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Originally Posted by dante2308
This forum is curiously skewed towards highway-haters anyhow. While some people see mass transit and have a wet dream, I think of it as just a train or bus. Sure trains are nice and move lots of people and can conceivably make me not need a car, but I don't think they should do away with highways.
Some people don't even realize that commuter rail will encourage some sprawl. For everyone who gets off the highway and takes the train, there is someone who will move into the suburbs to fill up that space on the highway. Generally, excluding the lowest rungs of the lower class, people will use whatever means is most efficient to get around. I think it's a good option that should be available for commuters anyhow, even if it wont solve the traffic problem.
Of course there are people who choose to bicycle commute or walk to work, but unfortunately, that has it's drawbacks. Weather, for one. I would hate to bike 10 miles or so on a snowy or just generally crappy day. I don't tend to move around nearly as much when its winter and if i had a car, that wouldn't be a problem. The same applies for an outdoor mall. While quaint, it is subject to weather. Virginia Highlands doesn't beat out suburban malls during a thunderstorm, I don't care what you like. Vendors also take note of that little fact when they decide where to put a store. Another drawback is simply feasibility. You can't really take a big family out for dinner without a car and you can't expect senior citizens to walk everywhere.
Of course, I love transit. I, just think that if we are trying to replace a car-dominated society, we need to make our city equally accessible by other means. The highway system is currently the best way to get commute to most of the cities around Atlanta. While MARTA serves a percentage of the population, most people in the area have no option when it comes to getting around and, believe it or not, they deserve to get to the things they like just as much as urbanites. I'd hate to see our city suffer the cutting of a major artery that literally millions depend on.
As for the high-speed line, I read the report. It isn't feasible with the current budget and the state of the rail lines. This isn't my opinion, this was stated in the study. High-speed rail would be quite nice though and I would imagine using it. Unfortunately, it is only efficient for trips between 100 and 500 miles and unfortunately, few destinations I ever plan to visit are in that range along the planned corridor (currently, Macon and Charlotte are the only cities near enough on the line). I think it would provide better connectivity to Charlotte, though, and it could conceivably be used to link Hartsfield-Jackson to a second airport. We'll see what happens with this. If it does come to fruition, it would be a very long time.
The Beltline seems cool, more power to it. I hope it turns the core around.
As for heavy rail expansions, I wonder what will really happen in the next ten years. Unlike commuter rail, heavy rail has a chance of creating urban pockets and connecting them. The north line and the northeast line shouldn't be the only considerations though. I think the south side of the city is being neglected. Not only are their highways horribly insufficient, they don't have any access to MARTA south of College Park. Unknown to some, the south side has been growing and rapidly in the last few years and represents a larger percentage of the metro region's growth each year. They need new heavy rail and commuter rail stations and, gasp, a new highway and/or highway expansions. Really, they have two and a half highways compared to the north side's half a dozen plus. It isn't as if people won't move into the city because traffic is bad. Atlanta is notorious for bad traffic and people still move in, we should at least keep our roads and transit up with demand. If people can't get somewhere, no developer or rail study will find an isolated area reasonable to expand into. Improvements start with improved infrastructure.
All the while, we transform our communities. You can create dense urban environments with or without highways. We can then improve the way we get around while working towards sustainability. Right now, I think burying the connector is an extravagance that can wait until we deal with the blaring problems.
Just to end my point, I would like to add that the way that this city grows exponentially and attracts people from far and wide, it seems that even with a dream of a transit system, traffic will continue to be very bothersome. If traffic ever lets up in one area, that area will simply attract more of the growth until traffic is bad again. Without restrictions on growth, we'll always be fighting this uphill battle as long as Atlanta is hot. One of the best solutions for the short term is to try to cut commute times and therefore reduce the amount of cars on the road at any time. To do this, I suggest we encourage separate job centers outside the perimeter. If someone in Duluth commutes to Alpharetta instead of Atlanta, then he spends many less hours in his car than if he tried to tackle getting downtown. If certain centers become dense enough, and we encourage that they do and aren't office park wastelands, then we can have transit in the suburbs much like we do in the perimeter. It shouldn't only be the north side either. There should be centers throughout the region. We are past the point where centering all the jobs for 5 million plus in one relatively small city is feasible. The sprawl area wont go away. We are a city on a scale of ten thousand square miles and growing. Best we make use of that space by fitting in better communities and denser developments so that millions coming in the next few decades don't only have sprawl houses far from work and a handful of core condos few jobs could afford to choose from. 470,000 live in Atlanta leaving 4,700,000 to the suburban wasteland. We need to change not only Atlanta but North Georgia.
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I wanted to respond to your post in detail, but I haven’t had the time until now.
