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I know if I lived right along the east Beltline, I'd rather have a nearby LRT-like (or HRT-like, whatever) CRT station that heads directly to Five Points (and directly up to Lenox Mall too), than the streetcar. Only one transfer required to get to the airport. Just would be so much more functionally useful.
If I lived on the Beltline, a mile or 2 north of PCM, if I wanted to go there I'd just walk or bike. Or whatever specific destination along there. That's what the trail is for anyway.
Just do it as a CRT-only corridor, with a shorter, light as possible FRA-compliant train that stops about 3 times along that section of the Beltline, fulfilling the local transit function to some degree. Just have the train go slow through there while it's along the trail. Just my personal preference and opinion on it.
And I know, as a person who actually lives within walking distance of the BeltLine, that I'd rather true light rail and streetcars over commuter rail. Especially if you must slow down that commuter rail to a snail's pace through the corridor anyway, which completely defeats the purpose of COMMUTER rail.
If people on the NE line need to get somewhere along the eastside BeltLine, let them transfer to the BeltLine light rail. The BeltLine is meant to be a last and first mile focused corridor, after all. It is a layer over the heavy rail network as well as the eventual commuter rail network. It's also a corridor that's designed, in every aspect, to be locally focused, and to support density along then entirety of the corridor, as well as in the actual core of the city, in a cohesive way, through transit, bikes, and walking.
To turn any part of it into commuter rail is to blow a massive hole in that supportive nature.
Commuter rail can still be cohesive without using the Eastside trail, the BeltLine can not.
There are other routes for commuter rail in the metro. There are not other BeltLines in the city.
Leave the BeltLine to the original plan, for the benefit of the city and the metro as a whole.
How about this then. Run this as a non-FRA, actual LRV, from Five Points to Buford along the East Beltline route, directly alongside the railroad corridor, in its own 2 tracks, but never touching or interacting with the FRA tracks. So that it actually is true LRT while ITP, but then also functions as a light CRT for OTP. Rather than the reverse.
How about this then. Run this as a non-FRA, actual LRV, from Five Points to Buford along the East Beltline route, directly alongside the railroad corridor, in its own 2 tracks, but never touching or interacting with the FRA tracks. So that it actually is true LRT while ITP, but then also functions as a light CRT for OTP. Rather than the reverse.
Times 6 lines.
Because that completely defeats any kind of cost effectiveness, still has the travel time problems, and kills any potential for using the commuter rail lines as leads for intercity and national passenger service.
Seriously, just build a normal commuter rail line, and stop trying to force modes to do things they're not designed for.
We have the room in the metro for ALL THREE to be properly implemented, we just have to actually do it.
You, after all, were the one who was pushing so hard for a proper tunnel to be built for light rail at Krog. Why abandon that mentality here? We can redesign congested rail junctions to add capacity, and build flyovers or tunnels to get around those which can't be. All it requires is an acceptance that we should do this right.
City of Atlanta residents voted (overwhelmingly) to tax themselves and visitors to pay for transit-only projects, included on that list is LRT/Streetcar on the Eastside Trail. I do not see other jurisdictions taxing themselves and joining CoA to build a more cohesive transit network, so Atlanta will focus on improving transit in the city limits with the revenues it gains. First rollout will be this month.
Yet the BeltLine, with both the trail AND Light Rail component is a major part of attracting, and concentrating development to add to the 'native' population's tax resources.
I wonder what the opportunity cost of loosing even one component of the Eastside BeltLine to commuter rail is compared to the commuters. How many vehicle miles are added to local roads? How much in development is lost? How much does it affect property taxes? How many people no longer use it to walk to local amenities.
We're losing a tiny bit of convenience for a few locals in exchange for taking thousands of vehicles off the road by providing a transit artery to the suburbs.
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The reality is that we NEED all three. The Commuter rail line is the one thing that actually has viable alternative routings, even if they're not perfect. Therefore it is the commuter rail line which needs to be shifted.
So why not make the commuter rail the one which is being 'just moved a little', since there really ARE NO ALTERNATIVES for the eastside BeltLine, trail or transit, that delivers the same level of transportation quality.
But the commuter rail CAN'T be shifted! The trail definitely can, the LRT sort of can since it can run on roads, but the commuter rail has no options. Where do you get that there are no alternatives to the LRT or trail? The trail can go anywhere, around buildings, along roads, etc. and the LRT can happily coexist with CRT, or run in the roads. The CRT can do absolutely none of that.
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And if there's no last mile connection, and if the area is is unworkable, then what's the point of getting there by transit at all?
Your focus is too narrow. Atlanta is a big city. Putting CRT on the beltline is making one area very slightly more inconvenient (if even that) in exchange for making the city overall far more convenient for a huge area.
