Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It's not silly because it's the city's population that serves as the baseline for the percentage increase. How could you say "the City of Atlanta has increased its population by __%" and include population that's not in the City of Atlanta? Take a moment to think about that.
The point is you don't. The premise of using the city limit for any measurement in Atlanta's case is misleading. Houston sure. Atlanta no.
Georgia was in fact reneging on its promise to take down the tolls AFTER the bonds were paid off. Detractors of TSPLOST could rightfully point to those tolls on 400 as proof the state couldn't be trusted. I think Deal announced that the tolls would come down in order to assuage such fears just before the vote.
...The only reason why the state of Georgia made the promise to take the tolls off of 400 after the construction bonds were paid-off was so that the state could get the road built as soon as possible and get its roadbuilding and land spectulator cronies a quick paycheck.
The construction of Georgia 400 wasn't about improving transportation, it was about opening up the foothills north of Atlanta to land spectulation and real estate development.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MathmanMathman
A big part of the problem is trying to focus so much on the city. I'm beginning to think that the outer perimeter proposed years ago would have been a good idea.
...In theory a second perimeter/outer bypass can work to take through traffic off of an older bypass as there are many cities that have them, both automobile-oriented (Houston's TX Hwy 8 Sam Houston Tollway; Dallas' George Bush Turnpike; Dallas' Sam Rayburn Tollway; Miami's FL 821 Homestead Extension) and transit-heavy (Chicago's I-355 Veterans Memorial/North-South Tollway; Boston's I-495; New York's I-287; Toronto's tolled Highway 407; Washington DC's InterCounty Connector).
But one of the problem is that the public thought that the Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc was much more of a giant land spectulation and real estate development scheme and than it was about decreasing traffic congestion, which is why the public severely-pressured the state to abandon the extremely-unpopular idea and then for good measure kicked the political party out-of-power that was behind the idea they hated.
In place of the publicly-unpopular Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc concept that politically can and will never be built, the state can and will likely convert many major at-grade intersections throughout the Northern suburbs into grade-separated intersections to keep heavy peak-hour traffic moving through busy junctions on surface roads.
The state also can and will likely develop a couple of east-west regional heavy rail lines connecting the I-75 Northwest Corridor with the I-85 Northeast Corridor across the Northside over the long-term.
One of the future east-west regional heavy rail lines will likely operate between Acworth in Cobb County and Buford in Gwinnett County and connect the growing major regional employment and activity centers of Cumberland, Perimeter Center/Dunwoody and Norcross by way of the heavily-congested I-285 Top End Perimeter corridor.
The other future east-west regional heavy rail line will likely connect the key suburban cities of Douglasville, Lithia Springs, Austell, Marietta, Roswell, Alpharetta, Duluth and Lawrenceville roughly by way of the Georgia Highway 120 corridor.
The state could also try to expand roadway capacity by double-decking the I-285 Perimeter and the interstate spokes that radiate away out away from it with truck-only lanes built over the existing roadway so that freight truck traffic has its own roadway.
But GDOT may be very-hesitant to float an idea like double-decking I-285 and all sections of freeway outside of it after having many of their large-scale freeway expansion ideas met with so much angry and derisive public resistance in the past.
It is because of the very-large negative public reaction to past large-scale freeway expansion proposals that GDOT and the state seem much more content to pursue a long-term traffic congestion reduction strategy of implementing congestion pricing on existing lanes than they do pursuing a transportation strategy of adding new untolled lanes or freeways.
The state isn't going to build a heavy rail line around the city at that distance. The best we could have is heavy rail around I-285, but the suburbs don't have enough inter-suburb traffic and density to justify heavy rail running that far out, around the city. That far out is much more suited to BRTish bus routes with look-ahead signal preemption, and sheltered stops at key locations being the only infrastructure. I see a need for an inter-suburb transit ring, but not using heavy rail. Just covering the ~40 miles from Lawrenceville to Marietta via Johns Creek and Roswell would cost a minimum of $6.5 Billion. There's just no way to justify that expense for fixed-guideway transit along that route, nor would you easily defeat the NIMBYs who wouldn't want viaducts or tunneling near their expensive houses.
