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Apparently businesses should be expected to shoulder the billion-dollar cost of capital construction without passing the cost onto their consumers.
Oh, don't be snarky. No one has ever suggested such a thing.
On the other hand, why should the business and institutional community -- which profits mightily from mass transit -- get an absolutely 100% free pass when it comes to contributing to funding?
Cousins reported an annual profit of $322 million. JLL reported an annual profit of $3.89 billion. Emory University reported an annual increase in net assets of $834 million. These are just numbers for one year.
Don't you think operations of this magnitude could carve out a sliver for transit funding?
When federal funding is included the costs for the new lanes on I-285 top-end between I-75 and I-85 rises to over $11B. The previous (still stupid expensive) $5B estimate was only the state spending.
That is over $7K in tax spending for every household in metro Atlanta.
Or that is enough to build 55 miles of new MARTA rail. That would be enough to more than double MARTA's current ~48 mile system. (And that is assuming HRT at $200M a mile. The Downtown LRT only cost ~$30M a mile).
In addition, hundreds of tax paying properties along the route will be seized and bulldozed.
That is simply incorrect, a typo or you’re interpreting it wrong.
The new trans Hudson tunnel project for new rail line under Hudson River is In that $11B-14B ball park with union labor and a decade of planning included.
The express lanes on I-285 will not involve purchase of hardly any land since it’s existing right of way. SF’s new earthquake-proof east bay bridge didn’t even cost that much.
The feds gave Georgia $180 million in tiger grant to help pay for ga400 express lanes and the rest is up to Georgia.
*****
We all pay 1.5 cents on every dollar to fund Marta and that’s significant for me paying almost 10% in tax for everything I buy.
Your entire life depends and benefits from a comprehensive transportation network, which enables even the national guard to mobilize if necessary.
In Dallas or some other eager road-building state you might have more validity I your argument but not here in bare-bones, do the minimum allowed, GDOT.
We have dire problems with our roads that go unaddressed for decades such as the Buford-spring connector’s inadequacies that are dangerous & delay prone. Have you heard or seen GDOT out there trying to improve anything? No, they can’t even keep the little overhead lane signs replaced and readable. They are an albatross for the state, negatively affecting our daily lives by not proactively adjusting for the future.
If you can’t see this, you need to visit several other states for an extended duration to see how much better our roads could be, tolling is fine for the purpose of paying for construction or maintaining 45mph flow.
But not for congestion fees because you don’t want any more roads built. How about a gondola as a cheaper solution to rail?
Building infrastructure needed by companies and industry to operate here and employ georgians is far more beneficial to the state.
We are the largest state East of the Mississippi, we have more land & space than we could ever use. Everything you suggest would be like Portland’s development boundary which has produced nothing but negative intended consequences. But I think you just keep on just for something to do.
Last edited by architect77; 06-01-2019 at 02:50 PM..
Actually, I just went back to see what you were referring to. You misunderstood. I said the vast majority of local people drive on local roads. As in, the vast majority of local people drive as opposed to walk, kayak, or float in a balloon. You know damn well that is not debatable. That particular comment had nothing to do with local vs. suburban.
How many people are kayaking down local streets?
Quote:
Originally Posted by aslowdodge
Wow, one person who commutes by kayak , but only in the summer. Great example of exception not the rule.
You statement of the highway taking personal land also applies to Marta as they would also take land to build, so both will do so.
My point is that there is no "rule". Stop trying to centrally plan one solution for everyone. It doesn't work.
I am not advocating for transit expansion as the solution to it all either.
Get rid of the "rules" and let people find their own solutions. Commutes were far, far better and more enjoyable before government got involved in subsidizing and laying out cities to force everyone into cars.
We need Complex solutions. Not Complicated solutions.
That is simply incorrect, a typo or you’re interpreting it wrong.
The new trans Hudson tunnel project for new rail line under Hudson River is In that $11B-14B ball park with union labor and a decade of planning included.
The express lanes on I-285 will not involve purchase of hardly any land since it’s existing right of way. SF’s new earthquake-proof east bay bridge didn’t even cost that much.
The feds gave Georgia $180 million in tiger grant to help pay for ga400 express lanes and the rest is up to Georgia.
*****
We all pay 1.5 cents on every dollar to fund Marta and that’s significant for me paying almost 10% in tax for everything I buy.
Your entire life depends and benefits from a comprehensive transportation network, which enables even the national guard to mobilize if necessary.
In Dallas or some other eager road-building state you might have more validity I your argument but not here in bare-bones, do the minimum allowed, GDOT.
We have dire problems with our roads that go unaddressed for decades such as the Buford-spring connector’s inadequacies that are dangerous & delay prone. Have you heard or seen GDOT out there trying to improve anything? No, they can’t even keep the little overhead lane signs replaced and readable. They are an albatross for the state, negatively affecting our daily lives by not proactively adjusting for the future.
If you can’t see this, you need to visit several other states for an extended duration to see how much better our roads could be, tolling is fine for the purpose of paying for construction or maintaining 45mph flow.
