More Highway Widening (Atlanta: movies, store, moving)

[PKCorey]

Man, you guys sure as hell know how to belabor a point. Yeesh.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

Oh...so you're not looking at the whole project. You're just looking at the first little sliver of it. No wonder there is so much confusion here.

...

Wait...so you're surprised that 750 and 1500 mile trips are done more by plane than car, and that trips under 250 miles are 97% by car??? You just ruined your own argument. The thread is about a highway to the South Carolina border. From downtown Atlanta to the South Carolina border is exactly 100 miles. Thus, by your own source 97% or more of the trips to that destination, and more than twice that far, are by personal vehicle. Thus, it would make sense to bring the road that covers that trip up to better standards. If the number of trips is already 97%, then how much more can you really encourage??

We are talking about the widening project taking place on I-85 between Gwinnett and Jackson Counties being discussed in this article: GDOT seeks input on widening I-85 in Gwinnett County

But yes, we are talking about the nationwide interstate highway system as a whole in the broader sense.

There is nothing that will limit drivers to only driving exactly the 100 mi length of this project. No, people will use this road for 5 mile daily commutes and 2,000 mile road trips.

When you widen it you are encouraging more people to drive when they might have flown. Or commute on it via car when they might have just lived closer to their job. And just because we don't widen it doesn't mean this highway disappears. I am even fine if we widen it as long as we are paying for it with direct user fees.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

Right.....where they make sense. And here, it makes sense to make the road better.

And who gets to decide where it makes sense? You? No thanks. Let people decide for themselves.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

You do know that is practically impossible, right? How many line items do you think there are on a typical government budget? Can you imagine if we all got to check off what we did and did not want our dollars going to, what a complete and utter clusterfudge it would be? No...we all pool our money together, and it gets spent according to the ways our elected officials decide, based on public input. And I'm afraid that the number of people on your side is not nearly as large as you think it is.

I am not proposing we had each person a checklist to fill out. I am proposing we let more people vote with their checkbook. It is much easier than the current system where no one can even figure out how much they are paying. $3 for MARTA fare or $5 in tolls? $150 air fare or $100 in tolls?

Originally Posted by samiwas1

I don't even know what this sentence is suppose dot mean. So, you're okay with government subsidizing roads as long as corporations can profit off of them?

I am OK with anything that shifts transportation more towards being directly funded by user fees.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

No...you want them to go to the society you want. Out of all the people posting in this thread, only you and cqholt seem to be against this project. Why do you think you represent the majority?

Because that is the way things are going. More roads are getting tolled. More people are using alternatives to driving. More people are moving into cities.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

No one is going to walk to South Carolina. No one is going to bike to South Carolina. Very few people want the hassle of taking transit to South Carolina. Who on earth is going to fly to South Carolina from Atlanta?? And if they take a train, are they going to walk from there? It makes no sense.

Again, you seem to be confused and think that if we don't use our tax dollars to fund widening this road, we have to get rid of all roads and all cars. Nope.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

That's not what I asked. You said you don't want to pay for parking that you don't use at a retail establishment. Are you equally upset about free hotel amenities that you may or may not use?

Nope. The market will take care of that (and "free parking" provided by businesses) as long as there are no laws requiring someone to provide an amenity.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

No access, or no freeways running directly through the middle of them? Can you name a major city center that has no freeway access? There are multiple freeways into Manhattan. There are multiple freeways into Chicago. There are freeways right through San Francisco. There are freeways or highways into Tokyo, London, and Sydney. Paris has a 6-mile diameter city center with a perimeter, although no highways directly in the center.

Can you be more specific about what you mean?

None of the freeways in those cities are anywhere close to the size of our freeways. Most are no bigger than 2-3 lanes. There are no freeways within at least 5 miles of London city limits or that cut into central Paris. And most aren't freeways, they have tolls (Japan's expressway network, for example, was fully privatized in 2005).

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

And who gets to decide where it makes sense? You? No thanks. Let people decide for themselves.

So, I should decide for myself whether the road I'm driving on should be wider? And if I think it should be wider, then what? You do realize how ridiculous you sound, right? I'm starting to wonder whether you are even serious or just having a giggle.

I am not proposing we had each person a checklist to fill out. I am proposing we let more people vote with their checkbook. It is much easier than the current system where no one can even figure out how much they are paying. $3 for MARTA fare or $5 in tolls? $150 air fare or $100 in tolls?

