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The suburbs need to stop fighting transit and realize that Atlanta as a region needs better transit.
This is a good point.
Though, it is not necessarily the suburbs as a whole that is fighting transit.
It is a shrinking, but extremely vocal and politically-powerful minority of hard-core anti-transit ultraconservative interests that is fighting against improving, upgrading and expanding transit to and through the areas where it is obviously most-needed outside of Fulton and DeKalb counties.
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Originally Posted by demonta4
The only county i think would fund Marta is Clayton but the leaders there don't even care enough to have a vote.
It's not that the leaders in Clayton County don't care enough to have a vote, it's that the leaders in Clayton County don't want a vote because they represent a small, but politically-powerful minority of the county's population that believes that transit is one of the absolute main causes of the county's decline.
This small, but very-powerful minority of politically-dominant residents (falsely) believes that Clayton County is much-better off WITHOUT transit moving forward because they believe that the availability of transit helped attract too many poor people into the county.
They (falsely) believe that by ending and disallowing transit service in the county that poor people will move somewhere else other than Clayton County.
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Originally Posted by demonta4
Metro Atlanta needs to accept the fact that without Marta we wouldn't even be on the map.
This is a very-good point also.
Without MARTA, Atlanta most-likely would not have been awarded most of the major events that it has hosted, including the 1996 Summer Olympics, the 1988 Democratic Convention, the 2 Super Bowls and a myriad of major conventions.
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Originally Posted by bryantm3
i would love to see clayton get a vote on MARTA, but i would imagine MARTA officials are actually not eager to see clayton added to their service area since the tax revenue gained would be less than the cost of expanding into clayton. they probably want to see a richer county like cobb vote in so they can pay for clayton.
This is an excellent point.
This point also underscores why we need to cultivate multiple streams to revenue to fund our transit needs and not be so overwhelmingly dependent upon only one revenue stream in the form of a voter referendum-approved 1% sales tax that is only politically viable in 2 counties in a metro region that stretches over anywhere between 10-35 counties depending on one's definition.
Being so overwhelmingly-dependent upon one source of revenue in a 1% sales tax that needs the approval of voters in countywide referendums to be enacted also gives more power to the relatively small and shrinking minorities of transit opponents.
...That's because all that those anti-transit interests have to do to block transit from being expanded in their areas (even when there is an obviously pressing need for increased transit availability in fast-growing and increasingly heavily-populated areas like Cobb and Gwinnett counties) is simply block a transit-funding voter referendum from taking place.
Cultivating multiple other transit-funding revenue streams besides a 1% county-by-county sales tax makes it much more difficult for the shrinking number of anti-transit interests to block the expansion of transit service to outlying areas where it is so sorely-needed.
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Originally Posted by arjay57
Bus service might work but rail might be too expensive.
I agree that with very-limited revenues available, bus service would be less-expensive to re-implement in an area like Clayton County and expand to other transit-needy metro counties.
But with NO current dedicated revenue stream or streams, even an almost embarrassingly-meager bare bones level of bus service is too expensive in outlying counties like Clayton (and Cobb and Gwinnett, etc).
If needed, or desired, bus service can be a really good way to build ridership for future passenger rail transit service in many instances.
Though, the current problem is not necessarily that passenger rail transit service is too expensive.
The current problem is that (largely because of severe incompetence in managing transportation matters) our state government just outright refuses to even adequately and/or properly fund the multimodal transportation needs of its largest and fastest-growing metropolitan region in and around Atlanta.
Every transportation need (no matter how major and/or minor or seemingly simple) is too-expensive when the state government in charge of funding those important transportation needs is completely incompetent (and seemingly clueless) at doing so.
How can we expect our state government to fully or even adequately fund the intricacies of a multimodal transportation network of a fast-growing metro region of over 6 million people when they can't even do simple accounting practices or keep traffic signals synchronized?
I realize I am totally responsible for my choice to move to a suburb. My bad and I'm in the process of resolving that round of poor decision making.
It's not necessarily as deep as some in these forums make it out to be.
For social reasons, you realized that where you were living was not for you and you worked to make a change to move somewhere else that is a better fit for you based on your unique situation.
But not everyone who lives in the suburbs and works in the city can (or wants to) just up and move into the city to be close to a transit line or be closer to where they may work in the city.
Most people, for various reasons (extremely-challenged finances; living near extended family and friends in an area that they may have grown up in; they love the quality of their children's schools; don't want to unnecessarily uproot their families; job moved AWAY from where they were living close to work, etc) cannot necessarily move to live closer to this metro region's relatively extremely-limited transit network or to live closer to where they work.
If anything, in a major greater metro region of over 6 million people, the extremely-limited transit network should be or should have already extended and expanded out to them (by way of either regional heavy rail transit, regional commuter rail transit, and/or regional commuter bus transit service, and/or park & ride transit service, and/or carpool and/or vanpool and/or shuttle service, etc ) as is the case in other road infrastructure-challenged metro regions of 6 million people or more around the continent and around the globe.
