is infrastructure near Freedom Parkway and Piedmont Park. They need to connect these two together and better connect Freedom Parkway trails to Decatur, and then on to Avondale.

Overall Map view: stone mountain, ga - Google Maps

Note: A few areas of the solid green line are just a normal or slightly wider sidewalk and should probably be slightly added on to to truly make it a faster moving bike trail. But still, half the route exists.

As far as overall park land....connecting the whole way the problem with Dekalb County ultimately is it is completely developed through most of these sections. It is actually mostly large lot suburban from the 50s-70s, but not many are going to support neighborhood removal for most things. They are already starting to do funny/inconvenient routing ideas for the Emory LRT routes to not impact a relatively small number of homes in just a few neighborhoods. It isn't more efficient for transit operating successfully or the cost of constructing it, but it prevents them from having to buy 3 or 4 houses for right of way and cut into the backyards of a couple of dozen homes. Dekalb Co. despite having some progressive residents is extremely against neighborhood change when their neighborhoods weren't originally built efficiently to begin with.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

Next on my list is the feasibility of diverting the Chattahoochee down Peachtree.

That probably wouldn't be so hard. You could tie in up there near the R.M. Clayton plant. Then run a good sized aqueduct on down Marietta toward the Water Works. (You could even fill up the Bellwood Quarry along the way). Then bring it right on down to Midtown, about where Atlantic Station is. You're only talking maybe 4 miles or so.

However, I would put the mountain in first. You may want to create some lakes around the base of it.

[Newsboy]

Man some of y'all have clearly been smoking something this weekend. "Dude! What if! What if!" LOL.