Let's Leave I-85 Closed (Atlanta, North Atlanta: real estate, new construction, cost)

[bu2]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

Yes. That's what I said. But you try to frame it differently. You try to say you want to give people a choice. What you really mean is that you want it to be much harder so your lifestyle choice becomes more acceptable to more people.



Actually...the sidewalks and bike lanes are free. They have no revenue source whatsoever.



Wait...Atlanta has 0.799 lane miles per capita? ITP, we have about 135 miles of freeway. Even at ten lanes across for every one of those miles (not even close), that would be 1350 lane miles. At .799 miles per capita, that would equal a population of 1,690. If you are using just the population of city Atlanta, that's about 460,000. That would insinuate that we have 367,540 lane miles.

No...the .799 is per thousand, not per capita. So, you need to divide that by 1000. Atlanta has .000799 lane miles per capita using your link. If London has .021 (I can't determine that data from your link), then London actually has 26 times more lane miles.

Even if you counted the 30 miles of interstate in each direction OTP, you'd have a total of about 400 miles of freeway. And again, even at ten lanes across for each, that's 4000 miles. With a metro population of 5.7 million, that would come to .0007 miles per capita. Or about 3.5 feet of a single lane per capita. That's still not even close to .021.

So, which is it? Do we have more freeway miles or not?



I have no doubt that we will see more road diets (that is really a stupid term) and bikes and transit. I support all of that, for the most part. But, I will also guarantee you that you will never see a lane of freeway removed or a freeway permanently closed in Atlanta in your lifetime.



It's cute that you think that.



I don't want to drive down your side streets. I already explained that. I want to stick to large roads designed to move traffic efficiently and keep the neighborhoods quiet. You are the one who wants to remove that. You want people to be stuck with either using neighborhood roads, or changing their lifestyle completely to fit into your vision. And your vision of dense developments have high traffic streets running through them. I don't know of many dense cities which don't have heavy traffic on their streets. So, if you want to keep people from being "run down", it would stand to reason that you'd want freeways and arterial roads to move the people who are driving, not neighborhood streets. Let's look past the fact that your vision of a perfect city is a one-city block, thousand-story building in which all people live.

In NYC, there are very few places in the boroughs which are less than a mile from a train. In Atlanta, the vast majority of ITP is more than a mile from MARTA. Expand MARTA, please. Then we can talk about removing other options.

And, for the record, my commute is not 3 minutes longer now than before. Normally at the height of rush hour, it takes me about 45 minutes to get home in the afternoon (which I rarely do). On Thursday night, when I took an alternate route at 10pm, after all the traffic was gone, it took about 40 minutes. So, only five minutes faster at 10pm than during rush hour on the highway. On the highway at 10pm, it takes about 22 minutes (so I lost 18 minutes). If I were to use MARTA, I would need to drive or take an uber to a train station, which would take about ten minutes. Then I'd need to take two trains to Doraville. Then I'd need to get an uber to work from there, probably about ten minutes. Estimated time is about 60 minutes. Sorry, 60 minutes vs. 45 minutes in rush hour traffic doesn't cut it. And no, I'm not changing careers. And since i work all over the city, moving is also not going to fix anything.

This is a really key point. There are a lot of residential streets that have a lot of cut through traffic because of the inadequacy of the arterials. It degrades the quality of life in the residential areas. It sometimes makes it hard to even get out of their own driveway.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by bu2

This is a really key point. There are a lot of residential streets that have a lot of cut through traffic because of the inadequacy of the arterials. It degrades the quality of life in the residential areas. It sometimes makes it hard to even get out of their own driveway.

Very true. Cut-thru motorists don't have a good history of respecting local streets and communities. You'll often see them flying down residential streets with a 25-30 mph speed limit, driving aggressively, passing, yakking on cell phones and generally acting like they are on a highway.

As a city resident I accept that we will have a certain amount of cut-thru traffic at rush hour, but they need to drive like they would in their own neighborhood, and not treat us like dirt. I SERIOUSLY doubt that most of these aggressive cut-thru drivers would behave like this where they live. How would they feel if I drove out to their neighborhood and roared up and down their residential streets at 45-50 mph while texting and yakking on the cellphone?

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by bu2

Nonsense. That's just an excuse. Most cities have grid layouts, hilly or not. Its the older cities that don't. San Francisco has a lot more hills than Atlanta. Its all on a grid.

Atlanta just never fixed their layout. They chose to remain a mass of cul de sacs in much of the area ITP. Houston made massive improvements in the 80s to connect their grid and Houston is denser than Atlanta.

