MARTA Expansion into Clayton = Long awaited Commuter Rail? (Atlanta, Gainesville: rent, purchase)

[Gulch]

According to this website, Clayton may be about to screw itself with MARTA:

And the likelihood of the Commissioners showing up to the Saturday meeting where they could vote to fix these problems is questionable as we go into the holiday weekend. Sonna Singleton, Gail Hambrick, and Michael Edmondson have all indicated that they will not attend the meeting Saturday morning.
Clayton residents should be able to decide what’s best for them. All they’re asking for is the chance to vote. So Commissioners, will you give the people a chance to be heard?

[cqholt]

In the early 20th Century, major cities like New York and Chicago extended HRT lines out to outlying rural and exurban areas before those areas became heavily-developed.

That was private companies that was based on speculation. Just like building a streetcar line to Inman park.

[MattCW]

I'm guessing that two members aren't enough for a quorum? Don't the boards of commissioners have some kind of legal provision that allows law enforcement to forcibly return members if they're absent? I think Congress has that, and I want to say some legislatures do.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by cqholt

That was private companies that was based on speculation. Just like building a streetcar line to Inman park.

...Also just like in the way that limited-access and controlled-access highways were extended out from cities like Atlanta into outlying rural and exurban areas for developmental purposes in the late 20th Century.

It was the pretty much the same process in both instances. Private companies speculated land along transit lines in the early 20th Century in much the same way that private companies speculated land along limited-access and controlled-access highways in the late 20th Century.

Ironically, it is a variation of the same transportation-oriented land speculation concept that can (and given our current dire transportation funding situation, most likely will) be used to fund the capital and operating costs of high-capacity multimodal transportation (transit, and to a lesser-extent, roads) in the 21st Century.

Transit agencies like MARTA and GRTA (and maybe even smaller transit agencies like CCT and GCT) will likely (out of necessity) transition into large real estate development corporations that raise money from private investors (local, national and international investors), buy real estate along high-capacity transportation corridors (both transit lines and roads), lease the real estate out for the construction of revenue-generating transit-oriented commercial real estate development (residences, offices, hotels, retail, factories, warehouses, etc), and use the profits to fund high-capacity transit service (rail and bus) that dramatically increases the value of their property holdings which in-turn further increases profit margins.

It is conceivable that one day, transit agencies like MARTA and GRTA could become some of the largest land owners in the state of Georgia....A development that would make transit agencies like MARTA and GRTA highly-profitable, financially-successful and financially self-sustaining, meaning that transit agencies like MARTA and GRTA (and maybe even CCT and GCT should they continue to operate) could implement, improve, upgrade and expand transit service as needed without begging indifferent and unstable external sources (like county governments, state government and the federal government) for funding.

[MattCW]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

The hybrid regional HRT/commuter rail option would be extremely-attractive to the private sector (likely much more-attractive than just the regional commuter rail option alone) because the monetary value of real estate holdings along a high-capacity passenger rail transit corridor would increase more with the hybrid regional HRT/commuter rail option than with just the regional commuter rail option alone.

When it comes to real estate (particularly commercial real estate), increased connectivity = increased monetary value...which in the case of real estate-funded high-capacity passenger rail transit, increased monetary value = increased operating revenue.

But you're not talking about increased connectivity. Just running more trains doesn't mean you have increased connectivity. How much connectivity does Gainesville really need? 1000 people per hour to start with? You're proposing 6300 people per hour but at 10+ times the cost. You're also failing to take into account the cost of running the systems. Heavy Rail has substantially higher O&M costs than commuter rail so there's no gain from running them that far out.

*NOTE* In the following post, when I say something like "extend MARTA" I'm really talking about extending MARTA Heavy Rail. Moving forward, we should probably clarify since it seems MARTA could be Atlanta's commuter rail operator. I've specifically stated this in a few areas, but haven't for most of them.

That's a good point that BART operates in a very-dense large major metro region in the Bay Area and that LIRR is commuter rail.

But the density of population and development is not uniformly-heavy along the BART Pittsburg/Bay Point-SFO/Millbrae regional HRT line. There are some portions of the line east of Oakland in Contra Costa County where the line runs through some areas where the density of population and development is very-low while operating between denser areas.

But those are the corridors that largely don't have existing rail corridors to operate off of (like our Red Line extension). As such, they only run about 12 miles off the core city with the current extension (eBART) being substantially more limited.

Also, while LIRR may be commuter rail, LIRR's very-high frequencies, very-short headways, relatively very-short distances between stations (as short a distance as only a half-mile between many stations) and 24-hour operations make it qualify as high-capacity passenger rail transit service.

