How do you want to spend $173 Billion to keep metro ATL moving through 2050? (Atlanta: purchase, living)

[fermie125]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Fayette County.

Yes, I forgot about Fayette County. Thank you. They need one there too!

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by fermie125

Yeah, great idea. Expand heavy rail at a time when HRT ridership is falling across the board.

Ridership is falling because the car sprawl keeps going further outward by the year and the MARTA system was mostly built in 1980's and does not even cover the area of ITP, so the system is less and less useful.

What you need is a combo of like tripling the track mileage and # of stations so that there's the needed coverage, and more dense TOD development at existing and new stations. And the stations towards the end of lines in Gwinnett and Cobb and OTP Fulton and DeKalb would have a lot of park & ride decks. Ridership would go way up, if you did that. Finally a way for everyone to bypass most of the traffic jams.

My friend works right at Lenox MARTA station, and she lives in Duluth city limits straight up PIB. She doesn't bother to park at Chamblee or Doraville station and ride the last 1/3 of her trip on the train. But she said she would definitely take the train to work if it came out to near her in Duluth. She would love that commute.

Commuter rail lines on the railroad corridors, plus heavy rail expansion would be the ticket for Metro Atlanta.

But no, it seems we can never have what we need around here. Just always some half-ass non-solution.

[Jandrew5]

Originally Posted by bu2

Georgia tends to find the cheap way out and studies things forever. Nobody takes transportation leadership.

All these studies do seem to take 100 years. "New interchange approved to relieve congestion. Studies will begin in 2020. When studies are complete in 2037, construction to start in 2037, with completion in 2038, with a 2037 possibility."

[Craziaskowboi]

You get jars of pennies and stuff.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by fermie125

Yes, I forgot about Fayette County. Thank you. They need one there too!

IN the metro? Many counties in the metro don't have interstate access. Heard, Polk, Floyd, Walton, Oconee, and more. Both Paulding and Fayette are within a couple of miles of interstate and at least have major roads heading through.

Originally Posted by Jandrew5

All these studies do seem to take 100 years. "New interchange approved to relieve congestion. Studies will begin in 2020. When studies are complete in 2037, construction to start in 2037, with completion in 2038, with a 2037 possibility."

Wait...in what world do the studies end and construction start the same year, and take only one year to complete??

[fermie125]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

IN the metro? Many counties in the metro don't have interstate access. Heard, Polk, Floyd, Walton, Oconee, and more. Both Paulding and Fayette are within a couple of miles of interstate and at least have major roads heading through.

Oh man you got me. I forgot about all of those extreme exurban counties that are really important and relevant to the metro area.

[fermie125]

Originally Posted by primaltech

Ridership is falling because the car sprawl keeps going further outward by the year and the MARTA system was mostly built in 1980's and does not even cover the area of ITP, so the system is less and less useful.

What you need is a combo of like tripling the track mileage and # of stations so that there's the needed coverage, and more dense TOD development at existing and new stations. And the stations towards the end of lines in Gwinnett and Cobb and OTP Fulton and DeKalb would have a lot of park & ride decks. Ridership would go way up, if you did that. Finally a way for everyone to bypass most of the traffic jams.

Expanding MARTA would increase the number of transit riders in the metro, but at what cost? You failed to talk about the value of HRT given the enormous costs. Any serious discussion on expanding MARTA needs to address the elephant in the room.

Millennials don't like HRT and they are the largest subgroup of our society. And you're going to expand MARTA now? Waste of money.

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by fermie125

Millennials don't like HRT

I mean I'm a millennial and I like heavy rail, and most of the millennials I know also like heavy rail or from the ones I've talked to.

Millennials do like Uber and Lyft too. But give them a nearby station in the neighborhood to Uber to/from, so that it's not a $30 plus trip that takes forever in traffic.

I like the L system in Chicago, cause it goes further out and it's very frequent and useful. Imagine if the L only went inside the loop, and how many people would ride it then. Well that's Atlanta's issue, on its own (more sprawled out) scale. A million people live in Gwinnett, and there's 0 stations serving them. So you can't really even say that they have a preference or a dislike of a service that they do not have. If you build it (and make it good and useful), then of course people will ride it.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by fermie125

Millennials don't like HRT

The 7:27 train I was on this morning coming out of North Springs was about half Millennials.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by fermie125

Oh man you got me. I forgot about all of those extreme exurban counties that are really important and relevant to the metro area.

So, you said something, but didn't mean that, but instead meant something else, and it's up to us to interpret what you really meant. So you didn't mean that Paulding (and Fayette) are the only counties in the metro without highway access. You meant "relevant" counties. Got it.