The ATL: new regional transit system (Atlanta, Marietta: corporate, reduce, road)

[demonta4]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

Just wondering and all but why would it kill Heavy Rail to Alpharetta?

And with the current funding, would MARTA truly have been better off themselves in accomplishing this?

Any additional tax passed in Fulton can’t be used for heavy rail. I also don’t see how extra funding is going to help when the only thing we’re pushing for is BRT. I would be okay with light rail, but BRT isn’t good enough to serve as a rail replacement.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by demonta4

Any additional tax passed in Fulton can’t be used for heavy rail. I also don’t see how extra funding is going to help when the only thing we’re pushing for is BRT. I would be okay with light rail, but BRT isn’t good enough to serve as a rail replacement.

I personally would like to see light rail as well but I think at this point its Heavy Rail expansions or we get nothing at all.

[arjay57]

Sounds like this ATL thing is going to be a doozy.

[tikigod311]

On fridays political rewind podcast, Jim Galloway (ajc) initially referred to what passed as the “commuter rail bill”. They talked about the bill a lot more but Galloway never elaborated on the commuter rail comment. I wonder what made him say that?

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/487480863/political-rewind

[ccdscott]

The name is terrible. I'm sorry ya'll. ATL? We gotta do better.

[WanderingImport]

Originally Posted by ccdscott

The name is terrible. I'm sorry ya'll. ATL? We gotta do better.

Why is this bad? I like it and ATL is a name brand for the city. It’s appropriately named.

[Chevalier de Saint-George]

Originally Posted by WanderingImport

Why is this bad? I like it and ATL is a name brand for the city. It’s appropriately named.

For the city but not so much a transit system. Atlanta Transit Link, I get it but Metro Atlanta Linked Transit or Metro Atlanta Transit Authority or anything else would have just been better. ATL is tied to the city but it's just redundant to name that the transit system.

[primaltech]

Having it be just some random acronym would have made no sense. ATL in this case is both an acronym and a brand, and it's an already-established brand, and one that's familiar to people all across the metro, ITP and OTP. And with no negative connotations.

The re-brand allows a fresh start, a new transit system. A clean slate, for everyone across the metro to be able to have and be a part of, from its inception. While also keeping MARTA as the main operator of that system. Their logo I'm sure will still show up everywhere. There is nothing in the bill that says anything other than that they need to have the ATL logo prominent on everything.

The other thing about the re-branding, is that it's global and not specific to any operator. There is nothing that says that the goal of ATL is for everything to be 100% operated by MARTA. Only that any other operators have to coordinate with MARTA, which I presume means jurisdictions will be more blurred. Services will be more coordinated. Everything will probably be much more unified than it is now, regardless of what MARTA operates or doesn't. (But they will probably end up operating most of it.)

In general, I see plenty of reasons to be happy and excited with this. This bill wasn't so much about expanding transit, as setting up the framework for expanding transit. Step 2 is the actual expansion of transit via increased taxes, but that has to be approved by voters. Which is fair.

What the ATL does is enable everything. It enables commuter rail, it enables BRT across county lines, like between Fulton and Cobb around 285. It answers a lot of questions that were not clear before. Like, under what brand would transit be.

Before this bill, Gwinnett or Cobb had fewer options, and fewer still options that they were particularly happy about. Now they have all kinds of options (and can receive federal funding for their Transit-SPLOST), to figure out what's right for them when it comes to transit. And no matter what they do, now we at least know that it will be one seamless system across the Fulton and DeKalb county lines. All the primary metro counties are in the system, in all directions.

This changes everything. In a really good way. I really can't stress that enough. But I don't think it will be super evident to everyone how groundbreaking this bill was until like 5-10 years from now. When we FINALLY have a truly metropolitan transit system, that can go everywhere it needs to go.

[primaltech]

As far as the whole thing about clarity/confusion with other meanings of ATL, what they should do IMO is call it ATL Transit. Sort of like Sound Transit up in Seattle.

And heck, they already have a website. And a logo:

ATLtransit

[ccdscott]

OK, that website and ATLTransit sounds better. And looks better. But the whole ATL nickname has been overdone. It's funny, before I moved here, from the Midwest, I called it the ATL everywhere, like I was being in the know. Now, living down here, hardly anybody refers to the city like that. LOL