The only high density stations a half mile a part from each other are either the exception in order to better serve a particular community, or within New York City itself, or part of a short branch line where it doesn't matter too much about the extra stopping. But if the densest city in the country doesn't feel the need to run 10 minute headways into the densest set of suburbs in the nation at more than 1 hour to 30 minutes, then it is the height of hubris to think that little old Atlanta needs to do the same, through an area that is very suburban, and fairly rural until you reach Gainesville. Commuter rail is more than sufficient for handling the traffic as it stands today, and likely for the next 50+ years in the Gainesville as well as Clayton (Lovejoy/Griffin) corridor. I was actually probably wrong about my cost estimates for HRT to Gainesville earlier. After looking at a map and all the areas you want a one-seat ride to, my estimate
for HRT to Gainesville is $8-$10 Billion dollars, while my estimate for commuter rail remains the same. Or about 10 times the cost for 6 times the capacity. To bring this back to the topic of Clayton, HRT to Lovejoy is about $2.2 Billion dollars, while commuter rail would be about $400-$500 Million dollars on the same alignment. If you deviate from the railroad, HRT probably goes up at least another $1 Billion dollars.

The 55-mile length of BART's Pittsburg/Bay Point-SFO/Millbrae regional HRT line and the roughly 125-mile length of the LIRR line from Penn Station to Montauk out on the very-eastern tip of Long Island (a high-capacity rail line which also operates through some lower-density areas on the east end of Long Island) also proves that people will indeed ride on high-capacity passenger rail transit service farther than the 52-mile distance between Gainesville and Atlanta that you earlier cited as being a distance that people would not ride on high-capacity passenger rail transit service.

I said that people would not ride on MARTA Heavy Rail for that distance, go back and read what I wrote. You want to extend Heavy Rail to Gainesville for a one-side ride of 50 miles. The SFO-Bay Point line is about 30 miles from the city, but again, on this line, they really had no choice. MARTA's Red Line is already 22 miles, and will expand to 34 miles by the time it reaches Alpharetta. That's about as far as you can go without cushioned seats and bathrooms on board which I really doubt MARTA is going to install. A Clayton HRT line to Lovejoy would be about the same and again, at that outer limit of customer acceptability. There is a HUGE difference beetween the LIRR's 125 mile commuter rail and a Heavy Rail route.

Implementing a high-level of regional passenger rail transit service is going to cost a substantial amount, there's just no way around that reality.

So then why are you trying to make it cost more than it has to?

If we are going to implement and operate regional passenger rail transit service through a corridor as important as the I-85/I-985 Northeast Corridor between the world's busiest airport at Hartsfield-Jackson ATL Int'l Airport and the very-important Northeast Georgia city of Gainesville, we might as well pay (from sources dedicated to funding this particular high-capacity transit corridor) to implement and operate the service correctly at the highest-level that is possible and appropriate for such a logistically and politically critically-important corridor.

Then let's pay to do it right. A dollar will go a lot farther building commuter rail than it will heavy rail as I have shown above, and it can build the demand over time rather than needing heavy ridership from day 1.

With the I-85/I-985 Northeast Corridor between the ATL Airport and Gainesville being so logistically and politically-important to both the Atlanta region and the state of Georgia as a whole, it is critically-important that corridor receive the very-high level of transit service that it warrants.

What makes you think it warrants 10-12 minute service to Atlanta all day long when even New York City (and Chicago, and other northeastern cities) don't even have close to that?

Just because much of the I-85/I-985 anchored Northeast Corridor is located outside of the I-285 Perimeter does not mean that it is not just as important to the region's and the state's well-being as the area inside (and just outside) of the I-285 Perimeter.

But it does mean it isn't nearly as dense as inside I-285. As I said somewhere above, a HRT route to Gainesville or Lovejoy will run through some very low density suburban even into rural areas. Commuter rail is more than adequate to serve the market in question and doesn't cost nearly as much.

All of the locations that I mentioned are very-important locations and major points-of-interest in the Atlanta metro region that are deserving of receiving a regional Heavy Rail Transit-level of service.

Besides, the purpose of high-capacity passenger rail service is indeed to connect as many people as possible with as many major points-of-interests as possible.

The purpose of high-capacity passenger rail service is NOT to attempt to avoid serving as many very-important locations and major points-of-interests as possible out of a shortsighted and myopic effort to cut corners as part of a severely-misguided attempt to save money from non-existent funding sources.

No one's trying to cut corners. Using a better mode that is also cheaper isn't a cut corner just because it costs less. But it also doesn't make sense to try and connect every single point of interest to every single other point of interest especially when doing so will break the bank.

All of the aforementioned points on an ATL Airport-Gainesville hybrid regional HRT/commuter rail line (ATL Airport and Gainesville included) would be major (if not massive) ridership and revenue generators.

And commuter rail can handle that ridership, while being cheaper to build.

Serving the aforementioned points with hybrid regional HRT/commuter rail service would go a very-long way towards furthering the cause of mass transit and helping to make transit extremely-popular and well-liked in North Georgia.