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There's also the option of building a turnout onto the CSX line at Armour, and routing down, around and towards Hulsey Yard. That would require taking out / moving a church, a few commercial properties, and realigning a road. A far cry from 'blasting through' neighborhoods.
Uh, no. Way too much effort for very little gain, not to mention that you'd have to backtrack all the way to Emory before rejoining any route into Atlanta.
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If they needed to terminate, then they could use Armor yard. It's barely used at all, with lots of extra storage space.
And runs into all the problems of terminating outside the city that terminating the Clayton line at East Point does.
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I might have a word or two about the potential of your view of the city, and how narrow it may be compared to others'.
I always look at the big picture. I look at how these bigger projects affect no only the area they're in, but the whole city.
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The reality is that the city actually NEEDS all three of them. It needs a comprehensive commuter rail network, a comprehensive inner core transit network, and pedestrian / bicycle corridor. The BeltLine is the only right of way that functions for a loop of inner core transit AND inner core bike / ped facilities.
It's called compromise. As I've said above, LRT and the trails have options, commuter rail does not. The final solution in any compromise should whenever able lean toward the solution that offers the greatest benefit at the least cost. In this case, that means commuter rail on the NE beltline and letting whatever fits and is preferred between LRT or the trail, coexist with it.
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After all, the light rail adds last mile connections for commuter rail, and the ped / bike facilities add last & first mile connections for the light rail. Each can act as a singular mode of transit, but together they represent the much needed NETWORK of options and modes. They are all complimentary to one another, and they are all necessary to handle the populations we're likely going to be dealing with in the future.
*SNIP*
The emphasis is on complimenting each other. You say it yourself, yet you're arguing for crippling at best, and not having at worst the commuter rail system at all!
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Originally Posted by primaltech
I know if I lived right along the east Beltline, I'd rather have a nearby LRT-like (or HRT-like, whatever) CRT station that heads directly to Five Points (and directly up to Lenox Mall too), than the streetcar. Only one transfer required to get to the airport. Just would be so much more functionally useful.
If I lived on the Beltline, a mile or 2 north of PCM, if I wanted to go there I'd just walk or bike. Or whatever specific destination along there. That's what the trail is for anyway.
No one's taking any of that away. CRT DOES NOT preclude having a trail and LRT, just one of them has to forgo the beltline and use the local roads.
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Just do it as a CRT-only corridor, with a shorter, light as possible FRA-compliant train that stops about 3 times along that section of the Beltline, fulfilling the local transit function to some degree. Just have the train go slow through there while it's along the trail. Just my personal preference and opinion on it.
Impossible, as stated by another poster. Additionally, for CRT, only one stop makes sense, one at about 10th street for streetcar access to Midtown.
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Originally Posted by primaltech
How about this then. Run this as a non-FRA, actual LRV, from Five Points to Buford along the East Beltline route, directly alongside the railroad corridor, in its own 2 tracks, but never touching or interacting with the FRA tracks. So that it actually is true LRT while ITP, but then also functions as a light CRT for OTP. Rather than the reverse.
Times 6 lines.
Commuter rail trains can easily carry up to 2000 people per train. I'd love to see LRT even try to do that. By the time you go to all of that effort to get LRT all the way out to Buford, you might as well have just extended the Gold Line, which is incredibly impractical and overly costly compared to CRT.
We're losing a tiny bit of convenience for a few locals in exchange for taking thousands of vehicles off the road by providing a transit artery to the suburbs.
Switch out rail for roads, and it would be almost the exact same argument the state made a half-century ago in plowing freeways through Atlanta's urban core (connecting the suburbs to the city at urban neighborhoods' expense).
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Originally Posted by MattCW
But the commuter rail CAN'T be shifted! The trail definitely can, the LRT sort of can since it can run on roads, but the commuter rail has no options. Where do you get that there are no alternatives to the LRT or trail? The trail can go anywhere, around buildings, along roads, etc. and the LRT can happily coexist with CRT, or run in the roads. The CRT can do absolutely none of that.
No one's taking any of that away. CRT DOES NOT preclude having a trail and LRT, just one of them has to forgo the beltline and use the local roads.
If you're talking about DMU vehicles that are much larger than the Siemens S70 LRT currently used, there is no way the Beltline on the Eastside Trail portion could safely accommodate the clearances for it without ripping out the trail. Even if you were to somehow get the tracks in, no one would want to use a trail that is that close to active rail lines used by those types of trains. Honestly, if the state had had any interest in running trains down that section, they could've relatively easily prevented the sale of that right-of-way to the city of Atlanta years ago. Given that we're long past that point, there would be zero political will to get in a massive and messy legal eminent domain battle to "take back" that ROW, and it would be costly both financially and politically.
