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The more I think about it I say go Tim Lee. He know his community desperately needs to accept transit, but he acutely understands they have some kind of crazy aversion to anything that runs on steel rails. So he's trying to give them transit with training wheels, so to speak. BRT vehicles are almost as nice as the streetcar, and they run on rubber tires on asphalt, which makes Cobb county residents feel safe. And the line he wants is in no way connected to an ultra-scary MARTA station. But people might actually ride this, and then get used to not sitting in traffic, and get hungry for the real thing. It's not my money, so I'm going to commend him for trying to do anything for transit; it's probably not good for his career.
The more I think about it I say go Tim Lee. He know his community desperately needs to accept transit, but he acutely understands they have some kind of crazy aversion to anything that runs on steel rails. So he's trying to give them transit with training wheels, so to speak. BRT vehicles are almost as nice as the streetcar, and they run on rubber tires on asphalt, which makes Cobb county residents feel safe. And the line he wants is in no way connected to an ultra-scary MARTA station. But people might actually ride this, and then get used to not sitting in traffic, and get hungry for the real thing. It's not my money, so I'm going to commend him for trying to do anything for transit; it's probably not good for his career.
Good points all-around. What's ironic is, not having a Cumberland-to-MARTA connection would significantly hurt ridership. But you alluded to the problem--some of them don't want to be too close to skeery black people.
The business interests who dominate the CIDs in Midtown, Buckhead and downtown are and always have been pretty much the same crowd. Yes, they are mainly northsiders but I don't think they are out to torpedo the South side.
They want to make money and they do want some say-so over how transportation dollars are spent. But I don't think the scenario is as polarized as you suggest.
arjay, you have a good point that the Northsiders are not out to torpedo the Southside out of a sense of political spite or mean-spiritedness or anything like that.
The Northside business interests (particularly those in Cobb, North Fulton/North DeKalb and Gwinnett) just primarily (almost desperately) want to speed up the timetable with which high-capacity transit (particularly rail transit) can be expanded into and through the Northern suburbs so that they can dramatically increase the amount of profit they make from both new and existing real estate development.
(...Remember, in a 21st Century real estate market in a large major metro region with mobility issues like Atlanta, having direct and/or near-direct access to rail transit can mean tens-of-BILLIONS of dollars in additional real estate profits.)
Those Northside business interests just don't think that the current MARTA setup is the best way to get those rail transit lines expanded into the suburbs on the much shorter timetable that they are seeking.
Even with Keith Parker's very impressive early-on performance at the helm of MARTA, the Northsiders (particularly those in Cobb, North Fulton/North DeKalb and Gwinnett) just don't trust MARTA to be able to deliver them the expanded transit infrastructure (and highly beneficial financial results) they are seeking.
Part of that mistrust stems from MARTA's constant financial and operational issues during its existence.
Another part of that mistrust stems from the belief that the Northside business interests don't think that the traditionally transit-averse Northside suburban voters who dominate the state's political climate will be all that accepting of a proposed large-scale expansion of rail transit into the suburbs (Northern suburbs) by an organization with the unpopular and much-derided MARTA name, image and brand.
The Northside business interests (probably wisely) figure that any proposed large-scale expansion of the rail transit network will have to have a Northside suburban and/or exurban political face on it for such an expansion to be politically accepted by politically dominant voters in the Northern suburbs.
Northsiders just don't think that the wide-ranging suburban, outer-suburban and exurban transit expansion they want and need can be delivered the current Southside-dominated operational structure at MARTA.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cqholt
Exactly, we hhave to get over this north side vs south side, rich vs poor, it vs otp thing and work together if atlanta is to grow high paying jobs.
I agree and personally share your sentiments that the Atlanta region needs to get over its sharp political, social and cultural divisions and work together to advance the region's economy and quality-of-life.
The Northside business community also thinks that this region needs get over its sharp divisions and work together to advance the region....It's just that the Northside business community wants to work with the Southside on the Northside's terms....Because the Northside business community thinks that it can make tons more money (billions more in real estate profits) with its terms than it can with the Southside's terms.