No it wouldn't. Proposing $10 Billion dollars to cut across suburban Gwinnett county and rural Hall county or suburban/rural Clayton County would just hurt the cause of mass transit more than it would help. There's a practical side to transit planning. Namely you have to understand the practical and political limitations to a system. I'll be blunt. You are out of touch with the reality of things. I too have drawn some pretty pie-in-the-sky maps of where I'd like to run trains and buses, but I've learned to recognize what the serious issues as well as the pros and cons are for what I propose and why they [most likely] wouldn't actually work in the real world.

But attempting to unnecessarily cut corners and avoid serving one or more of the aforementioned locations and major points-of-interest would only further help to do great harm to a mode of transportation in high-capacity passenger rail transit that has already been greatly-harmed enough due to extremely-poor management and a glaring lack of knowledge and insight on how to operate such a critically-important mode of transportation.

It's one thing to have no transit because people don't support it. It's one thing to propose ideas so outlandish that people quit supporting it out because they know it won't work. Like trying to run MARTA Heavy Rail to Gainesville or Lovejoy. The only way to bring about support for transit is to propose systems that are going to work, and won't break the bank, and make sure any noticed cons to them have reasonable answers.

[AnsleyPark]

Where will we get the gazillions of dollars to do all of this?

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

...Also just like in the way that limited-access and controlled-access highways were extended out from cities like Atlanta into outlying rural and exurban areas for developmental purposes in the late 20th Century.

It was the pretty much the same process in both instances. Private companies speculated land along transit lines in the early 20th Century in much the same way that private companies speculated land along limited-access and controlled-access highways in the late 20th Century.

Ironically, it is a variation of the same transportation-oriented land speculation concept that can (and given our current dire transportation funding situation, most likely will) be used to fund the capital and operating costs of high-capacity multimodal transportation (transit, and to a lesser-extent, roads) in the 21st Century.

Transit agencies like MARTA and GRTA (and maybe even smaller transit agencies like CCT and GCT) will likely (out of necessity) transition into large real estate development corporations that raise money from private investors (local, national and international investors), buy real estate along high-capacity transportation corridors (both transit lines and roads), lease the real estate out for the construction of revenue-generating transit-oriented commercial real estate development (residences, offices, hotels, retail, factories, warehouses, etc), and use the profits to fund high-capacity transit service (rail and bus) that dramatically increases the value of their property holdings which in-turn further increases profit margins.

It is conceivable that one day, transit agencies like MARTA and GRTA could become some of the largest land owners in the state of Georgia....A development that would make transit agencies like MARTA and GRTA highly-profitable, financially-successful and financially self-sustaining, meaning that transit agencies like MARTA and GRTA (and maybe even CCT and GCT should they continue to operate) could implement, improve, upgrade and expand transit service as needed without begging indifferent and unstable external sources (like county governments, state government and the federal government) for funding.

If MARTA and GRTA become big landowners, the likelihood is that it would bankrupt each agency and the state.

If real estate developers (who are experts) frequently lose their shirt, the idea that governments would do it well is a really, really, bad bet.

[bu2]

I don't see Atlanta being able to justify heavy rail outside of the 5 core counties ever. And if you do expect it, it would be half a century away. You should preserve ROW in that case. That is something Atlanta has done poorly, allowing development in transportation corridors.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

The hybrid regional HRT/commuter rail option would be extremely-attractive to the private sector (likely much more-attractive than just the regional commuter rail option alone) because the monetary value of real estate holdings along a high-capacity passenger rail transit corridor would increase more with the hybrid regional HRT/commuter rail option than with just the regional commuter rail option alone.

When it comes to real estate (particularly commercial real estate), increased connectivity = increased monetary value...which in the case of real estate-funded high-capacity passenger rail transit, increased monetary value = increased operating revenue.

Originally Posted by MattCW

But you're not talking about increased connectivity. Just running more trains doesn't mean you have increased connectivity. How much connectivity does Gainesville really need? 1000 people per hour to start with? You're proposing 6300 people per hour but at 10+ times the cost. You're also failing to take into account the cost of running the systems. Heavy Rail has substantially higher O&M costs than commuter rail so there's no gain from running them that far out.

If we're talking about connecting a very-important hub city in Northeast Georgia in Gainesville with the world's busiest airport by way of a future high-capacity passenger rail transit link that currently does not exist, we're talking about increasing connectivity.

And the gain that comes from running a hybrid regional HRT/commuter rail corridor to Gainesville (as opposed to just regional commuter rail alone) is that we will increase connectivity through a corridor that is severely-restricted in the amount of road capacity between a very-important hub city in Northeast Georgia and the world's busiest airport.

The increased connectivity that will come with a high-capacity passenger rail transit link to the major activity centers of the five-county urban core of Metro Atlanta and the direct rail transit link to the world's busiest airport will make the Atlanta-Gainesville corridor an even more extremely-attractive place to do business than it already is with its very-close location to Metro Atlanta's major water source at Lake Lanier and its relatively-close location to the scenic Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian Mountains.