But not for congestion fees because you don’t want any more roads built. How about a gondola as a cheaper solution to rail?
Building infrastructure needed by companies and industry to operate here and employ georgians is far more beneficial to the state.
We are the largest state East of the Mississippi, we have more land & space than we could ever use. Everything you suggest would be like Portland’s development boundary which has produced nothing but negative intended consequences. But I think you just keep on just for something to do.
I used to believe Georgia was the largest state east of the Mississippi too but upon further review, including water, its Michigan with 97,990,000 sq miles. However, only 57,324,000 of that area is land.
Florida is second at 65,755,000, of which 54,018,000 is land.
Georgia is third at 59,425,000, of which 57,880,000 is land,
followed closely by Illinois, New York, North Carolina, and Alabama.
ok overly simplistic non-sensical infographics that weren't really tied into the discussion aside.....
I for one am voting for toll canals!
I know you are deliberately trying to be difficult for laughs, but your comment is an example of the sort of solutions that make things worse. That oh, someone kayaks to work? We must spend millions and billions of tax payer dollars to build canals and make that option available to more people!
Nope. Less is more. No billion+ dollar mega projects for highways, transit, or canals are going to save us.
I know you are deliberately trying to be difficult for laughs, but your comment is an example of the sort of solutions that make things worse. That oh, someone kayaks to work? We must spend millions and billions of tax payer dollars to build canals and make that option available to more people!
Nope. Less is more. No billion+ dollar mega projects for highways, transit, or canals are going to save us.
It's not being difficult, it's raising valid points on the extreme absurdity of parts of this discussion.You've ignored the more serious points brought up earlier in the thread about solving the region's problems and you're discussing maybe the 1... maybe 2 people that use kayaking for a commute.... only during a certain season nonetheless and yet you post some graphic you obviously took off a website and didn't really tie it into the discussion.
And you chose to skip the more serious and real counterpoints made earlier. It's really just getting predictable at this point.
You're failing to address the very real issues with funding isn't as simple as choosing A vs. B and you're failing to understand the consequences of not allowing commuting capacity to grow as the region grows.
It's not being difficult, it's raising valid points on the extreme absurdity of parts of this discussion.You've ignored the more serious points brought up earlier in the thread about solving the region's problems and you're discussing maybe the 1... maybe 2 people that use kayaking for a commute.... only during a certain season nonetheless and yet you post some graphic you obviously took off a website and didn't really tie it into the discussion.
And you chose to skip the more serious and real counterpoints made earlier. It's really just getting predictable at this point.
You're failing to address the very real issues with funding isn't as simple as choosing A vs. B and you're failing to understand the consequences of not allowing commuting capacity to grow as the region grows.
Nope. You don't get it.
Stop obsessing over maximizing the number of cars we can fit on a road. That doesn't fix anything. in fact, it makes things worse.
No one is "not allowing commuting capacity to grow". That is not the same as not spending $11B tax payer dollars to add a few lanes to ~20 miles of highway.
The sprawling, car-dependent development pattern is not sustainable. We cannot keep funding projects on this scale.
Atlanta has spent decades at the top of the list of funding mega projects to build the largest highways in the world. We are the top of the list in car usage for major cities. It doesn't work. Transportation continues to be Atlantan's top concern year-after-year. Atlanta heavily subsidized car-first transportation policy of the last 50 years is an utter failure. Time to stop the "just one more lanes will solve it" insanity.
And, actually those graphics are from a couple articles that is relevant to this discussion, you should read it:
We need to get rid of the BS rules and billion-dollar centrally planned mega projects that are preventing our cities from functioning effectively like they have historically.
Like they have through almost all of human history, people will find and fund their own ways of getting around just fine. Just get the rules and government mega-projects out of the way preventing the city and commute options from developing in a complex way on their own (without central planning, gasp) and let people decide for themselves which options are best for them.
"you don't get it" Clearly, it is always all of us and not you. You don't respond to others stronger arguments and then you respond to these types of comments with these types of comments... Intellectually tired.
Strong Towns again.... We've been over this before. You don't really respond to all those counterpoints in the past either.
If you're going to use an infographic, you need to learn to think for yourself and tie it into your arguments and not just read biased sources online and assume it magically speaks for itself.
We can't become a city of 8 million with infrastructure that was built for a city of 3 million. The passive do nothing and assume all will be fine model does not work.
The problem with so many of your arguments is you're trying to dictate the way you want things to be, without looking at the reality of how people behave and spend their money. That is not how reality in the real world works and this is why you're arguments have an uphill battle examining the funding effects. You're ignoring large parts of costs and revenue carried through projects too often (which you conveniently ignored the first made opinion on this matter).
One item you are factually wrong about... Atlanta has not spent decades at the top of the list of funding mega projects. Actually, we've been at the opposite end of that spectrum spending less funds per capita for decades. We spent, as a state, 49th out of 50 in per capita in roads and highways before we amended the gas tax just a couple of years ago.
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