MARTA News (Atlanta, Marietta, Tucker: storage, litigation, residential)

[arjay57]

I would support this plan. It would be grand to see those beauties gliding around our city.

Heck, get Rivian to make them and we'll keep it all in the family.

Originally Posted by primaltech

This is fantasy for sure, but they should take every road or street ITP (if not the whole 5-county area) that has more than 1 lane for cars in each direction (like every main corridor basically), and only allow cars and private vehicles in the one lane. And, I mean, really enforce it. Have physical barriers and colored pavement and clear signage, and enforce it with big fines and such.

Then they could give the rest of the space to exclusively buses, and nice, permanent BRT bus station and related infrastructure (and emergency vehicles could use the lanes too, of course.) That would solve metro transit, by essentially adding a whole bunch of BRT lines overnight, basically. For minimal cost. Also it would make crossing streets so much easier and safer.

And anything that's currently more than 2 lanes each way, after the one lane for cars and one for buses only, give the rest of the space back to pedestrians. Extra wide sidewalks, almost like European-style pedestrian plazas, would be beautiful for Atlanta, and would promote a culture of walking and being more active and healthy.

Yes it would make car traffic worse, but that's exactly what needs to happen, in order to get more people out of cars. Car congestion is what should reasonably be expected with a large metro where almost everyone gets around by cars. But it would also give everyone a reliable, congestion delay-free transportation option. Therefore, all in all, it would make commuting and navigating the city/metro much better, along with beautification, air quality benefits, all that.

But of course, that'll never happen, because you know, myopia. Lack of vision.

Anyway, maybe I could make a new map that shows what could be accomplished if y'all would rethink the whole game, reduce the car lanes and give a portion of that precious transportation space to high frequency, reliable, high capacity BRT lines. Also, the buses could be futuristic, autonomous, attractive looking. Much like light rail on wheels.



If building new rail is going to continue to be an endless failure (and building new roads even barely happens around there), then I say rethink what you're doing with the existing transportation space that you already have.

[cranberrysaus]

I think ultimately the style that MARTA went with on their station designs ended up not aging well. DC's brutalist stations of the same era ended up looking timeless.


BART I think ended up in the middle, where they aren't great, but they've done a good job of modernizing a lot of their station designs.

[primaltech]

They need to completely redesign/rebuild that Bankhead station from the ground up, extend the length of it for full length trains, and rename it to something new and fresh and inviting (Bankhead just has too much baggage/negative connotation, and the road corridor it serves is not called that anymore). And there needs to be density all around it. Tech offices and residential on all sides, along with the walking trail along Proctor Creek and to the new park. That would be a game-changer.

Then they can go north from there with the Green Line, to new stations with similar TOD tech campuses and dense developments, along what used to be CSX Tilford Yard. Then put a final station somewhere in Bolton, and just dare Cobb County to extend it over the river, and connect their communities with all those new, high-paying technology sector jobs, and everything else the line connects to. Also the Green Line should run all the way past Decatur, since it would have normal sized full length trains now (currently it has the short stubby half length ones, cause Bankhead is a short platform).

It's currently MARTA's worst of their 4 lines, but it could be the best in just a matter of years, if they focused on that. Seems like there could be a lot of PPP funding opportunities there.

[MattCW]

Most of what you're talking about is happening. It's been said here and elsewhere that MARTA is in the beginning process to extend Bankhead to an 8-car platform and run the trains as far as Avondale. As far as going north, that's now complicated by the sale of half of Tilford to Amazon. Since Tilford is no longer in play for TOD, it would make more sense to go under the south end of Inman and the south tip of Tilford and follow Marietta Blvd to and beyond Moores Mill which is already something of a bus node and has a lot of development filling in.

[cparker73]

Originally Posted by arjay57

That's just not how we roll here in the U.S. Americans love their cars and the ability to get up and go wherever they want on their own schedule.

Also consider the built cost. If we suddenly started putting trains everywhere, what would happen to our vast parking infrastructure?

I hope you're joking about being worried about our parking infrastructure. It's already mostly underutilized now, and in the future, we'd tear down parking decks and build more housing and office space without worrying about minimum parking requirements, which will drive more people to use transit.