Originally Posted by MattCW

*NOTE* In the following post, when I say something like "extend MARTA" I'm really talking about extending MARTA Heavy Rail. Moving forward, we should probably clarify since it seems MARTA could be Atlanta's commuter rail operator. I've specifically stated this in a few areas, but haven't for most of them.

That's a good point as there does appear to be a good chance that MARTA could end up being in the commuter rail business in the not-too-distant future.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

That's a good point that BART operates in a very-dense large major metro region in the Bay Area and that LIRR is commuter rail.

But the density of population and development is not uniformly-heavy along the BART Pittsburg/Bay Point-SFO/Millbrae regional HRT line. There are some portions of the line east of Oakland in Contra Costa County where the line runs through some areas where the density of population and development is very-low while operating between denser areas.

Originally Posted by MattCW

But those are the corridors that largely don't have existing rail corridors to operate off of (like our Red Line extension). As such, they only run about 12 miles off the core city with the current extension (eBART) being substantially more limited.

But that BART Pittsburg/Bay Point-SFO/Millbrae regional HRT line extends about 28 miles east of Downtown Oakland and about 36 miles east of San Francisco with the line reaching a very-low density area only about 4 miles northeast of Downtown Oakland.

It should also be noted that even though BART's rail transit service is Heavy Rail, much of BART's HRT system is designed to operate as a regional commuter rail system but with HRT trains on HRT trackage....Which is what road infrastructure-limited Atlanta, with a regional population that is already in excess of 6 million and is expected to eclipse the 9 million-mark and possibly flirt with the 10 million mark within the next 30 years or so, really needs moving forward.

With the heavy population that the Atlanta metro region already has on an extremely-limited and effectively built-out road network and with the heavy population that the Atlanta metro region is expected to continue to gain over the next 3 decades or so, the road-limited Atlanta metro region needs regional Heavy Rail Transit service (NOT just regional commuter rail service) in high-capacity corridors like ATL Airport-Gainesville and ATL Airport-Athens (through heavily-populated Gwinnett County) and North Metro Atlanta-Griffin (through urban Clayton County and south of Atlanta) to accommodate the heavy growth that history has demonstrated will come.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Also, while LIRR may be commuter rail, LIRR's very-high frequencies, very-short headways, relatively very-short distances between stations (as short a distance as only a half-mile between many stations) and 24-hour operations make it qualify as high-capacity passenger rail transit service.

Originally Posted by MattCW

The only high density stations a half mile a part from each other are either the exception in order to better serve a particular community, or within New York City itself, or part of a short branch line where it doesn't matter too much about the extra stopping. But if the densest city in the country doesn't feel the need to run 10 minute headways into the densest set of suburbs in the nation at more than 1 hour to 30 minutes, then it is the height of hubris to think that little old Atlanta needs to do the same, through an area that is very suburban, and fairly rural until you reach Gainesville. Commuter rail is more than sufficient for handling the traffic as it stands today, and likely for the next 50+ years in the Gainesville as well as Clayton (Lovejoy/Griffin) corridor.

While Atlanta may be small compared to New York, with Atlanta's regional population having grown more than six-fold over the last 54 years (from about 1 million in 1960 to over 6 million today), "Little old Atlanta" is not necessarily so "little" anymore.

In 50 years, Atlanta's regional population may very-well be over the 10 million-mark and with the region's well-known aversion to large-scale new road construction, the region will likely have much the same road network that is already inadequate to handle Atlanta's current regional population of 6 million and has been known to be wholly-inadequate ever since Atlanta's regional population eclipsed the 3.5 million-mark in the late 1990's.

While commuter rail MIGHT be adequate to handle traffic as it stands today to areas outside of Metro Atlanta's five-county urban core (to areas like Gainesville and Hall County, and Griffin and Spalding County), Metro Atlanta's five-county urban core (Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton, Cobb and Gwinnett counties) needed has needed HRT service for close to 2 decades.

(...Metro Atlanta's 5-county urban core needed HRT service no later than the 1996 Olympic Games when Metro Atlanta's population surged and traffic gridlock started to become much more common on the current road network.)

Originally Posted by MattCW

I was actually probably wrong about my cost estimates for HRT to Gainesville earlier. After looking at a map and all the areas you want a one-seat ride to, my estimate
for HRT to Gainesville is $8-$10 Billion dollars, while my estimate for commuter rail remains the same. Or about 10 times the cost for 6 times the capacity. To bring this back to the topic of Clayton, HRT to Lovejoy is about $2.2 Billion dollars, while commuter rail would be about $400-$500 Million dollars on the same alignment. If you deviate from the railroad, HRT probably goes up at least another $1 Billion dollars.

Those are excellent points about the cost estimates as being in the high-growth business (being one of the world's fastest-growing large major metro regions) can be (and will be) very-expensive...

...And admittedly even some of the cost estimates you cited might be on the conservative side for some of the stuff that we are likely going to have to do, like tunneling both many existing and future stretches of Heavy Rail Transit, commuter rail, interurban/interstate passenger rail and even freight rail trackage.

