Stats that show the Atlanta Streetcar was a complete and utter failure of epic proportion (hotels, unemployment rate)

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by Caleb Longstreet

I think you are lacking the clue....no one said the city funded it...did they? remember, assumption is the mother of all f' ups..try to remember that....also, the streetcars worked back THEN because there was a fraction of people and traffic????


if we want to bring back nostalgia we will get you a lionel train set...for now, try to remember we are 5.3 million and growing..what were we then? That, and the fact that very few HAD cars.....sooooo, it was logical THEN....NOT now.....it's a gimmick....like the ferris wheel....hey, 6 flags is not that far, go have a ball.....until then, the streetcar in 2015 is downright funny.....like the ferris wheel....this IS A business district, not a theme park.....


what's next, a log flume?...you know, down peachtree next to a streetcar.....grow up, it's a business city...act like one.....all it needs now are some mimes.....next to underground Atlanta.....with uzi's.....bet.

Actually, Atlanta had a higher density when streetcars were rolling thru the city. Majority of people walked and rode the streetcar.

[fourthwarden]

Actually didn't mean to post here... oops... uh... here's what I wrote in the sub reddit when someone else came looking for stats:

So, the NTD source only lists data from December 2014 to April 2015. This Saporta Report lists the maximum ridership month as July 2015, with one other unspecified month's data. This Atlanta INtown Report lists the streetcar having passed a milestone of 600,000 riders since December 2014.
So, we can fill in a bit, and extrapolate from the other information:

December 2014: 7,938 (from NTD)
January 2015: 64,448 (from NTD)
February 2015: 47,037 (from NTD)
March 2015: 63,865 (from NTD)
April 2015: 55,809 (from NTD)
May 2015: 55,392 (600,000 - Sum of all other months / 3)
June 2015: 92,107 (from Saporta Report, arbitrarily applied)
July 2015: 102,619 (from Saporta Report)
August 2015: 55,392 (600,000 - Sum of all other months / 3)
September 2015: 55,392 (600,000 - Sum of all other months / 3)

Monthly Average: 65,785 (excluding Dec 2014)
Daily Average: 2,168 (excluding Dec 2014)

So, if anything, the streetcar is performing about on par with expectations. Sometimes lower, sometimes higher.

[Caleb Longstreet]

Originally Posted by JPD

So much butt hurt in one post.

People said the ferris wheel was going to be a flop. But it isn't. Chikfila is getting ready to open a take out restaurant right in front of it. They wouldn't be doing that if it wasn't successful.

BTW, a downtown area can be, and in our case, is, more than one thing. Downtown is a business district, but it's also a college campus, a dining and entertainment center, a (city, state, and federal) government center, a tourist/museum district, a college and professional sports district, etc.

Right...so that's why we let the homeless ride it....all day...for free....I guess that's one way for the Democratic "leadership" to get the ridership numbers...up? Imagine you are a tourist and you see a homeless guy on the streetcar of no desire, with 5 bags of Shiite with him....think that's going to leave a positive impression of the city?


Here's an idea, why not spend the money on one of the many ailing buildings of downtown into a homeless shelter for the homeless? Something they can really use. You know, somewhere where we can improve their hygiene and help reduce the Hepatitis C increases and maybe improve their lives overall.


They need help, not free trolley rides? What the heck, give IT a whirl. God knows we have the buildings and homeless to fill them. Almost a good idea.....


The city would be better served spending that money on wiping out the malfeasance, improving the jitney/cab experiences and start to walk, talk, and act like oh I dunno, Manhattan? Chicago? LA? San Fran? You know, with comprehensive travel services and cops in greater abundance ready to stop the panhandling and associated problems so prevalent around say, Marietta Street and points south?


But hey, let's put the log flume in....let people float around downtown for another goofy antic.....get back to business. Leave the rides and new Chick Fil-A's somewhere else....6 flags can use a boost...try there.....


it's a f'in joke.....

[zedsmith]

san fransisco is your model of how to address homelessness? lol.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by Caleb Longstreet

The city would be better served spending that money on wiping out the malfeasance, improving the jitney/cab experiences and start to walk, talk, and act like oh I dunno, Manhattan? Chicago? LA? San Fran?

San Fran? Bwahahaha. You can't walk 13 feet in San Fran without getting hit up by some homeless guy asking for money.

But hey, let's put the log flume in....let people float around downtown for another goofy antic.....get back to business. Leave the rides and new Chick Fil-A's somewhere else....6 flags can use a boost...try there.....

So, essentially, you want downtown to be turned into a business center where nothing else is around? A place that goes dark at 6pm? Ever been to downtown Tampa? It's incredibly boring once the evening and weekends roll around because there is literally nothing to do there. Why not close up Centennial Park, get rid of the Aquarium and World of Coke, lose the College Football Hall of Fame, and get rid of those damn sports stadiums. Just business, folks.

You sound like a real life of the party. Actually, I'm reminded of something someone wrote on the "what can we do" board in a corporate office I was in last year. This woman wrote "Can we get rid of the game area and put up a sign about quarterly goals?"

[JoeTarheel]

San Francisco has one of the highest homeless populations in the U.S. Atlanta isn't even mentioned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homele....2C_California There is plenty of reading on homelessness in SF and other cities that have a REAL homeless problem. It's funny how some people hold up other cities as examples of how Atlanta should do things without having any clue that things are worse in most of those other cities.

What do you propose that the city do with the 30,000 current residents of downtown (not including the college students)? Move them out? If you aren't that familiar with downtown Atlanta then okay, but don't try to remedy its problems without some good working knowledge. It's embarrassing.

[neil0311]

Of course it's a failure. A blind man could have seen that from miles away. There is no ridership and never was any.

Only on this forum do these kinds of boondoggles get touted as great triumphs. It reminds me of "Pravda" when the Soviet Union existed. The truth doesn't matter if you say the propaganda loud enough and often enough.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by neil0311

Of course it's a failure. A blind man could have seen that from miles away. There is no ridership and never was any.

Only on this forum do these kinds of boondoggles get touted as great triumphs. It reminds me of "Pravda" when the Soviet Union existed. The truth doesn't matter if you say the propaganda loud enough and often enough.

Do you the data to backup your statement?

[magnetar]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Do you the data to backup your statement?

Of course not. The point at which data is interjected into conversations about transit is when these people just change the subject to something else.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by neil0311

Of course it's a failure. A blind man could have seen that from miles away. There is no ridership and never was any.

Only on this forum do these kinds of boondoggles get touted as great triumphs. It reminds me of "Pravda" when the Soviet Union existed. The truth doesn't matter if you say the propaganda loud enough and often enough.

The available numbers seem to show exactly the opposite, in that the streetcar has been meeting, if not passing expectations for the months where data and media reports are available. We'll have to see the year-end numbers, and see how introducing a fare takes its toll, but right now, despite the management problems, the street car is used.

Seriously, go take a ride if you haven't. It's been a solid mix of all walks of life any time i've been on recently. If you have data to the contrary, and not just your own ramblings, then present it. Otherwise, try to see the irony and hypocrosy in your own accusation that those supporting the streetcars are the ones swallowed by propoganda, and not the other way around.