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Old 11-06-2017, 03:03 PM
bu2
 
23,884 posts, read 14,681,282 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cwkimbro View Post
First... who is they... and what are they proposing exactly...

The problem with that is it just peaks land prices in key business and residential areas and makes it harder for others to get to...

Take Gwinnett/I-85 for example.

They have a corridor growth model and have made invetments to have parrallel arterial roads and not just depend on the freeway and an access road, like Dekalb did in the older generations.

People then all drive towards the freeway, but they aren't all going to same place in the corridor. So traffic is spread out. Some people can from a neighborhood in Lawrenceville can drive north, NW, West, or southwest to get to different jobs.

It spreads traffic out and makes better use of all arterial roads... and not just the few that "lead to Rome"


I'm not anti-transit, but transit is no magical solution that cures all ills. Designing a city with the proper balance of residential to job areas throughout the whole region is paramount in planning to keep congestion at bay, including on transit systems.
Atlanta Regional Commission.

I think we need lots more roads and more transit. Neither one alone can do it. But you have to try to encourage development that promotes transit, not makes it more difficult. Transit cannot take everyone to every job. It is financially impossible. You have to make choices. So the key is to get as many 8-5 type jobs as possible on mass transit by concentrating them, not in one place, but in a limited number of places.
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Old 11-06-2017, 03:30 PM
 
Location: Atlanta
7,574 posts, read 10,705,589 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2 View Post
Atlanta Regional Commission.

I think we need lots more roads and more transit. Neither one alone can do it. But you have to try to encourage development that promotes transit, not makes it more difficult. Transit cannot take everyone to every job. It is financially impossible. You have to make choices. So the key is to get as many 8-5 type jobs as possible on mass transit by concentrating them, not in one place, but in a limited number of places.
There is nothing wrong with trying to make development around transit... transit oriented, however I disagree with this.

The foot print of immediate premium transit access is usually very small.

If you limit development to those areas alone the costs of land and development will spike in those key areas alone and make the cost of doing business higher. At the same time it makes more people need to drive the same paths and makes traffic worse, especially given that outside NYC most people will still end up commuting by car.

There is certainly nothing wrong with encouraging the largest developments of high impact into certain spots, but most office space is divied up by small to mid-size companies or smaller departments of national and international conglomerates. That is why Gwinnett can have over 20msqft of office space, but not really have tall office towers.


There was an old idea on these boards that got passed around 7 or 8 years that I really think holds true.

It was comparing/contrasting DC and Atlanta and it was simply... never before have there been two cities that could learn from each other... sort of insinuating that both being Sunbelt/post-WWII that one developed in one direction too much and face the consequences of that type of development and the other one developed in the other direction too much and face the different sets of consequences.

They were able to get more federal money for their transit system in the '70s and '80s and had office districts develop off of it. They are more tight and constrained and transit is more important to commuters in DC.

However, they face extremely high land prices/development costs, most people are still driving, and the traffic situation is even worse because people are fighting access for a limited set of path driving into key office areas.

We did the opposite. We accepted transit was less important and zoned according to the benefits of the car at times and kept the older traditional North American core-city model too. We focused our efforts on make sure there was more of a balance of jobs closer to where people lived. Admittedly, it was easier for us to do this because we are for more of an industrial city. This is a land intensive and to an extent not beneficial for transit to begin with, but it is a large part of our economy.

We see lower land and development costs, we open more land for residential development that keeps CoL costs down, our traffic is actually a bit better than DC, and as our residents are dispersed... so are our employment locations closer to where people live.