Your cost estimates underscore the pressing need to generate multimodal transportation funding from lucrative sources like private investment, transit-owned real estate development along transit lines and the aggressive sales of large and small private sponsorships.

As I have expressed before, I also like the idea of retrofitting the existing MARTA Heavy Rail Transit system so that future extensions of the system can operate through at-grade street crossings where possible (mainly through sparsely-populated outlying areas) and so that the system can feature HRT and commuter rail and interurban rail on the same tracks where needed and where possible.

Though we must keep-in-mind that even in the (unlikely) event that the current MARTA HRT system were to be retrofitted to accommodate multiple passenger rail modes (so that not all street crossings would have to be grade-separated on future extensions so that the same track could accommodate commuter rail and interurban rail if and where needed in addition to HRT-type service) that improving, upgrading and expanding our currently severely-undersized passenger rail transit network is still going to cost an amount of money that will seem to be completely staggering and eye-popping to many onlookers just simply because the region and the state has never spent that amount of money before in 2014 dollars and 21st Century dollars.

(...Also, the overwhelming majority of street crossings will have to continue to be grade-separated even if the current HRT system is retrofitted so that not all stretches of future extensions will have to be grade-separated at every street crossing.)

At this point in time with our continued very-high rates of population growth, our built-out road network and our increased multimodal transportation needs that a fast-growing population demands, whatever we do is going to be very-expensive.

(...Just take a look at how the costs of the pending reconstruction of the I-285/GA 400 interchange continue to increase towards the $1 billion mark....And just to think that the state actually thought that it was saving money by not reconstructing the interchange 25 years ago when it built the GA 400 Extension, HA!)

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

The 55-mile length of BART's Pittsburg/Bay Point-SFO/Millbrae regional HRT line and the roughly 125-mile length of the LIRR line from Penn Station to Montauk out on the very-eastern tip of Long Island (a high-capacity rail line which also operates through some lower-density areas on the east end of Long Island) also proves that people will indeed ride on high-capacity passenger rail transit service farther than the 52-mile distance between Gainesville and Atlanta that you earlier cited as being a distance that people would not ride on high-capacity passenger rail transit service.

Originally Posted by MattCW

I said that people would not ride on MARTA Heavy Rail for that distance, go back and read what I wrote. You want to extend Heavy Rail to Gainesville for a one-side ride of 50 miles. The SFO-Bay Point line is about 30 miles from the city, but again, on this line, they really had no choice. MARTA's Red Line is already 22 miles, and will expand to 34 miles by the time it reaches Alpharetta. That's about as far as you can go without cushioned seats and bathrooms on board which I really doubt MARTA is going to install. A Clayton HRT line to Lovejoy would be about the same and again, at that outer limit of customer acceptability. There is a HUGE difference beetween the LIRR's 125 mile commuter rail and a Heavy Rail route.

Even though the 55-mile length of BART's Millbrae/SFO-Pittsburg/Bay Point regional HRT line proves that people will ride HRT trains for distances of more than 50 miles one-way, your comments illustrate the need to provide different tiers of high-capacity passenger rail transit service (basic, economy, business-class, first-class, luxury-liner, etc) that will offer more amenities over longer distances.

For example, such multi-tiered service offerings will come in handy on a future high-capacity passenger rail transit line connecting Cartersville in the I-75 NW Corridor with Gainesville in the I-85/I-985 NE Corridor by way of the Cumberland-Doraville stretch of the I-285 Top End Perimeter....Because a Cartersville-Gainesville high-capacity passenger rail transit line would be about roughly 85 miles in length.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Implementing a high-level of regional passenger rail transit service is going to cost a substantial amount, there's just no way around that reality.

Originally Posted by MattCW

So then why are you trying to make it cost more than it has to?

I'm not trying to make it cost more than it has to.

Improving, upgrading and expanding our currently severely-undersized passenger rail transit system to the high-level of service that is needed is going to cost a lot of money, there just is no way around that.

And it makes no sense to cut corners in an attempt to cut costs because doing so would only harm our efforts by cutting the effectiveness of the system and making it less-popular with the commuting public who wants an effective and comprehensive system that is likeable and convenient to use.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

If we are going to implement and operate regional passenger rail transit service through a corridor as important as the I-85/I-985 Northeast Corridor between the world's busiest airport at Hartsfield-Jackson ATL Int'l Airport and the very-important Northeast Georgia city of Gainesville, we might as well pay (from sources dedicated to funding this particular high-capacity transit corridor) to implement and operate the service correctly at the highest-level that is possible and appropriate for such a logistically and politically critically-important corridor.

Originally Posted by MattCW

Then let's pay to do it right. A dollar will go a lot farther building commuter rail than it will heavy rail as I have shown above, and it can build the demand over time rather than needing heavy ridership from day 1.

I agree that we should pay to do it right.

But attempting to high volumes of passenger rail transit service on existing tracks with high volumes of freight trains is not the way to "pay to do it right".

