I-85 bridge near Piedmont Rd Collapses. (Atlanta, Alpharetta: zoning, train station, Lowes)

[bu2]

Also, if you have a particularly bad problem on a day, transit does absolutely zero for the people who are stuck in it in their cars.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by bu2

If you grow it fills up. If you don't, it doesn't. If you don't build and grow, you become Los Angeles where you are in gridlock 18 hours a day.

That's assuming that you can, in any practical sense, build enough interstates to keep up with not only natural growth, but induced demand. As we've seen over and over and over again, you can't. What's worse, is that those interstates don't even generate the kind of development that pays for the amount of money spent on supporting infrastructure.

Redundancy means the ability to select a different route if there is an unusual issue. That barely exists in Atlanta. Cities with more freeways and more robust arterial networks have pretty much endless alternatives.

Which is why I said our surface roads need help, but redundancy also means having alternatives to the roads all together which Atlanta has far less of than road redundancy.

A place like Manhattan with lots of traffic still has tons of options if one route is particularly bad.

And I have no problem with expanding and implementing proper grid systems for our streets, but New York also has extensive alternatives to driving in the first place, which does a far better job of providing alternatives for far more people than a new freeway

Originally Posted by bu2

Also, if you have a particularly bad problem on a day, transit does absolutely zero for the people who are stuck in it in their cars.

But it does provide alternatives to those who could use transit, but choose not to, which, by extension, helps those who can't use transit by shifting people off the road.


Here's where I keep coming back to in my mind: you've argued in the past that we don't have enough demand for commuter rail, which would mostly use existing right of way, incentivize non-car development, and provide an alternative to driving entirely. As far as I know, your view has not changed. Yet you feel that there is enough demand to justify spending far more money on new freeways, that will need entirely new right of way and perpetuate fiscally unsustainable development, without providing any alternative to the road network?

[bu2]

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

That's assuming that you can, in any practical sense, build enough interstates to keep up with not only natural growth, but induced demand. As we've seen over and over and over again, you can't. What's worse, is that those interstates don't even generate the kind of development that pays for the amount of money spent on supporting infrastructure.



Which is why I said our surface roads need help, but redundancy also means having alternatives to the roads all together which Atlanta has far less of than road redundancy.



And I have no problem with expanding and implementing proper grid systems for our streets, but New York also has extensive alternatives to driving in the first place, which does a far better job of providing alternatives for far more people than a new freeway



But it does provide alternatives to those who could use transit, but choose not to, which, by extension, helps those who can't use transit by shifting people off the road.


Here's where I keep coming back to in my mind: you've argued in the past that we don't have enough demand for commuter rail, which would mostly use existing right of way, incentivize non-car development, and provide an alternative to driving entirely. As far as I know, your view has not changed. Yet you feel that there is enough demand to justify spending far more money on new freeways, that will need entirely new right of way and perpetuate fiscally unsustainable development, without providing any alternative to the road network?

There was a person in the Texas Department of Transportation who put it well (rough quote)-"What we are doing (building more freeway lanes) isn't scalable. We need to provide alternatives. But we are going to continue to build as much as we can."

At some point you have the situation you have with skyscrapers. Building them beyond a certain height doesn't make sense because you are using too much space for elevators.

But at the same time, I also agree with Houston MTA's slogan in their rail referendum as it applies to cars, "What is we didn't build it, but they came anyway?" The cars will come. You need to build as much as you can to avoid making the city like Los Angeles. Its one thing to have rush hour traffic. Its quite another to be like Los Angeles and like Atlanta is trending to have traffic 18 hours a day. Transit does much better providing an alternative for rush hours where destinations and timing are bunched.

Atlanta (metro) did nothing on roads for 20 years and just now is starting to do HOT lanes. Atlanta did very little on transit either. Now they are finally planning on doing some things for transit, but also seem to be focused on making life more difficult for drivers. Like my wife was complaining about the other day: They put a concrete divider in a North Avenue lane she used for going straight. Now she has to wait in line behind a long line of cars turning right.