I'm imagining something like this for the bus route: Lawrenceville, GA to Cobb Pkwy - Google Maps
However, until there's spoke-transit into Atlanta, I don't think that this inter-suburb route would work quite as well as a lot of people would use the buses to access the commuter rail (NOT HEAVY RAIL!) routes leading out of the city.
The best way to deal with congestion on I-285 and the spoke highways, is to build transit along those corridors. Will it helps through traffic? YES! The through traffic would no longer have to contend with the local traffic if the local traffic is now using transit.
This is a good point. I think a lot of people forget people move to Atlanta for Atlanta. If I wanted New York(grew up in NYC), Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, DC, etc. I would live there. People also forget a lot of people move here because they don't want to pay taxes for "amenities." Compare the economic outlook of Illinois & Minnesota with the other Great Lakes States. Look at how much upstate NY has suffered. In some ways they would be better off without the NYC metro. In all honesty Atlanta took off because low taxes, cost of living, the airport, and I would say the weather was a plus.
We can have a dense core and good transit and still have a low cost of living, a great airport, low taxes, and decent weather. They are not mutually exclusive.
The state isn't going to build a heavy rail line around the city at that distance. The best we could have is heavy rail around I-285, but the suburbs don't have enough inter-suburb traffic and density to justify heavy rail running that far out, around the city. That far out is much more suited to BRTish bus routes with look-ahead signal preemption, and sheltered stops at key locations being the only infrastructure. I see a need for an inter-suburb transit ring, but not using heavy rail. Just covering the ~40 miles from Lawrenceville to Marietta via Johns Creek and Roswell would cost a minimum of $6.5 Billion. There's just no way to justify that expense for fixed-guideway transit along that route, nor would you easily defeat the NIMBYs who wouldn't want viaducts or tunneling near their expensive houses.
...I didn't say that the state would commission the construction of a regional heavy rail line between Douglasville and Lawrenceville via Marietta, Roswell, Alpharetta, Duluth and the GA 120 Corridor in the immediate or near-future.
...I said over the LONG-TERM, as in 20-plus years into the future if the economy happens to not tank and keep growing and propels something close to the type of heady growth that the Atlanta region has experienced over the past 3 decades.
If the Atlanta region does experience anywhere near the type of heady growth over the next 3 decades that it has experienced over the last 3 decades then around 2040, the population of the Atlanta region would be somewhere in the 8-10 million range and suburban areas like Cobb, North Fulton and Gwinnett would be totally different places then what we know them as today.
Just like suburban areas like Cobb, North Fulton and Gwinnett are much different places now than they were 30 some years ago when those areas were largely very outer-suburban with much more land that was rural and much, much smaller populations that were lily-white (over 95% white) in most cases.
Projecting into the future 20-30 years, Cobb and Gwinnett will both likely each have populations that are well over the 1 million mark.
All three areas, Cobb, North Fulton and Gwinnett will be much more ultra-diverse and much more densely-developed with areas like the Marietta Square and the historic downtowns of Roswell, Alpharetta, Duluth and Lawrenceville having much more retail, mid and high-rise living, high-density mixed-use development and being much-larger regional activity centers in general than they are today.
With the Northside continuing to be such a popular relocation destination and there being very-little, if any new roadway capacity added while the population of the area continues to climb through the roof, look for congestion pricing to play a big role in keeping traffic moving, not just on controlled-access superhighways like I-285 and the radial freeways, but also on major surface roads like GA 120 that politically cannot be expanded much, if any, with the exception of tightly-constricted grade separations at major intersections (like a GA 120 and Johnson Ferry in East Cobb) that do not disturb existing development.
