Atlanta - Emory University

[mpspqr]

I took some pics around campus last month. I thought I'd go ahead and post them for your enjoyment.

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[ATLBlaxican]

Emory is amazing.... I wish G-State had the money took hook-up our campus like that. Although, you should check out what thet have planned for Decatuar St. and around Underground...impressive to say the least!

Oh yeah, Mercer(Atlanta Campus) very nice too.

[joey]

Over the years, Emory has grown on me. At first, I found the Italianate-by-way-of-1962 mix kind of jarring, but it's coming together, and time has worked well for the campus.

[mpspqr]

Over the years, Emory has grown on me. At first, I found the Italianate-by-way-of-1962 mix kind of jarring, but it's coming together, and time has worked well for the campus.

I agree completely. I first came to Emory last year to start law school and I found the Italian style marble buildings to be beautiful but kinda dispersed in the midst of too many concrete brutalist 70's buildings and not enough open walking space. They're really renovating and revising a lot of the campus plan in order to bring together the architecture in a much better way. It really is a beautiful campus with even more potential.

They have a very ambitious campus plan of the next 10 years or so. Good news, they have the $ to do it.

[austin356]

I might decide to get my MBA there in the future, a top 25 university in the world, imo.

[cmixon001]

I was at Emory for law school in the 90s. What they've done with the campus since then is great -- building the Goizueta school and the performing arts center and closing off the street in front of Cox Hall. I also love the idea of moving the hospital across Clifton and keeping only the old hospital building as one side of a new quad area. Emory's got a great vision now, which it sure didn't have in the 60s and 70s, imo. Thanks for the pics -- bring back lots of memories.

[Sedaded]

I might decide to get my MBA there in the future, a top 25 university in the world, imo.


I'm a first-year MBA student there now. It's absolutely amazing!

[john3eblover]

love the fall colors. nice pics

[Chris Creech]

I know Emory is trying to work up a transportation plan. They were originally supposed to get a line on the original MARTA plans, but I guess that just never happened.

I read though where Emory is going to try something new and innovative. They've decided to quit subsidizing parking on compus, which will about double the price. They said in the paper they just need to start getting people out of their cars. I guess it is a bit of a conflict to talk of a progressive transit plan while you're subsidizing parking on campus.

I wonder if that money will be earmarked for their transit plans? I wouldn't be surprised to see them do a trolley or street car system. I know they want to tie in all the Clifton Rd. stuff as well, CDC and all.

Speaking of brutalist architecture, the little Cannon chapel there is actually one of my favorite buildings in the city. The austerity of brutalism actually works pretty well for churchs.

[cabasse]

my "rich uncle" graduated from emory's school of law in the '60s. he now owns his own firm in tampa.

i wonder what it would take for marta to bring back the tucker-north dekalb proposal. does anyone know when this extention was being studied?

http://world.nycsubway.org/us/atlanta/marta-provisions.html

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=east+lake+marta&sll=33.748889,-84.388056&sspn=0.097629,0.21698&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=16&ll=33.768214,-84.316013&spn=0.012201,0.020084&iwloc=A

[atlanta_transit]

The Tucker North DeKalb line was last studied in the late 1990s as a light rail line from Lindbergh. Neighborhood opposition killed it.

[Newnan_Eric]

There are some other possibilities that have been talked about that could affect Emory's transit plans.

1. The Athens Commuter Ral line (The "Brian Train") proposal would have a stop at Emory on its way into downtown. This would allow workers at Emory, the CDC, and other area business to commute in from Gwinnett and North Dekalb counties.

2. Also using those same tracks and stations, there is a poposal to utilize a DMU (Diesel Multiple Unit) for more freguent service between Downtown and Emory. This proposal would include stops the the future Multi-Modal Passenger Terminal (MMPT) downtown, a station on the West side of Georgia Tech, Atlantic Station, the Brookwood AMTRAK station, a proposed connecting station near the MARTA Armour yard that would connect to MARTA and the Beltlline, and Emory. This DMU service would use conventional rails, but would provide more-frequent service on par with MARTA rail service.

3. There is some planning activity for the Clifton Road Corridor. This includes roadway improvements and anhanced transit service.