Giving such an important and very fast-growing corridor as the ATL Airport-Gainesville corridor the high level of rail transit service it deserves and warrants (high frequencies of high-capacity passenger rail services on passenger rail-only tracks) is the way to "pay to do it right" the first time.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

With the I-85/I-985 Northeast Corridor between the ATL Airport and Gainesville being so logistically and politically-important to both the Atlanta region and the state of Georgia as a whole, it is critically-important that corridor receive the very-high level of transit service that it warrants.

Originally Posted by MattCW

What makes you think it warrants 10-12 minute service to Atlanta all day long when even New York City (and Chicago, and other northeastern cities) don't even have close to that?

The Atlanta-Gainesville corridor (which includes very fast-growing and increasingly heavily-populated Gwinnett County and Metro Atlanta's main water source, Lake Lanier) is a very fast-growing and heavily-populated corridor with a very-limited road network that is expected to grow at a very-high rate.

Heavy developmental and population growth is heading towards Gainesville from Atlanta and has been for the last 3 decades.

Plus the road network (particularly Interstates 85 and 985) has about reached the limit to which it can be further expanded while the population of the area continues to explode (...Gwinnett County is expected to reach the 1 million-inhabitant mark in the not-too-distant future).

Also, because it is Metro Atlanta's main water source, Lake Lanier is an attractive destination for commercial development (...particularly Hall County which lies on the eastern shore of Lake Lanier and is relatively very-close to the scenic and recreational exploits of the Blue Ridge/Southern Appalachian Mountains).

Also, even though major cities like New York and Chicago do not necessarily run HRT lines all that far outside of their city limits, the regional commuter rail agencies that serve the areas outside of the city limits operate with headways as small as 2 minutes between trains, even during off-peak periods....So in that case, 10-15 minute headways all day between the world's busiest airport and an outlying location like fast-growing and logistically and politically-important Gainesville is much more-modest by comparison.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Just because much of the I-85/I-985 anchored Northeast Corridor is located outside of the I-285 Perimeter does not mean that it is not just as important to the region's and the state's well-being as the area inside (and just outside) of the I-285 Perimeter.

Originally Posted by MattCW

But it does mean it isn't nearly as dense as inside I-285. As I said somewhere above, a HRT route to Gainesville or Lovejoy will run through some very low density suburban even into rural areas. Commuter rail is more than adequate to serve the market in question and doesn't cost nearly as much.

But commuter rail alone does not give quite the jolt to an area's economic, logistical and mobility prospects like an HRT-type of high-capacity passenger rail transit service would.

Also, the challenges of attempting to operate high volumes of passenger trains on the same exact existing tracks that already feature fast-growing high volumes of freight trains have already been repeatedly outlined by the freight rail companies and illustrated and expressed repeatedly by multiple parties, including many on this very-board and in this very Atlanta forum.

Also, the recent explosive growth and development on the outer edges of the Atlanta metro region over the past 4 decades demonstrates that the lower-density areas within an Atlanta-Gainesville, an Atlanta-Athens and/or an Atlanta-Griffin corridor are not likely to remain as low-density sparsely-developed areas...particularly if those outlying areas are located within a high-capacity transportation corridor next to a major road or freight rail line.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

All of the locations that I mentioned are very-important locations and major points-of-interest in the Atlanta metro region that are deserving of receiving a regional Heavy Rail Transit-level of service.

Besides, the purpose of high-capacity passenger rail service is indeed to connect as many people as possible with as many major points-of-interests as possible.

The purpose of high-capacity passenger rail service is NOT to attempt to avoid serving as many very-important locations and major points-of-interests as possible out of a shortsighted and myopic effort to cut corners as part of a severely-misguided attempt to save money from non-existent funding sources.

Originally Posted by MattCW

No one's trying to cut corners. Using a better mode that is also cheaper isn't a cut corner just because it costs less. But it also doesn't make sense to try and connect every single point of interest to every single other point of interest especially when doing so will break the bank.

But in the case of the major points-of-interest and major activity centers that I named earlier, the cheaper mode of passenger rail transportation is not necessarily the better mode of passenger rail transportation....Particularly when it comes to transporting large volumes of people around a large major metro region with severe limitations on its regional road network.

Cutting corners in a misguided effort to cut costs often only ends up resulting in cutting effectiveness and making a transit service less-useful and less-popular with the commuting public.

Also, in a setup where capital and operating costs are funded with revenues from private investment and transit-owned real estate development at mixed-use stations and along transit lines, having more mixed-use stations along train lines equates to having more revenue for capital and operating costs.

Why even bother to build a system if we are not going to fund and operate it correctly by connecting as many major points-of-interest and regional activity centers as possible with as few transfers as possible?

(...There are going to be transfers in any large major transit system, we just want to minimize the amount of transfers needed to get between any two points so that the system will be convenient to use.)

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

All of the aforementioned points on an ATL Airport-Gainesville hybrid regional HRT/commuter rail line (ATL Airport and Gainesville included) would be major (if not massive) ridership and revenue generators.

