Atlanta’s relationship with the automobile is reaching a crossroads. (Clayton: price, vs.)

[J2rescue]

The city's transportation five-year action plan indicates that the city's relationship with the automobile is indeed at a crossroads. Lots of good stuff in here.

http://citycouncil.atlantaga.gov/hom...cument?id=1232

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by J2rescue

The city's transportation five-year action plan indicates that the city's relationship with the automobile is indeed at a crossroads. Lots of good stuff in here.

http://citycouncil.atlantaga.gov/hom...cument?id=1232

Great report.

I really hope they are able to make the Peachtree Shared Street happen. The current strategy of fences to separate the sidewalk from the street is silly. It looks like it is seperating the streetcar out from traffic as well. Nice.

[architect77]

Originally Posted by DJDeadParrot

Here's the difference between Georgia and North Carolina; NC has several large population centers of roughly equal size distributed a little more evenly around the state than Georgia does. As a result, funding for road projects out east of, say, Durham doesn't ruffle feathers of taxpayers in Charlotte nearly as much as, for instance, a 4-lane road Columbus to Macon to Augusta would make Atlantans a bit cross.

Building new interstates is a fun thought exercise. But don't count on it getting very far past that.

1) it’s true that Georgia and NC are two different beasts and what Georgia does well—create a true big city in every sense- big infrastructure, fast pace, big city mentality....NC has no “world city batting in the majors” as of yet.

NC as a state, it’s government & state agencies rank it among the very best & advanced in the company of NY, FL & Calif.

1) I don’t agree that Atlantans would object to transportation spending around the state, its the rest of the state objecting that’s the problem. Atlantans are 100% tuned out to this kind of stuff

2) Georgia doesn’t need new interstates all over everywhere, but they still to this day, aren’t out studying our traffic, identifying the culprits at the dozens of trouble spots, and making improvements or at least trying.

The Buford Spring connector is backed up 2 miles everyday, due to 1960’s ramps and southbound 75/85 exit.

Many low cost changes the exits could eradicate that backup that steals 10
Minutes of everyone’s free time, and prevent all of that needless added pollution.

They arent out assessing conditions or trying to improve flow which, when you don’t expand or build much new for 3 decades, the conditions of the minimal network you’ve had 30 years to master taking care of....

Ought to be paved with gold.

Instead it was years of emails from me that got new overhead signs for the entire length of the I-85 access roads inside I-285.

Just last week I made a heartfelt plea to GDOT to re-embrace cantilevered supports for overhead signs, & stop spanning the entire highway with big,bulky & higher-cost truss-support structures FOR A SINGLE SMALL SIGN!

I-75’s big new Northwest Corridor project begins (heading North approaching I-285) with...

A clusterf*ck of unecessary huge trusses and poles half of which aren’t’ visually level, 4 or 5 in succession, all for either a single overhead sign or 2 smallish ones.

This project hasn’t even wrapped up yet, and they’ve created the ugliest, overly-cluttered stretch of interstate since, well, the got finished clusterf*cking formerly-pleasant I-85 in Gwinnett.

Go look at how gorgeous the new I-95 reversible lanes are in Virginia, or any other HOT lane addition anywhere in the country....
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WxEFeylhDWU

To see that ours will be the laughing stock because of the gauntlets of overhead and visual clutter....

Why do have to live with such sloppy and hideous outcomes that didn’t have to occur?

[bu2]

Originally Posted by DJDeadParrot

I'm not saying they're not being built. What I was trying to say, and Born2Roll can explain far better than I ever could, is that, in Georgia, building new interstates that don't have a tangible effect on alleviating traffic in metro Atlanta are politically unpopular. Whereas, there are states, such as North Carolina, where the political divide between one metro area and the rest of the state doesn't exist to the extent that there's much less political resistance to building new interstates.

Politics doesn't stay the same forever. And the population of Forsyth County is very different than it was 18 years ago.

Now I-14 wouldn't really do anything for Atlanta. But then that is popular among politicians in Central Georgia. But an interstate (or simply a limited access highway) on the west side connecting Cartersville at I-75 to I-85 (perhaps at 185) and connecting over to I-75 opposite Griffin would help Atlanta.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by architect77

1) it’s true that Georgia and NC are two different beasts and what Georgia does well—create a true big city in every sense- big infrastructure, fast pace, big city mentality....NC has no “world city batting in the majors” as of yet.

NC as a state, it’s government & state agencies rank it among the very best & advanced in the company of NY, FL & Calif.

