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If it was up to me these would be the Gwinnett County stops....
- First stop somewhere near Jimmy Carter/85
- Gwinnett Place Mall (I would add an additional line from Gwinnett Place Mall to Lawrenceville)
- Mall of GA
(Throw in a few more lines between these stations)
That's the point. Atlanta is going to want to keep major control. Those north Fulton cities are going to want to appoint members. The counties will want to appoint members. If Fulton cities get to appoint members, the DeKalb cities will want to. If Gwinnett wanted to be run by Atlanta, they would be annexed-they don't want to be run by Atlanta, so they will have to be placated.
With both Cobb and Gwinnett, I just think spreading board seats around would be easier. Also expanding the system that much more would make current MARTA counties more accepting of sharing the control (and costs). It would still be difficult, but its easier to envision allocation of board seats where no one gets dominated than with just Gwinnett.
Atlanta got a seat because it was the only municipality required to pass the sales tax. Fulton and DeKalb have members that represent the entire county, not just the white or black sides. Clayton received a seat when it passed the sales tax vote, Gwinnett would likely get the same. Atlanta will always have a seat because it is the largest and principal city of the state and MARTA region.
Atlanta got a seat because it was the only municipality required to pass the sales tax. Fulton and DeKalb have members that represent the entire county, not just the white or black sides. Clayton received a seat when it passed the sales tax vote, Gwinnett would likely get the same. Atlanta will always have a seat because it is the largest and principal city of the state and MARTA region.
Of course they will have a seat. They generate the largest number of trips and the highest % of sales tax in addition to representing 500,000 people.
But every entity will want to have what they consider a "fair" voice. Each area has different priorities. North Fulton is different than Buckhead which is different than South Atlanta which is different than Stonecrest.
The difficulty is that every entity may have a different definition of what is fair. Gwinnett alone, as a suburban area, would have different priorities than the inner city areas. My understanding is that 3 are appointed by Atlanta, 3 by Fulton County and 4 by DeKalb County. So you've got 10 votes selected by groups dominated politically by the inner cities. Clayton is apparently getting 2 members. Then there are 2 state officials.
Fast-forward to the year 2020. Clayton's MARTA bus service is up and running, and its commuter rail and BRT services are under construction. Gwinnett has started running MARTA bus lines, and commuter rail is in the works.
And Cobb is still speculating about that rinky-dink BRT/LRT/WTF line from the new Braves stadium to KSU.
Fast-forward to the year 2020. Clayton's MARTA bus service is up and running, and its commuter rail and BRT services are under construction. Gwinnett has started running MARTA bus lines, and commuter rail is in the works.
And Cobb is still speculating about that rinky-dink BRT/LRT/WTF line from the new Braves stadium to KSU.
Cobb doesn't mess around!!
Yeah, unfortunately that is probably the likely case. Cobb is too busy building walls instead of building connections to the rest of the metro.
Also, the Gwinnett section of the "Brain Train" commuter rail?
Holy crap, that would be a LOT of ROW acquisition. I could easily think of a couple routes that would intrude far less on existing businesses and homes.
Of course they will have a seat. They generate the largest number of trips and the highest % of sales tax in addition to representing 500,000 people.
But every entity will want to have what they consider a "fair" voice. Each area has different priorities. North Fulton is different than Buckhead which is different than South Atlanta which is different than Stonecrest.
The difficulty is that every entity may have a different definition of what is fair. Gwinnett alone, as a suburban area, would have different priorities than the inner city areas. My understanding is that 3 are appointed by Atlanta, 3 by Fulton County and 4 by DeKalb County. So you've got 10 votes selected by groups dominated politically by the inner cities. Clayton is apparently getting 2 members. Then there are 2 state officials.
Every city cannot have a member, but each county gets a fair representation based on population, Fulton gets less because majority of Atlanta is in Fulton.
Also, the Gwinnett section of the "Brain Train" commuter rail?
