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A freeway through a neighborhood doesn't "destroy" the neighborhood unless its boundaries are literally the same boundaries of the freeway which is a 200ft wide strip. Druid Hills itself is nearly 2x3 miles. A 3 mile 200ft wide freeway running through it would take only 1.89% of the land area. Hardly a destruction. I-20 through its neighborhoods didn't destroy them, 400 through Buckhead didn't destroy it. They're all nice, vibrant areas (I-20 more recently admittedly). It's time to quit acting like Presidential parkway and I-485 would have been like razing every house in existence. Instead of a freeway blocked by trees and soundwalls, the residents now have a traffic jam literally outside their front door in many cases. I think most people would gladly trade that for a freeway.
Said like a driver viewing the removal of homes and businesses from the freeway that replaced them. Care to tell me how freeways didn't destroy Summerhill or Washington-Rawson?
So I wont lie when i say... i personally would have preferred the freeway, however; as BTR mentioned earlier about the I-675 Interchange (Which I completely forgot about) ...probably WOULD have hurt that area pretty bad if a massive stack where to be put in its place and 2 miles west another interchange with the connector. So with that i can see how that would be pretty difficult for that area.
I'm not really sure what to say at this point.
Can't have the best of both worlds I guess.
But I'm beginning to feel that Atlanta and its metro is becoming (or already is) a different city than many of us hoped for it. In other words. Most of my Hope's for freeway connectivity throughout the metro and its suburbs have been diminished... needed? Yes, likely? Very much unlikely. I think that the mindset of the metro is tailoring more toward denser development and moving the populous closer to transit.
As much to my dismay that I dont believe that will fully solve the problem .. at this time I'm beginning to think that's Atlanta's only real answer.
So I wont lie when i say... i personally would have preferred the freeway, however; as BTR mentioned earlier about the I-675 Interchange (Which I completely forgot about) ...probably WOULD have hurt that area pretty bad if a massive stack where to be put in its place and 2 miles west another interchange with the connector. So with that i can see how that would be pretty difficult for that area.
I'm not really sure what to say at this point.
Can't have the best of both worlds I guess.
But I'm beginning to feel that Atlanta and its metro is becoming (or already is) a different city than many of us hoped for it. In other words. Most of my Hope's for freeway connectivity throughout the metro and its suburbs have been diminished... needed? Yes, likely? Very much unlikely. I think that the mindset of the metro is tailoring more toward denser development and moving the populous closer to transit.
As much to my dismay that I dont believe that will fully solve the problem .. at this time I'm beginning to think that's Atlanta's only real answer.
Part of the issue is we keep having this discussion on neighborhoods inside 285 when the boundaries of the metro area far exceed that. I can see how a freeway through the middle of some old, intown, walk centric neighborhoods might not be great (though some areas don't seem too affected. Highland Park in Dallas is exceptional and sandwiched between 75 and the Dallas North Tollway). But, they're well suited for the suburbs. My parents love being closer to 85 compared to Snellville. I'm not even a mile from US75 and I love it. But Dallas and Houston actually planned ahead. Securing ROW long before roads would be built (and money spent). Plus an actual network of toll roads to help pay. It'd be near impossible now to build the road network Dallas and Houston have through the suburbs. A lot of land that has already been developed. Land that in Texas often has small roads or frontage roads acting as placeholders. When they built 99's toll lanes by my old apartment (before I even moved in). They didn't have to tear down any houses, they just built it between the frontage roads. Look at this area in College Station. The apartments are set so far back from the road because if they ever choose to expand the road and add a freeway (which I saw as a long term possibility in some planning doc), they just have to tear up some driveways, and that's it.
Yes, Regional leaders go on annual trips to learn best practices from other Metros in the States and Canada - and have been doing so for many years now.
What's interesting is that with substantially more than double the rail trackage of Atlanta across a much larger geographical area with several million more people, Dallas has less than half of MARTA'S daily ridership.
Somethings not right with this equation, and its design is certainly not worth us emulating.
As far as D.C. goes, they've had access to Federal funding from day one that other Metro's could only dream of.
Good point about ridership although MARTA ridership is falling while DART rail is increasing, the latter possibly due to more recent additions to the system which enhances its desirability. I also think DART Rail ridership may suffer from a competing with a more extensive highway network which has expanded every few years. I agree with many who post here there are too many NIMBYS in greater Atlanta who don't see the greater good. D/FW arterials in many cases have been on the drawing board for a couple of generations. I think in some cases, NIMBY types know this here and in Atlanta but hope years later to beat back mobility expansion because NOW they live near planned roadways/railway...they are just SELFISH!
The 'plan' for Druid Hills was to run the expressway right through the Olmstead chain of parks. Brilliant.
You cannot be serious with this.
Again, tell me how a 200ft wide strip of pavement "destroys" a neighborhood? Parks are great, but they can be built anywhere, there's nothing special about their current location.
Again, tell me how a 200ft wide strip of pavement "destroys" a neighborhood? Parks are great, but they can be built anywhere, there's nothing special about their current location.
