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When I lived in Seattle, I worked in Bothell WA and while that city wasn't accessible by commuter rail, it was easily accessible by bus. The issue is, I lived about 55 miles away from Bothell so commuter rail alone was not going to get me there.
Driving there, I'd leave at 5am, get to my job at 6am, and sleep till 8am...
My car wasn't in the best of shape and eventually my engine popped.. so I was forced to take mass transit, doing so on a 50 mile commute here is what happened...
-- Left home at 4:30am (this means I was up and ready by 4am)
-- Jogged to downtown Tacoma -- 15 minutes.
-- Catch the first Bus at 4:55am
-- Ride to The Sounder Train Station -- 15 minutes.
-- Wait for train - arrives at about 5:30am
-- Take train to Downtown Seattle, arrive by 6:30am
-- Exit train, walk to transit tunnel -- 15 Minutes
-- Catch bus to Bellevue WA - got there RIGHT on time - 30 minute ride to Bellevue.
-- Arrived in Bellevue at 7:10am, wait 30 minutes for the next bus (usually inside of Starbucks) - catch it at 7:40am
-- 20 minute ride to Bothell, arrive at 8am - Jog 2 miles to work, arrive by 8:20am
In short my commute taking mass transit took nearly 4 hours where as driving took right about 1 hour. That was only going one way as well, coming back was just as rough, so in short I spent aproximately 16 hours per work day away from home and the rest were barely dedicated to resting...
Thing is, just because transit options are AVAILABLE, doesn't always mean they're most efficient, mass transit is just that - it is designed to move MASSES of people in a general direction... but it can never ever be as flexible as a personal vehicle, and this is why so many people choose to drive over using mass transit even when its available AND cheaper.
I had a very similar experience with MARTA commuting from Tucker to Alpharetta.. by car, 30 minutes to 45 minutes tops.. by Bus and Train and Bus it takes nearly 3 hours.
This isn't to say that Mass Transit isnt needed, I'd love to see a commuter rail in Atlanta, but it IS to say that if you guys think that installing one and expanding rapid transit coverage throughout the metro is going to make Atlanta's traffic disapear, you've got another thing coming.
NO amount of lanes or transit will makes traffic disappear, as it hasnt in NYC, Chicago or DC, BUT it would be a great option for those that want to use it and take alot of cars off the road too, which would somewhat ease up traffic.
If enough people were to ride an expanded transit (IF EVER BUILT), many employers would have office shuttles, just like the ones you see in Perimeter center area. Common sense rule though, if you live in Tucker, DO NOT get a job in Alpharetta if you dont have a car or pick anything that requires more than 1hr on transit including transfers. 4HRS RT on transit daily is very tiring and Ive done it many times.
If the entire metro shoulder lanes were open for buses like on GA 400, GRTA and MARTA could expand and easily advertise during peak rush hours how you could can easily save 30+ mins using its buses vs sitting in the traffic in your car. This is one of the reasons why many people dont want to ride the XPRESS 428 from Perimeter Center in the evening when I used to ride it, because it just sits on 285 forever vs the downtown buses that can use HOV lanes to get out to the suburbs. Suburbia doesnt seem like riding a GRTA bus is beneath them vs riding a MARTA bus, but maybe because GRTA has more of a working class ridership that doesnt act like a fool on the ride either.
NO amount of lanes or transit will makes traffic disappear, as it hasnt in NYC, Chicago or DC, BUT it would be a great option for those that want to use it and take alot of cars off the road too, which would somewhat ease up traffic.
If enough people were to ride an expanded transit (IF EVER BUILT), many employers would have office shuttles, just like the ones you see in Perimeter center area. Common sense rule though, if you live in Tucker, DO NOT get a job in Alpharetta if you dont have a car or pick anything that requires more than 1hr on transit including transfers. 4HRS RT on transit daily is very tiring and Ive done it many times.
If the entire metro shoulder lanes were open for buses like on GA 400, GRTA and MARTA could expand and easily advertise during peak rush hours how you could can easily save 30+ mins using its buses vs sitting in the traffic in your car. This is one of the reasons why many people dont want to ride the XPRESS 428 from Perimeter Center in the evening when I used to ride it, because it just sits on 285 forever vs the downtown buses that can use HOV lanes to get out to the suburbs. Suburbia doesnt seem like riding a GRTA bus is beneath them vs riding a MARTA bus, but maybe because GRTA has more of a working class ridership that doesnt act like a fool on the ride either.
I agree it definitely needs to be an option here in Atlanta. I definitely wish it were here.. I just feel though people's hopes are alittle too high on it actually being anything effective enough to really make a punch in traffic here.
I "had" a car but some severe misfortune happened and I had to sell it when I was in Tucker. also I was going to college, not work. Another thing is though... I have a very specialized field of work so I can't always be picky about where I want to work. If I was like a manager or a sales person then flexibility goes way up but thats not my field of work... I have to go where the jobs are, and alot of them don't pay enough to justify moving to the areas where they're located.
Lastly, one other thing that I'm not sure if you guys are aware of and the reason that London's tolling program is so successful... It's not just the highways that are tolled in congestion zones. Its ALL of the surface streets. Meaning EVERYONE will be tolled, even those who live ITP who commute into downtown, not just those driving from the suburbs. That makes a BIG difference when determining any feasibility / profit analysis when implementing such a system.
That's probably the only way to make sure that people don't bypass the tolls using surface streets.
That's probably the only way to make sure that people don't bypass the tolls using surface streets.
