Is the MARTA utilized to its fullest? (Atlanta, Lawrenceville: budget, jobs)

[WestCobb]

People with foresight are already moving closer in and there are lots more people looking for walking comunities etc.

There is a great article in the Atlantic this month that talks about the death of the suburbs within the next twenty to thirty years. About two-thirds of Americans now prefer to live somewhere walkable, in either a city or a new urban city space with shops, restaraunts, a movie theater, etc. less than a mile from their house. They are also willing to have less total living space to do so. Construction is about to match demand and mixed-use spaces like Atlantic Station and the new town squares constructed in northern Virginia, Florida and other places are about to explode. Those hulking monster houses, sitting empty on clear cut forest graveyards might not ever be occupied to full capacity again.. or rather, not in the same way. Like inner city row houses a half century ago, they will be split up into subsistent tentament apartments. So much for the great suburban schools and neighborhoods. How nice can a neighborhood be when its filled with transients who are paying $300 a month or so to rent? Even worse than yesterday's abandoned inner cities, these new outland ghetto burbs will detoriate rapidly because those hulking houses were not built to last. Row houses were constructed of brick and plaster.. they could withstand the abuse of being partitioned, and they didn't need the constant upkeep that only the middle class and upper middle class could provide to remain looking somewhat nice and solid. How good is a 5,000 square foot house built by Legacy going to look 15 years down the road if no one has ever put a dime into routine maintenance? The future of the burbs could look quite hellish. On the upside though, it will look brighter and greener in the cities. I'm ready to live in a walkable village. Apparently, so are 66% of Americans. Far less pollution and a healthier, more sustainable future is on the horizon. Imagine a future where Atlanta refuses to extend MARTA out to Alpharetta, Kennesaw, Lawrenceville, etc. because it doesn't want riff raff from the burbs having easy access to in-town.

[Galounger]

Everything that everyone is complaining about when it comes to MARTA and other transit are issues that MARTAs founders and others tried to adress from the beginning but were somehow stopped.

Originally MARTA was to have atleast three more lines in town. Two of those lines met huge opposition from in town citizens who didn't want MARTA trains rumbling past their homes. After several attempts many of MARTA's proposed new lines were abandoned.

Originally MARTA had plans to extend into surrounding surburbs but the politicians and civic leaders there would have none of that. They fought with the goal of keeping us riffraff from Atlanta from being able to hop a train into their pristine surburbs with our robbing, raping , and pillaging.

There have been studies, funding and proposals for commuter rail for a good while now. Atleast one of the proposed commuter lines (a line south to Lovejoy and eventually to Macon) has met great opposition from politicians in the southern surburbs who argue they don't want to be saddled with part of the expense of maintaining a train line that they are sure will be an underused failure (of course who in their right mind would want to take a train when they could drive? )

Alas, forget mass transit. Even major roadways seem to have become impossible to build in Atlanta. Political infighting left the Northern Arc project (Atlanta's most ambitious highway proposal to relieve Interstate traffic through town) dead.

For a city with such a progressive, cooperative, can do attitude about so many things. It seems we come to a stand still when it comes to traffic issues.

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by WestCobb

People with foresight are already moving closer in and there are lots more people looking for walking comunities etc.

There is a great article in the Atlantic this month that talks about the death of the suburbs within the next twenty to thirty years. About two-thirds of Americans now prefer to live somewhere walkable, in either a city or a new urban city space with shops, restaraunts, a movie theater, etc. less than a mile from their house. They are also willing to have less total living space to do so. Construction is about to match demand and mixed-use spaces like Atlantic Station and the new town squares constructed in northern Virginia, Florida and other places are about to explode. Those hulking monster houses, sitting empty on clear cut forest graveyards might not ever be occupied to full capacity again.. or rather, not in the same way. Like inner city row houses a half century ago, they will be split up into subsistent tentament apartments. So much for the great suburban schools and neighborhoods. How nice can a neighborhood be when its filled with transients who are paying $300 a month or so to rent? Even worse than yesterday's abandoned inner cities, these new outland ghetto burbs will detoriate rapidly because those hulking houses were not built to last. Row houses were constructed of brick and plaster.. they could withstand the abuse of being partitioned, and they didn't need the constant upkeep that only the middle class and upper middle class could provide to remain looking somewhat nice and solid. How good is a 5,000 square foot house built by Legacy going to look 15 years down the road if no one has ever put a dime into routine maintenance? The future of the burbs could look quite hellish. On the upside though, it will look brighter and greener in the cities. I'm ready to live in a walkable village. Apparently, so are 66% of Americans. Far less pollution and a healthier, more sustainable future is on the horizon. Imagine a future where Atlanta refuses to extend MARTA out to Alpharetta, Kennesaw, Lawrenceville, etc. because it doesn't want riff raff from the burbs having easy access to in-town.

I highly doubt that "66% of Americans" desire to move to an in-town location- such a number is absolutely absurd, and I'd love to know where the article came up with that number. Think about it- how much of the population currently lives in an area that doesn't require them to work "in town" (think rural areas here....)? Now consider those who do work "in town", but prefer not to live on top of their neighbor. Remember- not every city has the traffic issues and lack of decent public transportation that Atlanta has, so what you see here (which I doubt even meets the "66%" number) isn't reflective of the entire country.

That article's notion that McMansions will eventually be "cut up into tenements" sounds like something out of a George Orwell book- the author should go into the fiction writing business.....