While it may seem that there are a lot of “highway haters” on this board, I think it’s mostly that many of us feel that the transportation focus has been too skewed towards roads to the detriment of transit. Both need to be implemented for sustainable growth. For roads in the Atlanta Metro, I personally think that the focus needs to be on interchange improvements over additional lanes – that’s where the bottlenecks are. As for surface streets, streetscaping and restricting left turns will assist traffic flow. The Peachtree Boulevard project should improve traffic quite a bit.
The main problem with the roads vs. transit battle is funding. Georgia is a donor State. Meaning that, it only receives about 70% of the transportation funding that it contributes to the Federal Government. In addition to that Metro Atlanta is a donor to the rest of the State. While this helps grease the wheels with rural legislators, it makes it hard to get the money to implement the projects where the most congestion is. A perfect example of this kind of donor “pork” is “Georgia’s High Tech Highway,” Highway 224 from Perry towards Hawkinsville. This is a very nice 4-lane divided State Highway to nowhere. It’s supposed to spur development and I’m sure that there are tax incentives for business to locate there, but it is a complete waste. The traffic on the road is minimal. For the money, I’d rather they spend it on a road improvement or transit project in Atlanta. At least it’d do somebody some good (besides the road contractor).
You are right in stating that commuter rail would not stop sprawl. It does provide those that live outside the central city an alternative route into town. This only really helps those that work in downtown or other places that connect with MARTA. However, the rail lines that commuter rail would run, pass through older town centers (where the stations would be) that have denser cores and that, in some cases, pre-date auto-centric development. Many of the towns in Clayton County have redevelopment plans they’d implement if the Lovejoy line gets started. This in turn brings more people living within walking distance of the rail stations, and this improves rider-ship. It’s a domino effect.
I don’t think that bicycles will ever be used for any sizeable portion of Atlanta’s Metro for commuting purposes. Yes, there are always the hard-core fans, but weather, steep grades, and lack of shower facilities at most employers keeps this number minimal.
As for MARTA, it needs to focus inside the perimeter. The recent interest in Gwinnett is encouraging, but that county is probably best served by commuter rail. MARTA needs to be involved with expanding options in town. Maybe a new station or two. It also needs to be involved with interconnecting with the Beltline and Streetcar projects.
High-Speed Rail is a boondoggle. As you correctly stated, it is not currently feasible. If we can get regular passenger rail operating successfully, then maybe we can look at it. Also, the additional time will allow technology to mature in this country. (It’s already mature elsewhere, but the USA doesn’t seem to be able to implement it.)
You give the Beltline a short comment, but I think it deserves more. First, thank goodness cooler heads have prevailed and the study committee is recommending rail for the LPA (Locally Preferred Alternative). Otis White, a writer for Governing Magazine, correctly noted that the Beltline is not just a transit system for getting folks from A to B; it’s an urban amenity. A light-rail or streetcar system will attract development and riders in a way that BRT – no matter how pretty – couldn’t. The parks and trails are also sorely needed in this town and I think that this development will transform the city. I also think that the Wayne Mason debacle will end up being a minor footnote in history when this whole thing is done.
Your state you’d like to see heavy rail improvements, but your recommendations are vague. I don’t think we’ll see much in the way of HRT expansion with MARTA. There may be some new stations – possibly to ease connectivity with the Beltline – but there aren’t many areas that HRT expansions are viable. There still is talk about further expansion up GA 400, but not much else in town. The North Fulton expansion makes sense, as there are no existing rail lines to put commuter rail on in that corridor. Also, if developments like the one just proposed in Roswell are to be built, they should be required to have a transit connection to handle the density.
As for your comments about MARTA South of College Park, those communities would be on commuter rail lines.
Yes, burying the connector is a wild idea and it will never happen. I do like the 5th Street Bridge though. I went to Tech when that part of Midtown was in poor shape. I think that with the Tech Square expansion the bridge needed some expansion anyway. What they have done is make a reasonably attractive area to traverse. I’ll bet that when the weather gets nice in the Spring, students will hang out and eat lunch on the lawn areas. I’d also like to see GDOT implement the expanded Mayor’s Park idea at the Peachtree Street connector crossing and the Capital Gateway park on the East side of the State Capital building. The Capital Gateway park is also supposed to connect to a linear park between MLK and Memorial running all the way to Oakland Cemetery – what a nice space that could be with redeveloped condos and retail along it.
Your final notes about development patterns reveal that you don’t really now that much about the Atlanta traffic situation. Someone commuting from Duluth to Alpharetta spends probably more time in the car than going downtown. Highways 141 and GA 20 are horrific, and forget about going down 85 and then back up GA 400. Atlanta is never going to be a centralized city, but the edge cities need to be clustered, so the densities will support some kind of transit system. We just aren’t going to be able to build enough roads for everyone.