Will Cobb allow Marta now that the Braves are coming? (Atlanta: school, tax)

[MathmanMathman]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Yep. That's why they are building a stadium with 10,000 less seats in Cobb. For all those additional fans...

Ted Turner, the man who made the Braves, would not be moving them to Cobb. Braves have sold out their history and their fans.

We're not talking Cubs or Red Sox here.

[atler8]

The walk from the Georgia State Marta station, the closest Marta stop to The Ted, takes a fan down the lower end of Piedmont & onto Capitol Avenue. That area is in no stretch of the imagination a ghetto, nor is the 1990's & newer era residential area that borders the eastern edge of the parking area a ghetto.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by atler8

The walk from the Georgia State Marta station, the closest Marta stop to The Ted, takes a fan down the lower end of Piedmont & onto Capitol Avenue. That area is in no stretch of the imagination a ghetto, nor is the 1990's & newer era residential area that borders the eastern edge of the parking area a ghetto.

No but its pretty scuzzy with lots of questionable characters around as its very close to really bad areas.

Its not someplace you want to be unless you are in a crowd. And if you leave before the end of the game, you may not be.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by LovelySummer

I really question the wisdom of the planning committee that agreed to this. How can you agree to bring a stadium of 40K seats (plus employees) to an area and there is no suitable mass transit infrastructure to carry all of those people? The infrastructure piece is missing. I think the people who made this decision for everyone else who will be stuck in traffic need to be tossed out. Fortunately, I drive only in the one mile radius of my home each day and rarely have to get on expressways but, if I do, I will definitely know whether there is a Braves game going on/scheduled. As someone said, the congestion may affect even the connector.

The decision to bring the Braves to Cobb was not made by transportation planners.

The decision to bring the Braves to Cobb was made by real estate interests who want to boost the monetary values of commercial real estate in Cobb County (particularly in the Cumberland/Galleria area and up the US 41 Cobb Parkway corridor) by adding the new Braves stadium to the performing arts center and the making the need for rail transit service into the area even more apparent than it already may be at present.

Cobb County business and real estate interests have openly talked of wanting the Cumberland/Galleria area to become the next Buckhead and Cumberland Mall to become something on the scale of Lenox Square.

Before acquiring the Braves, the Cumberland/Galleria commercial district had been falling behind their competitors in Midtown, Buckhead and Perimeter because Cumberland lacks the rail transit service and direct rail transit connection to the world's busiest airport that the other 3 commercial districts have.

Adding a Major League Baseball stadium to a performing arts center gives the Cumberland area something that competing commercial districts in Midtown, Buckhead and Perimeter don't have.

Originally Posted by LovelySummer

I think Cobb is going to have to agree to Marta pretty quickly when the traffic congestion hits. Even if Cobb tried to expand CCT on its own, CCT is not rail, is it? And it doesn't go all over the metro (like Marta), does it? At best, CCT would be a last-mile solution.

Getting more skeptical transit-averse Cobb County residents to be more accepting and eventually agree to rail transit service appears to be what Cobb County business and real estate interests have in mind as a means of trying to get their long-desired rail transit connection to the lucrative convention/tourism business in Downtown Atlanta and the world-leading Atlanta Airport.

Though, like I mentioned on another thread, Cobb County business and real estate interests likely don't intend for Cobb County to dominate MARTA so much as they likely intend to join with very-powerful business, real estate and political interests in North Fulton, North DeKalb and Gwinnett counties to take political and financial control of MARTA away from the political and social interests in South Fulton and South DeKalb counties that have controlled MARTA since its inception.

Cobb County business and real estate interests don't necessarily want rail transit service expanded into the county because it can help to relieve congestion.

Cobb County business and real estate interests want rail transit service expanded into the county because rail transit service boosts the monetary value of commercial real estate in the 21st Century real estate market.

[jsvh]

Few people consider living or working next to an MLB stadium to be a benefit.

Cobb would have been much better off sticking to low taxes. Now their taxes are higher than Fulton and their traffic will be worse.

[Larry X]

I think the Braves stadium will eventually get the MARTA to Cobb county, at least I hope. Cobb wanna act like a big city, then its time to put on your big city pants. And stop trying to play in between.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by Larry X

I think the Braves stadium will eventually get the MARTA to Cobb county, at least I hope. Cobb wanna act like a big city, then its time to put on your big city pants. And stop trying to play in between.

I'd love to see Cobb actually work with the city and bring rail transit to it. But I don't think it will happen. Cobb is more about sabotaging the city and focused creating their own suburban dystopia than anything else.

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Yep. That's why they are building a stadium with 10,000 less seats in Cobb. For all those additional fans...

Ted Turner, the man who made the Braves, would not be moving them to Cobb. Braves have sold out their history and their fans.

Well those 55,000 seats at Turner Field don't exactly do much for a team averaging 28,000 per game.

Want to bet whether the Cobb Braves average more than 28,000?

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by jsvh

I'd love to see Cobb actually work with the city and bring rail transit to it. But I don't think it will happen. Cobb is more about sabotaging the city and focused creating their own suburban dystopia than anything else.

If Cobb doesn't want to fool with the city of Atlanta I don't see why they couldn't cut a deal directly with MARTA or bring in the state of Georgia.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

Well those 55,000 seats at Turner Field don't exactly do much for a team averaging 28,000 per game.

Want to bet whether the Cobb Braves average more than 28,000?

The Braves attendance this year (28K) is the lowest since 1991 because of the Cobb announcement.

The Braves AVERAGE attendance was greater than the MAXIMUM seating at the new Cobb stadium in 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998. In other words, the Braves don't care about more fans being able to see the game, they want to jack up ticket prices.

Of course they will see an uptick when they move to Cobb. New stadiums always draw more, and it will be hard for them to drop below 1991 numbers. But it is mathematically impossible for them to have more fans than they averaged during some years at Fulton Co Stadium and the first couple years when Turner Field was new.

So if you are judging off of attendance in the first year, we can already call Turner Field (first season avg attendance of 42,771) more popular with fans than the New Cobb stadium (Max capacity of 41K to 42k) even if they sell out every game the first season.