This state takeover/privatization/regionalization of MARTA talk is not about politics....It's about money. Politics are just a means to an end to get that money.
arjay, you have a good point that the Northsiders are not out to torpedo the Southside out of a sense of political spite or mean-spiritedness or anything like that.
The Northside business interests (particularly those in Cobb, North Fulton/North DeKalb and Gwinnett) just primarily (almost desperately) want to speed up the timetable with which high-capacity transit (particularly rail transit) can be expanded into and through the Northern suburbs so that they can dramatically increase the amount of profit they make from both new and existing real estate development.
(...Remember, in a 21st Century real estate market in a large major metro region with mobility issues like Atlanta, having direct and/or near-direct access to rail transit can mean tens-of-BILLIONS of dollars in additional real estate profits.)
Those Northside business interests just don't think that the current MARTA setup is the best way to get those rail transit lines expanded into the suburbs on the much shorter timetable that they are seeking.
Even with Keith Parker's very impressive early-on performance at the helm of MARTA, the Northsiders (particularly those in Cobb, North Fulton/North DeKalb and Gwinnett) just don't trust MARTA to be able to deliver them the expanded transit infrastructure (and highly beneficial financial results) they are seeking.
Part of that mistrust stems from MARTA's constant financial and operational issues during its existence.
Another part of that mistrust stems from the belief that the Northside business interests don't think that the traditionally transit-averse Northside suburban voters who dominate the state's political climate will be all that accepting of a proposed large-scale expansion of rail transit into the suburbs (Northern suburbs) by an organization with the unpopular and much-derided MARTA name, image and brand.
The Northside business interests (probably wisely) figure that any proposed large-scale expansion of the rail transit network will have to have a Northside suburban and/or exurban political face on it for such an expansion to be politically accepted by politically dominant voters in the Northern suburbs.
Northsiders just don't think that the wide-ranging suburban, outer-suburban and exurban transit expansion they want and need can be delivered the current Southside-dominated operational structure at MARTA.
I agree and personally share your sentiments that the Atlanta region needs to get over its sharp political, social and cultural divisions and work together to advance the region's economy and quality-of-life.
The Northside business community also thinks that this region needs get over its sharp divisions and work together to advance the region....It's just that the Northside business community wants to work with the Southside on the Northside's terms....Because the Northside business community thinks that it can make tons more money (billions more in real estate profits) with its terms than it can with the Southside's terms.
This state takeover/privatization/regionalization of MARTA talk is not about politics....It's about money. Politics are just a means to an end to get that money.
The reason these transit projects take long is the studies required to qualifu for federal funds. If the deep pockets of these so called northside interest want to fund them on their own, I say let them go ahead what are they waiting on? There is a reason transit systrwms in north america are not privately owned, they don't make profits. Its like these northside interest want all the benfits, but none of the risk that comes with it. They want the state to back them up in case things go bad.
Also, marta is bound by its 50/50 split, but why don't the northside interest use their influence to get that removed? I keep reading the same stuff from you and wonder why these northsiders don't just form their own transit system? According to you they have the money and influence.
The more I think about it I say go Tim Lee. He know his community desperately needs to accept transit, but he acutely understands they have some kind of crazy aversion to anything that runs on steel rails. So he's trying to give them transit with training wheels, so to speak. BRT vehicles are almost as nice as the streetcar, and they run on rubber tires on asphalt, which makes Cobb county residents feel safe. And the line he wants is in no way connected to an ultra-scary MARTA station. But people might actually ride this, and then get used to not sitting in traffic, and get hungry for the real thing. It's not my money, so I'm going to commend him for trying to do anything for transit; it's probably not good for his career.
Quote:
Originally Posted by toll_booth
Good points all-around. What's ironic is, not having a Cumberland-to-MARTA connection would significantly hurt ridership. But you alluded to the problem--some of them don't want to be too close to skeery black people.
Those are excellent points that describe much of the opposition to the concept of Cobb County having a direct high-capacity transit connection to Central Atlanta.