Quote:
Originally Posted by toll_booth
Holy crap, that would be a LOT of ROW acquisition. I could easily think of a couple routes that would intrude far less on existing businesses and homes.
AS I understand it, EISs are only valid for 4-5 years. Seeing as this is from 2007, it is more than out of date and will/would need to be redone no mater what.
Note that I'm not saying Atlanta doesn't have a serious traffic problem. I've argued that it does.
I know that you were not personally saying that Metro Atlanta does not have a serious traffic problem....I know that you were just saying that there are lots of people out there who will argue that the Atlanta metro region does not have a serious traffic problem.
A lot of the people who think that Metro Atlanta does not have a serious traffic problem are the older anti-transit, anti-tax voters who have retired from the workforce and don't have to commute to and from work through Metro Atlanta's serious traffic problem everyday....The same older anti-transit, anti-tax voters who often turnout to vote in disproportionate numbers against the types of sales tax referendum that government officials like to use to fund transit in the Atlanta metro region.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2
I'm not opposed to high capacity transit into the middle of Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton. But here's the counter-argument:
The Atlanta metro is one of the least dense major metros in the country.
That's a good argument....Though it should be noted that Metro Atlanta's low density is not uniform, meaning that though there are many areas with a very low density of population and development, there are also multiple nodes a higher amount of population and density.
The density of population and development is high enough on certain nodes and within certain corridors (like I-75/I-575 NW, GA 400 N, I-85 NE, etc) to wreak havoc on a Metro Atlanta road network that has time and again, far and away proven itself to be wholly inadequate for a large major metro region that has a population of 6.3 million people and climbing.
Heck, the population of the Atlanta metro region has increased by about 117% since 1990 (from a regional population of 2.9 million in 1990 to 6.3 million in 2014-15) but the already-inadequate road network (and the multimodal transportation network as a whole) has largely stayed the same.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2
If there's not ridership now, why do you need that capacity?
There's not necessarily a high amount of transit ridership across the board now because high-capacity transit just simply does not exist in most places throughout the region, particularly outside of the I-285 Perimeter.
Like other posters have stated, transit ridership is high on almost all regional express commuter bus routes to the point of being standing room only on many regional express commuter buses.
But on the low-capacity local bus routes where the bare bones service is very limited in its geographical reach, scarce, infrequent and inadequate, ridership is very low and understandably so....Who is going to use a very low frequency bus route with inadequate service unless they have absolutely no other choice but to do so?
Not only does such wholly-inadequate bus transit service not appeal to choice transit riders (riders who can drive if they want to), but it also does not appeal to those who are more likely to be transit-dependent....Even so-called transit-dependent riders will take every last dollar they have to buy a car rather than to be dependent on a bare-bones local bus service that barely runs and goes very few places.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2
There's plenty of land for improved freeways and arterials.
There's not really anywhere as much land available for expanding freeways and arterials as it may seem both physically and politically.
Expanding existing roadways has pretty much become a total politically impossibility inside of the I-285 Perimeter where the voting public prefers that money be used for transit upgrades and expansion instead of expanding existing roads through areas of much existing development.
There has also been an increasing amount of pushback against what the public sees as unnecessary roadway expansion outside of the I-285 Perimeter as well over growing concerns that more automobile-oriented development (sprawl) will just create more traffic than any expanded road can handle.
There has also been pushback outside of I-285 against large-scale roadway expansions that are proposed to take too much existing development.
The currently under construction I-75/I-575 toll lanes are a good example of this pushback against what the public views to be too much road expansion.
10 years ago, the Georgia Department of Transportation proposed that I-75 be expanded to as many as between 18-24 lanes between the I-75/I-285 NW Cobb Cloverleaf and the I-575 split so that the I-75 roadway and right-of-way could be expanded to accommodate the existing 10-15 untolled general purpose lanes along with at least 4 new tolled truck lanes, at least 4 new HOT/HOV-2/BRT lanes (tolled carpool/Bus Rapid Transit lanes) and about a dozen BRT stations.