Originally Posted by MattCW

And commuter rail can handle that ridership, while being cheaper to build.

But cheap is not always necessarily better, particularly when implementing commuter rail is also going to be very-expensive because of the extreme-difficulties (if not impossibilities) that will come with attempting to operate high volumes of passenger rail transit service on existing tracks that are already at and/or overcapacity with freight train movements.

Also, the purpose of transit is indeed to connect large volumes of people with very-busy and very-popular places.

The purpose of transit is not to avoid connecting large volumes of people with very-busy and very-popular places while attempting to transfer our current bare-bones transit operating model to commuter rail by attempting to operate passenger trains on existing tracks that are already overcrowded with freight trains in a severely-misguided attempt to cut costs.

Let's not cut-off our nose to spite our face here. If we're not going to build an expanded regional passenger rail system correctly by connecting very-busy and very-popular places with high volumes of passenger rail transit service on passenger rail-only tracks where passenger rail service can be increased and expanded as needed, then we might as well not even bother with trying to improve and might as well just settle for the mightily-struggling inadequate level of transit service that we have now.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Serving the aforementioned points with hybrid regional HRT/commuter rail service would go a very-long way towards furthering the cause of mass transit and helping to make transit extremely-popular and well-liked in North Georgia.

Originally Posted by MattCW

No it wouldn't. Proposing $10 Billion dollars to cut across suburban Gwinnett county and rural Hall county or suburban/rural Clayton County would just hurt the cause of mass transit more than it would help. There's a practical side to transit planning. Namely you have to understand the practical and political limitations to a system. I'll be blunt. You are out of touch with the reality of things. I too have drawn some pretty pie-in-the-sky maps of where I'd like to run trains and buses, but I've learned to recognize what the serious issues as well as the pros and cons are for what I propose and why they [most likely] wouldn't actually work in the real world.

Actually, extending high-capacity transit service to more people and places and making it convenient for most people (across the ENTIRE economic spectrum) to use would indeed further the cause of mass transit and go a very-long way towards making transit extremely-popular and very well-liked in a place where transit is nowhere near as well-liked or as popular as it should be in mobility-challenged Metro Atlanta and North Georgia.

What's "out of touch with the reality of things" is to think that we can extend the same current wholly-inadequate severely-underfunded bare-bones transit-operating model across the larger Atlanta region and expect it to be a smashing success with the public.

What will work in the real world is to fund and operate a regionwide high-capacity passenger rail transit system correctly, with revenues from transit-owned real estate development along transit lines paying for high levels of transit service on largely grade-separated passenger rail-only tracks...

...Not attempting to run a poorly-funded bare-bones level of commuter rail service on existing overcapacity freight rail tracks in a shared-rail setup that the freight rail companies likely will not permit to happen in the first place.

Both Atlanta metro region urban core counties Clayton and Gwinnett are more than urban enough to warrant Heavy Rail Transit service with low headways all day, NOT just commuter rail service with modest levels of service during peak periods and hourly or semi-hourly service during the middle of the day and during off-peak hours....While very fast-growing Hall County is critically-important enough to both the Atlanta region and the state of Georgia as a whole to warrant a very-high level of high-capacity passenger rail transit service just about 15 miles or so past the border with extremely fast-growing and extremely heavily-populated Gwinnett County.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

But attempting to unnecessarily cut corners and avoid serving one or more of the aforementioned locations and major points-of-interest would only further help to do great harm to a mode of transportation in high-capacity passenger rail transit that has already been greatly-harmed enough due to extremely-poor management and a glaring lack of knowledge and insight on how to operate such a critically-important mode of transportation.

Originally Posted by MattCW

It's one thing to have no transit because people don't support it. It's one thing to propose ideas so outlandish that people quit supporting it out because they know it won't work. Like trying to run MARTA Heavy Rail to Gainesville or Lovejoy. The only way to bring about support for transit is to propose systems that are going to work, and won't break the bank, and make sure any noticed cons to them have reasonable answers.

Extending high-capacity passenger rail transit service (hybrid regional Heavy Rail/regional commuter rail transit) to places as important as Gainesville and places as close as Lovejoy only sounds "outlandish" because we are so used to severely-underinvesting in and severely-underfunding our multimodal transportation infrastructure.

(...Lovejoy is only about 25 miles south of Downtown Atlanta and only about 15 miles south of the world-leading ATL Airport while Gainesville is only 15 miles outside of very heavily-populated Gwinnett County.)

The idea of extending high-capacity passenger rail transit service to a very-urban county only a few minutes away from the world's busiest airport in one of the world's fastest-growing large major metro regions is not "outlandish".

The idea of extending high-capacity passenger rail transit service through one of the most heavily-populated and often severely-congested high-capacity corridors to a very fast-growing city that lies only 15 miles outside one of the most heavily-populated counties in one of the world's fastest-growing large major metro regions is not "outlandish".

