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Old 09-18-2018, 08:47 AM
bu2
 
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And transit needs to be designed to serve potential customers, not have potential customers adjust to serve transit.

Transit includes bus, express bus and rail. Rail doesn't make sense everywhere. But you can't ignore large swaths of the service area.
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Old 09-18-2018, 09:07 AM
 
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Pretty sure MARTA would get a ton of new riders if new stations were opened on Covington HWY, Wesley Chapel, Lithonia Industrial and Stonecrest, especially if Stone were to invest more the the mall area and put up more housing and some office buildings.


But a big problem with new apartments or townhomes, especially above or very near a rail line, is that the cost for a 1 bedroom is probably going to be $1000+ and when you can afford to pay that much, typically you will have a car and not rely on MARTA. This same crowd will also stop riding MARTA if they have more than a few experience with lewd behavior on the trains, and while not common and often, there are times when many of us wondered why the hell we didnt just bother driving to where we needed to go when the wanna be rapper, person with extra loud music playing, beggar, and extra loud and vulgar person decides everyone on the train needs to hear their business.





But the big problem still, is that too many jobs and good paying ones are on the northside where no rail runs, so unless more companies start coming back downtown, many will still just drive than take a 1.5-2hr commute on MARTA to get to work.
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Old 09-18-2018, 09:24 AM
 
Location: Decatur, GA
7,348 posts, read 6,484,802 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jsvh View Post
Transit will never be able to effectively serve suburban sprawl. You will simply never be able to support high-capacity transit service at enough locations to make it convent for most drivers as a reasonable alternative to driving based on convenience / time savings alone.
Why not? If the station is where the people have to drive past anyways, and the train zips them past <15mph traffic at 70mph, it will be very convenient and have a lot of time savings.

Quote:
The solution is legalizing more density (which in turn can support high-capacity transit) and more directly charging people the true costs of their commute. Not continuing to subsidize parking with our very finite transit tax dollars.
It's not an either-or. We can do both like we're doing with Avondale. There's no reason to exclude thousands of people from transit just out of some dogmatic ideological bent.

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The areas surrounding transit station should be densely filled with residences and walk-able mixed uses. Not parking lots.
Or both, like Avondale is soon to be.
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Old 09-18-2018, 07:30 PM
 
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Originally Posted by jsvh View Post
Transit will never be able to effectively serve suburban sprawl. You will simply never be able to support high-capacity transit service at enough locations to make it convent for most drivers as a reasonable alternative to driving based on convenience / time savings alone.
I think we could easily support commuter rail to our suburbs.

Quote:
The solution is legalizing more density (which in turn can support high-capacity transit) and more directly charging people the true costs of their commute. Not continuing to subsidize parking with our very finite transit tax dollars.
Sigh. Not about to go dig it up, but you posted a report (as proof of other claims) a few months ago which states that public parking makes money for cities. Apparently, it doesn't cost cities more money than it makes.

Quote:
The areas surrounding transit station should be densely filled with residences and walk-able mixed uses. Not parking lots.
Then you are against commuter rail?
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Old 09-18-2018, 08:13 PM
 
Location: Decatur, GA
7,348 posts, read 6,484,802 times
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Originally Posted by samiwas1 View Post
*SNIP*
Then you are against commuter rail?
To be fair, they aren't mutually exclusive. P&R lots don't have to be massive open-air parking lots, as I posted earlier, Avondale TOD will be a good example with a huge parking deck to serve commuters as well as the apartments and retail.
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Old 09-19-2018, 05:40 AM
 
Location: Kirkwood
23,726 posts, read 24,731,164 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MattCW View Post
To be fair, they aren't mutually exclusive. P&R lots don't have to be massive open-air parking lots, as I posted earlier, Avondale TOD will be a good example with a huge parking deck to serve commuters as well as the apartments and retail.
Any future commuter rail (ClayCo) and other high capacity transit lines should model the station area like this.
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Old 09-19-2018, 08:12 AM
 
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Commuter Rail is great. But like all transit, it functions better when the station is in the middle of a vibrant mixed use area (like an old-school small-town downtown), not a parking lot.

Also BRT is just fine for those that choose to park-and-ride on I-20. There is simply not enough of them to support HRT.
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Old 09-19-2018, 08:37 AM
 
Location: Kirkwood
23,726 posts, read 24,731,164 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jsvh View Post
Commuter Rail is great. But like all transit, it functions better when the station is in the middle of a vibrant mixed use area (like an old-school small-town downtown), not a parking lot.

Also BRT is just fine for those that choose to park-and-ride on I-20. There is simply not enough of them to support HRT.
Who is them? BRT will only work if given dedicated lanes and ramps on I-20.
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Old 09-19-2018, 08:46 AM
 
Location: Decatur, GA
7,348 posts, read 6,484,802 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jsvh View Post
Commuter Rail is great. But like all transit, it functions better when the station is in the middle of a vibrant mixed use area (like an old-school small-town downtown), not a parking lot.
*sigh* Again, they're not exclusive. If Metro Atlanta got a commuter rail system tomorrow, I would want stops in most downtowns along the lines, and P&R stations outside the cities, but even those P&R stations should look like Avondale with mixed-use around them where appropriate. You're not going to have 100% of those stations with dense development though. For instance, on the Gwinnett Line to Lawrenceville, there should absolutely be a station at Ronald Reagan parkway, but I don't see how that would be a good site for a dense mixed-use development. However, on the same line, there should be a P&R station at Sugarloaf parkway, and that area is a good match for a dense mixed-use TOD.

Quote:
Also BRT is just fine for those that choose to park-and-ride on I-20. There is simply not enough of them to support HRT.
And there wasn't enough of them to support BRT because BRT wouldn't attract nearly as many riders. To head off the inevitable "but you've said people will ride buses!" Yes, I have, and that hasn't changed. But most of that discussion was around local buses serving as first/last-mile connections. Not as trying to fit BRT where HRT is far superior.
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Old 09-19-2018, 10:13 AM
 
10,974 posts, read 10,816,726 times
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Originally Posted by MattCW View Post
...but even those P&R stations should look like Avondale with mixed-use around them where appropriate.
If you mean the same Avondale MARTA station where the surface parking lots are currently being replaced with apartments then, yes I agree. I don't think there should be no parking at stations, just that parking should not be the main feature of the station area and MARTA tax dollars should not go towards making that parking free.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MattCW View Post
But most of that discussion was around local buses serving as first/last-mile connections. Not as trying to fit BRT where HRT is far superior.
Considering the massive cost differences, in what way is HRT "far superior"? The additional capacity from HRT is not needed on that route. True BRT would operate at similar speeds (and likely even more frequency) than HRT.

And it is not like GA400 that already has HRT running and would require switching modes. This route forces an awkward southward turn for the existing HRT and all the plans call for BRT to still run ITP on I-20.

The only thing you are really left with is vanity concerns about BRT vs HRT. And those are not worth the costs.
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