But as soon as the plan to expand I-75 to between 18-24 lanes was unveiled to the public there was much pushback from almost every corner of the public...
> From property owners who lived along the right-of-way who would have lost their properties to such a large roadway expansion...
> To the Cobb County government who did not want to lose so much tax revenue producing commercial and industrial property to such a large-scale expansion...
> To the trucking industry who did not want to be forced to use toll lanes...
> To property owners and real estate interests along US 41 Cobb Parkway and the historic downtowns of the cities along the CSX/W&A railroad corridor who wanted any future money for high-capacity transit to be invested along the much more densely-developed US Highway 41 and CSX/W&A railroad corridors instead of along the not-so-walkable and not-so-transit friendly right-of-way of a freeway...
> To the general public who thought that the plan to spend multiple billions to widen I-75 to as many as 24 lanes through an area of high-dollar revenue-producing commercial and industrial development was too excessive and that the plan was possibly being motivated by some unethical relationships to roadbuilders.
Because of the overwhelming public derision of the initial plan to widen I-75 NW to as many as 24 lanes, the State of Georgia cut back the plan from 8 additional bi-directional lanes to only 2 reversible lanes that would hug very tightly to the existing I-75 NW right-of-way and require an extremely minimal amount of acquisition of additional right-of-way and an extremely minimal amount of relocation of existing homes and businesses.
(...The original I-75 NW expansion plan affected thousands of properties, the current expansion plan affects only about a dozen or so properties along the I-75 NW ROW.)
Most other stretches of the freeway system and road network in general in Metro Atlanta have many of the same physical and political constraints that I-75 NW has through Cobb County with there being an inability to further expand the road because of much existing development along road right-of-ways and public opposition to further large-scale road expansion in most (but not all) cases.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2
There's plans and opportunities for HOT lanes which could be used for an improved set of park-n-ride buses that would be much cheaper, more flexible, more convenient and possibly quicker than rail (due to fewer stops).
That's a good point that toll lanes can be used for park-and-ride bus service.
...But park-and-ride service in toll lanes is but only one piece of the multimodal transportation puzzle in a large major metro region of 6 million people and more like Atlanta.
Toll lanes can most certainly aid in the movement of people to and from high-capacity rail transit stations on buses, local shuttles and in vanpools and carpools.
But park-and-ride bus and shuttle service in toll lanes along freeways alone is not enough fully service a large major metro region of 6.3 million people, particularly in regards to serving the heavily-populated and heavily-developed areas off of the freeway system that remain in severe need of high-capacity transit connectivity for both logistical and economic reasons.
High-capacity rail transit is needed (in addition to park-and-ride bus/shuttle service in toll lanes along freeways) so other major transportation corridors are able to move people away from the freeway system.
(...Like the way that the CSX/W&A and US 41 Cobb Parkway corridors have a pressing need to be able to move people through their corridors by rail to provide an another alternative to driving during rush hour and to spur increased economic development along their respective corridors.)
We need both park-and-ride bus/shuttle service in toll lanes along freeways and high-capacity rail transit service....Which high-capacity rail transit itself can be as quick as or even quicker than park-and-ride bus service in toll lanes with the utilization of express trains with limited stops and zone service for regional commuter rail service.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2
Until about 15 years ago, BART didn't go to the San Francisco airport. In fact, except for the Walnut Creek line, BART didn't go any further than the equivalent of 285.
That is a good point that BART did not operate Heavy Rail Transit service to San Francisco International Airport until about 2003-2004.
Though, in addition to the BART Pittsburg/Bay Point (Walnut Creek) HRT Line which has been servicing the Pittsburg/Bay Point area of the East Bay/California Delta (which is about 38 miles from Downtown San Francisco) since about 1996, there has also been the BART Richmond/Fremont HRT Line which has been providing regional HRT service to the Fremont area since 1972 (...Fremont is about 35 miles from Downtown San Francisco by automobile or train which is about 22 miles further than the I-285 Perimeter is at its farthest point from Downtown Atlanta).
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