[OREGONRAIN]

Originally Posted by beefchuck

mos def...if it does not improve, it will actually have many natives looking elsewhere. really already has, but not just burbs, out of state.

Everyone I have ever met here in Portland that came here from Atlanta, listed the traffic and lack of infrastructure as their leading reason for the move.

[JPD]

Originally Posted by BobKovacs

I highly doubt that "66% of Americans" desire to move to an in-town location-

Perhaps "walkable" and "in town" are being used interchangably. That is a mistake. My brother lives in a large house in suburban Lawrenceville in a neighborhood with sidewalks everywhere. There are restaurants, shops and a neighborhood pool/clubhouse and a lake all within easy walking distance. Living out there would not work for me, but to say it is not walkable is completely false. I could name plenty of "in town" locations that are far less walkable.

[OREGONRAIN]

Originally Posted by neil0311

Wow..you sure do have a lot of insight into the motives and habits of a large number of people. I really wish I understood the world and the mind of suburban residents as well as you do.

Have you ever considered that some people may not want to live in a high density urban area? Maybe they've lived in that environment for many years and want a little sprawl? Maybe they have no reason to go downtown, so a transit system that only goes downtown is of no practical use to them, except for those one off times going to a ball game or concert? I don't drive an SUV, but what gives you the right to criticize someone who does, call them "backwards", and ascribe all sorts of malevolent motives to them?

Because they are not living in the 21st century and are not contributing anything to stop our dependence on foreign oil. Not to mention getting off their butt and learning to walk for some exercise and helping clean up the smog you have in Metro Atlanta, thats why. In other words the driving around in huge vehicles and not contributing to a solution to the whole mess has to end. Its not just Atlanta its the majority of the USA, the gas could be $10 a gallon and they would still drive around in the biggest of the SUV's . Marta could be an excellent system and is left to be no better than it was in the 80's, and it is all politics.

[WestCobb]

BobKovacs, I specifically used the term "walkable" not "in-town." According to this article, two-thirds of Americans want to live somewhere they can walk to shops, grocery stores, entertainment, restaurants, etc., not necessarily in a high rise ultra urban condo. Currently, there is way more demand for this kind of living than there is supply -- leading to the coming transformation. There are communities like this in northern Virginia (basically new villages in what would otherwise be a suburban area) and they are appreciating in value at a much higher rate than the old school drive-everywhere communities around them.

I think there will be a mass movement back to the cities (it's already underway), but I think there will probably be an even bigger "new village" or "new urban" or whatever development happening. My wife detests city living.. she's a fan of the burbs, so if the burbs do become a hellish crime-ridden landscape, I'll probably end up in one of the newly designed suburban areas, I'm sure. (I'm hoping they revitalize the Marietta Square into a live/walk suburban/urban zone so I don't have far to move.)

Rather you agree or not, you should check the article out. It's in the March edition of the Atlantic. It's interesting reading. And come on, I bet even if you're one of the burb dwellers (like me), it's kind of fun for you to imagine a Mad Max future just around the corner. Take a stroll on your neighborhood culdesac street and imagine it clogged with drunken vagrants, smashing bottles, shooting guns and selling drugs so they can afford a couple of gallons of $50 a-gallon-gas so they can go into the city and steal something. Apparently, this isn't far off to what is happening in some foreclosed upon subdivisions outside of Stockton, CA. Hell, if you really want to protect your investment, you might want to start putting in some reinforced framework so it can be easily partitioned into tenaments. That will make it more attractive to the future slum lord who's going to buy it in 2010 or so. (Just kidding with that last part.)

[gt6974a]

Is Marta utilized to it's fullest?

Yes....

Marta can't even sustain itself with a sales tax increase.

CCT is profitable without a sale tax.

As far as rail, hardly anyone actually works off a rail line to make it convenient to use. The work place density, as well as the suburban density is very small making rail impractical.

This is coming from someone who use CCT Express Bus to get to/from work. But it's only convenient for a few.

[JPD]

Originally Posted by gt6974a

Is Marta utilized to it's fullest?



Marta can't even sustain itself with a sales tax increase.

CCT is profitable without a sale tax.

I'm pretty sure it costs exponentially more to operate a rail and bus system than it does to operate a bus only system.

[WestCobb]

Perhaps "walkable" and "in town" are being used interchangably. That is a mistake. My brother lives in a large house in suburban Lawrenceville in a neighborhood with sidewalks everywhere. There are restaurants, shops and a neighborhood pool/clubhouse and a lake all within easy walking distance. Living out there would not work for me, but to say it is not walkable is completely false. I could name plenty of "in town" locations that are far less walkable.

JPD, the Lawrenceville community you describe is more of what I had in mind when I said walkable. Your brother will probably resell at a much higher value than his neighbors living in the classic drive-to-get milk burbs.

I'm not trying to pan the suburbs -- I see their advantages. My wife loves her garden and her privacy. I think, though, that a lot of Americans are saying .. hey, why not the advantages of the burbs and the city? (I suppose this means the in-town areas could become more suburb-like too.) It just so happens that the demand for this style of living is happening right at the time that we have a lot of empty recently built old-style subdivisions. It could be that the demand for this older model of American living will never again match the supply. That could be bad news for someone who bought a McMansion circa 2000 to present.. but of course the savy will see the writing on the wall well advance and get out when they can still do so without losing their shirts.