4. There are also some "pie-in-the-sky" streetcar proposals, but I don't think there serious enough to consider at this point.

But, Emory is on the right track with removing the parking subsidies. Now if we could get more institutions and businesses to follow suit in Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead you'd see further support for transit.

[ATLmangum]

I love Emory's campus. I think including it on the Athens' Commuter rail line would be a no brainer. That part of Decatur where Emory and Fernbank are located is probably my favorite part of Atlanta.

[mpspqr]

If parking is subsidized right now, it either has no effect on what I pay, or things are about to get ridiculous. A parking pass as of right now is somewhere around $360 if I remember correctly. I've spoken with other friends of mine at different law schools and this tends to be at least 3x what they pay. Oh well. At least tuition is cheap...doh!

[joey]

If parking is subsidized right now, it either has no effect on what I pay, or things are about to get ridiculous. A parking pass as of right now is somewhere around $360 if I remember correctly. I've spoken with other friends of mine at different law schools and this tends to be at least 3x what they pay. Oh well. At least tuition is cheap...doh!

I think it's over $500 at GaTech, and that's cheaper than the decks in Midtown ($500/year =~ $41/month, whereas the decks are in excess of $50/month). Here at UVa Law, in a rural/suburban area with lower land prices, we pay about $200.

[Andrea]

I think it's over $500 at GaTech, and that's cheaper than the decks in Midtown ($500/year =~ $41/month, whereas the decks are in excess of $50/month). Here at UVa Law, in a rural/suburban area with lower land prices, we pay about $200.

I love Emory. I could never afford to go to school there but I love to just go there and walk around. It's beautiful.

[MarketsWork]

Emory is on the right track with removing the parking subsidies. Now if we could get more institutions and businesses to follow suit in Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead you'd see further support for transit.

That would be insane in today's job market! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find and keep good workers right now? We are presently at full employment, which means that everyone who wants to work right now is working. Businesses are having to bend over backward to hire and retain good workers in Atlanta, so I would expect more non-taxable benefits (like parking subsidies), not less. And as long as the great majority of workers travel by car, businesses will have to compete for their services.

[Tombstoner]

If parking is subsidized right now, it either has no effect on what I pay, or things are about to get ridiculous. A parking pass as of right now is somewhere around $360 if I remember correctly. I've spoken with other friends of mine at different law schools and this tends to be at least 3x what they pay. Oh well. At least tuition is cheap...doh!

It's going up to $625 next year.

[joey]

That would be insane in today's job market! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find and keep good workers right now? We are presently at full employment, which means that everyone who wants to work right now is working. Businesses are having to bend over backward to hire and retain good workers in Atlanta, so I would expect more non-taxable benefits (like parking subsidies), not less. And as long as the great majority of workers travel by car, businesses will have to compete for their services.

I seriously doubt that a shift of the private-employer funds from tax-free parking subsidies into taxable income (or into other tax-free uses such as 401k matches) would cause a mass exodus. Even along the margins, and even if it were shifted from tax-free to taxable, you're talking about a maximum difference of something like $350/year ($1000/year parking switched to taxable income, costing a maximum of 35% more in the highest tax bracket). I highly doubt people will race to leave jobs or not choose a job based on a maximum difference of $350/year.

[MarketsWork]

I highly doubt people will race to leave jobs or not choose a job based on a maximum difference of $350/year.

My point has nothing to do with the amount of any subsidy, but with Newnan_Eric's insinuation that businesses should discontinue parking subsidies as a means to encourage their employees' use of public transit. Such attempted social engineering by a private business would be pointless and self-defeating unless attractive alternatives exist for its targeted employees. For the majority of those scarce workers, it does not.

[joey]

My point has nothing to do with the amount of any subsidy, but with Newnan_Eric's insinuation that businesses should discontinue parking subsidies as a means to encourage their employees' use of public transit. Such attempted social engineering by a private business would be pointless and self-defeating unless attractive alternatives exist for its targeted employees. For the majority of those scarce workers, it does not.

