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In North Carolina every acre of land is being used for something, from one side of the state to the other. Yet they easily build new loops and highways, usually displacing 10 homes/farms or less.
What? Absolutely not true, by any stretch of the imagination. I've seen it with my own eyes, countless times.
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Metro Atlanta needs any sorta bypass to start being built either along the circumference of development or along an existing highway like 20.
Along the 20 corridor - yes. Reviving the "Northern Arc" - never. There simply is no stomach for this here. It would be tied up in endless litigation, just like the last time.
Yes, absolutely. It the orignal Northern Arc was planned with interchanges ONLY at major freeways, it would have worked. Instead, there were going to be interchanges at almost every possible country road as Galounger remembers in the above post. It would have been nothing but a sprawl machine, chewing up the foothills. That's why the Sierra Club got involved. It was also one of the big reasons Roy Barnes got dumped for Sonny-Bubba.
I have absolutely no problem with taking an exisiting corridor like GA 20 and upgrading it to a Peachtree Industrial-like expressway along its current route. That may just fly on the Northside, but not a re-hash of the original proposal.
Yes, absolutely. It the orignal Northern Arc was planned with interchanges ONLY at major freeways, it would have worked. Instead, there were going to be interchanges at almost every possible country road as Galounger remembers in the above post. It would have been nothing but a sprawl machine, chewing up the foothills. That's why the Sierra Club got involved. It was also one of the big reasons Roy Barnes got dumped for Sonny-Bubba.
I have absolutely no problem with taking an exisiting corridor like GA 20 and upgrading it to a Peachtree Industrial-like expressway along its current route. That may just fly on the Northside, but not a re-hash of the original proposal.
I'm a major fan of the superarterial concept. Just four limited access lanes (two in each direction) would have massive benefits.
I'm not so sure traffic is as high on the list of problems as people are making it out to be. I think education is the most crucial of the three. (Water ofcourse is critical. It's one of those things that no one thinks about when you have it but it's a major major problem if you don't.)
Atlanta's traffic is bad but definitely not worse or much worse than many of our competitors.
Education on the other hand is not only important when it comes to SAT scores and providing good neighborhood public schools but there's something everyone's missing out on that's effecting Ga. as well.
All the discussion for Georgia's economy seems to focus around "what can we do to attract business' from outside". If we build more roads, improve test scores, etc. etc. will that make companies want to locate here?" That's all well and good but an area where Georgia has been sorely lacking is the creation of homegrown industries and companies right here. And education (particularly higher education) often plays a huge role in this creation.
Prime examples are three of North Carolina's Universities are largely responsible for the Research Triangle and the great number of high tech industries brought there.
Stanford and Berkley Universities have always had a symbiotic relationship with Silicon Valley. Stanford and Berkley provide cutting edge research results and top class graduates to Silicon Valley's companies and they prosper from this and in return provide billions of dollars in endowment money to the Universities allowing them to have the best the World has to offer in faculty and research facilities.
Few people seem to know that Georgia is the largest producer of transportation equipment in the South East. As a result of this it has thousands who are trained and experienced in the production of transportation equipment and parts. This includes the Automotive and Aircraft industry. Georgia should be using this fact to it's advantage and playing to it's strength by vigorously going after companies in this area. Instead one of the most disappointing occurrences in the last couple of decades has been Georgia allowing one Automaker after another to settle in surrounding States like Alabama and Tennessee. (BMW, Mercedes, Kia,) have all built plants in neighboring States over the past decades while Ga only managed to capture a relatively small kia plant at the end of this trend while losing two American plants.
Our leaders I admit have not completely missed out on this fact. Both Barnes and Perdue have provided huge amounts of funding to Georgia Tech to develop nanotechnology facilities as well as a program to help foster high tech start up companies. But although Georgia Tech is among the best in the nation at what it does the amount of money it has for research is Dwarfed by what competitors MIT , Stanford and Berkley have and they and other Universities are also striving to gain superiority in the nanotechnology realm which many believe while be a huge lucrative industry in the future.
Also, when it comes to maintaining our prominence as an international transportation hub we should be focusing as much on our Seaports as our Airports. We have great ports now but a lot of cities are ambitiously trying to expand theirs and Georgia should try to stay ahead of the game.
Last edited by Galounger; 09-10-2011 at 03:27 PM..
