What would be some Realistic MARTA expansion dates? (Atlanta, Boston: real estate market, how much)

[Pemgin]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

They just aren't the people who contribute greatly to economic prosperity.

Sorry, that's the reality.

It's not.

[SEAandATL]

Originally Posted by primaltech

Mindless Atlanta-bashing by our resident troll aside, no, we should't rely on federal matching funds. Because it's unreliable as is, and President Turdface will probably discontinue all those grants and programs anyway.

We should go with cost-effective solutions, and then use our own various state and local taxes to pay for them.

Hint hint, commuter rail on existing tracks and corridors, instead of mega-expensive heavy rail. And buses instead of streetcars. And quality light rail only for key corridors with prominent destinations, like Emory and the eastside Beltline.

Two words: Private sector. The potential commuter lines to Cobb and Gwinnett should be owned by a private company. They'll have them up and running in just a few short years, and can turn a profit shortly after that, because people will be willing to pay and not sit in traffic.

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by SEAandATL

Two words: Private sector. The potential commuter lines to Cobb and Gwinnett should be owned by a private company. They'll have them up and running in just a few short years, and can turn a profit shortly after that, because people will be willing to pay and not sit in traffic.

I'd be all for it.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

They just aren't the people who contribute greatly to economic prosperity.

Sorry, that's the reality.

Oh, but they are.

[primaltech]

Public-Private Partnership is how Denver is doing their commuter rail lines:

Eagle P3 Project

As I understand it, a for-profit private company finances, designs, builds, operates, maintains the lines, as well as assumes all risk involved, while RTD (their MARTA), owns all involved transit assets and collects all revenues, and then pays the company a monthly payment.

It's pretty brilliant. Gets things going faster and more efficiently, and the public transit agency doesn't have to have large upfront sums of capital money, they just pay a monthly payment spread out over a long time, like a mortgage. And the brilliance of it is that they're collecting the revenues from the line all the while.

This is exactly what needs to happen in Cobb, along the Western & Atlantic railroad corridor.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by primaltech

Public-Private Partnership is how Denver is doing their commuter rail lines:

Eagle P3 Project

As I understand it, a for-profit private company finances, designs, builds, operates, maintains the lines, as well as assumes all risk involved, while RTD (their MARTA), owns all involved transit assets and collects all revenues, and then pays the company a monthly payment.

It's pretty brilliant. Gets things going faster and more efficiently, and the public transit agency doesn't have to have large upfront sums of capital money, they just pay a monthly payment spread out over a long time, like a mortgage. And the brilliance of it is that they're collecting the revenues from the line all the while.

This is exactly what needs to happen in Cobb, along the Western & Atlantic railroad corridor.

P3's can work very well and they move much faster than traditional government projects.

I talked with both GDOT and MARTA about this back before the Great Recession hit. At that time there were a number of contractors, both U.S. and global, who were interested in doing such projects. In those days financing from Wall Street was readily available and the contractors were ready to start turning dirt.

GDOT later put the brakes on P3 and it's not clear where they stand now. I think MARTA was less enthused than GDOT, although some of their new TOD projects have an element of P3.

A lot of it depends on the financing situation. There's also the argument that these big international contractors can easily overwhelm the government in terms of both technical and financial expertise. Once you turn it over to the big boys, well...stand back.

[SEAandATL]

Originally Posted by arjay57

P3's can work very well and they move much faster than traditional government projects.

I talked with both GDOT and MARTA about this back before the Great Recession hit. At that time there were a number of contractors, both U.S. and global, who were interested in doing such projects. In those days financing from Wall Street was readily available and the contractors were ready to start turning dirt.

GDOT later put the brakes on P3 and it's not clear where they stand now. I think MARTA was less enthused than GDOT, although some of their new TOD projects have an element of P3.

A lot of it depends on the financing situation. There's also the argument that these big international contractors can easily overwhelm the government in terms of both technical and financial expertise. Once you turn it over to the big boys, well...stand back.

I think the Beltline is doing P3 as well, if I'm not mistaken.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by SAAN

We have discussed MARTA and why it hasnt been expanded probably since citydata was started 14 years ago. We have all seen the dream maps of where it should go, where we wants it to go vs where it actually goes now.

So with all that has been going on now in the metro with demographics changing and sales tax votes, what do you think some realistic dates for a MARTA expansion would be for the following:

Can't say what the dates should be, but I can toss in my two cents on what the order of these projects should be. So I've reordered the list below accordingly:

1. Blue Line East expansion to Stonecrest extended from Indian Creek

2. Red Line expansion to Winward Pkwy

3. Blue Line west expansion to Fulton Industrial or possibly 6 Flags/Thornton Rd if Cobb voted Marta--Just take this west to 285 for now.

4. Lindbergh to Emory

5. Streetcars running on the Beltline

6. Gold Line expansion into Gwinnett, possibly to Gwinnett Place, Sugar Loaf Mills or Mall of GA

7. Proctor Creek expansion in NW Atlanta or possibly Cumberland or Cobb County in general

8. Streetcars on Peachtree from downtown to Lenox

Projects to wait for a long time or skip entirely, I believe, are:

-South Line expansion to Southlake Mall?--Make this commuter rail, not heavy rail.

-I20 East Line from downtown to Stonecrest?--No need with the Blue Line expansion from Indian Creek. Make this BRT instead.

And if ALL of that gets done within like a century or two, then build a 285 line, running both directions starting from Doraville. Or build a spur line from Avondale up to this.

[primaltech]

I still think that the State of GA, via GDOT, via GRTA, should swallow up and consolidate and control all the metro ATL transit, and operate everything and unify the branding (as GRTA), like MBTA does everything up in Boston. CRT, HRT, LRT, BRT, etc.

Then the 13-county GRTA area would fund it appropriately according to need, maybe at 1% sales tax for the 5 core counties, 1.5% for Atlanta proper, and .5% for the outer metro counties, who would just get commuter rail and express buses.

Then they could use P3's like the arrangement above, to quickly build out tons of commuter rail lines throughout the entire region, plus heavy rail to North Fulton and SE DeKalb, and light rail for Emory, and etc. And Blue Line to Fulton Industrial.

If we'd just simply do that next year, the whole region could be connected with frequent passenger rail probably by 2028. I don't get why we can't just get our act together and just do it.

[walker1962]

Its truly ridiculous that MARTA (48 miles total now) was the first rail in the south/Sunbelt states, post WWII, but with the past 10 years has been surpassed in total rail miles by Dallas (DART light rail of 93 miles plus the 30 mile Trinity rail express to Fort Worth),Denver (76 miles), and Portland Or (60 miles) . Both Portland and Denver are much smaller metro areas too. Same thing with road infrastructure. Nothing major completed in the last FIFTEEN to TWENTY years! That's some pathetic local and state capital leadership!