I don't know if I agree. Certainly no one's (yet) (here) suggested that the subsidies should be illegal or formally blocked by the hand of a bureaucrat, but if a company, of its own volition (or under lobbying pressure from citizen groups) decides it wants to "socially engineer" its workforce by means of eliminating a parking subsidy, it would by no means be entirely novel. Large companies with big brands set up policies all the time for the PR/good-feeling benefit of "helping the community" -- consider donations to the Arts by Home Depot, or BellSouth's relocating their offices to the urban spine and building decks at perimeter MARTA stations, etc.

This also ignores the possibility that a business may have a vested interest in reducing its employees' reliance on cars for bona fide traffic/pollution reasons that directly impact the company. However, I agree that a direct impact of any substantial size would be rare except in the cases where companies have large corporate properties on the order of college campuses.

Anyway, I'll drop it here to get back to any Emory discussion that may take place.

[mpspqr]

It's going up to $625 next year.

...you'll have to repeat that, I couldn't quite hear you over the sounds of me puking. It sounded like you said $625, because that's what I paid in tuition per semester back in Hawaii.

[Tombstoner]

My point has nothing to do with the amount of any subsidy, but with Newnan_Eric's insinuation that businesses should discontinue parking subsidies as a means to encourage their employees' use of public transit. Such attempted social engineering by a private business would be pointless and self-defeating unless attractive alternatives exist for its targeted employees. For the majority of those scarce workers, it does not.

Odd...I would have thought one could say that subsidies are, by definition, calculated interference with the market economy and therefore an effort at economic (and thus social) engineering...

PS. mpspqr: you must be a young'un: I paid $500 a year at the University of Arizona (walking 5 miles uphill in the snow both ways, sodas were a nickle... :))!

[Andrea]

...you'll have to repeat that, I couldn't quite hear you over the sounds of me puking. It sounded like you said $625, because that's what I paid in tuition per semester back in Hawaii.

Heh. Here's a real old coot chiming in -- when I went to college, tuition for the entire year was about $600.

[MarketsWork]

Odd...I would have thought one could say that subsidies are, by definition, calculated interference with the market economy and therefore an effort at economic (and thus social) engineering...

Quite the opposite, employer-paid subsidies are simply part of the pay package for hard-to-get/keep employees -- they are part of the market economy. Some employers provide free parking in their own facilities, some pay part of the parking fees directly to parking vendors, and some reimburse parking costs through parking allowances. All three are tax-free benefits, and are paid in response to competitive pressures to hire and retain employees. As long as we have full employment, the burden will be upon employers to compete for picky employees.

[Newnan_Eric]

I know this continues to be off the topic of Emory, but my point is that I think that employers (both public and private sector, but especially public sector) should do more to encourage transit use. This includes:

1. At least giving the option to take a monthly MARTA pass in lieu of a parking subsidy. (Many in-town companies do this.)

2. Locating near MARTA rail stations.

3. The city should find ways of incentivizing businesses to relocate to areas in close proximity to tranist stops.

There was a roundtable discussion in the previous weeks ABC. The real estate professionals stated that there is a real push from larger companies to look at in town locations rather that suburban centers now because traffic is getting so bad (or the perception is getting there). In particular firms with a lot of international visitors want to be near transit stops so there visitors don't have to deal with renting a car and trying to learn how to navigate in Atlanta.

Here is the link: Roundtable: Commercial Real Estate (http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/22562609)

[MarketsWork]

Well stated, Newnan Eric. I agree with all of those points.

And back on topic, the Emory campus is drop-dead gorgeous. Everyone who appreciates its beauty (not to mention its academic excellence) should raise a 6.5 ounce bottle of Coca-Cola and toast the memory of Robert W. Woodruff. Atlanta's greatest patron and his blessed sugar water built much of what we now enjoy -- and laid the groundwork for a lot of the rest. And most of it was done anonymously.

[Tombstoner]

Quite the opposite, employer-paid subsidies are simply part of the pay package for hard-to-get/keep employees -- they are part of the market economy. Some employers provide free parking in their own facilities, some pay part of the parking fees directly to parking vendors, and some reimburse parking costs through parking allowances. All three are tax-free benefits, and are paid in response to competitive pressures to hire and retain employees. As long as we have full employment, the burden will be upon employers to compete for picky employees.

Point taken.