With much additional population and high-density development and virtually no additional road space north of I-285, transit lines like Bus Rapid Transit, Light Rail Transit and even Heavy Rail Transit will become critically-important to moving people around who have been priced off of existing major roads in a much more heavily-populated future Atlanta region.
Also, it likely will not necessarily be the state building future transit connections such as a long-term future heavy rail line under GA 120 between Marietta and Lawrenceville, it will most likely be private investors who will happily take advantage of the profit opportunity in moving around the millions of people who have been priced off of the region's constricted and minimally-expanded road network.
I agree that BRT is the most compatible mode of transport between those areas in the nearer-term (within 20 years), but with the continuing growth of that GA Hwy 120-centered east-west corridor north of the I-285, even BRT may not necessarily be enough to support the movement of the rapidly-increasing population of that area that is very-popular with people relocating to the Atlanta area.
I do completely agree with you that implementing some type of BRT across the GA 120 corridor between Marietta and Lawrenceville should be a focus within the next decade or so.
Though, in addition to the BRT connection between Kennesaw and Lawrenceville, there should also be a transit connection that continues along Hwy 120 to connect historic Downtown Roswell, the growing East Cobb retail cluster at Hwy 120 & Johnson Ferry and the historic Marietta Square
Quote:
Originally Posted by MattCW
However, until there's spoke-transit into Atlanta, I don't think that this inter-suburb route would work quite as well as a lot of people would use the buses to access the commuter rail (NOT HEAVY RAIL!) routes leading out of the city.
...I completely agree that an inter-suburb transit route would not work until transit is implemented along the spoke transportation corridors that radiate out from the city and the I-285 Perimeter.
But with Metro Atlanta's population continuing to increase at a very-high rate, particularly in the Northern suburbs OTP, I do think that many of those future regional commuter rail lines proposed to run along existing freight rail right-of-ways should be regional heavy rail line instead, if not immediately after beginning operations, then at-least eventually.
That's because areas like Cobb County (708,000) and Gwinnett County (842,000) already have populations that are larger than many major American cities and are continuing to outgrow their existing already severely-constrained road networks at a very fast pace.
We should also consider upgrading the level of rail transit service to heavy rail along many of those proposed regional commuter lines because we are going to have to construct new tracks on most sections of existing freight rail ROW anyway.
That is so that the growing amount of already exceptionally-heavy freight rail traffic does not conflict with the very-high volume and very-high frequency of passenger trains that we are going to be operating along those existing rail right-of-ways.
This will particularly be the case through increasingly heavily-populated and continued very fast-growing Cobb, Gwinnett and Henry counties where high-capacity, high-volume, high-frequency passenger rail transit lines will be needed to absorb the excess traffic off of very-busy major radial routes like I-75/I-575 NW, I-85/I-985 NE and I-75 South, respectively.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MattCW
The best way to deal with congestion on I-285 and the spoke highways, is to build transit along those corridors. Will it helps through traffic? YES! The through traffic would no longer have to contend with the local traffic if the local traffic is now using transit.
...I completely agree.
Though you may get A LOT of help with that theorem from the state which has long-term plans to almost completely price excess local SOV (single-occupant vehicle) traffic off of the roads with congestion pricing and variable tolls that rise during peak times.
The HOT Lane and managed lane projects that we are seeing more of are just the beginning of a long-term strategy that involves gradually implementing more variable tolls until multiple lanes and eventually ALL LANES of each direction of the freeway system have 24-hour congestion pricing implemented on them.
If the state cannot add new capacity to the freeway system then they are going to create new capacity by pricing what they consider to be excess traffic (mainly SOV traffic) off of the freeways to open up travel space for through traffic (particularly heavy freight traffic which is expected to spike in the future, and tourism and vacation traffic to and from Florida and the Gulf Coast).
We can have a dense core and good transit and still have a low cost of living, a great airport, low taxes, and decent weather. They are not mutually exclusive.
Density means higher cost of living. Better transit means more tax.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