We need to spend money on both. Transit needs to be done right, not done just to be done. Rail is often a very inefficient way to do things. Just because it works in Manhattan and Connecticut or Atlanta's midtown, doesn't mean it works in Snellville.

[cwkimbro]

Hi All,


I've been insanely busy this year, so my apologies for not having been around much lately. Premptively, my apologies if this has already been posted elsewhere on this forum...


However, one of the ARC's online publications has a very good presentation about the effects of this that needs a good look. It includes many of the earlier things we discussed.


One thing I want I want to bring up is -who- this closure effected the most. It wasn't merely those that lived in the northeast corridor. It had a strong impact on those on the southern part of the region and commute into our northern suburbs.


There is other interesting findings as well: May 2017 Regional Snapshot: What we have learned from the I-85 bridge collapse - 33n

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by bu2

There was a person in the Texas Department of Transportation who put it well (rough quote)-"What we are doing (building more freeway lanes) isn't scalable. We need to provide alternatives. But we are going to continue to build as much as we can."

At some point you have the situation you have with skyscrapers. Building them beyond a certain height doesn't make sense because you are using too much space for elevators.

Sadly, it was too long ago I saw this and I won't be able to find it easily.


The old overplayed Atlanta becoming Los Angeles doesn't pan out. In fact, we actually have the opposite problem from Los Angeles and some of this would support you opinions.


There are analysis that have been done in metro Areas to look at how much land is dedicated to a particular function and then again on a per capita scale. Los Angeles has an insane amount of roadways for their overall land usage percentage, compared to all peer cities.


Atlanta, inversely, lags behind most peer cities. Largely, from out 30+ years of minor investments to our system that was built out by the previous generation.



There is much room for Atlanta to have had more land usage in ground transportation and not be following LA's path. In fact, we already an opposite from LA... of course so opposite it brings us bad results in a different way and we have plenty of room to not be defiant to motorists.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

The problem is inherent with using a road system as practically the only method to (attempt) to move massive amounts of people. I seriously doubt building additional interstate-level roads would do us a lick of good. After all, how redundant is it really if they just clog up with traffic again, as has been the case for pretty much anything in that vein.

It would probably help quite a bit for many years, before they filled back up. But, your point is mostly valid. But the same problem plagues something like MARTA in its current design. If something shuts down Five Points, the whole system becomes essentially useless. If something falls across a rail anywhere, that part of the system can't be bypassed.

The answer is, in part, extensive transit expansion, and better surface street design.

Well, short of tearing up the city, the streets are what they are, as far as where they run.

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

Here's where I keep coming back to in my mind: you've argued in the past that we don't have enough demand for commuter rail, which would mostly use existing right of way, incentivize non-car development, and provide an alternative to driving entirely. As far as I know, your view has not changed. Yet you feel that there is enough demand to justify spending far more money on new freeways, that will need entirely new right of way and perpetuate fiscally unsustainable development, without providing any alternative to the road network?

Here's where things get odd: I have been supporting huge investment in new transit options, specifically rail. But our resident uber-urbanist is flat out against it until we become even more dense and clogged. What's your opinion on that?

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

Here's where things get odd: I have been supporting huge investment in new transit options, specifically rail. But our resident uber-urbanist is flat out against it until we become even more dense and clogged. What's your opinion on that?

What "uber-urbanist" here is against investing in transit? But I do know some that want to ban the urban density needed to support heavy transit and at the same time claim to want more transit. Weird, right?

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

What "uber-urbanist" here is against investing in transit? But I do know some that want to ban the urban density needed to support heavy transit and at the same time claim to want more transit. Weird, right?

Nope. You're wrong. try again.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

One thing I want I want to bring up is -who- this closure effected the most. It wasn't merely those that lived in the northeast corridor. It had a strong impact on those on the southern part of the region and commute into our northern suburbs.

Thanks, cw.

When we talk about transportation in the ATL it's important to remember that people are going every which way, not simply heading into a central location from the suburbs. The vast majority of the traffic is suburb to suburb.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

Nope. You're wrong. try again.

Use your words Sam. Tell us about where the mean urbanist hurt you.