Luckily for them they have the seat of the country's government driving a large degree of wealth and high paying jobs into the area. Far beyond what we get to see, sadly. We might take a bigger hit with increasing costs.
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Old 11-07-2017, 09:50 AM
 
Location: Kirkwood
23,726 posts, read 24,729,238 times
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Quote:
It was comparing/contrasting DC and Atlanta and it was simply... never before have there been two cities that could learn from each other... sort of insinuating that both being Sunbelt/post-WWII that one developed in one direction too much and face the consequences of that type of development and the other one developed in the other direction too much and face the different sets of consequences.
DC 'grew up' in an era before cars. Look at all their dense brownstone neighborhoods that resemble NE cities.
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Old 11-07-2017, 12:01 PM
 
Location: Atlanta
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cqholt View Post
DC 'grew up' in an era before cars. Look at all their dense brownstone neighborhoods that resemble NE cities.
Partly fair.... but Keep in mind DC wasn't like NYC, Chicago, Boston, or even Philadelphia, Detroit, LA, etc... back then. DC was starting to rapidly grow, but had gotten a slower start in the 1800s being far South in the swamps against the urban growth demand of the day.

The pre-car era only exists in certain core areas to an extent...


In 1940 the Metropolitan District of DC was 907k people (663k inside the city and 244k outside)

In 1940 the Metropilican District of Atlanta was 442k people (302k inside the city and 140k outside)


So there is a little bit of truth here. DC was about twice as large as Atlanta in what we typically define as the pre-car era before the post-WWII boom.

However, DC wasn't nearly as large as it is now. Most of the DC region grew up in the car era, with the exceptions of most the district itself, a few small areas outside... most notably Alexandria (33.5k people).


Atlanta was smaller, but it was a well defined growing Metro district half the size of DC at that point. It too mostly boomed in the era of the automobile.

More notable is looking at the similarities of growth patterns from the 40s-80s and both the similarities and divergences found in the '80s-today.
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Old 11-07-2017, 02:12 PM
 
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
8,469 posts, read 14,920,869 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cwkimbro View Post
Partly fair.... but Keep in mind DC wasn't like NYC, Chicago, Boston, or even Philadelphia, Detroit, LA, etc... back then. DC was starting to rapidly grow, but had gotten a slower start in the 1800s being far South in the swamps against the urban growth demand of the day.

The pre-car era only exists in certain core areas to an extent...


In 1940 the Metropolitan District of DC was 907k people (663k inside the city and 244k outside)

In 1940 the Metropilican District of Atlanta was 442k people (302k inside the city and 140k outside)


So there is a little bit of truth here. DC was about twice as large as Atlanta in what we typically define as the pre-car era before the post-WWII boom.

However, DC wasn't nearly as large as it is now. Most of the DC region grew up in the car era, with the exceptions of most the district itself, a few small areas outside... most notably Alexandria (33.5k people).


Atlanta was smaller, but it was a well defined growing Metro district half the size of DC at that point. It too mostly boomed in the era of the automobile.

More notable is looking at the similarities of growth patterns from the 40s-80s and both the similarities and divergences found in the '80s-today.
If you look at the growth of suburban DC in the post war era, it is largely the same as what happened in suburban Atlanta. The biggest difference are the first ring suburbs where they succeed in building rail lines in to more so than we did. In those places they became centers of their own and grew densely.

In Atlanta we only have a few examples of that (Decatur, the Central perimeter area, and FINALLY the Chamblee/Doraville area). We can definitely learn a lot from what they've done in that regard.


Outside of that, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between their suburbs and our suburbs. Nova is basically the same as a combined Gwinnett, North Fulton, and Cobb.
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Old 11-07-2017, 04:14 PM
 
Location: Seattle, WA
9,830 posts, read 7,187,636 times
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I think it's fine that our metro area is mostly suburban and mostly about cars and driving, and I'm sure that will never change. Unlike some more hardcore urbanist people here, I don't see a problem with that.

However, I think Atlanta proper should become more urbanized and pedestrian and transit oriented, particularly towards the core. And, I think the suburbs in all directions should have good transit access to access the dense job centers, which should have more concentration of the jobs near transit. Of course a lot of jobs will still be in drive-to office parks. That's okay, too.

Basically we should be what we already are, but with major improvements to transit. It doesn't mean that transit use will climb up to above 20% or 30% of commuters, once we get there. And I think that's okay, it doesn't have to. What I don't think is okay is most people in most areas having no decent transit options.

