MARTA's (quite modest) wish-list to the State (Atlanta, Buford: cul-de-sac, homes)

[PKCorey]

But WHY do they have to be worked that way? Just because they are? Is that the best anyone can offer as an answer?

You can't take pictures of evidence with cars flying past you at 80 mph. Even if it was open, the rubbernecking delays would be the same so keep it closed and safe for the workers.

[Pemgin]

I, too, expect everything to run perfectly smooth 100% of the time and for nothing to ever shut down for any reason whatsoever. #fireeverybody #screwyoufordyingandmakingmelatetowork

[Pemgin]

The elimination of the 1/2% option is smart. If Cobb and Gwinnett ever want in, it's either all the way or nothing at all. No half-***ing it.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by MattCW

They can play Sergeant Friday all they want later. How many millions of dollars were lost today? How many people lost their jobs today? Or had to take home less money? The cost to society is too great to continue like this. If we're talking about an incident in a back alley used by 2 people maybe? Fine, take all the time you want, but when you're talking disruption to literally a million people, the cost is too high! To bring this back to MARTA, that actually is a problem of building more transit, the lines are single points of failure. At least most highway incidents involve just a lane or two so disruption is less, but if something happens to a MARTA line, that whole line is shutdown. Perhaps MARTA needs to request funding for more intense training for its police department, or redundancy in case something does happen.

First, they were doing an investigation.
Second, MARTA would implement a bus bridge until the issue was cleared up.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by MattCW

Only thing I can support is streamlining the voting process. The 50/50 split is critical to keeping MARTA from falling behind, it's what got us the Breezecards, the new trains, the refurbished trains, and probably the new buses! The state should make up any shortfalls of course, but we shouldn't sacrifice quality for speed to get there.

The 1/2 cent sales tax is probably the only way we'll get rail to Cobb and Rockdale and maybe Gwinnett. Those counties might be willing to pay for rail, but not buses either because they already have them, or don't need them. If a county is only paying for half service, why should they pay the whole price?

The 1/2 cent would only pay for bus service. The full cent gets eventual rail service.

[afdinatl]

Originally Posted by demonta4

How was it different from any other day?

Traffic was back up coming into the city from the connector all the way to Acworth on 75, past Alpharetta on 400 and near 316 on 85. Probably the worst traffic since our 2 inch snowstorm.

After today I don't see why Cobb and Gwinnett aren't demanding a Marta vote Asap

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by afdinatl

Traffic was back up coming into the city from the connector all the way to Acworth on 75, past Alpharetta on 400 and near 316 on 85. Probably the worst traffic since our 2 inch snowstorm.

After today I don't see why Cobb and Gwinnett aren't demanding a Marta vote Asap

Because it's an infrequent occurrence.

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by demonta4

How was it different from any other day?

Oh, man. It was worse than usual.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by cqholt

The 1/2 cent would only pay for bus service. The full cent gets eventual rail service.

No, not necessarily...

That is a debate for another day and there is nothing set that is the way it must be.




That one line is not quite modest as jsvh's thread title suggests and is a quiet pre-emptive way they are trying to make sure they get the full 1% from Gwinnett and Cobb should they ever join in the future.

The problem I have is when they issued a report to Gwinnett before a non-binding referendum on the matter the level of service they pitched wasn't much. It was far less than Fulton and Dekalb.

The issue here is Gwinnett generates more sales tax per 1% than Fulton and Dekalb individually. Cobb and Gwinnett together generate more than Fulton and Dekalb together.

So however much one county generates should correlate to the level of service they can get. We then look at North Fulton that we are more like and see a pitiful amount of service. We don't want to get stuck in a situation where we A) don't get the type and coverage of service we need B) we don't want to eventually become a cash cow for other areas that have historically had some financial operations problems when we need the money to deal with our own transportation issues one way or another.

The issues I see is both counties have their own bus system. They could could use more, but nothing is needed like the city's core has. What they really need is a single high capacity extension for regional travel purposes and commuter rail options.

With that said... Gwinnett might not need the fully bought in level of service and it doesn't need 1/2 cent going to extra buses alone for sure.

I'm not asking for more than we would ever pay in, however.

I don't feel we should have to debate all this right now. I'm merely saying there is no reason for the state to take 1/2 cent off the table or perhaps even more options to a different regional structure entirely. If we stick to sales tax it is a more proper debate for later on a county-by-county basis when options can also analyzed.

We are not Clayton County, similar to what recently happened. Gwinnett and Cobb have both far more people and far more sales tax generated.

This might also delay the counties joining the system as we might not have the sales tax percentage available to join and handle other growing problems we must address. We are still building our base-level arterial roads in portions of the county. We are still building new schools for a rapidly growing school enrollment. An enrollment that is high in both total numbers and per capita numbers. Dekalb's system needs to be downsized to be more efficient and Atlanta's has a surplus of property tax revenue to pay for their schools thanks to the really high land values in the core from premium business property. For these reasons the different counties have different tax needs. Gwinnett's schools depend more on sales tax revenues for growth, than in other nearby counties.

So when the time comes Gwinnett or Cobb to join, we need all options on the table and we need to do careful financial analysis of costs and options. It can't merely be all-in-or-nothing mixed with business as usual. Different counties, different needs, different tax strategies, and different needs of other government services with different costs.

[jsvh]

The source of the problem here of course is that you should build transit lines not where you get the most funding, but where you will get the most users. (If you fix the transportation market they would be one-and-the-same.)