LA Considering Congestion Pricing. Should Atlanta? (downtown, raise, smog, restaurant)

[Street Advocate]

Originally Posted by brown_dog_us

I wonder what would be the most cost effective ways to cut metro Atlanta traffic?

Work start/stop shift- free
Telecommuting- free

What else could we do for free or close to free?

The FHWA has a whole office interested in changing commuter behaviors in what is known as Transportation Demand Management. The general rule of thumb is “it depends” for every different city, however there’s a handful of items that have varying levels of success. It’s not an end all be all solution for traffic woes, but rather a low cost part that makes the transportation network work more efficiently. There’s a lot of projects funded through TIGER that you can read about if you google the FHWA office of operations and transportation demand management.

Telecommute and staggering works times is an easy win. Setting up carpooling/slugging locations and corridors is another one. Land use and it’s intefration with the transportation network, TOD’s, alternate modes of transportation, and planning trips/reducing trips by car all play a large role (cue the groans from the complete street haters!). Eliminating free parking and increasing parking pricing. Dynamic pricing based off demand (for tolls and parking). Reducing VMT and paying for infrastructure via VMT has also been piloted in Washington state. Financial incentives also make a differed (think your Georgia commuter and clear air commission financial incentives). Offloading freight to different corridors.

https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publication...wahop12035.pdf

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

When considering your next house, buying the same house five miles further out for $5K less makes less sense when you factor in the extra tolls you would pay every day so you spend that savings to live closer to work.

Who is making that much of a decision over $5k? People live further out to save $100k or more.

These are some of millions of decisions people are making every day based on price signals. Right now, the price signal of "free" on roads is tell people to fill up as much road as they want. Change that and watch market economics do the rest.

Well, except the gas required to drive all those miles. If you drive 25 miles each way every day, you're likely spending around $5 just in gas per trip. And the extra wear and tear on the vehicle.

I mean...yeah, you are right...if you make in financially difficult for people to do things, they just won't do those things. But, what would the impact on the other end be? If it's going to cost me an extra $10 in tolls to take my son mini golfing, to trampoline parks, or to other kid-based play places (which we do multiple times per month), or to any of dozens of activities/restaurants/stores that we do, we just won't go. Those places lose business. But, there's not enough demand for mini golf or trampoline parks every couple of miles so that people can make short trips. There's only so many places in town I want to go repeatedly. Thousands of businesses like that simply wouldn't survive the loss of business. But hey, with all those people no longer employed, that's fewer people on the road! Win!

Now, if you think that we'll suddenly have a super-dense city to make it up, I guess you can hope.

But all in all, it really sounds like you just want a different city.

Originally Posted by brown_dog_us

I wonder what would be the most cost effective ways to cut metro Atlanta traffic?

Work start/stop shift- free
Telecommuting- free

What else could we do for free or close to free?

For free or close to free? Not a hell of a lot. Telecommuting would do something, but it's really only some office-specific jobs that would benefit. The work timing is a difficult one. While some peoples' work is simply "accomplish this task in this length of time", many businesses are coordinating with each other and are working similar hours to accomplish that. But, there's also no real way to make that policy. You can just hope that employers decide to do it.

In town, much of our congestion is simply bad design and bad traffic management. A city full of winding two-lane roads, a mish-mash of disconnected arterials, and combined interstates without appropriate lanes is always going to have a problem. When you couple that with horribly-timed traffic signals and constantly-changing lanes, you just exacerbate it. Those things could be worked on, but there will be a lot of NIMBYism to stop it.

I think commuter rail and an expansion of MARTA rail is the first big step. Beltline is cool, but I think it will have very little impact on traffic or congestion. I just don't see BRT making a big splash with Atlanta commuters.

[Street Advocate]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

In town, much of our congestion is simply bad design and bad traffic management. A city full of winding two-lane roads, a mish-mash of disconnected arterials, and combined interstates without appropriate lanes is always going to have a problem. When you couple that with horribly-timed traffic signals and constantly-changing lanes, you just exacerbate it. Those things could be worked on, but there will be a lot of NIMBYism to stop it..

This we agree on! There’s a handful of superblocks that could be split up and neighborhood streets that could be connected to make a greater street grid and provide more road network connectivity. As much as I will grow old and tie advocating for walkable neighborhoods and transit expansion, Atlanta needs to take a hard look (and is in instances including midtown) where they need to expand the road network. I think connection dead ends and chopping up super blocks (including many that already contain garden style gated communities or some sort of poor land use development) is vastly more important than road width/lane expansion, however. Obviously the new connections with commuters, but also crosstown routes and alternative modes of transportation, making the bike/ped/scooter life intown that much easier as well. Going an extra half a mile makes a big difference for the slower modes compared with vehicles.

