State scraps plans for HOT lanes on 75 & 575 (Atlanta, Marietta: loans, how much)

[StAubin]

Originally Posted by architect77

You need to go back and really think about what the sprawl discussion was all about before using it as a soundbite reply to every discussion about transportation.

Bypasses and turnpikes exist all over the US, with hundreds from NC to NJ that don't have any sprawl development along side them. The NJ Turnpike for one, and Raleigh's Outerloop remains practically rural-looking, etc.

If you don't like sprawl, how about double-decking some of the existing freeways or building an elevated viaduct beside them? Or how about taking an existing corridor like GA-20 and upgrading it for higher speed, more capacity?

How about refraining from bashing every idea unless you have a better one that's realistic?

I think many people here are just fed up with a continued focus on road construction in general, me included. While some of those ideas may be helpful to traffic we MUST focus on expanding our mass transit infrastructure first. We have a great system that most cities would do anything to have but it is to inadiquet for a metro of this size.

We have to add mass transit capacity first and the focus an adding road capacity. Who knows, after expanding mass transit we might not even have to worry about road other than routine maintinance.

[phillipmaloney]

for an update on this see today's Marietta Daily Journal mdjonline.com. Click on the editorial page; on the middle column click the Around Town column that begins with the RINO caption and scroll down to the second story about this subject.

[Mishap]

I think the problem is that you're creating an incentive to make the regular lanes less efficient. If I were the toll road operator, I'd pay contractors to drive up and down I-75 at precisely the speed limit. Hell throw in a breakdown or two and you'll see tolls spike up really quickly. Even if a private company weren't this unscrupulous, they'd still lobby against any other development in the area that could threaten their income.

Sometimes privatization doesn't make sense. When dealing w/ primary infrastructure, it doesn't quite work out. If we left it all up to private companies, driving from Kennesaw to Dunwoody would take 3 toll roads, a car width change, and ticketmaster style service charges.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by brownhornet

Hooray for another loop and even more sprawl.

Instead of buzzwords, how about reviewing what will provide the most actual impact? The reality is that many suburban residents would benefit from a way to get from here to there that doesn't mandate we take I-285.

Why is reducing traffic on I-285 and giving a more direct route for me to get to Duluth or Alpharetta a bad thing? I'd be fine with a transit line that does the same, but many of you want to take me downtown, which is not where I want or need to go.

[brownhornet]

Originally Posted by neil0311

Instead of buzzwords, how about reviewing what will provide the most actual impact? The reality is that many suburban residents would benefit from a way to get from here to there that doesn't mandate we take I-285.

Why is reducing traffic on I-285 and giving a more direct route for me to get to Duluth or Alpharetta a bad thing? I'd be fine with a transit line that does the same, but many of you want to take me downtown, which is not where I want or need to go.

Wasn't the point of 285 to reduce traffic to the interstates we already had.. which, in turn just added more traffic to 285? Isn't ANOTHER loop going to essentially do the SAME thing and just add more traffic to THAT loop? By the way I just came from Duluth and that hot lane is a joke. I dont think I saw one car using it the whole way there and back. I guess it's only utilized during rush hour?

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by brownhornet

Wasn't the point of 285 to reduce traffic to the interstates we already had.

Yeah, back in the 1960s when Alpharetta and Duluth were both in the sticks.

[mike7586]

Originally Posted by neil0311

Instead of buzzwords, how about reviewing what will provide the most actual impact? The reality is that many suburban residents would benefit from a way to get from here to there that doesn't mandate we take I-285.

Why is reducing traffic on I-285 and giving a more direct route for me to get to Duluth or Alpharetta a bad thing? I'd be fine with a transit line that does the same, but many of you want to take me downtown, which is not where I want or need to go.

For the millionth time, nobody is saying it is a bad thing. We need suburb to suburb transit lines, but it also makes sense to connect those lines to downtown and the airport. We have a pretty decent system (MARTA) that these new lines can be connected to.

I don't know any metro area in the world that has suburb to suburb transit lines that at some point do not connect to the city.

You knock everyone for having this mindset that we have to connect to MARTA (which I don't understand how that is a bad thing), yet you constantly want to pretend as if the city of Atlanta does not exist and it is not a major employment center. Just because YOU don't have a want or need to go there doesn't mean thousands of others in Cobb do... Cobb has almost 700,000 people... I find it hard to believe hardly any of them commute into Atlanta, especially when I work in Buckhead and see Cobb license plates ALL the time.

To summarize my point, we need suburb to suburb transit lines with connections to Atlanta and the airport. Since MARTA already goes downtown and to the airport, it makes sense to connect any suburb to suburb transit lines to MARTA.

[architect77]

I don't own a car, and I ride MARTA from Midtown to Buckhead quite often. For me, I love it. However, it takes substantial time to walk to and from the stations, and sometimes I have to wait for 10 minutes on the platform for the next train. Everyone knows that time is money, and if I currently had a fulltime job, I would never have enough free time to run errands in this manner.

For this reason, I believe rail transit in the suburbs would be even less feasible than between 2 dense areas like Buckhead and Midtown.

If I had to choose a single most-needed highway or corridor to build or upgrade, it would be an east-west parallel highway to the "top-end" of I-285, also known as a "Northern Arc".

Is there any other area in the U.S. with 3 million people (like northern Metro Atlanta) that is as underserved with expressways or interstates like Atlanta?

Also, I wish people posting comments would actually know the facts about what we're discussing beforehand. This HOV project was about building an entirely separate roadway alongside I-75 with grass as a median. It wasn't anything like the I-85 experimental project we now have.

Could someone try to find out the daily traffic count of out-of-staters and truckers using I-75 to get to Florida and South Georgia? Then we'd know whether a bypass for them would significantly free-up I-75 for actual metro-area commuters.

[brownhornet]

Originally Posted by architect77

I don't own a car, and I ride MARTA from Midtown to Buckhead quite often. For me, I love it. However, it takes substantial time to walk to and from the stations, and sometimes I have to wait for 10 minutes on the platform for the next train. Everyone knows that time is money, and if I currently had a fulltime job, I would never have enough free time to run errands in this manner.

For this reason, I believe rail transit in the suburbs would be even less feasible than between 2 dense areas like Buckhead and Midtown.

If I had to choose a single most-needed highway or corridor to build or upgrade, it would be an east-west parallel highway to the "top-end" of I-285, also known as a "Northern Arc".

Is there any other area in the U.S. with 3 million people (like northern Metro Atlanta) that is as underserved with expressways or interstates like Atlanta?

Also, I wish people posting comments would actually know the facts about what we're discussing beforehand. This HOV project was about building an entirely separate roadway alongside I-75 with grass as a median. It wasn't anything like the I-85 experimental project we now have.

Could someone try to find out the daily traffic count of out-of-staters and truckers using I-75 to get to Florida and South Georgia? Then we'd know whether a bypass for them would significantly free-up I-75 for actual metro-area commuters.

And you think the fact that it wouldve been seperate lanes would've done more to convince people to use them? Im glad they scrapped it, sounds like another waste of money.

[tonygeorgia]

Originally Posted by brownhornet

Wasn't the point of 285 to reduce traffic to the interstffix?tes we already had.. which, in turn just added more traffic to 285? Isn't ANOTHER loop going to essentially do the SAME thing and just add more traffic to THAT loop? By the way I just came from Duluth and that hot lane is a joke. I dont think I saw one car using it the whole way there and back. I guess it's only utilized during rush hour?

Yes its stupid. Why in the heck will I.pay to.get in the hot.lane when its no traffic. I heard some.gov.workers get free passes but it were more people using.it b4 they changed it to a hot lane