Atlanta's (and I'm speaking Fulton and DeKalb as well) leaders have just never recognized or been willing to do anything about it. In fact, with their road diets, they are trying to make the situation worse by reducing the utility of their limited arterials.

Or they are designing the streets for the people who actually live there. I agree we need some arterial, multilane roads; Ponce, Moreland, Piedmont, Peachtree Rd, etc. but other streets like DeKalb Ave need to be redesigned to serve the people who live along them, not just car-commuters.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Very true. Cut-thru motorists don't have a good history of respecting local streets and communities. You'll often see them flying down residential streets with a 25-30 mph speed limit, driving aggressively, passing, yakking on cell phones and generally acting like they are on a highway.

As a city resident I accept that we will have a certain amount of cut-thru traffic at rush hour, but they need to drive like they would in their own neighborhood, and not treat us like dirt. I SERIOUSLY doubt that most of these aggressive cut-thru drivers would behave like this where they live. How would they feel if I drove out to their neighborhood and roared up and down their residential streets at 45-50 mph while texting and yakking on the cellphone?

Well, talk to jsvh...this will happen more and more if his vision of removing major roads manifests itself too much. We already have very, very few arterial roads in Atlanta, and not nearly as many highways as he purports. So, the only option to get places is to drive on neighborhood roads. That's why in many areas in the north half of Atlanta, you see two-lane neighborhood roads backed up for half a mile or more.

[fieldm]

Originally Posted by bu2

Nonsense. That's just an excuse. Most cities have grid layouts, hilly or not. Its the older cities that don't. San Francisco has a lot more hills than Atlanta. Its all on a grid.

Atlanta just never fixed their layout. They chose to remain a mass of cul de sacs in much of the area ITP. Houston made massive improvements in the 80s to connect their grid and Houston is denser than Atlanta.

Atlanta's (and I'm speaking Fulton and DeKalb as well) leaders have just never recognized or been willing to do anything about it. In fact, with their road diets, they are trying to make the situation worse by reducing the utility of their limited arterials.

Name some cities with lots of hills and lots of trees like Atlanta that has a grid system ?

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by bu2

This is a really key point. There are a lot of residential streets that have a lot of cut through traffic because of the inadequacy of the arterials. It degrades the quality of life in the residential areas. It sometimes makes it hard to even get out of their own driveway.

I have this problem where I am now. All the roads are 2 lanes. My particular road is the main connecting road between western parts of the area and area to the south and southeast. Because there's no spiffy obvious bypass, I get a ton of traffic on a road I frequently walk and cross and there are plenty of houses along the road with drivers struggling to get in and out of their driveways. Oh and the speed limit is 25 but you can guess that people rarely do that.

My friend on the western edge of Lancaster is in an area similar to some of the eastern Atlanta neighborhoods. Grid set up or at least fused grid, on street parking. But, his street isn't that busy despite many more people living in that area. A big part of that is they actually have a road one block over that is clearly designed to be more of a thoroughfare.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by sedimenjerry

I have this problem where I am now. All the roads are 2 lanes. My particular road is the main connecting road between western parts of the area and area to the south and southeast. Because there's no spiffy obvious bypass, I get a ton of traffic on a road I frequently walk and cross and there are plenty of houses along the road with drivers struggling to get in and out of their driveways. Oh and the speed limit is 25 but you can guess that people rarely do that.

My friend on the western edge of Lancaster is in an area similar to some of the eastern Atlanta neighborhoods. Grid set up or at least fused grid, on street parking. But, his street isn't that busy despite many more people living in that area. A big part of that is they actually have a road one block over that is clearly designed to be more of a thoroughfare.

Waze unleashes a plague of suburban commuter onto residential streets so they can save a couple minutes.

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Waze unleashes a plaque of suburban commuter onto residential streets so they can save a couple minutes.

True. Waze also redirects urban travelers onto residential street. It really doesn't discriminate.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Waze unleashes a plaque of suburban commuter onto residential streets so they can save a couple minutes.

They are a plague as well as a plaque.

I don't mind them being there as long as they don't speed and are otherwise respectful of people who live and work alongside the streets.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Or they are designing the streets for the people who actually live there. I agree we need some arterial, multilane roads; Ponce, Moreland, Piedmont, Peachtree Rd, etc. but other streets like DeKalb Ave need to be redesigned to serve the people who live along them, not just car-commuters.

There aren't that many people living along DeKalb Avenue. Its mostly commercial.