It’s all part of the “improve the transportation network as a whole” rather than just one item or another.

[citidata18]

Commuter rail and adding more arterial road capacity is the only answer to resolve Atlanta's traffic problems.

Congestion pricing would be a cheap fix. Plus, not only would it just be putting lipstick on a pig, but it would also lead to far more unintended consequences.

[Pilot1]

Instead of new taxes, and constantly higher tax rates, maybe hold Atlanta accountable to live within its means? This is just another excuse for more taxes. People have no choice but to drive to work. The only time this will change is when all companies, government, and other employers allow all, or most their employees to work from home.

[citidata18]

Originally Posted by Pilot1

maybe hold Atlanta accountable to live within its means?

Can you please elaborate?

[2Easy]

A quick update to what was proposed in LA. The congestion pricing was suggested by the Los Angeles County MTA. They thought that it could be widespread. They presented that idea yesterday to their board of directors and the board was very skeptical of anything beyond limited use. They correctly believe that it would be political suicide. This may end up bringing a few more toll lanes and maybe something for downtown (probably not I would guess) and little chance of anything beyond that.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by Street Advocate

The FHWA has a whole office interested in changing commuter behaviors in what is known as Transportation Demand Management. The general rule of thumb is “it depends” for every different city, however there’s a handful of items that have varying levels of success. It’s not an end all be all solution for traffic woes, but rather a low cost part that makes the transportation network work more efficiently. There’s a lot of projects funded through TIGER that you can read about if you google the FHWA office of operations and transportation demand management.

Telecommute and staggering works times is an easy win. Setting up carpooling/slugging locations and corridors is another one. Land use and it’s intefration with the transportation network, TOD’s, alternate modes of transportation, and planning trips/reducing trips by car all play a large role (cue the groans from the complete street haters!). Eliminating free parking and increasing parking pricing. Dynamic pricing based off demand (for tolls and parking). Reducing VMT and paying for infrastructure via VMT has also been piloted in Washington state. Financial incentives also make a differed (think your Georgia commuter and clear air commission financial incentives). Offloading freight to different corridors.

https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publication...wahop12035.pdf

That image is hard to read upside-down. Here:

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by Street Advocate

This we agree on! There’s a handful of superblocks that could be split up and neighborhood streets that could be connected to make a greater street grid and provide more road network connectivity. As much as I will grow old and tie advocating for walkable neighborhoods and transit expansion, Atlanta needs to take a hard look (and is in instances including midtown) where they need to expand the road network. I think connection dead ends and chopping up super blocks (including many that already contain garden style gated communities or some sort of poor land use development) is vastly more important than road width/lane expansion, however. Obviously the new connections with commuters, but also crosstown routes and alternative modes of transportation, making the bike/ped/scooter life intown that much easier as well. Going an extra half a mile makes a big difference for the slower modes compared with vehicles.

It’s all part of the “improve the transportation network as a whole” rather than just one item or another.

Don't necessarily agree. If you create more opportunity for people to cut through neighborhoods, people are going to cut through neighborhoods. That's not what we want. I do it periodically out of necessity, but I don't feel good about it. I'd rather have a good network of flowing arterials, and have the neighborhoods be just that: their own area. I brought up Memphis in another thread. It has numerous arterials, spaced well, both east-west and north-south. And in between, the neighborhoods are just that: neighborhoods. While many are fairly gridded as well, many aren't. But they aren't used as through roads. Main traffic sticks to the arterials (which flow well because there are enough of them to handle the load), and the neighborhoods remain quiet.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Radical_Thinker

If the corporate "commuter tax" is too much to bear, how about making it possible for people to choose their work starting times, especially if peak-hour tolls are in effect? Some folks might want to start work at 6 am to beat the traffic, others might wait to 10 or 11 before going in. This would spread out peak hour traffic to the point that it'd not be so bad. No $5 billion highway "improvement" projects needed.

In any case, the burden should be put on employers to cope with traffic congestion, as they're the main cause of the problem in the first place. Tax the people (corporations) who actually have the money, rather than the 50% of workers making less than $30,000 a year and simply cannot afford to pay more to get to and from work. If you're going to have peak-hour charging and what-not, they need to offer a way for people to choose what time they use the roads, hence the flexible hours idea.

A lot of flex time was introduced in the 90s, but employers have been moving away from that. 9/80, 4 day work weeks. Even telecommuting, while growing, is less encouraged.

How do you get the managers to buy in?