I think a major issue holding Atlanta back is the racial divide. I think overall yes Atlanta isnt like Mississippi burning, or present day Cincinnati for that matter. The issues i have are with transportation and entertainment and shopping venues. It is well known that Atlanta is a convention hub and plays host to many events like the super bowl and final four and what not. These events bring tourists to the city in the millions. The problems arise when tourists are warned not to go to underground atlanta, or not to go certain areas....which primarily are black. Also when people relocate here white people tend to flock to the northside, whereas black people tend to go east or south. This wouldnt be so bad if the northside wasnt pretty much isolated from the rest of the metro area as they do not want a train or bus system running in their neighborhoods. The perception is taht only black people ride the train or bus, and they dont want it to run johns creek, or milton. Blacks and whites dont intermingle as much as I would like and I think that people look at isolated incidents and judge all blacks the same way. Its very apparent that Atlanta is a black stronghold, and also a place white Asian and latino people desire to live as well. We need to be better at not allowing perceptions or preconceived notions get the best of us, because its holding us back as a region from growing. Marta or a train system period is a MUST for the overcrowded northside. Dont rule it out because you think crime will follow........ive never seen a burglar or robber with his loot on the train. Cant carry a flat screen through the turnstyle........
LOL, Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi River, and just outside the 5-10 core metro counties, there's nothing but trees.
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Metro Atlanta needs any sorta bypass to start being built either along the circumference of development or along an existing highway like 20.
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You talk like thousands of homes or businesses would have to be demolished, and that's ridiculous.
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If there ever was a state with endless, plentiful land for road building, it's Georgia, including north Georgia
This is entirely incorrect. There are actually lots of people and developments in suburban and exurban counties.
The problem is our population is so sprawling and many of these neighborhoods are often built without and respect to future plans. They often take up alot of space and meander in long routes staying between the floodplains of two creeks or small rivers.
It is an extreme version of property owners rights. If the government wants to leave room for future highways they have to buy the right of way before the demand for development gets that far out. Gwinnett County did this to a large extent for the northern arc in the past, which they are actually building on in what they call the Sugarloaf pkwy extension (It is Gwinnett's portion of the Northern Arc). Even, then there are a few potential problem areas if the route were to continue further west. If you look at the aerial imaging and topographical maps of Southern Forsyth Co and Cherokee Co. it is becoming near impossible to find a route of mostly undeveloped land to build a highway on without the heavy costs of going through a floodplain or building over neighborhoods. That is the biggest problem with Atlanta building an outer perimeter... in the past the longer we waited... the further out and larger it would have to be built.
The only way to circumvent that is if the gov't, at one level or another, takes the initiative to buy the land well ahead of time (or negotiate zoning rights with developers).
You can see this undeveloped tract of land that is for the Sugarloaf extenstion north of Lawrenceville here: Lawrenceville, ga - Google Maps
Take time to examine the neighboring developments..... It would be impossible to find a straight enough, wide enough in that corridor w/o buying up lots of homes, bisecting neighborhoods, or building over a waterway (which is extremely expensive). The sad thing is... in many of these neighborhoods... many people don't even necessarily know there is a small freeway planned to go through their backyard, which planned before their home was even built. (It isn't something development salesmen go out of their way to point out, but some reeeally good and on top of their game Realtors would)
If they were starting fresh... on the northern section alone... you would have to go out as far as Auburn, Flowery Branch, bridge over Lake Lanier, and go near Cumming to be able to build a freeway with the benefits of having mostly greenfield property to buy. Even then... It would be a very curvy route and you would still have to buy out several hundred homes (if not more).
Btw, for those interested... many of our roads have a long way to go at becoming "super arterials," however it is starting to become easier and easier to find more and more commercial redevelopments that are built with much more strict "access management" to the route to encourage better and safer traffic flow.
I have seen alot of this in Lilburn along U.S. 29 and the new remake of U.S. 78. Don't get me wrong... there is still a loooong way to go!
Examine the redevelopments south of 29 vs. the older buildings north of 29 Lilburn, ga - Google Maps
LOL, Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi River, and just outside the 5-10 core metro counties, there's nothing but trees.
In North Carolina every acre of land is being used for something, from one side of the state to the other. Yet they easily build new loops and highways, usually displacing 10 homes/farms or less.
Metro Atlanta needs any sorta bypass to start being built either along the circumference of development or along an existing highway like 20.
You talk like thousands of homes or businesses would have to be demolished, and that's ridiculous.
The Buckhead 400 extention's benefits to the local economy, traffic relief, better air quality, has been one thousand fold of the 20 or so residences that were displaced.
Our entire built environment today is meant to be disposable, not that i like it, but that's the way it is.