In London's case its STRICTLY to reduce traffic within the central district, not necessarily to keep people from bypassing tolls, but London's streets are not like Atlanta's streets, not even by a long shot. Downtown London streets are narrow. Most of them cannot handle large volumes of vehicular traffic where as in Atlanta our streets ARE designed to handle cars. So for London the only feasible option is to reduce the amount of vehicles using all of the streets within the central vicinity... It's not necessarily to keep people from by-passing the tolls but to reduce vehicular congestion through the entire central vincinity...
The idea that I'm hearing floating around only involves tolling the major freeways, but if they want a system like London's, of which the proceeds go back toward the transit system, tolling only the major interstates will not be enough.. because MOST of their tolled income is actually coming from people who actually LIVE in the area...not commuters...and the other thing is there is a tremendous difference in the sheer volume of traffic that Atlanta has as opposed to London. The reason they have enough money to put back in the transit system is because London actually has the vehicular capacity to do this, Atlanta's population would not yet be enough to escape the costs of maintaining the highways with those tolls, they wouldn't receive enough money due to not enough vehicular traffic (especially if invested only on the interstates) ...of course... you CAN toll every street ITP..but I highly doubt the general populous would be agreeable to this decision.
Here... take a look at this... you will see there is a TREMENDOUS difference between london's congestion zones (tolling every vehicle within its vincinity) versus tolling just the major freeways in Atlanta... and you'll also see there's a tremendous difference in London's layout that makes driving there very unfriendly to begin with.
do note that i said "additional". So, the i-85 lanes wouldn't count. But the i-75 ones would. I mean, it's really just creating a special lane for the rich, but ehh.
NO amount of lanes or transit will makes traffic disappear, as it hasnt in NYC, Chicago or DC, BUT it would be a great option for those that want to use it and take alot of cars off the road too, which would somewhat ease up traffic.
If enough people were to ride an expanded transit (IF EVER BUILT), many employers would have office shuttles, just like the ones you see in Perimeter center area. Common sense rule though, if you live in Tucker, DO NOT get a job in Alpharetta if you dont have a car or pick anything that requires more than 1hr on transit including transfers. 4HRS RT on transit daily is very tiring and Ive done it many times.
If the entire metro shoulder lanes were open for buses like on GA 400, GRTA and MARTA could expand and easily advertise during peak rush hours how you could can easily save 30+ mins using its buses vs sitting in the traffic in your car. This is one of the reasons why many people dont want to ride the XPRESS 428 from Perimeter Center in the evening when I used to ride it, because it just sits on 285 forever vs the downtown buses that can use HOV lanes to get out to the suburbs. Suburbia doesnt seem like riding a GRTA bus is beneath them vs riding a MARTA bus, but maybe because GRTA has more of a working class ridership that doesnt act like a fool on the ride either.
Bolding mine, this isn't true. People ride GRTA because it serves them. It gets them where they need to go, when they need to go, as fast as they need to go. For most of these riders, the local MARTA buses don't meet those criteria. Why would someone spend longer on a bus than it takes to drive to the train station? I have a bus at the end of my street, maybe a quarter mile walk if that. It actually runs "directly" to my closest MARTA station. But unless I'm going out of town, I'll drive and park at the station because the bus route doesn't serve me when I need it, and takes longer to trundle down the street, making stops, and still not taking the fastest route to the station.
the number of automobiles entering London’s center each day has plunged by 44 percent since the start of congestion charging, from 105,000 to 59,000, even as the total number of people entering by any means grew from 1,050,000 to 1,287,000, a gain of 23 percent. (Figures are from Transport for London and compare 2002 to 2015, the last year with available data.)
Well its not surprising but you're still completely throwing out all this evidence without the rest of the picture of how vastly different London's design is from Atlanta.. its like.. taking a beautifully functioning part of a Mercede's Benz and applying it to a Cadillac. They achieve the same function, but they don't operate the same.
You never post maps of how vastly different London's roads are compared to ours and why driving there is so unfriendly to begin with
You never post how VASTLY incredibly extenive London's transit alternatives are compared to ours
-- oh forget it why am I even bothering... If they toll all of Atlanta's highways I'll stop by and buy you a drink on my way to Dallas or something :P
Well its not surprising but you're still completely throwing out all this evidence without the rest of the picture of how vastly different London's design is from Atlanta.. its like.. taking a beautifully functioning part of a Mercede's Benz and applying it to a Cadillac. They achieve the same function, but they don't operate the same.
You never post maps of how vastly different London's roads are compared to ours and why driving there is so unfriendly to begin with
Because the laws of economics still apply, and we can shift the costs based on what variables are different to produce similar results.
Just as the laws of physics don't change between you location on Earth just because your starting parameters are different.
Quote:
You never post how VASTLY incredibly extenive London's transit alternatives are compared to ours
How many times have I posted, explicitly, about how to build out an extensive transit network to be ready for the tolls' start here in Atlanta that you never seem to acknowledge?
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-- oh forget it why am I even bothering... If they toll all of Atlanta's highways I'll stop by and buy you a drink on my way to Dallas or something :P
And I'll enjoy the all the new services and reduced traffic. I'd take the drink though, since you'd be offering
Because the laws of economics still apply, and we can shift the costs based on what variables are different to produce similar results.
The difference between having to figure out the last mile and a half of your trip, and having to figure out 15 miles of your trip is a completely different discussion, as I have told you many times. You can't point at London as proof of how it will work, and claim that the "economics are the same". If you believe that, then you are far too deluded to really discuss this with.
You would need one hell of a transit network to overcome a toll on hundreds of square miles. I would be very interested in seeing the average trip distance for the reduction, and how many people simply don't enter that very small area, and just park right outside and then ride in or just walk in. That is easily doable with such a small area.
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