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The State needs to step up, and someone needs to slap them around a little at this point. The business community has already started, we need to band together and send a LOUD message to these fools and finish the job.
The media spotlight and open public ridicule are needed now.
Ridicule? There are a lot of people who don't think Atlanta has a traffic problem. You will find a lot of them on this board.
And whether we really need high capacity transit outside 285 is very debatable. Someone was saying most of Gwinnett's current lines run empty.
When it comes down to it, if Atlanta still dominates the MARTA board Gwinnett is going to be very reluctant to join.
And with just Gwinnett, Atlanta isn't going to want to give up much power. Fulton Co would be 40% of the population and probably a much higher % of the sales tax.
It could get complicated. Fulton outside the city of Atlanta has a number of sizable cities such as Roswell, Johns Creek, Alpharetta and Sandy Springs. They will no doubt want to be sure their positions are not weakened.
Ridicule? There are a lot of people who don't think Atlanta has a traffic problem. You will find a lot of them on this board.
And whether we really need high capacity transit outside 285 is very debatable. Someone was saying most of Gwinnett's current lines run empty.
Yes, most of Gwinnett's bus lines run empty. They have terrible, spotty service - no wonder.
On the other hand, the GRTA Express buses that tie into MARTA are packed. I have a friend that uses it every day to get from the lake to Midtown. He has multiple options, but all of them are full unless you leave at dawn or before. He sometimes stands from the park & ride on I-985 to the City.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that the need and ability to fill the capacity isn't there. And this includes the Brain Train commuter rail.
Ridicule? There are a lot of people who don't think Atlanta has a traffic problem. You will find a lot of them on this board.
With the multiple notorious traffic congestion meltdowns that the Atlanta metro region has experienced as of late and over the years (including the infamous January 2014 traffic meltdown (SnowJam 2014) in which motorists were stranded out on the roads for hours and even days), it is extremely difficult to deny that the Atlanta metro region has both a traffic congestion problem as well as a pervasive INTERNATIONAL perception that the Atlanta metro region has a serious traffic congestion problem and nowhere near enough multimodal transportation options.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2
And whether we really need high capacity transit outside 285 is very debatable.
The Georgia 400 OTP North Corridor and North Fulton County certainly don't seem to think that the need for high-capacity transit is debatable with their increasing demands for the MARTA Red Line to be extended north to Windward Parkway....Both to give commuters an alternative to sitting in worsening severe rush hour traffic congestion on Georgia 400 and to attract more high-paying jobs and industry to an area that is on the rise.
And the severe traffic jams on and along the OTP stretches of I-75 Northwest, GA 400 North and I-85 Northeast and even I-75 South and I-20 East and West seem to signal that the debate as to whether high-capacity transit service should be extended outside of the I-285 Perimeter is over and has been over for quite awhile as evidenced by this New York Times special report chronicling the severe traffic congestion problems that Metro Atlanta experienced during the summer....the summer of the year 1999!: CHOKING ON GROWTH - A special report. - In Atlanta, Suburban Comforts Thwart Plans to Limit Sprawl - NYTimes.com
From the article in the link above:
Quote:
ATLANTA, Nov. 20— The builders of Georgia's epic new mall, a vast savanna of shopping on 100 acres, chose a precarious moment in Atlanta's history to open their doors a few months ago.
All summer, the city had been trapped under a hood of smog. Highway information signs begged commuters to eat at their desks. Traffic was so heavy that a single accident caused nine hours of delays one morning.
...Again, that description of Metro Atlanta's very severe traffic problems was from the summer of 1999, 16 years ago when the Atlanta region had 2.3 million fewer inhabitants than it does today!
Here in 2015, the debate as to whether we really need high-capacity transit service outside of the I-285 Perimeter should be a thing of the past while we move forward with rail transit extensions that grow our economy and raise our quality-of-life....Particularly with an outlying county like Gwinnett having almost 900,000 residents and being expected to eclipse the 1 million-inhabitant mark sometime within the next 10-15 years or so.