If there ever was a state with endless, plentiful land for road building, it's Georgia, including north Georgia
What the hell are you talking about?? It takes a lot more to plop down a highway than just money. A major obstacle to the Northern Arc, as I mentioned, is land acquisition. Even if a satellite image makes it seem like a particular area is out in the middle of nowhere, someone owns those tracts of land. Some of that has been in the owners' families for generations, and they are not easily going to give it up for a highway, regardless of what the compensation is. You know why? Because it's THEIR PROPERTY.
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Originally Posted by Galounger
I'm not so sure traffic is as high on the list of problems as people are making it out to be. I think education is the most crucial of the three. (Water ofcourse is critical. It's one of those things that no one thinks about when you have it but it's a major major problem if you don't.)
Atlanta's traffic is bad but definitely not worse or much worse than many of our competitors.
Completely disagree. Metro Atlantans lose BILLIONS every year (http://www.uspirg.org/edfund/reports/reports/transportation-reports/georgias-transportation-crossroads-why-the-peach-state-should-invest-in-transit-for-the-21st-century - broken link) due to traffic congestion. Just because "someone has it worse than us" is a terrible reason not to improve our own conditions. And you know how many US cities have worse traffic than we do? Not many. In fact, by one standard, none at all.
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Education on the other hand is not only important when it comes to SAT scores and providing good neighborhood public schools but there's something everyone's missing out on that's effecting Ga. as well.
All the discussion for Georgia's economy seems to focus around "what can we do to attract business' from outside". If we build more roads, improve test scores, etc. etc. will that make companies want to locate here?" That's all well and good but an area where Georgia has been sorely lacking is the creation of homegrown industries and companies right here. And education (particularly higher education) often plays a huge role in this creation.
Prime examples are three of North Carolina's Universities are largely responsible for the Research Triangle and the great number of high tech industries brought there.
Stanford and Berkley Universities have always had a symbiotic relationship with Silicon Valley. Stanford and Berkley provide cutting edge research results and top class graduates to Silicon Valley's companies and they prosper from this and in return provide billions of dollars in endowment money to the Universities allowing them to have the best the World has to offer in faculty and research facilities.
Few people seem to know that Georgia is the largest producer of transportation equipment in the South East. As a result of this it has thousands who are trained and experienced in the production of transportation equipment and parts. This includes the Automotive and Aircraft industry. Georgia should be using this fact to it's advantage and playing to it's strength by vigorously going after companies in this area. Instead one of the most disappointing occurrences in the last couple of decades has been Georgia allowing one Automaker after another to settle in surrounding States like Alabama and Tennessee. (BMW, Mercedes, Kia,) have all built plants in neighboring States over the past decades while Ga only managed to capture a relatively small kia plant at the end of this trend while losing two American plants.
Our leaders I admit have not completely missed out on this fact. Both Barnes and Perdue have provided huge amounts of funding to Georgia Tech to develop nanotechnology facilities as well as a program to help foster high tech start up companies. But although Georgia Tech is among the best in the nation at what it does the amount of money it has for research is Dwarfed by what competitors MIT , Stanford and Berkley have and they and other Universities are also striving to gain superiority in the nanotechnology realm which many believe while be a huge lucrative industry in the future.
Also, when it comes to maintaining our prominence as an international transportation hub we should be focusing as much on our Seaports as our Airports. We have great ports now but a lot of cities are ambitiously trying to expand theirs and Georgia should try to stay ahead of the game.
We need more skilled labor and more support for our schools, but that'd take an entire discussion in itself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by atlantanative83
I think a major issue holding Atlanta back is the racial divide. I think overall yes Atlanta isnt like Mississippi burning, or present day Cincinnati for that matter. The issues i have are with transportation and entertainment and shopping venues. It is well known that Atlanta is a convention hub and plays host to many events like the super bowl and final four and what not. These events bring tourists to the city in the millions. The problems arise when tourists are warned not to go to underground atlanta, or not to go certain areas....which primarily are black. Also when people relocate here white people tend to flock to the northside, whereas black people tend to go east or south. This wouldnt be so bad if the northside wasnt pretty much isolated from the rest of the metro area as they do not want a train or bus system running in their neighborhoods. The perception is taht only black people ride the train or bus, and they dont want it to run johns creek, or milton. Blacks and whites dont intermingle as much as I would like and I think that people look at isolated incidents and judge all blacks the same way. Its very apparent that Atlanta is a black stronghold, and also a place white Asian and latino people desire to live as well. We need to be better at not allowing perceptions or preconceived notions get the best of us, because its holding us back as a region from growing. Marta or a train system period is a MUST for the overcrowded northside. Dont rule it out because you think crime will follow........ive never seen a burglar or robber with his loot on the train. Cant carry a flat screen through the turnstyle........
