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The public learned on Thursday that the Atlanta Streetcar did not win a $29.3 million federal grant to extend to the Eastside trail but the mayor's office said alternative funding will be found. But given the streetcar's several initial challenges, it's unclear whether the streetcar should be expanded at all. To get a better picture of the streetcar's performance, consider data from the National Transit Database (NTD).
I knew from the beginning it was going to be a failure and said that we have to wait 6-12 months before we can get a real picture of how successful this will be. The ridership numbers are even more dismal than I thought they would be and this is with NO FARE. Numbers probably drop by half when they begin charging. It's no wonder we didn't get more funding from the government when you see these numbers.
I'm pissed because this means the streetcar likely won't be expanded to areas of the city that it would have been more useful for. It was always just a tourist toy and just to say Atlanta has a streetcar because it was trendy. Ugh...could have easily been 100 million for a streetcar that went along the Eastside Beltline, an area that's actually getting private investment.
This is a win for anti-transit folks and a lost for those who actually believe in smart transit. Gtconrdog is going to have a field day with this and it makes me angry.
Why is it that private developers seem to do so much better at revitalizing Atlanta than Atlanta itself? Ponce City Market, Krog Street Market, etc, etc. Anytime, the city is involved, it's almost surely failure abound. The Beltline was the rare project that actually succeeded.
Utter failure on epic proportions. Either do Light rail/subway or don't do anything at all. Atlanta has shown it's incompetent when it comes to things like streetcars.
Last edited by Ant131531; 11-01-2015 at 09:04 PM..
If you woke up tomorrow morning and the streetcar plan (50+ miles, on numerous routes and around the entire Beltline), was completely built out and operating... would you say that it's a failure? Would you still insist that expanding it made no sense?
If you woke up tomorrow morning and not only was the streetcar was fully built out, was being operated competently by MARTA (while funded by the city), was operating with signal prioritization and higher frequency and everything else improved?
Well no one will ever wake up to that day if the plan is abandoned, but they might if not. Expanding the streetcar is the only thing that makes sense. At this point, the only failure will be if they don't do so. Then, and only then is it a waste of money.
Let's figure out how to fix the problems, and expand the thing fully as planned, as soon as possible. The downtown loop that exists is next to useless by itself. Opponents are judging a system that doesn't exist yet based on one small prototype.
If you woke up tomorrow morning and the streetcar plan (50+ miles, on numerous routes and around the entire Beltline), was completely built out and operating... would you say that it's a failure? Would you still insist that expanding it made no sense?
If you woke up tomorrow morning and not only was the streetcar was fully built out, was being operated competently by MARTA (while funded by the city), was operating with signal prioritization and higher frequency and everything else improved?
Well no one will ever wake up to that day if the plan is abandoned, but they might if not. Expanding the streetcar is the only thing that makes sense. At this point, the only failure will be if they don't do so. Then, and only then is it a waste of money.
Let's figure out how to fix the problems, and expand the thing fully as planned, as soon as possible. The downtown loop that exists is next to useless by itself. Opponents are judging a system that doesn't exist yet based on one small prototype.
Are you kidding me? We're supposed throw even more money into the pit and just hope that it works out when all the data currently available shows that it's an utter failure? Oh, but hey, it's just taxpayer money. That ****'s practically free, right?
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to ride the Atlanta Streetcar for myself to see what all the fuss was about. It's free, and I had a couple of hours to spare, so why not?
After taking MARTA to Peachtree Center, I ended up waiting for 30 minutes at the Peachtree Center streetcar stop, a delay nobody at the stop knew the cause for until an ambassador came along and told us that somebody crashed into the streetcar. I remember thinking, "Uh, it's 2015! There should be an app and social media sites to let passengers know about delays." The streetcar finally arrived just as I was about to give up and take MARTA back north...at least they understand the concept of providing passengers with delay information on apps and social media.
The actual ride itself was so-so. One positive was that the COP 15-minute wait time was averted on my trip, as we spent all of thirty seconds at that stop before we were on our way...unfortunately, the 15-minute wait actually occurred at Dobbs Plaza (the stop under the Connector) to allow for the streetcar operators to change shifts in a very much non-expedient manner. Oh, and when the streetcar has the opportunity to fly, it really flies...it's too bad that most of the traffic signals along the route don't have signal priority, so we got stuck at about 70% of the signals along the route. I shudder to think about what would have happened if this was rush hour. The announcements were clear, but too frequent in my opinion, and yes, they do use the MARTA lady for automated announcements. Oh, and did I mention that the streetcar uses cloth seats? Yeah, great idea using something that most public transit agencies including MARTA got rid of out of cleanliness concerns. At least the air conditioning worked, the streetcar was downright cold when I got on.
All in all, the whole ride took 33 minutes. Considering that I can walk a mile in about 12-13 minutes, it would have been faster for me to just walk the route, which should not be the case with public transit.
What I hoped for was a nice, pleasant ride and good experience. Instead, while it wasn't completely bad, I got too many delays and stops, no official updates via mobile apps or social media, cloth seats, and little signal priority. I still think the streetcar is a good idea for providing quality last-mile transit in the city, but the implementation has been very poor and will only shake confidence in expansion.
