Atlanta retailers cling to parking (Macon, Peachtree City: neighborhoods, taxes, living in)

[Iconographer]

Coffee roasters Batdorf & Bronson was close to opening one of its popular Dancing Goats Coffee Bar locations at Atlantic Station, a landmark mixed-use project in Atlanta, but the lack of parking kept the café from signing on the dotted line.

Atlantic Station does not lack parking, however. An ocean of 7,000 spaces sits underneath the mini-city developed by Hines in Midtown Atlanta.

“They wanted me to reserve a dozen parking space[s] for them right in front of their stores, and I can't do that for them,” Hines Director of Leasing Nick Garzia said. "They can't get past that."


It's peculiar to me that this is a sticking point with B&B when it wasn't an impediment to opening their store at Ponce City Market. They make much ado over the idea that this location serves as a community center for nearby O4W residents (Same is true of their Decatur location), but AS has permanent residents as well.

https://www.batdorfcoffee.com/blog/n...market-atlanta

[citydwelling]

Originally Posted by Iconographer

It's peculiar to me that this is a sticking point with B&B when it wasn't an impediment to opening their store at Ponce City Market. They make much ado over the idea that this location serves as a community center for nearby O4W residents (Same is true of their Decatur location), but AS has permanent residents as well.

Both of those shops have parking lots right beside or behind them, though.

[jsvh]

Get rid of the parking minimums and let businesses decide parking for themselves. More and more are finding parking simply is not worth it especially compared to being located in walk-able areas.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Nope. Unicorns. /s

Of course roads! How does that make you feel? What, are you again working towards the same straw-man argument that I want to get rid of all roads, parking, and cars? (Spoiler: I don't)

Nope. I'm referring to your endless argument that you fund roads that you don't use and that you shouldn't have to pay anything towards them. But, you do use those same roads.

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

however even if it were despite my fascination with trains, you sacrifice ALOT of flexibility with the use of mass transit over driving. In typical the only advantage is during commute hours saving massive frustration over sitting in traffic.

That is, if you have quick access at both your origin and you destination on a rail line or a single bus line. That is a very small fraction of the population. Even some of our biggest transit advocates here who ride daily live more than a mile from the closest rail station. That's a hard pass for most people. And busses can be so infrequent and slow that they lose a lot of desirability.

If I have to drive and sit in traffic and it takes me 45 minutes, but the transit ride involves a 15 walk to the transit station, ten minutes of waiting, a ten minute trip, a transfer with a five minute wait, another 15-minute trip, and finally ten minutes of walking to my destination (65 minutes), I'm gong to drive. For instance, if I get off work at 11pm on a weeknight, it would be more than two hours later by the time I got home by bus. I typically drive in 20 minutes. There's no comparison.

So I dont talk about the automobile as a 'God' but more so the only feasible option this metro provides (and continues to build upon) for the majority of the population... only a minority of the Atlanta metro has access to feasible transit means between both their home and job or any other destination.

Exactly. Our system would have to increase in size by multitudes. We need to grow it substantially...that is without question. But, that doesn't mean we tell everyone else in the process "*********".

It isn't so much about choice, because in order to make a choice you have to have options to choose from and right now those options either do not exist or are so disadvantageous that the primary choice (automobile) overrules by default.

Yes. I don't choose to use a car because it's a god and I'm awesome and I want to run over pedestrians (apparently). I use it because transit cannot meet my needs. Not even remotely. That doesn't make me wrong or bad. It is what it is. I'm not going to alter my career, my family, my friends, and my interests so that I can fit into a transit world. That amount of sacrifice is not worth it. But, I still don't see why I should have to pay the full cost of everything (assuming gas taxes and tolls together), plus my own personal costs, while transit users get highly-subsidized rides, just because.

It is true we definitely need to stop focusing 100% on automobiles, I'm not denying that but what I am stating is, there is a process involved in that... if we jump to step C before A and B are completed (the financing and construction of transit means throughout the metro) we literally choke ourselves

I've tried to make this argument many times. It falls on deaf ears. You don't take away your primary option before you have your alternate options ready to go, whether you like the primary option or not. Imagine if people were so hell bent on building solar power (which I support) that they decided to turn off all other means of electrical production in order to fund solar infrastructure. I think that would be a pretty bad idea.

Try to increase the cost of driving substantially over the entire metro before offering any alternative and see what happens to your economy. Hint: it won't be pretty.

On one side...I agree and see what you mean and I feel you feel hard about this because we ARE throwing alot of money into road infrastructure while transit is literally starving...and I agree with this....it does sicken me that GDOT built those HOT lanes up I-75 and soon up GA400 and we are still using the rail system that was finalized in the 90's.

Yeah...they should have been focusing on commuter rail lines for the last few decades.

But, there's one thing that makes our city harder and far more expensive to plan for than most other major metros: we have multiple large job centers. Downtown/Midtown, Cumberland, Perimeter, Buckhead, Emory/CDC. That means that the population needs to get to these from every direction, which means a much more robust network than the simple spokes that many transit systems use.

On the otherside... some of those interchange improvements were not designed to increase capacity but literally to make them more functional and improve safety (and safety is more important than what is given credit for... enough accidents due to a bad design or outdated design and nothing is done about it, who gets a bad rep? The city...) so it isn't just about the traffic...

Originally Posted by jsvh

Clearly lack of rail transit is not the main thing preventing people from using transit.

