MARTA News (Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Alpharetta: authority, garages, richest)

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by bearsmiths

4 years later from when this thread was started and 54 pages later and MARTA has not laid a single shovel in the ground, hilarious. Worst transit agency in the country. Cities 1/3 the size of Atlanta are investing in its transit and actually building instead of years of "sTuDiEs" and "rEpOrTs". Worst thing is they lie to nearby municipalities about light rail and then last minute they wanna switch to useless BRT.



If you want to live in a city thats serious about urban development and transit, outside of a couple areas (that are extremely expensive like the beltline) you gotta move.

Bear in mind that rail projects in the ATL are multigenerational undertakings.

More rail may happen but it's not likely that any of us living today will use it. In my opinion it's more realistic to look at these projects with an even horizon of 75-100 years out.

[architect77]

Originally Posted by bearsmiths

4 years later from when this thread was started and 54 pages later and MARTA has not laid a single shovel in the ground, hilarious. Worst transit agency in the country. Cities 1/3 the size of Atlanta are investing in its transit and actually building instead of years of "sTuDiEs" and "rEpOrTs". Worst thing is they lie to nearby municipalities about light rail and then last minute they wanna switch to useless BRT.



If you want to live in a city thats serious about urban development and transit, outside of a couple areas (that are extremely expensive like the beltline) you gotta move.

MARTA may be the slowest to actually make visible improvements....

But it's not the worst in the country, perhaps D.C.'s fire-prone, delay-prone, unreliable system is the worst. People stopped even trying to take it to work after years of track fires and delayed trains.

MARTA functions quite well and is quite reliable.

There are too many stops on the bus routes, like 7-8 stops on Peachtree Rd. between Peachtree Battle and just South of Collier Road. They should culled to about half that number.

Atlanta's charm lies in its suburban beauty and aesthetic. We have land in all directions unlike Seattle.

I don't know why everything gets delayed for years on end. Id like the streets to be repaved first.

I wish they'd nix the switch to LRT and just expand the heavy rail lines. The service is fast and efficient, better than driving for sure. Perhaps the fares - be priced according to distance travelled.

The new trainsets start arriving next year and with a power washing of the stations and some bright new signage, MARTA could attract many new riders.
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[Atlanta-Native]

Originally Posted by primaltech

But, how the hell, is that county still in literally that exact same place, 32 years later?? The population has TRIPLED, and it's now a majority Democratic county... it's like, what are they doing, what are they studying? How many more studies and plans do you need? There's been dozens and dozens of them that they've spent god knows how much money and time on, some of them featuring heavy rail, some light rail, some BRT... all the studies and plans are all there in detail (I've got them in PDF files on my hard drive), and now they are going to start all over again and pay however many thousands for a new study? That's where a county of a million people is still at, square zero? Let alone any of the phases that would have to come after doing a study. Like, you know, construction, which takes a long time in itself.

Maybe rail isn't as wanted by all as it is to you. Many people won't ever use it and therefore aren't too worried about it, especially otp.

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by Atlanta-Native

Maybe rail isn't as wanted by all as it is to you. Many people won't ever use it and therefore aren't too worried about it, especially otp.

They do, though. If transit takes thousands of cars off the road every day (even with the limited existing system, MARTA's daily ridership is close to a half a million on weekdays), then, in a sense, everyone is getting benefit from it. And an expanded and more comprehensive transit system that had double the ridership, would have double the benefit for the metro as a whole.

And anyway, while there's always some people who would never take transit ever (even if it was a lot faster than driving), most people are in various degrees in the middle somewhere. Maybe have no use from the existing system, but they might would well use a rail station right near them, that allowed them to bypass freeway traffic/parking fees.

[bearsmiths]

Just look at how the city of Atlanta spent millions on that absolutely useless streetcar system downtown that has maybe (at best) 50 passengers a day, to see how they care about urban development and transit. The best thing this city has done the past 20 years was the beltline, by far.

[Smocaine]

Originally Posted by bearsmiths

Just look at how the city of Atlanta spent millions on that absolutely useless streetcar system downtown that has maybe (at best) 50 passengers a day, to see how they care about urban development and transit. The best thing this city has done the past 20 years was the beltline, by far.

And it's not a coincidence that the Beltline was a Georgia Tech guy basically going, "wait, are you really all this stupid?" And the whole thing was cheap enough for the losers in city hall to go along with it.


The City of Atlanta is NOT a meeting of the minds.

[primaltech]

And even the Beltline loop won't be complete until at least 2030. It takes 30 years to build a sidewalk, apparently.

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by bearsmiths

Just look at how the city of Atlanta spent millions on that absolutely useless streetcar system downtown that has maybe (at best) 50 passengers a day, to see how they care about urban development and transit. The best thing this city has done the past 20 years was the beltline, by far.

The stupid super-slow tourist ride even made Downtown uglier too, with all those power poles and wires they had to install. That was literally the one neighborhood of Atlanta that had underground utilities. It's funny.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by primaltech

And even the Beltline loop won't be complete until at least 2030. It takes 30 years to build a sidewalk, apparently.

Patience you must have, young Jedi.

Rail projects cannot be measured in mere decades. They are for the generations to come, not our own.

[bearsmiths]

Originally Posted by primaltech

The stupid super-slow tourist ride even made Downtown uglier too, with all those power poles and wires they had to install. That was literally the one neighborhood of Atlanta that had underground utilities. It's funny.

It's such a garbage system, anybody with a bike can go much faster than that slow ass tourist ride. And tourists barely be on it. The millions used for this could have gone to adding infill near marta stations, perhaps another infill station in the system, or renovations. This city is not taking urban development nor transit seriously.