One year after TSPLOST's defeat (Atlanta: section 8, lease, car insurance)

[kferq]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

You make a really good point here as selling-out and/or leasing-out Transit-Oriented Development rights at and around transit stations along with Tax Allocation Districts, Tax Incremental Financing (portions of property tax revenues from new development that pops up along transit lines), and revenues from inflation-indexed distance-based user fees (distance-based fares on transit lines and distance-based tolls on roads) is actually key to getting our infrastructure built-out more effectively with private capital which is already being used to build public transportation infrastructure in an increasingly less-effective way when government bonds are borrowed from and sold to private investors to pay for public infrastructure projects.

Public-Private Partnerships are just a much more-effective way of using the private capital that already is and already has to be used to pay for public infrastructure projects as the direct profits from real estate holdings adjacent to transit lines and the direct profits from distance-based user fees on transit lines and roads that private investors control in PPPs is incentive for private investors to build-out public infrastructure.


These are EXCELLENT points and great examples of why Public-Private Partnerships (PPP or P3) should be used to fund entire multimodal transportation supercorridors instead of just a couple of reversible variably-tolled lanes.

For example, instead of using a P3 just to fund the construction of I-75/I-575 reversible variably-tolled managed lanes, the best use of a P3 would be to fund the design, construction/reconstruction and continuing operations and maintenance of:

...All lanes of the I-75 and I-575 roadways...

...The entire parallel US 41 Cobb Parkway multimodal corridor (which would include grade-separated intersections at major junctions and a grade-separated high-capacity transit line)...

...A high-capacity passenger rail transit line (with local, regional and long-distance service) operating between the Atlanta Airport and Downtown Chattanooga on grade-separated passenger train-only tracks by way of the parallel (to US 41 and I-75) CSX/Western & Atlantic Railroad right-of-way...

...A high-capacity passenger rail transit line (with local, regional and long-distance service) operating between the Atlanta Airport and Asheville, North Carolina by way of the parallel (to I-575, GA 515, etc) Georgia Northeastern Railroad right-of-way...

...Connecting local and express bus lines.

How will the company make money without raising rates so high it stifles economic activity? and, practically, how do you grant such a huge monopoly to a private company and have oversight so the best interest of the public is served and not just the most profit for that company? When so much money is involved, how do we prevent bribing of officials (not just government officials, but given how much power they will have in your scheme corporate officials) and prevent people from abusing the system to punish their adversaries. We certainly have corruption with our PSC regulating utilities!

Maybe this would work, but it is entirely an untested theoretical plan. This is pie in the sky. PPP is great at the margins but it is not the complete answer. It is a not ready for prime time plan. It is not plan B.

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

Love that article because it highlights what I just said in that other thread about this anti-transit mentality here.

Other cities are investing heavily into transit. We just have a 2.7 mile streetcar that goes almost nowhere.

You are being generous. It is a 2.7 mile loop, so it's actual reach is only about 1.3 miles.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

You are being generous. It is a 2.7 mile loop, so it's actual reach is only about 1.3 miles.

Thank for that basic math solution. I don't know how any of us would have figured that out without you.

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Thank for that basic math solution. I don't know how any of us would have figured that out without you.

Tell me again how this 1.3 mile streetcar is the answer to all of our transportation problems...

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

Tell me again how this 1.3 mile streetcar is the answer to all of our transportation problems...

Who said it was?

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

Tell me again how this 1.3 mile streetcar is the answer to all of our transportation problems...

It won't solve your problems, but then again nothing can solve the congestion in Cobb County and along the Top-end.
It is a starter line for a streetcar system within the city of Atlanta, funded by the city of Atlanta. If you have seen the ARC's 2040 transportation plan, //www.city-data.com/forum/atlan...d-improve.html, you see the current 1.3 mile, double tracked, loop is the first phase of a streetcar network around Atlanta's core. It will connect to the existing MARTA system and run along the BeltLine.

[gtcorndog]

Why even cite that $59 billion plan?

That has zero chance of happening. It is comical to see people on here wet their pants every time some pin-in-the-sky is published on the internet. Go back 10 years and you'll see incredibly ambitious plans as well. Guess what... very little gets done. Citing that plan as if dirt is being moved is foolish.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

Why even cite that $59 billion plan?

That has zero chance of happening. It is comical to see people on here wet their pants every time some pin-in-the-sky is published on the internet. Go back 10 years and you'll see incredibly ambitious plans as well. Guess what... very little gets done. Citing that plan as if dirt is being moved is foolish.

I know! The nerve of this 1946 plan building a network of limited access "express" roads. And even to begin long-term planning for two subway lines intersecting at five-points. Ridiculous, right? That will never get done.

(Actually I have never seen that document and just found it doing a search for old transportation plans. It is pretty awesome.)

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by jsvh

I know! The nerve of this 1946 plan building a network of limited access "express" roads. And even to begin long-term planning for two subway lines intersecting at five-points. Ridiculous, right? That will never get done.

(Actually I have never seen that document and just found it doing a search for old transportation plans. It is pretty awesome.)

The Lochner plan was by far the most influential transportation plan Atlanta has ever had. In those days people felt that running freeways right into (and through) the middle of cities was the way to go. That was also the era when people hauled off and did things instead of just talking about them.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by arjay57

The Lochner plan was by far the most influential transportation plan Atlanta has ever had. In those days people felt that running freeways right into (and through) the middle of cities was the way to go. That was also the era when people hauled off and did things instead of just talking about them.

Stuff was awesome pre-OSHA, pre-EIS, and pre-Jane Jacobs. /sarcasm