ATLANTA BUSINESS CHRONICLE: Influential Atlantans speak about traffic (Cumming, Buckhead: real estate, 2015)

[LynnHarris]

How serious of a problem do you believe metro Atlanta’s traffic is, and why? What would you do to ease gridlock and improve transportation in metro Atlanta?

David Cummings
Founder, Atlanta Tech Village

"Traffic is a serious problem and major detriment to quality of life, competitiveness with other cities, and opportunities to grow in the future. To help with transportation in Atlanta, I’d put more emphasis on self-driving cars and look for ways to make the city a leader in that technology..."

Alana Shepherd
Co-founder, Shepherd Center

"Traffic is a problem at peak times. Do not allow disruption of streets by more streetcar projects. Rubber tire buses can go wherever there is a need. Quit reaching out for more federal money. It is our money!.."

Raymond B. King
President & CEO, Zoo Atlanta

"Our traffic situation is extremely serious and seems to be getting worse. It hinders economic development and significantly impacts quality of life. We have to provide better funding to MARTA and other public transportation options (solutions differ by area of the region). Future real estate development will align with that development, providing residents and workers true alternatives to the car and resulting in smarter growth..."


More Comments: Most Influential Atlantans speak about traffic - Atlanta Business Chronicle

[jsvh]

Alana nailed it. Atlanta's traffic problems are caused by the streetcar.

Edit: These are interesting:

John Schuerholz
President, Atlanta Braves
It is serious, but so too is the situation in virtually every other major city in the US. We have become so dependent/reliant on our personal vehicle use and the flexibility it provides. Combine that with the lack of legitimate action on mass transit improvement, expansion and vision means gridlock wins the day most everywhere in large population-dense cities.

Mike Plant
Executive vice president of business operations, Atlanta Braves
Most Americans have grown up driving cars as their only mode of transportation. Metro Atlanta has had an explosive growth over the past two decades and while this has provided great economic impact, the transportation system has not kept up with this growth. The leadership in the state of Georgia has stepped up to address these issues with the new transportation funding bill. This will help. However, I believe new modes of transportation must continue to be explored and invested in as future generations will not be as adverse to using alternative measures.

Gives weight to the claim that this is a backdoor way to get transit into Cobb.

[bu2]

Sam Massell
President, Buckhead Coalition
The magnitude of our traffic problem is equal to the public perception of same, thus, in addition to ongoing improvements in traffic flow and reduction in congestion with alternative options in mobility, we would benefit by a psychological presentation of the actual benefits that come with such growth as the means by which we pay for meaningful amenities such as job markets, places of entertainment, dining options, etc.

They REALLY need to retire Massell. He helped lead the effort to pretend the APS cheating scandal didn't exist. Now he's saying traffic is a perception problem.


One thing to note is how diametrically opposed some of these people's opinions are.

I also hope Emory's president doesn't get involved. He uses Austin (along with Portland) as an example of a successful light rail project. What they've built so far is considered a joke.

[ATLTJL]

Now he's saying traffic is a perception problem.

His quote is such a run-on grammatical disaster that I really can't tell what he is saying at all.

[skbl17]

Great quotes and good perspective overall.

David Cummings
Founder, Atlanta Tech Village

"Traffic is a serious problem and major detriment to quality of life, competitiveness with other cities, and opportunities to grow in the future. To help with transportation in Atlanta, I’d put more emphasis on self-driving cars and look for ways to make the city a leader in that technology..."

Agreed. I'm all for mass transit, but I do think we should look at ways to accommodate self-driving cars so that when they arrive in the near future, we won't be tripping over ourselves. However, improving conditions for self-driving cars should not be the only priority in improving transportation. For example, Bob Hope also mentioned traffic signal synchronization, which should be a high priority.

Alana Shepherd
Co-founder, Shepherd Center

"Traffic is a problem at peak times. Do not allow disruption of streets by more streetcar projects. Rubber tire buses can go wherever there is a need. Quit reaching out for more federal money. It is our money!.."

Agreed on the first sentence, but I can't bring myself to agree with anything else.

MARTA rail is great, but MARTA buses are awful, there's a definite anti-bus stigma in the United States (I don't think choice ridership of a bus would be as high as a streetcar), and all of the development that's already occurring along the current Streetcar corridor would not happen if it was just another bus line.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Raymond B. King
President & CEO, Zoo Atlanta

"Our traffic situation is extremely serious and seems to be getting worse. It hinders economic development and significantly impacts quality of life. We have to provide better funding to MARTA and other public transportation options (solutions differ by area of the region). Future real estate development will align with that development, providing residents and workers true alternatives to the car and resulting in smarter growth..."

Spot on comment! I think it's also important to work together with suburban politicians that have similar feelings on this topic (like Sen. Brandon Beach).

Also, I should also add Tim Lee's comments:

Tim Lee
Chairman, Cobb County Commission
Every successful metro area has a degree of traffic and I believe that traffic congestion is an indicator of economic growth. However, the questions for the Atlanta region are:

1. What is our threshold and when does congestion start to become a drag on growth and economic prosperity?

2. What is the right mix of transportation options?

Atlanta regional leaders need to consider this and work together to provide options for current and future residents, employers, workforce and visitors alike.
In order to ease gridlock and improve safety, we need to collectively implement multiple transportation alternatives. This includes the efficient movement of freight, improving existing roadways, creating more bicycle and pedestrian pathways and providing more transit options. We need to support and facilitate continued economic growth by improving transportation options and moving more people to more jobs and destinations in a more efficient way. Transportation is going to be key to future economic growth in the region. How we plan our future growth is going to revolve around how we get around.

Just because "every successful metro area" has congestion doesn't mean it should be tolerated, but otherwise, I don't take issue with his comments. We should improve the transportation network in all areas. Atlanta can't go 100% transit/0% road or 0% transit/100% road.

- skbl17