MARTA Expansion into Clayton = Long awaited Commuter Rail? (Atlanta, College Park: rental car, rental)

[Listennow32]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

This is a good thing. Let the people vote and decide. I'd like to see Cobb and Gwinnett vote in a similar manner every 5 years or so. Give the people the option.

However... if I were to vote yes, I'd want to make sure that there were concrete plans to expand Heavy Rail into my county within a defined period of time. I would not want to vote "Yes" and have county tax funds filtered into the existing system without a fair share of the money being spent in my County. For example, if Clayton were to eventually contribute 25% (or whatever percentage it ends up being) into MARTA's coffers, I would expect that close to that percent is spent in Clayton County. I don't think a 1-1 ratio is necessarily attainable, but something close to that should be the goal. I think of conditions similar to this were included, you would see much more support in surrounding counties.

Let the people vote. Screw the centralized power brokers in these counties that prevent these items from ever being voted on.

So question. How would the residents be able to get an assurance that after they vote, not only do they get bus service but some form of rail into the county. Furthermore, the last quote is a little bit worrisome due to the fact a MARTA expansion is quickly becoming a possibility.

“I don’t know if we ever got down the road, or down the track as it were, in terms of figuring out what service would look like in Clayton,” said MARTA spokesman Lyle Harris.

Does anyone know how can residents get on the ball with drafting a mock negotiation with MARTA or looking at prior negotiations with other counties? God knows we can't trust our commissioners to draft something that will actually help the county.

[Mgyeldell]

Originally Posted by MattCW

I just hope that MARTA takes a clean-slate logical approach with Clayton's bus service and doesn't gives us the spaghetti plate mess of routes we have in Fulton and Dekalb. I don't even necessarily mean express service, although it would certainly be nice to have routes serving the south end of the county and making limited or no stops until at least the airport, similar to the GA-400 routes. But I really hope they don't try to serve every street of every neighborhood the way some routes seem to in Dekalb and Fulton.

BTW-does anyone have a map of the former CTRAN routes?

I can see the routes for new service being more similar to North Fulton County than City of Atlanta/Dekalb County routes. The routes will probably follow the main Roads and heavily traveled secondary Roads. I see the need for no more than 8-10 routes in Clayton County. That's until the train is brought further south.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by Listennow32

So question. How would the residents be able to get an assurance that after they vote, not only do they get bus service but some form of rail into the county. Furthermore, the last quote is a little bit worrisome due to the fact a MARTA expansion is quickly becoming a possibility.

“I don’t know if we ever got down the road, or down the track as it were, in terms of figuring out what service would look like in Clayton,” said MARTA spokesman Lyle Harris.

Does anyone know how can residents get on the ball with drafting a mock negotiation with MARTA or looking at prior negotiations with other counties? God knows we can't trust our commissioners to draft something that will actually help the county.

Here ya go Mr. Harris:

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by Gulch

Here ya go Mr. Harris:

Just got to find funding for that extension and $49M isn't going to cut it.

[Listennow32]

Originally Posted by Gulch

Here ya go Mr. Harris:

I saw this, but I don't think that's the actual plan. Furthermore, that map shows BRT being implemented possibly along I-75.. and just from a logistics standpoint that seems like it would be a nightmare. And depending on whether or not the funding that was brought up initially for commuter rail is still there, re-investigating the commuter rail option might not be a bad idea. Automatically I can tell you that HRT is highly unlikely due to the extreme cost associated with that technology. However, it would be interesting to see a feasibility study conducted by MARTA to see which technology would work best moving south into Clayton. Btw how would find out if GDOT still has that $106 available?

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by Listennow32

I saw this, but I don't think that's the actual plan. Furthermore, that map shows BRT being implemented possibly along I-75.. and just from a logistics standpoint that seems like it would be a nightmare. And depending on whether or not the funding that was brought up initially for commuter rail is still there, re-investigating the commuter rail option might not be a bad idea. Automatically I can tell you that HRT is highly unlikely due to the extreme cost associated with that technology. However, it would be interesting to see a feasibility study conducted by MARTA to see which technology would work best moving south into Clayton. Btw how would find out if GDOT still has that $106 available?

The map I posted dates back to the 1970s, it was to show that MARTA still has plans to go to Clayton (that were never implemented).

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by PKCorey

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-r...vote-on-marta/

Link is broken for some reason. Updated link: Clayton residents will be able to vote on MARTA | www.ajc.com

And all I have to say is...

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Just got to find funding for that extension and $49M isn't going to cut it.

$49 million isn't, but put $20-30 million of that toward a bond payment and suddenly you have enough money for some sort of expansion.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

$49 million isn't, but put $20-30 million of that toward a bond payment and suddenly you have enough money for some sort of expansion.

gt is right. $30m/year for 30 years goes a long way.

One thing I want to mention to the other posters discussing plans. If we don't discuss commuter rail, which has all the proper federally mandated studies finished, and discuss heavy rail it might be some time before rail can built. On top of that federal politics are important. Most of these types of projects seek funds from the USDOT via the FTA. This means this project had to competitively bid for money. The success of this depends on 3 main topics: 1) How much money is granted to the FTA on the annual federal budget 2) Goals of the USDOT and FTA (keep in mind there is a reason LRT start ups have been so common the past 10-15 years) 3) What the competition from other cities/states are the given year they request funds.

While this is going on, it still takes time to do the proper engineering and construction.

This was true for MARTA when they originally started up to. The passed the tax in '71. The first line, East-west, not even the whole length started in '79. The northeast-south didn't start until 1982. It wouldn't reach Chamblee until 1987 and the airport in 88. That was with all the cards falling into place. About the same time the federal government had a big funding push for heavy rail transit, which helped fund the DC Metro, Miami's line, Baltimore's Metro, and SF's Bart. Atlanta got a $800m funding boost from the federal government and it had the full financial backing of Fulton and Dekalb Co. at that time for them to move that fast.

The commuter rail line already has the front-end planning done and is cheaper overall, though.

In short, they'll never be able to completely agree to a schedule. It isn't a shovel-ready project and there are many outside variables.

The good and bad of reality is they can state goals and you have to trust they will put those efforts into those goals.

As a pro-transit Gwinnettian that would happily pay an extra 1% sales tax, this was one of my problems for about the past 10 years or so.

Gwinnett is huge and had a big tax digest. They are anticipating $166m/year with our current SPLOST tax. With MARTA's funding problems, I was never confident the county would get adequate attention from an existing system with entrenched bias' and entrenched values from an existing workforce and existing leadership. However, I'm for the concept.

[LynnHarris]

Clayton County is on the verge of getting a public transit system for the first time since 2010. Residents are demanding it. A new county chairman took office last year with a pledge to restore it. A consultant team is studying various options for doing it.

But transit activists fear all the studying is distracting the county from the obvious best option: MARTA bus service. MARTA is the only option with built-in dedicated funding and the possibility of expanding to commuter rail later. And Clayton voters already demanded MARTA in a 2010 non-binding referendum.

The clock is ticking. By a soon-to-expire state law, Clayton voters would have to approve MARTA and its penny sales tax this November or never again in the foreseeable future — but the transit option study won't be done until year's end.
The study could "derail the vote," warns Brionté McCorkle of the Georgia Sierra Club, which is about to start a major petition drive for Clayton MARTA service. "It's particularly frustrating when you see a clear path of action and it's just not being acted on..."


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