State scraps plans for HOT lanes on 75 & 575 (Buckhead: new construction, high school)

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Emory is very dense and the spur would require multiple tunnels and bridges. Its more like $600 million, don't be exaggerating.

Negative buddy.

http://www.itsmarta.com/uploadedFile...10-27-2011.pdf

MARTA says it'll cost $1.3 billion for 4.7 miles of heavy rail for 6,900 new MARTA riders. Still look like a good investment?

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

MARTA says it'll cost $1.3 billion for 4.7 miles of heavy rail for 6,900 new MARTA riders. Still look like a good investment?

That's only about $2 million per new rider- at $4/round trip and 250 trips/year on average, that'll only take 2,000 years to pay back. Sounds like a bonafide bargain to me....

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by BobKovacs

That's only about $2 million per new rider- at $4/round trip and 250 trips/year on average, that'll only take 2,000 years to pay back. Sounds like a bonafide bargain to me....

Of course that ignores the time value of money. This project never breaks even.

[cqholt]

Mass transit is about giving people options to commute to work. As it stands now there is only one option, to drive and traffic is horrible. This will encourage more people to take MARTA and reduce cars on the road, air pollution, and encourage dense construction along the route.

[testa50]

I-85 HOT lane toll reaches record high *| ajc.com

Sounds like the system is working pretty well on 85, six months down the road. I agree the initial implementation was horrid, but this should shush the "nobody will use them" crowd. It just took a few months for people to adapt.

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Mass transit is about giving people options to commute to work. As it stands now there is only one option, to drive and traffic is horrible. This will encourage more people to take MARTA and reduce cars on the road, air pollution, and encourage dense construction along the route.

It will encourage 6,900 new people to exercise that option.

Again, 6,900 new riders for $1.3 billion.

That is directly from MARTA itself.

Do you really think that "option to ride" is worth $1.3 billion?

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by testa50

I-85 HOT lane toll reaches record high *| ajc.com

Sounds like the system is working pretty well on 85, six months down the road. I agree the initial implementation was horrid, but this should shush the "nobody will use them" crowd. It just took a few months for people to adapt.

I never doubted people would use the lanes. The free market does work. My objection was, and is, that the lanes have added no new capacity. It is pretty damn hard to ask people to start paying for something they got for free for the past 40 years.

I am in favor of the I-75/575 lanes because they will be new lanes and not cannibalize existing lanes. These new lanes are a luxury, not an existing, already utilized lane.

[cqholt]

I am in favor of the I-75/575 lanes because they will be new lanes and not cannibalize existing lanes

Why encourage more far-out development by adding these lanes. First, the new lanes would destroy the scenery from I-75 with overhead lanes supported by ugly concrete columns. Second, if we want to really solve congestion then we need to offer commuters an alternative to driving, whether it be LRT, HRT, BRT, or commuter trains. We need to stop building more highways and start building more mass transit.

[billl]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

I never doubted people would use the lanes. The free market does work. My objection was, and is, that the lanes have added no new capacity. It is pretty damn hard to ask people to start paying for something they got for free for the past 40 years.

I am in favor of the I-75/575 lanes because they will be new lanes and not cannibalize existing lanes. These new lanes are a luxury, not an existing, already utilized lane.

And again will do nothing to reduce congestion in the regular lanes. At least not to any noticeable degree. The only truly positive effect it will have is giving the commuter buses an express lane that bypasses all the congestion.

And I object to the government spending my tax dollars (which I pay every week at the pump) to build a lane that I can't use unless I pay more money.

The lanes as proposed offer little to no benefit for those working along the I-75 corridor from the Galleria outwards. We would have to go either all the way up to Terrel Mill (a nightmare during the afternoon rush) or all the way down to Mt. Paran and turn around in order to be in a position to get in the lanes. That pretty much soaks up any time savings. But hey, at least the folks who work downtown and in Buckhead will be able to pay for their luxury lane. Well, they will only be paying for part of their luxury lane because all the rest of us will have already paid for most of it.

[testa50]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

I never doubted people would use the lanes. The free market does work. My objection was, and is, that the lanes have added no new capacity. It is pretty damn hard to ask people to start paying for something they got for free for the past 40 years.

I am in favor of the I-75/575 lanes because they will be new lanes and not cannibalize existing lanes. These new lanes are a luxury, not an existing, already utilized lane.

The long term plan is to add new lanes on 85 as well. It would be quite a leap for the DOT to be under construction on I-75 for years and years without any working example of what they plan to create.

Also, I don't understand the "we already paid for it" argument. Maintaining the existing infrastructure is also extremely expensive, something like half the DOT's budget. If being "free market" is so important, then why support a centralized, "all you can eat" approach to roadway management? Free markets punish people for using scarce resources--that's kind of the name of the game. But for some reason the government's completely distorted approach to roadway funding and management has a lot of fans among so-called "free market" folks.