Though, from what I understand, the proposed BRT line that Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee is seeking to fund (at the behest of the Cobb County business community) will be connected to the MARTA HRT system at its south end by way of the Arts Center MARTA Station....Which may explain some of the staunch opposition to the project.
Here are some links to the plans for the BRT line that is proposed to operate between the Arts Center MARTA Station in Midtown Atlanta and the Kennesaw State University/Town Center Mall area....An area that is home to a major CID (Town Center CID) that desperately wants an improved transit connection through the area as a means of increasing the long-term monetary value of real estate holdings in the Town Center Mall area.
There is also an entry from the linked page above about the positive economic effects of BRT in much lower-growth Cleveland that signifies why Northside business and real estate interests are basically going bonkers over the profit-making potential of high-capacity transit expansion:
Quote:
The Urban Land Institute ran a lengthy article on Cleveland’s Euclid Avenue project, widely viewed as a BRT success story.
Since the BRT line opened in 2008, the corridor has attracted $5.8 billion in investment—$3.3 billion for new construction and $2.5 billion for building rehab, together totaling more than 110 projects. Disproving naysayers and exceeding the expectations of supporters, the project has generated the economic growth that many thought could only be achieved with rail—and at a fraction of the cost.
The Cobb Alternatives Analysis suggests that BRT has the potential for equally impressive impact on that corridor:
Within Cobb County projecting 1.2 million sf of new retail space; 10.8 million sf of new office space; 11,000 new housing units; plus over 50,000 new jobs in the office and retail sectors
Multiply that nearly $6 billion real estate investment figure across multiple corridors on the Northside of a much more robustly growing Metro Atlanta (US 41/I-75/I-575 Northwest; I-20/GA 6 West; the I-285 Top End; GA 400 North; I-85/I-985/GA 316 Northeast, etc) and one can understand Northside business and real estate interests are going so bonkers over trying to take political and operational control of MARTA away from the Southside interests that have dominated the agency during its 40+ years of existence.
With that much money (and that many TENS-OF-BILLLIONS of dollars) to be made in real estate profits, one shouldn't expect the talk of a Northside-helmed state takeover/reorganization and regionalization of MARTA to die down anytime soon.
Heck, the construction and pending opening of the new Braves stadium at what is already one of the state's most congested freeway junctions at the I-75/I-285 NW Cobb Cloverleaf in Cumberland has most likely increased the interest of the Northside business community in making a power play for control of MARTA and the dramatically increased real estate profits that would likely result from the agency's regionalization into GRTA....Hence the talk of a state-led reorganization of MARTA by Lt. Governor and leading 2018 gubernatorial candidate Casey Cagle.
Those are excellent points that describe much of the opposition to the concept of Cobb County having a direct high-capacity transit connection to Central Atlanta.
Though, from what I understand, the proposed BRT line that Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee is seeking to fund (at the behest of the Cobb County business community) will be connected to the MARTA HRT system at its south end by way of the Arts Center MARTA Station....Which may explain some of the staunch opposition to the project.
Here are some links to the plans for the BRT line that is proposed to operate between the Arts Center MARTA Station in Midtown Atlanta and the Kennesaw State University/Town Center Mall area....An area that is home to a major CID (Town Center CID) that desperately wants an improved transit connection through the area as a means of increasing the long-term monetary value of real estate holdings in the Town Center Mall area.
There is also an entry from the linked page above about the positive economic effects of BRT in much lower-growth Cleveland that signifies why Northside business and real estate interests are basically going bonkers over the profit-making potential of high-capacity transit expansion:
[/indent]Multiply that nearly $6 billion real estate investment figure across multiple corridors on the Northside of a much more robustly growing Metro Atlanta (US 41/I-75/I-575 Northwest; I-20/GA 6 West; the I-285 Top End; GA 400 North; I-85/I-985/GA 316 Northeast, etc) and one can understand Northside business and real estate interests are going so bonkers over trying to take political and operational control of MARTA away from the Southside interests that have dominated the agency during its 40+ years of existence.