Totally agree. Racial strife and distrust is a sensitive issue, but it's one that, I believe, ultimately spills over into the economic realm.
You forgot D.C. which is far more racially divided than Atlanta. The entire region is literally divided white and black with blacks on the eastern half and whites on the western half. The line goes right through D.C. and into the counties almost 50/50.
This is entirely incorrect. There are actually lots of people and developments in suburban and exurban counties.
The problem is our population is so sprawling and many of these neighborhoods are often built without and respect to future plans. They often take up alot of space and meander in long routes staying between the floodplains of two creeks or small rivers.
It is an extreme version of property owners rights. If the government wants to leave room for future highways they have to buy the right of way before the demand for development gets that far out. Gwinnett County did this to a large extent for the northern arc in the past, which they are actually building on in what they call the Sugarloaf pkwy extension (It is Gwinnett's portion of the Northern Arc). Even, then there are a few potential problem areas if the route were to continue further west. If you look at the aerial imaging and topographical maps of Southern Forsyth Co and Cherokee Co. it is becoming near impossible to find a route of mostly undeveloped land to build a highway on without the heavy costs of going through a floodplain or building over neighborhoods. That is the biggest problem with Atlanta building an outer perimeter... in the past the longer we waited... the further out and larger it would have to be built.
The only way to circumvent that is if the gov't, at one level or another, takes the initiative to buy the land well ahead of time (or negotiate zoning rights with developers).
You can see this undeveloped tract of land that is for the Sugarloaf extenstion north of Lawrenceville here: Lawrenceville, ga - Google Maps
Take time to examine the neighboring developments..... It would be impossible to find a straight enough, wide enough in that corridor w/o buying up lots of homes, bisecting neighborhoods, or building over a waterway (which is extremely expensive). The sad thing is... in many of these neighborhoods... many people don't even necessarily know there is a small freeway planned to go through their backyard, which planned before their home was even built. (It isn't something development salesmen go out of their way to point out, but some reeeally good and on top of their game Realtors would)
If they were starting fresh... on the northern section alone... you would have to go out as far as Auburn, Flowery Branch, bridge over Lake Lanier, and go near Cumming to be able to build a freeway with the benefits of having mostly greenfield property to buy. Even then... It would be a very curvy route and you would still have to buy out several hundred homes (if not more).
]
Georgia has missed the boat anyway. It hasn't invested in its hub status for logistics, and surrounding states are quickly chipping away at Atlanta's dominence. You would think that billion dollar engines to Georgia's economy would warrant some thought and support and planning, but like you said, Georgian's individual property rights are far more important than Georgia's future prosperity. A perfect example, by the way, of why Georgia won't ever become more than what it is today.
Land acquisition and weaving through development in the periphery of NC's metros goes on everyday. They are building urban loops around about 10 cities. The final leg of Raleigh's outer loop hasn't been finalized yet, but it's not the monumental construction feat you make it out to be to weave through the periphery of exurbia to provide a needed bypass and funnel away truck and through traffic.
All the discussion for Georgia's economy seems to focus around "what can we do to attract business' from outside". If we build more roads, improve test scores, etc. etc. will that make companies want to locate here?" That's all well and good but an area where Georgia has been sorely lacking is the creation of homegrown industries and companies right here. And education (particularly higher education) often plays a huge role in this creation.
Prime examples are three of North Carolina's Universities are largely responsible for the Research Triangle and the great number of high tech industries brought there.
Stanford and Berkley Universities have always had a symbiotic relationship with Silicon Valley. Stanford and Berkley provide cutting edge research results and top class graduates to Silicon Valley's companies and they prosper from this and in return provide billions of dollars in endowment money to the Universities allowing them to have the best the World has to offer in faculty and research facilities.
Also, when it comes to maintaining our prominence as an international transportation hub we should be focusing as much on our Seaports as our Airports. We have great ports now but a lot of cities are ambitiously trying to expand theirs and Georgia should try to stay ahead of the game.
Atlanta has one thing going for it: lots of fortune 500 headquarters and even more regional headquarters. It should exploit easy access to these resources through private-public partnerships, and sell Atlanta as a creative learning ground for building businesses, learning from the big guys.
My alma mater NC State's Centennial Campus is arguably the most successful partnership between students and outside businesses:
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