So I wont lie when i say... i personally would have preferred the freeway, however; as BTR mentioned earlier about the I-675 Interchange (Which I completely forgot about) ...probably WOULD have hurt that area pretty bad if a massive stack where to be put in its place and 2 miles west another interchange with the connector. So with that i can see how that would be pretty difficult for that area.
I'm not really sure what to say at this point.
Can't have the best of both worlds I guess.
But I'm beginning to feel that Atlanta and its metro is becoming (or already is) a different city than many of us hoped for it. In other words. Most of my Hope's for freeway connectivity throughout the metro and its suburbs have been diminished... needed? Yes, likely? Very much unlikely. I think that the mindset of the metro is tailoring more toward denser development and moving the populous closer to transit.
As much to my dismay that I dont believe that will fully solve the problem .. at this time I'm beginning to think that's Atlanta's only real answer.
Well, if one is comparing a Southeastern metro region like Atlanta to Texas metro regions like DFW and Houston, and is expecting Atlanta to have the same or very similar type of regional superhighway (freeway and toll road) infrastructure as those two Texas mega metros, one's hopes for the metro Atlanta/North Georgia region to embrace that type of approach to building out a metro/regional road infrastructure most likely is going to be disappointed.
That is not to say that Georgia state government (through an agency like GDOT) has not attempted (and often failed due to the opposition of local residents and the public at-large) to build out a regional superhighway network.
But it is to say (as other posters have noted) that metro Atlantans and North Georgians often do not react well to the prospect of new superhighways being built anywhere remotely through or near areas of existing heavy residential development and/or wilderness or semi-wilderness areas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by walker1962
Good point about ridership although MARTA ridership is falling while DART rail is increasing, the latter possibly due to more recent additions to the system which enhances its desirability. I also think DART Rail ridership may suffer from a competing with a more extensive highway network which has expanded every few years. I agree with many who post here there are too many NIMBYS in greater Atlanta who don't see the greater good. D/FW arterials in many cases have been on the drawing board for a couple of generations. I think in some cases, NIMBY types know this here and in Atlanta but hope years later to beat back mobility expansion because NOW they live near planned roadways/railway...they are just SELFISH!
Before we place all of the blame for Atlanta's regional mobility issues on local residents living along successfully defeated proposed superhighways, one very important thing to keep in mind is that the local residents who successfully defeated those past proposed roadways could have done it without the opinion of the public at-large being firmly on their side.
That was the case during the aforementioned East Intown Atlanta Freeway revolts in the 1960's, '70's, and '80's, and that was especially the case during public backlash against the proposed Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc in the late 1990's and early 2000's when an even broader swath of the public (including Intown Atlanta interests and regional environmentalists along with national environmental groups) helped to defeat a road that seemed to become increasingly more unpopular the longer it continued to be an active proposal.
Many metro Atlantans and North Georgians (particularly north of I-20) have a vision of the Atlanta metro/North Georgia region of being a large major metro area/region in a Blue Ridge/Southern Appalachian/Piedmont foothills forest... A vision which is a big part of many metro Atlantans' and North Georgians' social and cultural identity which they take an intense amount of pride in.
And anything that is perceived as disturbing and disrupting that deep social and cultural identity and that vision of being a metro region in a Blue Ridge/Southern Appalachian/Piedmont foothills forest (like a superhighway proposed to run through or near an existing neighborhood and/or forested area, etc) often gets a tremendous amount of pushback from not only local residents, but also from the public at-large, including local and regional and even national environment activists who often view the encroachment of heavy development on the foothills and ranges of the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian mountains region north of the city in apocalyptic terms.
If one will think of a North Texas mega-metro region like the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex as Southern Prairie, then think of a North Georgia mega-metro region like Atlanta as Southern Appalachian or semi-Appalachian/Blue Ridge/Piedmont forest and one may start to get why new superhighway construction proposals may not always be received as well by the public in metro Atlanta and North Georgia as they might be in areas like DFW and Houston.
I don't support ploughing through an old, established neighborhood, which Atlantans think is the only definition of freeway espansion.
Other states, most of who have their act together like top-tier state North Carolina, are planning a decade in advance.
Raleigh's outer loop I-540, which for now must call all the 60% that is tolled "NC-540", & will become I-640 when the loop is completed in 2027....
Has studied multiple routes for the Southeast section for almost 10 years, and with public involvement the entire time.
The final chosen route will still require demolishing about 100 homes and businesses, but NC citizens accept that the greater good of the community comes before personal attachment to a piece of land.
They are all paid above market value for properties bought by the state.
By planning ahead, you're always able to build roads relatively cheaply and not destroy established neighborhoods.
The big orange interchange above is the confluence of I-540, I-40, US70, & The "Clayton Bypass" NC42. Construction has just started adding 2 additional lanes each way to I-40 through here (8 lanes total):
TRIVIA: There are 4 completely separate US70s in this immediate area: US70, US70 Business, US70 Alternate, & US70 Bypass (the freeway through this interchange).
Some being built from scratch and some that are upgrades from existing near-interstate quality highways, here IN ORANGE are the new interstate designations awarded to NC and currently being built.
Note that above highway (NC-540) isn't included because officially it's not an interstate because of the toll.
Last edited by architect77; 01-31-2019 at 01:27 AM..
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