With that much money (and that many TENS-OF-BILLLIONS of dollars) to be made in real estate profits, one shouldn't expect the talk of a Northside-helmed state takeover/reorganization and regionalization of MARTA to die down anytime soon.
Heck, the construction and pending opening of the new Braves stadium at what is already one of the state's most congested freeway junctions at the I-75/I-285 NW Cobb Cloverleaf in Cumberland has most likely increased the interest of the Northside business community in making a power play for control of MARTA and the dramatically increased real estate profits that would likely result from the agency's regionalization into GRTA....Hence the talk of a state-led reorganization of MARTA by Lt. Governor and leading 2018 gubernatorial candidate Casey Cagle.
Why do they have to take OUR MARTA to accomplish this? All these highly influential, profitable real estate interest just build it themselves? That's who built the original streetcar lines, it was built by real estate investors to their housing developments.
The reason these transit projects take long is the studies required to qualifu for federal funds. If the deep pockets of these so called northside interest want to fund them on their own, I say let them go ahead what are they waiting on?
With Lt. Governor Casey Cagle's comments about a state interest in reorganizing MARTA, it appears that those deep-pocketed Northside interests may be close to acting on your advice.
With all of the talk swirling around of Georgia being entirely too dependent upon federal funding for transportation, it also appears that those Northside interests may be planning on attempting to fund transit expansion without an overdependence on dwindling federal funds (...whether they can actually do so or not remains to be seen, particularly with a privatization funding model that is virtually completely untested in North America).
Quote:
Originally Posted by cqholt
There is a reason transit systrwms in north america are not privately owned, they don't make profits.
With privatization, a transit system is still owned by the public, but the public transit system is either funded with and/or operated by private money to varying degrees depending on the terms and/or makeup of any particular privatized transit setup.
Now I may be wrong, but to my knowledge, (like you stated) there are no major transit systems in North America which have been privatized.
Because there are no North American privatized transit models to look at, the Northsiders are most likely looking at highly successful privatized transit models in Asian urban areas like Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore as a guide of how to proceed forward on the privatization track.
Tokyo's main rail transit system (Tokyo Metro) makes profits of well over $600 million each year while Hong Kong's MTR is worth an estimated $250 billion in value because both of those transit systems collect revenues (profits) from large-scale high-density transit-oriented real estate developments along their rail transit lines.
...That's as opposed to MARTA's current funding setup which only collects revenues from a flawed flat-rate fare structure, a two-county 1% sales tax and inadequate amounts of federal aid.
The high-capacity transit systems in Tokyo and Hong Kong are basically highly profitable large-scale real estate development projects connected by high-capacity rail transit lines which generate traffic to their developments in much the same way that the road network has been used to generate traffic to retail developments throughout suburban areas in post-World War II 20th Century America.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cqholt
Its like these northside interest want all the benfits, but none of the risk that comes with it. They want the state to back them up in case things go bad.
Well what the Northsiders really want is for the state to provide the political leverage and if need be, the legal apparatus, for them to be able to take control of MARTA away from the urban and Southside interests that currently dominate the agency.
It appears that they plan on leveraging the money for the much desired expansion of the rail transit network into the Northern suburbs with land speculation and real estate development along transit lines.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cqholt
Also, marta is bound by its 50/50 split, but why don't the northside interest use their influence to get that removed?
The Northsiders most likely don't use their influence to get the 50/50 revenue restrictions on MARTA removed because the Northsiders have got designs on taking over control of MARTA for themselves.
Before Keith Parker began his reign as CEO, the Northsiders (fronted by state legislative figures like MARTOC Chairman Mike Jacobs of Brookhaven) seemed to be planning to use MARTA's then-dismal financial state as an excuse to have the state forcefully take control of the system and privatize and regionalize it on their terms.
Around the time that he started as CEO at MARTA (either just before or just after he started), Keith Parker asked Mike Jacobs and the Georgia Legislature to give him time to turn the troubled agency around before having the state move to take control of the agency and privatize it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cqholt
I keep reading the same stuff from you and wonder why these northsiders don't just form their own transit system? According to you they have the money and influence.