You do realize there is far more to these decisions than "how much does it cost me", right? For a trip of 200 miles, I can either drive there in three hours, or I can spend that same amount of time going to an airport, going through security, waiting forever, dealing with idiot travelers, and then having to figure out local transportation at my destination. I generally won't fly to a destination that is under 6-8 hours drive time, unless I will not be going anywhere at the destination.

Again, for the billionth time...MARTA is not sufficient for 95% of trips. You could make MARTA free and charge me $20 per car trip, and I would still have to make the car trip.

I am OK with anything that shifts transportation more towards being directly funded by user fees.

So, you aren't worried about taxes being spent (and given to corporations). You just want users to also directly pay for things, using incredibly inefficient tolling, because...well, I guess because you want to stick it to them for not doing things your way.

I can think of no worse hell than having to consistently stop and pay fees everywhere I go and for everything I do. Forget about the money, it's the sheer annoyance of having to stop and deal with all that. You call that freedom, somehow. I call that hell.

I'm also curious...how much do you want to toll? Just major interstates? All highways? Arterial roads? Local roads? Neighborhood roads? The Silver Comet? The Beltline? Sidewalks? Bike lanes? How far are you willing to go? How much do you think the general public would support and desire this?

Because that is the way things are going. More roads are getting tolled. More people are using alternatives to driving. More people are moving into cities.

Not nearly to the amount you seem to think. As I said, in 15 pages of discussion, only two people think the way you do.

Again, you seem to be confused and think that if we don't use our tax dollars to fund widening this road, we have to get rid of all roads and all cars. Nope.

I didn't say or imply anything of the sort. I said that not making the road work better for its current demand is dumb because the alternative methods are not sufficient. I have no idea where on earth you got that I think the alternative is removing everything else. I'm really starting to wonder about you.

Nope. The market will take care of that (and "free parking" provided by businesses) as long as there are no laws requiring someone to provide an amenity.

Wait...do you think that people don't actually want all those amenities, and would rather pay fees, and that the market will soon show that?

None of the freeways in those cities are anywhere close to the size of our freeways. Most are no bigger than 2-3 lanes. There are no freeways within at least 5 miles of London city limits or that cut into central Paris. And most aren't freeways, they have tolls (Japan's expressway network, for example, was fully privatized in 2005).

And most of them have extensive transit systems that were built long ago. Build those, which will take decades at best, and we can talk about losing some roads. But, you can't just stop spending on roads or keeping roads up to demand while you spend decades building out your transit. We voted on a huge transit initiative several years ago. I was a huge proponent of it, but it got defeated handily because it "wasn't good enough". With that mentality, we will likely never get much going here. An extra lane on one freeway to bring it up to need is a very small project in the grand scheme of things.

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by jsvh

It doesn't matter if they were only widening it from Jackson County to SC, it still has the same effect. You are encouraging more car trips than would happen otherwise. The ratio of commuter vs regional users does not matter. Why are you so hung up on this? Even it were somehow 100% regional traffic it doesn't help your case any. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the share non-car long-distance trips is higher than commuter trips.

Edit: Yep:

Long Distance Transportation Patterns: Mode Choice | Bureau of Transportation Statistics

Originally Posted by samiwas1

Oh...so you're not looking at the whole project. You're just looking at the first little sliver of it. No wonder there is so much confusion here.


Wait...so you're surprised that 750 and 1500 mile trips are done more by plane than car, and that trips under 250 miles are 97% by car??? You just ruined your own argument. The thread is about a highway to the South Carolina border. From downtown Atlanta to the South Carolina border is exactly 100 miles. Thus, by your own source 97% or more of the trips to that destination, and more than twice that far, are by personal vehicle. Thus, it would make sense to bring the road that covers that trip up to better standards. If the number of trips is already 97%, then how much more can you really encourage??

You're all over the place. You are the one (always) hung up on commuting and the metro area saying that "people should live closer to their jobs" when the majority of the complete project is outside of the Atlanta commuting area. Your first post had NOTHING to do with regional or national transportation. YOU were focused solely on metro area traffic and mass transit (something something streetcar, something something light rail).

