How Sprawlanta turned 2 inches of snow into a disaster (green, suburban, downtown)

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by bu2

There is also a strong NIMBY attitude in the Atlanta area in addition to the anti-road sentiment in Atlanta proper. A governor basically got elected because he killed the "Northern Arc" which would have been a 2nd loop across the northern suburbs. People didn't want a freeway interfering with their rural way of life and creating more development. Of course, development came anyway and the traffic in the north is horrible. Arterial roads leading to GA-400 are packed instead of having some of that on a freeway.

Not only did development come to that area anyway, but Forsyth and Cherokee counties intentionally permitted large amounts of higher-end residential development directly in the path of the road so as to make building the unpopular road even more-difficult than it was already going to be.

Originally Posted by bu2

And a planned extension of MARTA in the TSPLOST (which was defeated) got quickly turned into slow, street level light rail because people didn't want MARTA following an existing active rail corridor where it has been projected to go for decades.

The proposed MARTA heavy rail transit extension into North Fulton County is also running into some major pushback by Sandy Springs residents because the current proposal as it stands proposes to cut down large chunks of the popular parkway-style tree buffers along GA 400 and none of the residents on either side of 400 want the heavy rail transit line to be built directly behind their homes.

[Prytania]

I'm an Atlanta native and extremely pro rail transit. All this thread does is depress me and realize I don't think I can go home to live again (because the reason I left Atlanta was to get out of the day to day GRIND of traffic).

[ccdscott]

It boggles my mind that Atlanta can not and will not do anything about transit. If you're an urban planner in Georgia, how frustrating must that be?

The city clearly needs major transportation infrastructure upgrades!

[impala096]

Atlanta seems to have an inadequate and disjointed surface street network compared to other metro regions. Drivers don't have many options when the freeways are clogged. Also, the major arterials seem to funnel traffic onto the freeways (major 4-6 lane arterials will narrow back down to 2-lanes once they cross a freeway).



Red roads are boulevards. There isn't a boulevard that connect a major suburb to downtown.

[demonta4]

This is what happens when you put a liberal city, conservative suburbs, stupid developers, and a s*itload of people in an area in a short time.

[ccdscott]

Realistically, from an urban planner's perspective, what can be done? I mean, you can't keep building freeways and obviously, if you propose major transit upgrades one way or another some part of the political spectrum will hate it and not vote for it.

So what's the alternative? Sit back while quality of life and traffic just completely suck the life out of doing anything? Or is it at that point already?

If I'm Atlanta, I'm looking at all that growth (transit wise) in those similarly sized Texas cities (Houston and Dallas) and wondering where exactly are we headed...

[Prytania]

Move into the city and use the existing heavy rail MARTA.

The only way I could see making Atlanta work for me personally is to live near a MARTA station and refuse to take a job that isn't within walking distance or near MARTA.

Unfortunately that isn't always practical.

There was talk of a parking lot tax for commuters coming into the city if T-SPLOST failed. I would back that as a method to building out MARTA. Fulton and DeKalb Counties need to be as self sustaining as possible. If the other suburbs don't want it then let them eat cake when gas price spikes arrive (like they did in Atlanta after Hurricanes Katrina and Gustav when prices were in excess of $6 a gal/or gas stations were sold out and Atlanta came to a stand still).

[nei]

Atlanta's getting another ice storm. Round two, how is it coping?

[bu2]

Everyone stayed home and the city was closed from Wednesday to Friday. The schools were all closed on Tuesday as well.

So no problems, just no economic activity.

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by ccdscott

Realistically, from an urban planner's perspective, what can be done? I mean, you can't keep building freeways and obviously, if you propose major transit upgrades one way or another some part of the political spectrum will hate it and not vote for it.

So what's the alternative? Sit back while quality of life and traffic just completely suck the life out of doing anything? Or is it at that point already?

If I'm Atlanta, I'm looking at all that growth (transit wise) in those similarly sized Texas cities (Houston and Dallas) and wondering where exactly are we headed...

A zillion things can be done.

1. When find yourself in a hole -stop digging. No more belt ways, complete moratorium on annexations into
Rational policy is put in place.

2. Zoning has to change everywhere, immediately. Introduce mixed-use neighborhoods; upzone upzone upzone. Replace Euclidean zoning with form-based code. Build densisty from the core out.

4. If Atlanta is like most US cities it has developed a ton of regs over the years that make development in the core a huge obstacle. Strip these away. The great cities in the world developed without the. They do more harm than good.

3. Reconfigure streets to be complex, multi-modal and friendly to uses other than cars.

4. Rediscover the grid. Look at every available opportunity to re-stitch the grid together.

6. Turn the one-way streets into two-way streets.

5. Atlanta likely has a master plan, but it's likely decades out of date. Put together a new one, base it on cities that are doing the right things.

6. Fire the transportation department. Every last person. They will be the biggest impediment to change going forward.

7. Reinvest transportation dollars away from big roads projects. Do little road diets, bike lanes, cycle tracks, all over the central core.

8. After they've done the above - consider making large investments into high capacity transit.

9. Tell every developer of very new greenfield site that not one acre of their land will ever be annexed, nor city services extended to their residents unless: the site is built to a grid and well connected to surrounding communities, and access points provided for connections to future communities, and that developer must develop densely enough that he can demonstrate to the satisfaction of a neutral third party that the tax revenue generated will be sufficient to cover all future infrastructure maintenance costs past the first life cycle.


That's just a brief start