Also, if GDOT, at the height of its power in the 1970s, couldn't construct the Stone Mountain Tollway and I-485 through Eastside neighborhoods that were declining at the time (and with the support of the CoA government), what makes you think that they could ram a CRT line through some of those same neighborhoods which are much more politically powerful than 40 years ago, without the support of the CoA, and that would destroy part of a huge worldwide-known amenity? That's also assuming GDOT even wants to go down that path (they don't).
We're losing a tiny bit of convenience for a few locals in exchange for taking thousands of vehicles off the road by providing a transit artery to the suburbs.
Removing an ENTIRE SECTION of the BeltLine, for transit OR the multi-use trail is certainly NOT 'a tiny bit of convenience for a few locals' lost. There are already thousands of people per day who use the BeltLine to do plenty of every day living, whether it be shopping, getting to work, getting food, socializing, etc.
With expanded transit, and expanded bike facilities in the city, that usage will only go up for both modes.
What about them? Neither only transit nor only trail can do what the pair can. Commuter rail certainly can't fill the role of which ever is lost.
Why should the ALREADY EXISTENT thousands of people using the trail, and likely thousands more who will use the transit, be forced to compromise so that suburbanites have this way into the city, without necessarily making ANY benefits for locals?
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But the commuter rail CAN'T be shifted! The trail definitely can, the LRT sort of can since it can run on roads, but the commuter rail has no options. Where do you get that there are no alternatives to the LRT or trail? The trail can go anywhere, around buildings, along roads, etc. and the LRT can happily coexist with CRT, or run in the roads. The CRT can do absolutely none of that.
You said yourself that it COULD be shifted. You, yourself offered at least on viable alternative (go through Howell Wye). I offered TWO additional alternatives: Improving & creating a fly-over/underpass at Howell for passenger trains, and creating an interchange between the CSX and Norfolk Southern lines between Armor and Lindbergh.
To remove either the trail or the transit components off the BeltLine is to COMPLETELY DESTROY the purpose of the loop in the first place. That is, that it is to be a GRADE SEPARATED route for BOTH transit and the multi-use path.
To route commuter rail onto this right of way only offers marginal... anything compared to the other alternatives present. Tearing out existing infrastructure to build new track along the length of the trail would cost similar to building the interchange. Howell Wye needs to be rebuilt anyway, and so there's a significant opportunity for P3 between CSX, Norfolk Southern, MARTA, the State, and the Feds.
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Your focus is too narrow. Atlanta is a big city. Putting CRT on the beltline is making one area very slightly more inconvenient (if even that) in exchange for making the city overall far more convenient for a huge area.
My focus is not at all narrow. I'm looking at how a complete loop for BOTH transit AND pedestrians / bikers plays into the OVERALL network. Having the BeltLine retain its purpose as is will do incredible good for this city, and those who work in it. The comparative opportunity costs for loosing all of that, as pulling either the transit or the trail off the right of way would kill its impact, is so much greater than whatever minute (if any) benefits running commuter rail in the corridor are.
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Uh, no. Way too much effort for very little gain, not to mention that you'd have to backtrack all the way to Emory before rejoining any route into Atlanta.
But it IS an option. It is an option that leaves the BeltLine in tact for, what, 5 - 10 whole extra minutes of extra travel time? That's worth it to maintain the cohesive transit and multi-use corridor.
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And runs into all the problems of terminating outside the city that terminating the Clayton line at East Point does.
That wasn't the concern. The concern was how might a route be able to terminate at Armor or Lindbergh.
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I always look at the big picture. I look at how these bigger projects affect no only the area they're in, but the whole city.
And your conclusion is that the BeltLine, in its entirety, is worth less than rerouting the commuter rail line? What kind of crazy cost/benefit analysis was that? There are billions in development dollars, and long-term tax revenues associated with just the current trail. Add in the light rail and we'll see even more. EXTEND the trail and transit and there will be even more. Have the ENTIRE loop, and there's no doubt that this city will be packed to the gills with revenue-generating developments.
Again, this is a comparison between realigning the commuter rail route, potentially through an interchange that needs to be rebuilt ANYWAY, and the long-term health of the core city. The better the core city does, the better the metro does.
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It's called compromise. As I've said above, LRT and the trails have options, commuter rail does not. The final solution in any compromise should whenever able lean toward the solution that offers the greatest benefit at the least cost. In this case, that means commuter rail on the NE beltline and letting whatever fits and is preferred between LRT or the trail, coexist with it.
