Georgia senator: Atlanta suburbs need to get on board with mass transit (Sandy Springs: good credit, high school)

[fieldm]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I'm just curious...

Is it incumbent upon Cobb County to come to MARTA with something? What if instead, MARTA officials wooed them with a plan they couldn't resist?

[primaltech]

MARTA should make a push for Cobb. Come up with an amazing, comprehensive plan, with social-media-shareable graphics and such. Nice renderings, videos, pdf file brochures, all that.

Be like... "this is what you could get for 1%".

Yes, it would cost a little bit out of MARTA's budget. But still. They'd make the money right back if Cobb joined.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I'm just curious...

Is it incumbent upon Cobb County to come to MARTA with something? What if instead, MARTA officials wooed them with a plan they couldn't resist?

MARTA's policy is that they will make a presentation to Cobb and Gwinnett when they are ready for MARTA, so yes, it is incumbent on Cobb to make the first move. Otherwise MARTA would be spending money developing a plan for a county that may or may not want it, when it has better things to do within its own service area.

Originally Posted by cqholt

Cobb has 2 steps to even hold a sales tax referendum, get past the first hurdle then maybe there's hope. Honestly, I think Clayton Co has the blueprint for other jurisdictions joining MARTA.

Clayton should be the blueprint, but other counties need actually acknowledge that because people don't seem to understand that.

[cqholt]

Why doesn't Cobb start a grassroots effort, if there are so many people who want high quality transit?

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Why doesn't Cobb start a grassroots effort, if there are so many people who want high quality transit?

Obligatory: Transit for Cobb Campaign

This website is intended to educate the citizens of Cobb as to what expanding transit in the county could look like, and what options are available to the county. It is the collective effort of a coalition of various grass roots and locally-lead organizations looking to improve transit in the county.

[ATLTJL]

MARTA's policy is that they will make a presentation to Cobb and Gwinnett when they are ready for MARTA

What, exactly, does that mean?

Can Cobb and Gwinnett say to MARTA, "we want to put it on the ballot, come show us what you've got," or will MARTA not provide anything until a tax has been approved? Because most people don't like to fund things until they have a pretty decent idea what they'd be getting.

[fieldm]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

What, exactly, does that mean?

Can Cobb and Gwinnett say to MARTA, "we want to put it on the ballot, come show us what you've got," or will MARTA not provide anything until a tax has been approved? Because most people don't like to fund things until they have a pretty decent idea what they'd be getting.

Not sure if you are a male or a female. If you are a male, a single male, would you ask a woman for her phone number for decades if she always kept saying no?

[ATLTJL]

If, technically speaking, she told me no once in like 1970, I might try asking for it again more than 40 years later....

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

If, technically speaking, she told me no once in like 1970, I might try asking for it again more than 40 years later....

Go get some data. We need it, certainly, and I've been pushing for some proper polling on the topic, but until we have solid evidence that Cobb at large wants to join MARTA, it just doesn't make sense for the agency to spend resources on them.

[ATLTJL]

I agree that the county would have to show some interest first and ask MARTA to present it to them.

But I also think if MARTA hopes to expand, it can't expect counties to vote in a tax without at least a pretty decent understanding of what exactly that tax is going to fund.

But maybe MARTA doesn't need to actually provide that information. I mean, with as many studies as have been conducted over the past decades, I'm sure it wouldn't be that difficult to obtain decent renderings of what the stations could look like and where the track could go.

Personally, I'd want to invest a little extra in cameras for the elevators and invent a special "peeing in the elevator" charge that results in life in prison without the possibility of parole