Saying that heavily-populated areas like Gwinnett and Cobb don't need high-capacity transit service outside of the I-285 Perimeter in Metro Atlanta is like saying that heavily-populated areas like Fairfax County, Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland don't need high-capacity transit outside of the I-495 Capital Beltway in the Washington DC Metro area.
No one would dare say that heavily-populated Washington DC suburbs like Fairfax County, VA (1.1 million inhabitants) and Montgomery County, MD (1 million inhabitants) don't need high-capacity transit because of their locations mostly outside of the I-495 Capital Beltway...
Can you imagine what heavily-populated Washington DC suburbs like Fairfax County, VA and Montgomery County, MD would be like without their high-capacity passenger rail transit infrastructures (DC Metro Heavy Rail Transit and regional commuter rail service operated by the Virginia and Maryland state governments)? The traffic in those areas would be even worse than it is now if those areas did not have heavy rail and commuter rail transit service.
So why would anyone even suggest that high-capacity transit service is not a necessity in heavily-populated and still extremely fast-growing Atlanta suburbs like Cobb County (731,000 inhabitants) and Gwinnett County (878,000 inhabitants) with their exploding populations causing increasingly severe traffic congestion on their limited and built-out road networks that are not expanding with their exploding populations?
If a large major metro region like Washington DC cannot function without regional high-capacity transit service outside of its I-495 Capital Beltway then I don't know what makes people think that a large major metro region like Atlanta (and its arguably worse surface road network) can function without regional high-capacity service outside of its I-285 Perimeter Highway?
Last edited by Born 2 Roll; 04-17-2015 at 01:41 AM..
Some of the stuff im reading makes absolutely no sense....
Someone said Gwinnett should operate it. Why on earth should a county that knows nothing about operating a rail system operate it when Marta has way more experience at this.
If someone other than Marta operates it customers would have to pay twice. They would have to pay once with the other system and another time transferring to Marta. Most people would probably still rather drive than pay twice daily.
Thank God most of you all aren't involved in decision making process because most of the stuff I'm reading makes absolutely no sense....
Someone said Gwinnett should operate it. Why on earth should a county that knows nothing about operating a rail system operate it when Marta has way more experience at this.
If someone other than Marta operates it customers would have to pay twice. They would have to pay once with the other system and another time transferring to Marta. Most people would probably still rather drive than pay twice daily.
Most of the people talking negative about Marta probably never ride Marta. I ride it at least 5x a week and it's great.
Playing devil's advocate here, why would you have to pay twice to move between rail systems if they're even physically separate? You don't pay again when going from MARTA to CCT or GCT or Xpress even they they are very much physically separate, they're free transfers both ways and there's no reason to think it wouldn't be the same if GCT were to operate, say, an extension of the Gold Line.
With the multiple notorious traffic congestion meltdowns that the Atlanta metro region has experienced as of late and over the years (including the infamous January 2014 traffic meltdown (SnowJam 2014) in which motorists were stranded out on the roads for hours and even days), it is extremely difficult to deny that the Atlanta metro region has both a traffic congestion problem as well as a pervasive INTERNATIONAL perception that the Atlanta metro region has a serious traffic congestion problem and nowhere near enough multimodal transportation options.
The Georgia 400 OTP North Corridor and North Fulton County certainly don't seem to think that the need for high-capacity transit is debatable with their increasing demands for the MARTA Red Line to be extended north to Windward Parkway....Both to give commuters an alternative to sitting in worsening severe rush hour traffic congestion on Georgia 400 and to attract more high-paying jobs and industry to an area that is on the rise.
And the severe traffic jams on and along the OTP stretches of I-75 Northwest, GA 400 North and I-85 Northeast and even I-75 South and I-20 East and West seem to signal that the debate as to whether high-capacity transit service should be extended outside of the I-285 Perimeter is over and has been over for quite awhile as evidenced by this New York Times special report chronicling the severe traffic congestion problems that Metro Atlanta experienced during the summer....the summer of the year 1999!: CHOKING ON GROWTH - A special report. - In Atlanta, Suburban Comforts Thwart Plans to Limit Sprawl - NYTimes.com
From the article in the link above:
...Again, that description of Metro Atlanta's very severe traffic problems was from the summer of 1999, 16 years ago when the Atlanta region had 2.3 million fewer inhabitants than it does today!
