Light rail in Clifton corridor? (bike, area, buildings)

[MattCW]

Originally Posted by bu2

Look at the screen 1 analysis which shows ridership by segment.
Using only the data presented in the screen 1 analysis, it's not nearly as disparate as you want everyone to believe

Someone pointed out on one of these threads that MARTA HRT can handle 1 minute headways, so there is no issue. Bankhead has to be expanded if you need more cars. But I've also read they are already looking into it.

It was 2-3 minutes and it IS an issue. As I believe I pointed out in that same thread, MARTA struggles to maintain reliability with 5 minute headways.

As someone who lives in and spend a lot of time in this corridor, LRT in the south end (on Clifton Road, N. Decatur and Scott Street) will devastate traffic in the area. And the benefits are fairly small from the ridership projections. They show the heaviest ridership on the Lindberg-Emory section. And LaVista and Briarcliff are every bit the problem Clifton, N. Decatur and Scott Street are.

Then perhaps you should take a look at some of the maps which clearly show only a shifting of the lanes. For all intents and purposes, the LRT will be in a dedicated easement even on the at-grade segments. At worst, it will travel on traffic light cycles which isn't ideal, but it's hardly going to muck up traffic anymore than traffic already is.

The dramatic differences in the two reports are pretty hard to explain unless you are just making different assumptions to match the results you want. As someone who's been involved in lots of financial projections, its real easy to do. And management will often give you assumptions that fit what results they want. And as I pointed out, in the screen 2 they lowered ridership on HRT by assuming headways twice that of LRT and BRT.

Or maybe it's because, you know, they were different studies? Screen 2 wasn't simply a repeat of screen 1 so they looked at different things, and took a finer-grained look at those things.

The number of stations they were planning over the same area was the same with both technologies. Although you are right that additional stops would be much easier with LRT.

They merely looked at the same areas. While I'm sure they would have liked to have HRT stations everywhere, any further analysis would have eliminated some, consolidated others, and moved still more.

Atlanta's increased fares from stricter monitoring makes it seem doubtful they would use proof of fares. See the thread on MARTA increases revenues.

And yet, POP is what they're planning to use for the streetcar and harder to accomplish on an at-grade LRT system. It works elsewhere, no reason it can't work here.

[bu2]

I've seen the same type of light rail design in Houston. People predicted it would be a disaster for traffic on Fannin Street in the Texas Medical Center. They fought for a Main Street or Bertner St. line, but MTA wanted Fannin as it had the best ridership.

The critics were right. It created massively worse traffic in the front door to all the Hospitals and businesses in Texas Medical Center. The disruptions of left turns made a huge difference.

What was different about Houston is that they had plans to build two bridges over Buffalo Bayou to provide alternatives to Fannin. Once they completed those, traffic got manageable again. There is no such plan here to alleviate the disaster they will create on Clifton, N. Decatur and Scott. N. Decatur is already at the breaking point. Clifton and Scott are very bad.

[bu2]

There's no logical basis for your assumption they would have eliminated HRT stations. The stations were at all the logical destination and pickup points.

They show a nearly 1/3 decline in ridership on HRT in the studies. I think that's significant. They can look for themselves if they want.

You can come up with different results in different studies. But such dramatic changes strain the credulity, especially when they have already decided to favor a different result in each study.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by bu2

I've seen the same type of light rail design in Houston. People predicted it would be a disaster for traffic on Fannin Street in the Texas Medical Center. They fought for a Main Street or Bertner St. line, but MTA wanted Fannin as it had the best ridership.

The critics were right. It created massively worse traffic in the front door to all the Hospitals and businesses in Texas Medical Center. The disruptions of left turns made a huge difference.

What was different about Houston is that they had plans to build two bridges over Buffalo Bayou to provide alternatives to Fannin. Once they completed those, traffic got manageable again. There is no such plan here to alleviate the disaster they will create on Clifton, N. Decatur and Scott. N. Decatur is already at the breaking point. Clifton and Scott are very bad.

And if Houston had built a grade-separated line, the anti-transit crowd would have howled about the cost.

Some people are simply impossible to satisfy.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

And if Houston had built a grade-separated line, the anti-transit crowd would have howled about the cost.

Some people are simply impossible to satisfy.

The critics were some of the biggest supporters of the light rail line. They just didn't want it down Fannin.

In any event, Houston couldn't build it grade separated. Unique in the nation, Houston had to fund it themselves, all $300 million. Tom Delay kept them from getting any federal funding. That 7 miles stretch had easily the 2nd highest ridership per mile of any light rail in the nation, behind only Boston.

[bu2]

At the open house I didn't run into anyone who liked the proposal. Most people were residents along the route who would be impacted. Many had never heard of the proposal. Interestingly, they are running the line mostly on the north side of the RR tracks behind a residential area instead of the south side through a commercial area. They don't have any current plan to get local funding. If funding magically appeared it could be running in 10 years.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by bu2

At the open house I didn't run into anyone who liked the proposal. Most people were residents along the route who would be impacted. Many had never heard of the proposal. Interestingly, they are running the line mostly on the north side of the RR tracks behind a residential area instead of the south side through a commercial area. They don't have any current plan to get local funding. If funding magically appeared it could be running in 10 years.

Crossing over active RR is expensive.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Crossing over active RR is expensive.

They cross it to get to the north side. Then they cross it again to get back to the south side further down Clifton.

I think they were concerned with the slope on the south side of the RR tracks, but they are tunneling through a large part of the stretch so I don't know why that would still be an issue.

[arjay57]

Well, this isn't light rail but it sounds like a really nice upgrade to Clifton road. It also includes a bike lane.

Maybe it is the first step in a larger plan.

Decatur Metro » Clifton Road To Receive a Long Overdue Revamp, Repaving

[MattCW]

Excellent news! The lanes will be widened slightly (1 inch inner lanes, 5 inches outer lanes) and the whole street should look considerably better. Hopefully the traffic light timing project mentioned in the comments will make its way through the area shortly too.