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Originally Posted by ElleKaye
I am glad to see that the attitude towards public transit, biking trails, etc. is changing. If you're not originally from the south (and not just Atlanta), it can be difficult to try to explain why there's a bit of almost built-in disdain for public transit. Using it is sort of like saying you're too broke to afford a car. I think that is why proper development of it fell by the wayside.
It is not just the disdain for public transit in an era of overwhelming automobile dominance in a region with a particularly-strong libertarian streak, but it is also just a basic (or more like a vast) misunderstanding of how to manage a multimodal transportation system beyond doing anything more than expanding and repaving a road network that was largely paid for with federal funds (...particularly in regards to the Interstate superhighway network, whose initial implementation and eventual expansion through the Atlanta region was paid for largely with federal funds).
The multimodal transportation needs of a major multi-county metro region of over 6 million have seemingly proven to be too complex to handle or manage for a state government that only seems to be able to perform a very-basic set of tasks when it comes to transportation management (...a very-basic and very-simple set of tasks like repaving and expanding roads with decreasing revenues from gas taxes and revenues borrowed from other sources).
Anything beyond the relatively very-simple tasks of repaving and expanding roads with declining gas tax revenues and borrowed revenues seems to be extremely too far beyond the grasp of transportation officials in Georgia at the moment.
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Originally Posted by ElleKaye
As for highway projects, there always seems to be something going on that will not address projected needs by the time it reaches completion. I think maybe the developers need some rules: do not build another house out here until you find a way to add another street lane. I don't know if it feasible but the traffic is indeed out of hand.
You're right...a development freeze is far from feasible in an Atlanta metro region where land speculators and real estate developers play an outsized role in local and regional (and state) governance.
Heck, there are many metro counties where developers served in elected office and used their elected office to further their own real estate interests, traffic be damned.
Gwinnett County is one place that immediately comes to mind as a county where an actual land speculator/real estate developer served as chairman of the county board of commissioners for many, many years.
Land speculation and real estate development interests also have been (and continue to be) overwhelmingly politically-influential and politically-powerful in local governance in other metro counties like Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Henry, Forsyth, etc.
I realize I am totally responsible for my choice to move to a suburb. My bad and I'm in the process of resolving that round of poor decision making.
I am glad to see that the attitude towards public transit, biking trails, etc. is changing. If you're not originally from the south (and not just Atlanta), it can be difficult to try to explain why there's a bit of almost built-in disdain for public transit. Using it is sort of like saying you're too broke to afford a car. I think that is why proper development of it fell by the wayside.
As for highway projects, there always seems to be something going on that will not address projected needs by the time it reaches completion. I think maybe the developers need some rules: do not build another house out here until you find a way to add another street lane. I don't know if it feasible but the traffic is indeed out of hand.
that's why you need better zoning, but developers have pretty much greased the palms of officials in a lot of suburban counties to continually allow more homes to be built even though the infrastructure is not sufficient for that kind of development.
realistically, it's very difficult for me to look at cities like detroit and chicago that built millions of homes during the 10s through the 40s, and not the put-up-jobs that dominate our suburbs— solid homes that were architectural marvels made from brick, plaster and mortar that make most of our "historic homes" look like slaves quarters— only to have them look like this today:
and then i think of the thousands of subdivisions out there in cobb, gwinnett, forsyth— they go on for miles and miles. you can drive on these once rural routes that are miles from any form of transit and miles from any interstate and pass tons of these subdivisions.
even if the suburbs don't have huge abandonment rates, do you really think that these homes out in the suburbs constructed of plywood and drywall are going to last more than about 30 years? even if they aren't abandoned, they just won't be livable in 30 years, they'll be falling apart. but i'm not even making my predictions based on that— if atlanta continues to urbanize, jobs will continue to move intown, and the traffic will get to be where it just isn't bearable. if there isn't transit connection, property values will drop and even the working poor won't want to live there due to the lack of transit and the expense of owning an automobile. i honestly don't see much of the suburbs being sustainable even from that point of view.
realistically, it's very difficult for me to look at cities like detroit and chicago that built millions of homes during the 10s through the 40s, and not the put-up-jobs that dominate our suburbs— solid homes that were architectural marvels made from brick, plaster and mortar that make most of our "historic homes" look like slaves quarters— only to have them look like this today:
and then i think of the thousands of subdivisions out there in cobb, gwinnett, forsyth— they go on for miles and miles. you can drive on these once rural routes that are miles from any form of transit and miles from any interstate and pass tons of these subdivisions.
even if the suburbs don't have huge abandonment rates, do you really think that these homes out in the suburbs constructed of plywood and drywall are going to last more than about 30 years? even if they aren't abandoned, they just won't be livable in 30 years, they'll be falling apart. but i'm not even making my predictions based on that— if atlanta continues to urbanize, jobs will continue to move intown, and the traffic will get to be where it just isn't bearable. if there isn't transit connection, property values will drop and even the working poor won't want to live there due to the lack of transit and the expense of owning an automobile. i honestly don't see much of the suburbs being sustainable even from that point of view.
