What Old Transit Maps can teach us about city's future (Atlanta: 2014, bus)

[cqholt]

What Old Transit Maps Can Teach Us About a City's Future - CityLab

Atlanta has pushed transit-oriented development with its BeltLine project and may soon add a new county to its MARTA system.

[samiwas1]

I'm surprised that for Atlanta, they didn't pull out the old streetcar map, showing that Atlanta once had a huge transit system before being taken over by shortsighted people pushing the automobile.

[netdragon]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

I'm surprised that for Atlanta, they didn't pull out the old streetcar map, showing that Atlanta once had a huge transit system before being taken over by shortsighted people pushing the automobile.

Now that we're about to put the streetcars back in, and we have better roads, our transportation system is on its way to being much better than Europe's. Now we just need to get the bodies and infill in to make use of this excessive infrastructure.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by netdragon

Now that we're about to put the streetcars back in, and we have better roads, our transportation system is on its way to being much better than Europe's. Now we just need to get the bodies and infill in to make use of this excessive infrastructure.

Alright, if all of the above isn't some sort of sarcasm, then my meter is broken.

[skbl17]

Wait wait wait. ATLANTA on its way to having a better transportation system than EUROPE? Uh huh.

So, getting streetcars and having "better roads" (subjective; have you seen the Autobahn and the Dutch motorway system?) means that we'll have a better transit system than the continent where even cities of 100,000 have high-speed rail, bus, and light rail systems?!

I can actually get around Europe without a car. Can't do the same in much of metro Atlanta, despite our (lackluster) heavy rail system and our (spotty) bus system.

When Atlanta gets a high-speed rail system, a more expansive heavy rail system, light rail, streetcars, AND commuter rail, then we can talk about Atlanta's transportation system "being much better than Europe's" transportation system. A few streetcars and freeways isn't enough to displace Europe in transportation, far from it in fact.

- skbl17