Georgia Senate panel recommends 'path forward' for regional transit (Atlanta: price, bill)

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I am okay with it myself.

Glad we can agree. Think people as a whole in the metro are realizing it too. We you try to legislate low density with too heavy of a hand, you push out a lot of nice housing options for people.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Glad we can agree. Think people as a whole in the metro are realizing it too. We you try to legislate low density with too heavy of a hand, you push out a lot of nice housing options for people.

Once you get up toward Brookhaven you'll see a lot of folks opting for the smaller lots and townhomes.

[primaltech]

Georgia House leader signals openness to state funding for transit - SaportaReport

They had their first meeting.

[cqholt]

Metro Atlanta would see a dramatic expansion of local bus service under a $422 million transportation spending plan to be unveiled by the Atlanta Regional Commission Monday.
If the plan is approved by the ARC Board, MARTA would launch new rapid bus lines and enhance other routes. Cobb and Gwinnett counties also would expand bus service, and Douglas County would launch fixed bus routes for the first time.

Metro Atlanta transportation plan calls for major bus expansion

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Metro Atlanta transportation plan calls for major bus expansion

Oh, yeah! Let's get those sonofaguns rolling!

[demonta4]

That's amazing, I didn't know we had the funding.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Metro Atlanta transportation plan calls for major bus expansion

Arguably the single most underrated form of transit is the bus, and this plan could go a long way towards expanding it.

[cqholt]

Lawmakers say they’re not inclined to subsidize transit operations. Instead, they’ve discussed finding a dedicated funding source for capital projects.

“I think the state’s role would be capital construction,” said state Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, the chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee. “We do billion-dollar projects, and we’re pretty good at it.”

Tanner wants to tackle funding for metro Atlanta in 2018 before taking up transit issues in the rest of the state next year. But there’s a catch: Lawmakers also want to consolidate the slew of agencies that provide public transportation across the Atlanta region.

Exactly what that would look like is unclear — the House commission won’t unveil specific proposals until late this month, and the Senate may draft separate legislation. Tanner envisions a regional planning and funding board covering the 13 counties served by the Xpress bus system; Beach thinks it makes sense to focus on the five largest metro counties: Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett.

Tanner said MARTA, Gwinnett County Transit, CobbLinc and other agencies likely would continue to operate transit services. But consolidating some of their planning and funding functions would still mean finessing touchy issues of local control.

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution, 2018-01-03: Once shunned, mass transit now priority for lawmakers

[primaltech]

Tanner said MARTA, Gwinnett County Transit, CobbLinc and other agencies likely would continue to operate transit services.

Then W in TF is the entire point of this? Isn't ending that the entire reason for this commission? Isn't the purpose of this that they want to "consolidate the alphabet soup of agencies that provide transit services in metro Atlanta to make the system more efficient"? Because duh, that's obviously what we need?

The name of the agency is not important. Whether or not it's called MARTA or not is not important to me anymore. What's really important is that at least the 5 counties, better yet all 13, are consolidated as one transit system and provider.

Kevin Tanner has clearly never rode transit or had to navigate Metro Atlanta's pathetic and confusing and balkanized system via transit. And so of course he's the appointed leader of this thing. He's the leader because Georgia's #1 priority at all times seems to be opposition to meaningful change.

Hugely disappointing if all that comes of this is small tweaks to coordination/planning/funding, and we're still stuck with the same alphabet soup of ill-funded single-county transit systems in our largest counties.

[SEAandATL]

Originally Posted by primaltech

Then W in TF is the entire point of this? Isn't ending that the entire reason for this commission? Isn't the purpose of this that they want to "consolidate the alphabet soup of agencies that provide transit services in metro Atlanta to make the system more efficient"? Because duh, that's obviously what we need?

The name of the agency is not important. Whether or not it's called MARTA or not is not important to me anymore. What's really important is that at least the 5 counties, better yet all 13, are consolidated as one transit system and provider.

Kevin Tanner has clearly never rode transit or had to navigate Metro Atlanta's pathetic and confusing and balkanized system via transit. And so of course he's the appointed leader of this thing. He's the leader because Georgia's #1 priority at all times seems to be opposition to meaningful change.

Hugely disappointing if all that comes of this is small tweaks to coordination/planning/funding, and we're still stuck with the same alphabet soup of ill-funded single-county transit systems in our largest counties.

We don't necessarily need to consolidate. What I'm hoping for is private companies running transit to Cobb and Gwinnett counties, and North Fulton.