Yes...it is. Simply saying "it's because we spend money on roads" is not an actual reason. The reason people drive more than they ride transit is because transit doesn't serve their needs. If transit was able to get them from door to door, or at least block to block faster and cheaper, they would use that. But even if you paid someone to take transit from Marietta to Decatur, they'd probably still drive. It's just not worth it.

People from very OTP still regularly use options like MARTA when they go places that they have to pay for parking like big sports events or the airport.

Yes, those singular events in which the transit happens to be right at their destination.

We don't need to continue to dump more and more subsidies towards car while we wait for some magical threshold where everyone has access to transit. That is never going to happen.

We dump less subsides than before. The gas tax was raised substantially a few years ago so that users pay far more towards roads than they used to. But, no matter how you look at it, travel by vehicle is and will probably always be the primary mode of transportation in this region. It will always receive a subsidy.

Lack of transit going out far enough is not the main problem. It is our distortion of economic incentives. If people had to choose between paying tolls to use the highway in to town and pay for parking at their destinations many more would choose to live closer in and use their car less. We need to enable those choices. Not continue to push people towards more car dependency with our policies limiting density, forcing more subsidized parking to be built, and more subsidies for highways.

This would simply raise the costs of living in town and negate any savings. Source: almost every large city with these policies.

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

The statement where I mentioned the same kind of lifestyle is not possible in Atlanta was directed in comparison to a city with a functional transit scheme like Chicago.

But note, even in Chicago, with a plethora of transit options even out into the suburbs, more than half of people still drive in the City, and more than 80% in the burbs.

For example, much like the ITP congestion tolling idea, while it was successfully implemented in London, you must realize the feasibility of using transit and the frame works to support removing cars from the road to begin with are much different in London (which was built and designed in the modern era around transit) versus Atlanta (which abandoned transit in the modern era and built its frameworks around vehicles)

We also have to note that London's tolling area is fairly small, about the size of our inner core (Downtown/Midtown, Atlantic Station, Cabbagetown, O4W, Virginia Highland, and Ansley Park. But, they also don't have just one or two train lines offering service in that area. They have somewhere around 8. They built their alternatives before instituting the fees to drive (which, if you think about it...they had to institute these fees because people were still driving even with all the options available).

Before we can attack the commuters, we have to give them feasible alternatives.

This might be the truest statement ever said on here.

You continue to forget what happens when people move closer. Land Values increase, Taxes Increase, and Rents Sky Rocket. If even 3 million more people moved closer ITP you would begin to see the average cost of a home becoming north of $500,000 and rents eclipsing $2,500 - $3,000 a month while the average citizen would not be able to afford that. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Convenience costs money.

Ding ding ding!

[ATLTJL]

Get rid of the parking minimums and let businesses decide parking for themselves. More and more are finding parking simply is not worth it especially compared to being located in walk-able areas.

Dude, you can stop espousing this point.

I don't think anybody here is arguing parking should be forced upon any business. The point of this entire thread is businesses are CHOOSING not to locate where what you are asking for is already in place.

Nobody here cares if parking is required by law. And no developer that I have read a quote from has said, "Well, we really didn't want to build any parking....but darn it, the law requires it, so we did!" It's more like, "This is how much parking we know our development needs to be successful."

[jsvh]

Great. If everyone in this thread doesn't care, get rid of parking minimums everywhere in the metro. That is the main thing I am advocating.

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by citydwelling

Both of those shops have parking lots right beside or behind them, though.

And AS has parking directly underneath the proposed location, with a more than adequate number of access points to the surface streets. I simply don't understand the importance of the difference between the locations. And B&B has acknowledged that much of their customer base comes from walk-in traffic from the neighborhood. That could be every bit as true for a AS location.
I think TPTB are being a bit short-sighted here.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by Iconographer

And AS has parking directly underneath the proposed location, with a more than adequate number of access points to the surface streets. I simply don't understand the importance of the difference between the locations. And B&B has acknowledged that much of their customer base comes from walk-in traffic from the neighborhood. That could be every bit as true for a AS location.
I think TPTB are being a bit short-sighted here.

There is a pretty marked difference between a same-level surface parking lot or free street parking directly adjacent to your entrance (as is the case at both the O4W and Decatur locations) and having to drive underneath into a labyrinth-like parking garage, with all access points on the far sides and back of the development, then huffing it up a flight of stairs, then walking to the location from there. Then doing that in reverse. This is especially noticeable if your business revolves mostly around quick customer service.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

Nope. I'm referring to your endless argument that you fund roads that you don't use and that you shouldn't have to pay anything towards them. But, you do use those same roads.

Of course I use roads. Just no where near as much as a suburbaniate even though I pay more for them. Of course no matter how much or little someone take Uber and pay them, none of that money goes directly towards maintaining the roads they use.

That is something I don't agree with.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

You don't take away your primary option before you have your alternate options ready to go, whether you like the primary option or not.

Please get over your victimization. No one is taking away your cars.

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

There is a pretty marked difference between a same-level surface parking lot or free street parking directly adjacent to your entrance (as is the case at both the O4W and Decatur locations) and having to drive underneath into a labyrinth-like parking garage, with all access points on the far sides and back of the development, then huffing it up a flight of stairs, then walking to the location from there. Then doing that in reverse. This is especially noticeable if your business revolves mostly around quick customer service.

Well, I guess it does make a difference if you're that lazy.
And in all the years that I patronized Dancing Goats in Decatur (about 1 block from my house), it became clear that their regular patrons tended to stay for an hour or more, laptop in tow. There was very little in and out.