If anything, extending high-capacity passenger rail transit service to areas like relatively very-close nearby Lovejoy and very fast-growing and very-important Gainesville is a necessity and a no-brainer.

Extending high-capacity passenger rail transit to the places that, A) it should already be and should have been years ago, and B) the places that it should go will not "break the bank" because it will be funded by its own revenue stream (private investment and transit-owned real estate development revenues) that will not come existing sources that are not enough to fund even the bare-bones level of transit service that we currently have.

The revenue to improve, upgrade and expand transit service is NOT going to come from a voter referendum for a 1% regional T-SPLOST, is NOT going to come from county-by-county voter referendums for 1% sales taxes to fund MARTA expansion outside of Fulton and DeKalb counties, and is NOT going to come from begging the Federal government for emergency transportation aid.

If one is thinking that the money to improve, upgrade and expand transit service to the level that it is needed is going come from voter referendum-approved 1% sales taxes and aid from a broke federal government, then of course one will have a great deal of difficulty comprehending where the funding for these large-scale improvements, upgrades and expansions is going to come from.

The revenue to improve, upgrade and expand transit service IS going to come from raising money from the private sector to purchase and lease-out land along future multimodal corridors (rail, bus and roads) for the construction of revenue-generating transit-owned commercial real estate development.

Without real estate development revenues in a 21st Century economy, we won't even have the money for improvements, upgrades and expansions of the passenger rail transit network of the most minimal nature.

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

Where will we get the gazillions of dollars to do all of this?

From the place where the money has been all along since day one....From the private sector using the incentive of collecting profits from one of the world's most lucrative assets: real estate in a large major American metro region with direct transit connectivity to one of the world's busiest airports (what is currently the world's busiest airport at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport).

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by bu2

If MARTA and GRTA become big landowners, the likelihood is that it would bankrupt each agency and the state.

If real estate developers (who are experts) frequently lose their shirt, the idea that governments would do it well is a really, really, bad bet.

MARTA and/or GRTA alone would not be landowners. MARTA and/or GRTA would raise money from the private sector by selling shares in their corporations. The shareholders would have a stake in all of the land that transit agencies like MARTA and GRTA were to purchase after raising money from the private sector.

Also, with this approach, all of the risk would be on outside private parties who would be responsible for paying to develop the very-valuable land at and around stations and along transit stations. Transit agencies like MARTA and/or GRTA would only collect the rent from the development that outside private parties pay to build and maintain on transit-owned land along transit lines.

When you add the element of real estate development to high-capacity transit, the private sector will the pay cost of building and maintaining both the development along transit lines as well as the transit line itself....The private sector will do this because they too also stand to collect a very-substantial amount of profit from the development along the transit line.

MARTA already owns substantial chunks of land at and around many of its stations in the form of the vertical space above its stations and the park-and-ride lots around its stations.

(...The state (through GDOT) also owns some smaller chunks of land at MARTA stations in the form of park-and-ride lots.)

Besides, without the revenue-generating transit-owned and transit-oriented real estate development element, transportation agencies like MARTA and GRTA (and GDOT) are already effectively bankrupt when it comes to funding.

MARTA is attempting to rebound from a period when it has had long-term operating deficits as high as $3 billion, GRTA does not earn a profit and has to be funded from yearly budget appropriations out of the state's general fund (GRTA almost ceased operations last year), and GDOT is deeply in debt and likely may be almost completely exhausted of funding for routine road maintenance projects after it funds the I-285/GA 400 interchange reconstruction project.

Sales taxes (and fares on transit) alone are not enough to fund transportation needs. It is absolutely essential that we partner with our extremely-robust private sector to collect revenue from real estate development along high-capacity transportation corridors (along transit lines and major roadways) as well from the aggressive sales of large and small private sponsorships.

Private funding is absolutely essential to the operation of a functional multimodal transportation network in the 21st Century where funding from traditional sources like motor fuel taxes and sales taxes will either slow to a trickle or dry completely up.

Originally Posted by bu2

I don't see Atlanta being able to justify heavy rail outside of the 5 core counties ever. And if you do expect it, it would be half a century away. You should preserve ROW in that case. That is something Atlanta has done poorly, allowing development in transportation corridors.

I completely agree with your excellent point that right-of-way for future expansion of high-capacity passenger rail transit corridors should be preserved (...with land for revenue-generating transit-owned and transit-oriented commercial real estate development included).

But regional high-capacity passenger rail transit service (hybrid regional HRT/commuter rail service) is already justified in areas outside of Metro Atlanta's 5-county urban core to aforementioned outlying locations like Gainesville, Griffin, Cartersville and Athens as well as to outlying locations like Cumming, Dallas, Douglasville, Covington and Canton....All locations that struggle with very-heavy (and often severe) traffic congestion during daylight hours on the stretches of roadway that connect them with Atlanta....And all locations that are either fast-growing and/or are desperately trying to attract increased amounts of commercial development that will fund increased amounts of government services to growing populations in most cases.