At a certain point, we're just kidding ourselves if we think we have "freedom" because we can get into our cars whenever we want to. Most of the time, we're stuck in traffic that can make that car trip take twice as long taking a train. I experienced this for a while when I worked at the Lenox Park campus in Buckhead and had to go to meetings in Midtown. I could more easily take the Buckhead circulator, The Buc, to the Lenox Marta station and ride it to the North Avenue station in less time than it took to drive and park from Buckhead to Midtown. More people could experience that sort of convenience if we built more stations and rail lines and concentrated new development at Marta stations.

[primaltech]

Oh, I didn't realize Amazon bought half of the Tilford property. But yeah, that only strengthens the case for more stations up that way. Even if that's going to be more distribution center type development than tech TOD, it's still a lot of jobs. What half of it did they buy? The southern portions of it?

And yeah, running the line up Marietta Blvd would be great too, as that is halfway between the Blue line and the Red/Gold.

This triangle right here, bounded by Bolton/Marietta/Moores Mill, currently with a CVS, a Wendy's, and a Car Wash:

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.8205...m1!1e3!5m1!1e2

That would make a really great location for an end of the line transit hub, with TOD and parking deck and bus loop and all that. Bolton Rd, Atlanta Rd, Marietta Blvd, Moores Mill, Defoors Ferry all connect right there. And it's about as far from I-75 as Chamblee station is from I-85.

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by cparker73

I hope you're joking about being worried about our parking infrastructure. It's already mostly underutilized now, and in the future, we'd tear down parking decks and build more housing and office space without worrying about minimum parking requirements, which will drive more people to use transit.

And also, usage of cars is going to shift more and more towards hailing rides, and eventually autonomously. At least those type of cars are efficiently used, moving people around all day. Cars that are parked for 90% of the day are just wasting space.

Some parking is fine, but Atlanta is like all parking lots/decks, everywhere. Could stand to lose at least half of it, and still have plenty. Especially as transit usage also increases.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by T Block

The BART heavy-rail system near SF has had a surprising amount of additional development.

But the MARTA train in Atlanta reached the airport and reached North Sandy Springs. Now it would seem be relatively easy to run the MARTA train from College Park to Palmetto, up on columns along the railroad tracks, such that commuter buses in Newnan could connect to it. Similarly the MARTA train could be extended to Clayton County, up on columns along the railroad tracks, from East Point.

Elsewhere, I suggest dedicated bus lanes, with a few sidetrack areas, such that buses could run in both directions in one lane. The dedicated bus lanes could have steering grooves, or electronic devices, for bus steering. But the buses could leave a dedicated bus lane at one point and re-enter at another point. And the buses could run hydrogen for zero local air pollution. Now there's really not much difference between running compressed-natural-gas at 3000 psi and running hydrogen at 5000 psi.

This idea of streetcars, with metal wheels on metal tracks and with overhead powerlines, seems to be an attempt to go back in time 100 years more. Metal wheels on metal tracks are noisy and overhead powerlines are contraption.

Yes. MARTA really fails to serve the southside of the metro with its end at the airport.

There is nothing "world class" about streetcars, except maybe as a "world class" boondoggle and waste of money.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by primaltech

Cars that are parked for 90% of the day are just wasting space.

Well, they are not burning fossil fuels or putting wear and tear on the roads.

If we were running out of land, parking might be an issue. However, we are a very low density metro (including the city of Atlanta) with tons of land to park our vehicles.

I agree that parking could be more environmentally friendly with less impervious surface. It could also be more attractive. But it's hard to see how lack of space is much of a consideration.

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Well, they are not burning fossil fuels or putting wear and tear on the roads.

If we were running out of land, parking might be an issue. However, we are a very low density metro (including the city of Atlanta) with tons of land to park our vehicles.

I agree that parking could be more environmentally friendly with less impervious surface. It could also be more attractive. But it's hard to see how lack of space is much of a consideration.

When I used to have to commute on 285 and 400... it was never more evident how little of space there is for the millions of mostly single occupant vehicles (and big trucks). Speaking of parking lots...

Y'all should turn that whole metro into a big Bus Rapid Transit network.