The emphasis is on complimenting each other. You say it yourself, yet you're arguing for crippling at best, and not having at worst the commuter rail system at all![/quote]
Another example of compromise would be to align the commuter rail route on one of the alternatives, or even terminate it at a transfer station other than 5-Points. Instead you're saying that the commuter rail line should be on the table NO MATTER WHAT, and that OTHERS should compromise their wants and the quality of their local transit for the route.
Moving the line to a different routing doesn't kill it, nor does it kill the entire network. The BeltLine LOOP, however, can not be so WITHOUT A PART OF THE LOOP.
My suggestion? Freaking rebuild Howell Wye. There's room in the right of way for a passenger-only approach from the NE, there are a pile of interested partners to fund the thing, and there's the opportunity to have capacity for many times the number of trains as forcing it down the Eastside Trail. Oh, and you, you know, retain all of the last mile connections that make a network useful.
Switch out rail for roads, and it would be almost the exact same argument the state made a half-century ago in plowing freeways through Atlanta's urban core (connecting the suburbs to the city at urban neighborhoods' expense).
If you're talking about DMU vehicles that are much larger than the Siemens S70 LRT currently used, there is no way the Beltline on the Eastside Trail portion could safely accommodate the clearances for it without ripping out the trail. Even if you were to somehow get the tracks in, no one would want to use a trail that is that close to active rail lines used by those types of trains. Honestly, if the state had had any interest in running trains down that section, they could've relatively easily prevented the sale of that right-of-way to the city of Atlanta years ago. Given that we're long past that point, there would be zero political will to get in a massive and messy legal eminent domain battle to "take back" that ROW, and it would be costly both financially and politically.
Also, if GDOT, at the height of its power in the 1970s, couldn't construct the Stone Mountain Tollway and I-485 through Eastside neighborhoods that were declining at the time (and with the support of the CoA government), what makes you think that they could ram a CRT line through some of those same neighborhoods which are much more politically powerful than 40 years ago, without the support of the CoA, and that would destroy part of a huge worldwide-known amenity? That's also assuming GDOT even wants to go down that path (they don't).
Right on. Replacing the current plans would not only be political suicide, but would practically be technically impossible to properly share right of way.
We have alternatives for commuter rail. We only have the one BeltLine.
You, after all, were the one who was pushing so hard for a proper tunnel to be built for light rail at Krog. Why abandon that mentality here? We can redesign congested rail junctions to add capacity, and build flyovers or tunnels to get around those which can't be. All it requires is an acceptance that we should do this right.
I hate to say it, but at this point if Atlanta is going to build tunnels (which would be the best thing ever), then they should be for electric vehicles. Looking forward, to the future. Not these old-school fixed rail lines.
Increase the state gas tax or whatever, and have GDOT build a 6 or 8 lane roadway tunnel directly under the metro's existing freeways, plus under some additional corridors, like US-78, and under the Clifton corridor, and underneath the Eastside Beltline. With periodic access points from the main surface roads above.
Allow only modern, compact electric cars to use the tunnel network. Further, allow only Uber and Lyft (and whatever future services) to use it (which in the future would eventually become an all-autonomous fleet). Use a registration system for the tunnel cars, so that they could have a carefully managed amount of vehicles allowed access, so that there would never, ever be any congestion slowdown in the tunnels.
Then use the sales taxes that we would have spent on rail transit, to heavily subsidize these taxi services, so that the average fare is only a couple bucks to the end user. Or in addition to that, let increased usage and competition bring the fare down, and then ultimately let eliminating the driver bring the fare way down.
Expensive as that is, if you really think for a few minutes about that amazing final result, it's a million billion times better than anything a few fixed rail lines would simply ever even hope to accomplish. At the touch of a button, you could be able to catch a ride from literally anywhere in this metro, to literally anywhere else in this metro. Bypassing all the traffic jams and a ton of stop lights, and all of it. At 60+ MPH speeds.
People in the city could use it to get from Inman Park to Downtown, and people out in the suburbs could use it to get from Suwanee to Midtown. And everything in between. With no need for parking lots and decks.
And what you could even do in the city, in order to not add traffic to the surface streets, is have the cars stop a underground "stations", and then you walk up stairs/escalators/elevators, to the surface. NYC style.
So long as we're talking about "doing it right", then why not that level of vision, instead of CRT, LRT, or HRT projects? This 20th century stuff is a joke compared to what the future of transportation holds.
Then use the sales taxes that we would have spent on rail transit, to heavily subsidize these taxi services, so that the average fare is only a couple bucks to the end user. Or in addition to that, let increased usage and competition bring the fare down, and then ultimately let eliminating the driver bring the fare way down.
So basically, you want to abandon billions of dollars in existing rail infrastructure for a pipe dream.
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