[The three draft concepts for the MultiModal Passenger Terminal. The Obama Administration is set to put the project on the approval fast-track. Renderings courtesy of GDOT.]

While we can't say definitively that Mayor Kasim Reed's relationship with the Obama Administration is the reason Atlanta's Multi-Modal Passenger Terminal is going to be added to the small list of projects that will enjoy an expedited approval process from the federal government, it certainly couldn't have hurt. Tomorrow Mayor Reed and Rep. John Lewis are expected to announce that the timeline for completing the MMPT should shorten by two and half years via a Presidential Memorandum that, "directed agencies to expedite environmental reviews and permit decisions for a selection of high priority infrastructure projects that will create a significant number of jobs, have already identified necessary funding, and where the significant steps remaining before construction are within the control and jurisdiction of the federal government and can be completed within 18 months." While it may not seem like that big of a deal, the normal process would have taken somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 years.

· White House to fast-track Atlanta transit hub [Atlanta Business Chronicle]