What were the examples I gave at first? Charlotte and upstate SC. Charlotte is pretty much right at 250 miles downtown to downtown. What metro areas are part of the "Piedmont megaregion" with so much traffic? Oh that's right, Charlotte and GSP. I even gave costs for travelling with a Pennsylvania level (so, high) toll on 90 something miles of I 85. I'm not making claims about Raleigh or Richmond or DC, etc. We have a place on Lake Hartwell. When I stop at the places off exit 173 you know what I see a lot of? Families. Lots of families from SC and NC and also GA (typically metro Atlanta). Yea sometimes there are ones from farther away (who's gonna fly a four wheeler from Ruston Lousiana to Rabun County?) Also your data says that mileage is a huge factor. In that case, does it even matter? How many people in Raleigh are gonna choose to drive because one segment got widened? They still have to contend with Charlotte, GSP and Atlanta traffic. They still have a large amount of time added on to the trip.

[jsvh]

sedimenjerry - It doesn't matter if the highway is 100% commuters or 100% long-distance travlers (obviously it is a mix of both), either way it is still encouraging more people to drive on that section of road than would otherwise.

And no, you don't get to keep acting like the choice is between widening this road with tax dollars or no cars ever. My stance has never been that we need to get rid of all cars ever.

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by jsvh

either way it is still encouraging more people to drive on that section of road than would otherwise.

I disagree. Everyone driving on this section of I-85, whether they live in the area or are just driving to/from SC, would be doing so regardless if it's a 4-lane or a 6-lane freeway. The only difference is the congestion.

And even if that were true, another way to say the same thing would be that it would be discouraging people from driving on other competing Georgia highways in the area. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

If you want to point to a downside, it's that it might spur a few more subdivisions to be built out there. But even though sprawl is not smart growth, and even though that just fills in the new lanes with more traffic, it's still increasing the state population, adding workers to the workforce, and growing our economy.

[MattCW]

Originally Posted by jsvh

sedimenjerry - It doesn't matter if the highway is 100% commuters or 100% long-distance travlers (obviously it is a mix of both), either way it is still encouraging more people to drive on that section of road than would otherwise.

And no, you don't get to keep acting like the choice is between widening this road with tax dollars or no cars ever. My stance has never been that we need to get rid of all cars ever.

You should know better, there are FAR more factors to the number of highway users than number of lanes. Adding one more lane to this stretch of I-85 isn't going to magically make more people use it. By your logic, we could widen 2 miles of I-75 to 16 lanes in Laconte, GA and a million people would immediately move down there to use it.

[jsvh]

Of course lanes are not the only factor determining highway usage. But it is a factor. People will consider other alternative (routes or modes) if there is too much congestion. And there will always be a shortage of something you give away for free.

The point is, there is not enough demand for this section to be widened. It's users aren't will to directly pay for it. This money should be spent on other things.

If you want to keep driving on this road, great. Just pay for it directly and stop trying to encourage people to drive who would rather not.

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Of course lanes are not the only factor determining highway usage. But it is a factor.

The point is, there is not enough demand for this section to be widened. It's users aren't will to directly pay for it. This money should be spent on other things.

If you want to keep driving on this road, great. Just pay for it directly and stop trying to encourage people to drive who would rather not.

Funny how that argument only seems to apply to the things you personally dislike, in areas you don't live.

I haven't seen you saying that all public tax funding should be permanently cut off for MARTA, since 95% of the people paying for it aren't ever using it. Shouldn't that be funded completely by user fees (huge fare increases), by the people who are using it? Or is that different, because jsvh really likes transit?

You say that the roads only exist because of government subsidies, OK, so doesn't that also apply to transit? You'd think MARTA would be profitable and sustainable with zero sales tax funding subsidizing it?

I-85 is a public asset, it's a public good. We all benefit from it, one way or another, directly or indirectly. Same thing with MARTA. Road projects and other transportation projects (like commuter rail), should be paid for by our collective taxes. Now, it sucks that we're neglecting putting in some commuting alternatives to roads, but at least we're expanding the roads. It's better than lack of economic growth, because of lack of public infrastructure investment, because of lack of taxes. Because that's basically the alternative.

[cqholt]

I would be OK, with an agreement that once this section is widened to 6 lanes, that no more lanes are added and instead GDOT looks into investing into the intercity/HSR along this corridor. 6 lanes does help with the amount of traffic between the metros, but investments in rail should be looked at too.