Here in 2015, the debate as to whether we really need high-capacity transit service outside of the I-285 Perimeter should be a thing of the past while we move forward with rail transit extensions that grow our economy and raise our quality-of-life....Particularly with an outlying county like Gwinnett having almost 900,000 residents and being expected to eclipse the 1 million-inhabitant mark sometime within the next 10-15 years or so.
Saying that heavily-populated areas like Gwinnett and Cobb don't need high-capacity transit service outside of the I-285 Perimeter in Metro Atlanta is like saying that heavily-populated areas like Fairfax County, Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland don't need high-capacity transit outside of the I-495 Capital Beltway in the Washington DC Metro area.
No one would dare say that heavily-populated Washington DC suburbs like Fairfax County, VA (1.1 million inhabitants) and Montgomery County, MD (1 million inhabitants) don't need high-capacity transit because of their locations mostly outside of the I-495 Capital Beltway...
Can you imagine what heavily-populated Washington DC suburbs like Fairfax County, VA and Montgomery County, MD would be like without their high-capacity passenger rail transit infrastructures (DC Metro Heavy Rail Transit and regional commuter rail service operated by the Virginia and Maryland state governments)? The traffic in those areas would be even worse than it is now if those areas did not have heavy rail and commuter rail transit service.
So why would anyone even suggest that high-capacity transit service is not a necessity in heavily-populated and still extremely fast-growing Atlanta suburbs like Cobb County (731,000 inhabitants) and Gwinnett County (878,000 inhabitants) with their exploding populations causing increasingly severe traffic congestion on their limited and built-out road networks that are not expanding with their exploding populations?
If a large major metro region like Washington DC cannot function without regional high-capacity transit service outside of its I-495 Capital Beltway then I don't know what makes people think that a large major metro region like Atlanta (and its arguably worse surface road network) can function without regional high-capacity service outside of its I-285 Perimeter Highway?
Playing devil's advocate here, why would you have to pay twice to move between rail systems if they're even physically separate? You don't pay again when going from MARTA to CCT or GCT or Xpress even they they are very much physically separate, they're free transfers both ways and there's no reason to think it wouldn't be the same if GCT were to operate, say, an extension of the Gold Line.
I would think, maybe I'm wrong but let's say Gwinnett operated it, it's no way on earth that Marta would let all those people transfer to Marta for free. It would probably be at least 100k additional people riding per day and Marta needs that money. Marta would not all those people pack into the Gold Line for free. I don't know about the free transfers from CCT/etc to Marta but Marta would not and shouldn't let 100k people ride for free daily
I would actually be more in favor of a Gwinnett Rapid Transit Authority that would build heavy rail and connect to MARTA.
I think we could do a better job designing it, building it, and operating it than MARTA could. I just don't know if the complications having two different systems would create...may not be worth it in the end and just put up with MARTA as kind of a necessary evil.
Hey! Do y'all remember when Clayton started their own Transit agency? That was fun...
I would think, maybe I'm wrong but let's say Gwinnett operated it, it's no way on earth that Marta would let all those people transfer to Marta for free. It would probably be at least 100k additional people riding per day and Marta needs that money. Marta would not all those people pack into the Gold Line for free. I don't know about the free transfers from CCT/etc to Marta but Marta would not and shouldn't let 100k people ride for free daily
Currently riders can transfer from MARTA to other transit systems for free and if there is a difference in fare, they pay it, same for transferring yo MARTA, the riders pay the difference. I do know unlimited MARTA pass is not good on CCT if starting out on CCT, but is good if starting on MARTA. That is why you tap your breeze card when exiting a station, to load a transfer.
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