These are some great points.
Though if (when) those cheaply-built houses in the suburbs do eventually become uninhabitable, a very-likely scenario is that some of those suburbs will be redeveloped into higher-density housing while others very well likely may continue to sit and deteriorate with poorer and working-class families living in them that cannot afford to live in higher-density areas with higher property values closer to the core of the metro region as is the case in large metro areas with a much-higher availability of transit service (...transit-heavy metro areas like DC, Boston, NYC, etc, where housing costs are much higher closer to rail transit lines and closer to the core, hence the term "ride-til-you-qualify" where first-time homebuyers often have to get on a passenger rail transit line and ride out from the city until they find an area where they can afford to live).
With the Atlanta metro region expected to continue to grow more populous (likely well beyond the 8 million inhabitant mark within the next 3 decades or so) and with the Atlanta metro region expected to be a focus city for a very-large wave of immigration from Asia (a wave of immigration centered on the Indian subcontinent that could potentially be the largest that this country has ever seen), housing everywhere will become more valuable, both in the city where more areas have immediate transit access, and in the suburbs where fewer areas have immediate transit access.
Also keep-in-mind that poor people have cars, too, particularly in a metro region like Atlanta where the automobile has played an overwhelmingly dominant role in the development and culture of the metro region in the post-World War II era.
The fact that poor people have very-high rates of vehicular ownership is the reason why so many poor people now live in what at one time used to be far-flung suburban areas in counties like Fulton, Clayton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett and Henry counties much to the dismay of many of the longtime middle class and upper-middle class residents living in those outlying areas who thought that they had moved from away from poor people and minorities.
The fact that poor people have very-high rates of vehicular ownership is the reason why so many poor people now live in what at one time used to be far-flung suburban areas in counties like Fulton, Clayton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett and Henry counties much to the dismay of many of the longtime middle class and upper-middle class residents living in those outlying areas who thought that they had moved from away from poor people and minorities.
Back in the 70s we used to say that one day the well to do will run out of running room. In some cases that seems to be true.
Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll The fact that poor people have very-high rates of vehicular ownership is the reason why so many poor people now live in what at one time used to be far-flung suburban areas in counties like Fulton, Clayton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett and Henry counties much to the dismay of many of the longtime middle class and upper-middle class residents living in those outlying areas who thought that they had moved from away from poor people and minorities.
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Originally Posted by arjay57
Back in the 70s we used to say that one day the well to do will run out of running room. In some cases that seems to be true.
Excellent point, though in all fairness, we must also keep-in-mind that inner-city crime rates were much-higher back in the 1960's and particularly in the 1970's in Atlanta and most major U.S. cities then they are today.
Prior to the late 1980's, the City of Atlanta was home to the largest cluster of public housing in the Eastern U.S. south of Washington D.C.
Most of that public housing in Atlanta and other major U.S. cities was crime-ridden, which had an effect on crime rates in areas surrounding that public housing.
Combine the very-high crime rates of public housing and surrounding areas with the disruption (and destruction) of many inner-city neighborhoods by inner-city/urban freeway construction and a general trend of abandonment of inner-city areas for far-flung suburbs in an era of automobile dominance and automobile-overdependency in the post-World War II era, and you have a major motivating factor for middle-class residents (whites and blacks) to abandon inner cities for outlying suburbs in droves.
MARTA still has a terrible coverage for a 5.5M metro. I can point to probably 10 metros around the world with a lower metro population that has better and a more extensive transit. Most of them being in Europe and Asia where people are actually pro-transit and understand the necessity of it in a large established modern human settlement.
But hey, this is Atlanta's fault for sprawling to the point to where it's nearly 3 times larger in land area than the Paris Metro which has 2 and half times the metro population.
What is it with you comparing Atlanta to metros in Europe and Asia? Even folks with a scant understanding of the differences among the U.S., Europe, and Asia know that you just can't do this and have folks take you seriously.
What is it with you comparing Atlanta to metros in Europe and Asia? Even folks with a scant understanding of the differences among the U.S., Europe, and Asia know that you just can't do this and have folks take you seriously.
Because I didn't want to compare it to another similar size metro, D.C., then have people whine and complain that the government used federal taxes to pay for rail.
D.C. is a good example of a sprawling metro that has great rail coverage that isn't much larger than Atlanta.
Because I didn't want to compare it to another similar size metro, D.C., then have people whine and complain that the government used federal taxes to pay for rail.
So using a European or Asian city which has had a COMPLETELY different approach to urbanization and transit in the post-war era constitutes a better example????? Is that your logic?????
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D.C. is a good example of a sprawling metro that has great rail coverage that isn't much larger than Atlanta.
Of course it is, but we already know that. You keep repeating the same stuff ad nauseum and it doesn't really contribute substantially to the discussion at hand.
While there are reasons to be found locally to explain why MARTA isn't more extensive than it is, this is largely an American problem and not one specific to Atlanta. Otherwise, Miami, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Detroit, etc. would all have better systems. Heck, even Boston and Philly would have systems that are exponentially better.
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