1) I don’t agree that Atlantans would object to transportation spending around the state, its the rest of the state objecting that’s the problem. Atlantans are 100% tuned out to this kind of stuff

2) Georgia doesn’t need new interstates all over everywhere, but they still to this day, aren’t out studying our traffic, identifying the culprits at the dozens of trouble spots, and making improvements or at least trying.

The Buford Spring connector is backed up 2 miles everyday, due to 1960’s ramps and southbound 75/85 exit.

Many low cost changes the exits could eradicate that backup that steals 10
Minutes of everyone’s free time, and prevent all of that needless added pollution.

They arent out assessing conditions or trying to improve flow which, when you don’t expand or build much new for 3 decades, the conditions of the minimal network you’ve had 30 years to master taking care of....

Ought to be paved with gold.

Instead it was years of emails from me that got new overhead signs for the entire length of the I-85 access roads inside I-285.

Just last week I made a heartfelt plea to GDOT to re-embrace cantilevered supports for overhead signs, & stop spanning the entire highway with big,bulky & higher-cost truss-support structures FOR A SINGLE SMALL SIGN!

I-75’s big new Northwest Corridor project begins (heading North approaching I-285) with...

A clusterf*ck of unecessary huge trusses and poles half of which aren’t’ visually level, 4 or 5 in succession, all for either a single overhead sign or 2 smallish ones.

This project hasn’t even wrapped up yet, and they’ve created the ugliest, overly-cluttered stretch of interstate since, well, the got finished clusterf*cking formerly-pleasant I-85 in Gwinnett.

Go look at how gorgeous the new I-95 reversible lanes are in Virginia, or any other HOT lane addition anywhere in the country....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WxEFeylhDWU

To see that ours will be the laughing stock because of the gauntlets of overhead and visual clutter....

Why do have to live with such sloppy and hideous outcomes that didn’t have to occur?

Sorry, it won't allow me to give you more rep for this post.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by J2rescue

The city's transportation five-year action plan indicates that the city's relationship with the automobile is indeed at a crossroads. Lots of good stuff in here.

http://citycouncil.atlantaga.gov/hom...cument?id=1232

Needs better legends. Page 5 doesn't make it clear whether that is density they want or what exists now. Page 6 on their goals is also not very clear on where their data comes from. Nice to have goals, but it looks absurd. Maybe its not, but they don't explain enough to understand.

Safety stuff on pages 13 & 14 is nice. But there is nothing about TSM improvements of the type Architect77 mentions. They simply seem to have the goal to make driving more expensive and difficult with their TDM, parking price controls and "Cordon pricing" which they don't explain.

Their relative cost page is nonsense. $800 for transit vs. $10,000 for a car? MARTA pass is $95. 12X95 is $1,140. And that doesn't count the subsidy of operations or the capital costs. Makes you question any other data they have when they either don't have that right or do some adjustment they don't explain.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by bu2

Needs better legends. Page 5 doesn't make it clear whether that is density they want or what exists now.

Those are the "growth" areas defined in the Atlanta City Design.

Originally Posted by bu2

Their relative cost page is nonsense. $800 for transit vs. $10,000 for a car? MARTA pass is $95. 12X95 is $1,140. And that doesn't count the subsidy of operations or the capital costs. Makes you question any other data they have when they either don't have that right or do some adjustment they don't explain.

They are looking likely at average costs for transit users. Many monthly pass holders get discounted fares from employers or due to low income. That averages out to less than assuming everyone pays the full $1,140. The car numbers can be found other places as well: https://newsroom.aaa.com/2013/04/cos...study-archive/

You can nit-pick on the details but no denying that transit is the more affordable option.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by bu2

They simply seem to have the goal to make driving more expensive and difficult with their TDM, parking price controls and "Cordon pricing" which they don't explain.

"Cordon pricing" is "congestion pricing". And unfortunately it is really the only way to keep traffic flowing in large cities. There is no other functional long-term solution to traffic. You can offer people alternatives via transit (which we should do) or improve things in the short term but make the problem worse in the long run with wider lanes (which we don't have to space left to do this on a significant scale even if we wanted to), but in a growing city congestion pricing is the only real way to manage traffic.

[Need4Camaro]

Those HOT lanes on I-95 in VA remind me of the same thing on I-75 in Henry County... but...done a good bit better.

Im not a fan of the NW Coridoor... it looks very sloppy and poorly thought out.

[cqholt]

NC as a state, it’s government & state agencies rank it among the very best & advanced in the company of NY, FL & Calif.

Just to clarify, you are talking about the same state government that passed a bathroom bill?