Like I stated before, the Northsiders want and need the valuable HRT track connections to the lucrative convention and tourism business Downtown and the world's busiest Airport to make their Northside real estate investments work.
That's why the Northsiders remain deeply interested in trying to use the state government to gain political control over MARTA, because its the rail transit connections to Downtown and the Airport that they think (know) will help to maximize their and future and long-term real estate profits.
Those are excellent points that describe much of the opposition to the concept of Cobb County having a direct high-capacity transit connection to Central Atlanta.
Though, from what I understand, the proposed BRT line that Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee is seeking to fund (at the behest of the Cobb County business community) will be connected to the MARTA HRT system at its south end by way of the Arts Center MARTA Station....Which may explain some of the staunch opposition to the project.
Here are some links to the plans for the BRT line that is proposed to operate between the Arts Center MARTA Station in Midtown Atlanta and the Kennesaw State University/Town Center Mall area....An area that is home to a major CID (Town Center CID) that desperately wants an improved transit connection through the area as a means of increasing the long-term monetary value of real estate holdings in the Town Center Mall area.
That's about the route I expected the proposed BRT to take, and to be honest, it isn't all that bad. To alleviate "safety concerns" (and you and I both know what I mean by that), they could run the line only down to the Cumberland transfer center. A MARTA bus route already goes there, so it could be used to complete the trip.
It does not make sense to bypass the CCT transfer station just east of Marietta Square, however. The BRT line should jog west via 120/280 and Fairground to directly connect to that station.
I wish Tim Lee the best on his BRT endeavor. Sure, he hasn't been the best politician of late (see everything related to the Braves,) but at least he recognizes that high-capacity transit is an important step towards solving our transportation problems. At best, if this project is successful, it could move Cobb a step closer toward joining MARTA or working with MARTA to implement some kind of permanent rail solution.
Preferably, BRT lines should be consistently grade-separated so as to not have to mingle with horrible arterial traffic congestion (Cobb Pkwy. is a serious mess,) as is the case with Los Angeles's Orange Line. At the least, I hope the design is something like RTA's HealthLine BRT in Cleveland, where the line is on the road, but given its own lanes and separate traffic signals for the entire length of the line:
What I don't want (and I sincerely hope Tim Lee doesn't go down this path) is to implement something similar to MARTA's failure of a "BRT" on Memorial Drive, where the route had its own stops, but dedicated lanes were few and far between, forcing the Bus "Rapid" Transit to mingle with the horrible congestion on Memorial Drive. That route was discontinued a couple of years back due to "low ridership".
I wish Tim Lee the best on his BRT endeavor. Sure, he hasn't been the best politician of late (see everything related to the Braves,) but at least he recognizes that high-capacity transit is an important step towards solving our transportation problems. At best, if this project is successful, it could move Cobb a step closer toward joining MARTA or working with MARTA to implement some kind of permanent rail solution.
Preferably, BRT lines should be consistently grade-separated so as to not have to mingle with horrible arterial traffic congestion (Cobb Pkwy. is a serious mess,) as is the case with Los Angeles's Orange Line. At the least, I hope the design is something like RTA's HealthLine BRT in Cleveland, where the line is on the road, but given its own lanes and separate traffic signals for the entire length of the line:
What I don't want (and I sincerely hope Tim Lee doesn't go down this path) is to implement something similar to MARTA's failure of a "BRT" on Memorial Drive, where the route had its own stops, but dedicated lanes were few and far between, forcing the Bus "Rapid" Transit to mingle with the horrible congestion on Memorial Drive. That route was discontinued a couple of years back due to "low ridership".
- skbl17
If brt has its own lane it can absolutely work and give the same service as lrt. Elected officials are apprehensive about taking a lane from cars and giving it to buses, but it does work. I would like to see more brt in Atlanta, Buford hwy is the perfect corridor for it to be implemented on.
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