Atlanta Streetcar (Downtown Loop) progress (Lenox, Buckhead: subsidized, maintenance, tax)

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by Staysean23

I totally agree.

Is the "creative class" limited by definition to technology workers who live in Silicon Valley? Just asking. My friend is a writer and seems pretty creative to me. Doesn't live in Silicon Valley.

[rzzz]

Tech workers are not the only part of the creative class, but writers, artists, musicians and actors have always moved to LA and the train infrastructure there was non existent until very recently. Switzerland has an amazing train infrastructure but the creative class does not migrate to Switzerland in droves. My point was that public transportation infrastructure does not have as much to do with migration as the jobs available. In any case, public transport should be built more along the lines of getting cars off the road and also providing a means of transportation to people who don't drive for whatever reason, instead of vague notions about attracting people with "cool" jobs. The thing about "creative class" jobs is that they do not actually employ that many people. Transit infrastructure should be built with everyone in mind. The guy working at the food court at the hospital probably needs train more than a web designer at CNN (the web designer can theoretically just work from his laptop at home). All that said, I'm actually FOR the belt line train, but mainly for selfish reasons as I personally enjoy riding trains.

[MattCW]

Silicon valley also has better planned communities so the road system can support the people there. Atlanta could have done the same years ago, but we chose not to. We're at a point now where transit is the best option for mobility in the region. We might still have needed it even with better planning, but at least the problem would have been how to handle transit along a few discrete corridors while reaching 80% of the population, instead of now where practical transit might only directly reach 20-30% of the population, meaning you either still need people to drive creating rush hours to single areas, or you have to drastically expand transit beyond a single corridor, which adds more cost.

[cqholt]

I've debunked that. One of the "major tourist areas" is anything but major

The MLK Historic District is a huge tourist attraction. People from all over the world know his name and want to visit the area. This will provide a straight forward route from the Centennial Olympic area to the MLK Center allowing visitors to view local businesses from the street level and get off to spend money at locally owned businesses. Win-win situation.

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by cqholt

The MLK Historic District is a huge tourist attraction. People from all over the world know his name and want to visit the area. This will provide a straight forward route from the Centennial Olympic area to the MLK Center allowing visitors to view local businesses from the street level and get off to spend money at locally owned businesses. Win-win situation.

Huge tourist attraction compared to what?

It isn't huge based on visitors.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

Huge tourist attraction compared to what?

It isn't huge based on visitors.

How many people go there?

[rzzz]

Yeah, I used to work near there and that area is pretty dead. My native atlantan co-workers thought I was weird for even wanting to check it out. :/

[Ant131531]

I only went to the MLK historic district once in my whole life and that was for a field trip lol. People would rather go to places like Olympic park, Atlantic station, Lenox, Midtown, etc when they visit then the MLK historic district. They should put a streetcar connecting Downtown to Midtown via Peachtree st or Piedmont. Piedmont would be amazing, but I forgot it's one way .

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by arjay57

How many people go there?

625,000 is the latest figure I've seen (2006). However, there isn't much granularity in that figure. I have seen articles talking about how the attendacce has declined in recent years but could find no figures.

[MattCW]

One thing I forgot about, that most of us are forgetting about, is the capacity improvement of the streetcars over buses. A single S70 can have up to 72 people seated and about 230 total with standees. A rigid bus can hold maybe 60 people total with standees, while an articulated bus might could hold 120, max. Having a downtown bus circulator on this route sounds like a good idea, but it just can't scale well. Adding double the capacity, would require double the buses, which is double the traffic on the streets, and overly-crowded buses can have a severe negative impact on convincing people to ride them (not to mention, the impossiblity of actually adding new riders when there's literally no room). Doubling the capacity of the trains should be as simple as coupling another car.