Honestly, I don't want the City of Atlanta operating the Atlanta Streetcar. I brought up MARTA a lot in this post, because they actually know what they're doing; I don't get many delays or sudden stops on MARTA, and when I do, I get immediate updates on social media and from PA announcements. There's live tracking of trains, something the Atlanta Streetcar doesn't have.
In my opinion, let the city continue to own and fund the streetcar, but hand over all operations and construction of all future expansions to MARTA. I think this streetcar project will remain a boondoggle until the City of Atlanta relinquishes operational control of it. The city can run Hartsfield-Jackson well, but that kind of quality service didn't translate here. I trust Keith Parker and an agency whose mandate is to run public transit a lot more than Kasim Reed in running transit.
Once again, what DOES the data show? Does it show that the streetcar plan is not a good idea? No. It shows that with this tiny little useless loop to the King Center and back that exists (which has to sit in traffic and at red lights), they are not sustaining a lot of ridership (no surprise), and that the city is new to all this, and the thing should be operated by MARTA.
Your suggestion of doing nothing with (or abandoning) the streetcar, would make it a big financial waste that does nothing to serve Atlanta's future transit needs. I'm as disappointed as anyone on how it's going and how slow expansion will be, but "Hey, screw Atlanta's transit needs and the vision plan and the future of the city, because this thing is proving difficult in its early stages and we're too lazy to figure it out and fix it", is not the right plan.
Once again, what DOES the data show? Does it show that the streetcar plan is not a good idea? No. It shows that with this tiny little useless loop to the King Center and back that exists (which has to sit in traffic and at red lights), they are not sustaining a lot of ridership (no surprise), and that the city is new to all this, and the thing should be operated by MARTA.
Your suggestion of doing nothing with (or abandoning) the streetcar, would make it a big financial waste that does nothing to serve Atlanta's future transit needs. I'm as disappointed as anyone on how it's going and how slow expansion will be, but "Hey, screw Atlanta's transit needs and the vision plan and the future of the city, because this thing is proving difficult in its early stages and we're too lazy to figure it out and fix it", is not the right plan.
If it were so obvious that the tiny, little useless loop was so tiny, little, and useless, why didn't they plan the initial track in a better way? When a small program fails, I want to see the small program fixed before expanding it. If it can't be fixed within the current confines, then it should be shuttered.
The Raw Data for the months of May 2015, June 2015, July 2015, and August 2015 are all zero, which indicates a non reported value. The city has not submitted official ridership counts to the National Transit Database for the past four months. That doesn't mean it hasn't been keeping count, just that, for some reason, it isn't getting reported.
The Adjusted Data appears to use a sort of averaging model to determine an estimated value for the months of missing data. Basically, when you have missing data, NTB puts in a zero. When they estimate the ridership for that month, they look at the earlier month and use that value to estimate a ridership and I think (couldn't actually find any methodology in their manuals) national FTA trends. That shows up as a decreased value for that missing month from the previous month. Without further data to use, it shows up as a perpetual decrease in ridership that continues as ridership approaches zero.
The blogger uses this Adjusted data.
SO. What we have here is a failure to communicate, not necessarily the ridership collapse that is being reported by the blogger. I invite you to ask why there hasn't been official reporting in the past four months all you want (interestingly enough, MARTA is also missing data for July and August), but don't hold this up as evidence of a failed system, since it isn't.
Once again, fixing it IS expanding it. The lack of it going anywhere is the key problem, and the main reason for the falling ridership numbers once the novelty value started to wear off.
Yeah definitely there are kinks to work out. But refusing to expand it is dooming it to failure. "Fix it first"? It goes in one little loop in downtown. You can fix it first and foremost by having it actually serve the city.
So long as it remains in the tourist area footprint it serves now, there's not much of a logical reason to spend the money and resources to give it signal priority and whatever else it needs.
For a slow shuttle that only goes to the King Center, how much ridership did you people expect at this point? Who goes to the King Center? Let alone would have that as part of their regular commute. Not a lot of Atlanta's residents.
Whereas you make it go to Piedmont Park and Krog St Market and Ponce City Market and Virginia Highland and Armour and GA Tech and Grant Park and Midtown and Glenwood Park and Brookwood and Morningside and the Westside and Ansley Park and the Peachtree Rd corridor... and have it connect with a bunch of MARTA stations? A crap ton of people would ride it and everyone would declare it a success.
Fixing it is primarily just building out the plan. Yeah it costs money. It's called investment.
If it were so obvious that the tiny, little useless loop was so tiny, little, and useless, why didn't they plan the initial track in a better way? When a small program fails, I want to see the small program fixed before expanding it. If it can't be fixed within the current confines, then it should be shuttered.
Because they got free money from a TIGR grant instead of having to compete for money like normal transit projects. And maybe they wanted to believe. But yes, it was pretty obvious this segment by itself was a massive fail.
Streetcar on a busy street with no signalization is going to be a massive fail, but many proponents don't seem to recognize that (not referring to anyone on this board-most of them seem to understand that).
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