There should be a good rail transit network that goes everywhere. Then we'd have an option to bypass the bad metro traffic which will always be around. We need mobility options.
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Old 11-07-2017, 04:28 PM
 
Location: Atlanta
7,574 posts, read 10,705,589 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by waronxmas View Post
If you look at the growth of suburban DC in the post war era, it is largely the same as what happened in suburban Atlanta. The biggest difference are the first ring suburbs where they succeed in building rail lines in to more so than we did. In those places they became centers of their own and grew densely.

In Atlanta we only have a few examples of that (Decatur, the Central perimeter area, and FINALLY the Chamblee/Doraville area). We can definitely learn a lot from what they've done in that regard.


Outside of that, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between their suburbs and our suburbs. Nova is basically the same as a combined Gwinnett, North Fulton, and Cobb.
I disagree a small bit... There are some differences in the mix. I realized it after I ran into a Prince William Booster in the city vs. city forums and was forced to really look at that area.

Like I said we can learn from each other. What DC has done by itself is hardly model that is great. There are real pros and cons to what they have done vs. what we have done. We should be trying to find a balance where we can get some of their pros without their cons. (and vice versa) They have some real CoL issues and their traffic is usually a bit worse than ours traditionally... and that is with transit.


I was just looking at a dot density map on arc GIS for other purposes. One thing you can notice about suburban DC is density drops off more as you get between town centers in both their middle and outer suburbs. (ie. 400-1200ppsqm vs 2000-4000ppsqm). One thing that happens is prices spike really bad both in the dense areas and in the areas in between lacking density.

People find fewer parcels available and only a rich few have these commuter style estates (ie. think like the least dense areas of Buckhead and Smokerise as examples).

In the mean time the dense areas are horribly expensive too, because there is so much less land available and the local governments have not always bolstered their arterial road construction going further from main freeway corridors.

There are reasons housing in DC is so expensive beyond employment bolstered the US Gov't presence.

One more thing... compared to DC, Decatur is not actually that dense. Outside the very central town center of Decatur the density drops off quite a bit... and then it drops of alot leaving the city. It also doesn't have many jobs or industry outside the county government. I mention the latter, because that is how it differs from the area in DC you're describing. It isn't really a booming business district ready to take in development that is stringed out in the suburbs of Atlanta.

In DC due to lack of developable areas apartments and tightly built townhomes can be built for a further distance from the core of the town center... at least that close to central DC.

Imagine Decatur being even more expensive... and how fired up the Decatur SFH NIMBYs would be if we didn't open up outlying suburban areas to development more.
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Old 11-07-2017, 06:04 PM
 
4,010 posts, read 3,728,037 times
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8:03pm and traffic is still backed up getting into Gwinnett county
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Old 11-08-2017, 05:47 AM
 
6,328 posts, read 11,866,830 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by waronxmas View Post
If you look at the growth of suburban DC in the post war era, it is largely the same as what happened in suburban Atlanta. The biggest difference are the first ring suburbs where they succeed in building rail lines in to more so than we did. In those places they became centers of their own and grew densely.

In Atlanta we only have a few examples of that (Decatur, the Central perimeter area, and FINALLY the Chamblee/Doraville area). We can definitely learn a lot from what they've done in that regard.


Outside of that, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between their suburbs and our suburbs. Nova is basically the same as a combined Gwinnett, North Fulton, and Cobb.
The Arlington/Crystal City area reminded me a lot of the Sandy Springs/Dunwoody area, minus the airport of course.
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Old 11-08-2017, 12:18 PM
 
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
8,469 posts, read 14,920,869 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SEAandATL View Post
The Arlington/Crystal City area reminded me a lot of the Sandy Springs/Dunwoody area, minus the airport of course.
Yup, and Prince William County plus Manassas is almost exactly like Gwinnett county. I have family that lives in Manassas, and when I visit I have to do a double take every day to check and see if I woke up in Duluth.
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