Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Transit Not Roads
Lots of editorials coming out discussing the issue of roads and transit in the stimulus package. Take a look at a few on each side. It doesn't surprise me Atlanta is so far behind, and falling faster. They have editorial page people like this guy. But there are folks that get it. Such as local writers from PIRG and at the *Toronto Star* (updated: err Globe and Mail).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Uh, the link you supplied is from the Globe and Mail, not the Toronto Star. It looked erroneous to me.
As someone who follows this blog daily from Atlanta, I feel the need to speak up here.
Wooten is truly awful but he is hardly representative of the AJC's viewpoint -- or that of most residents, for that matter. If you're going to call out his blather then you should also credit the excellent pro-transit writing we've seen from Jay Bookman (like this piece last week) and others at the AJC.
As for Atlanta falling "so far behind" on transit, I'd simply point out that both our bus and rail systems were in the top 5 nationally for highest percentage ridership increase this year. MARTA's rail system is now at 294,000 daily boardings, its highest ever and the most for any HRT system outside of the historic transit cities (NY, Bos, Philly, DC, Chi, SF).
I know everyone loves to make Atlanta the punching bag for all issues related to urban policy and transportation, and some of it is deserved. But there are many people working hard on this issue here and it is not the hopeless case a lot of you national commentators make it out to be.
what martarider said!
for what it's worth, Atlanta has a higher ridership than Portland despite similar rail system sizes.
That's low ridership for a heavy rapid transit system.
although metro portland does have a much smaller population of metro atlanta.
I am glad martarider commented with so much of what I would have said.
Listen, there are plenty of things about which one can complain re. Atlanta's (and especially Georgia DOT's) transit policy.
But the idea that Atlanta is "so far behind" let alone "falling faster" is absolutely empirically wrong.
Thanks for the pushback guys. I'll be interested to see how the Concept 3 stuff plays out.
The Toronto Star is very Transit friendly, compared to the our other local tabloid, the Toronto Sun.
Also, the star did a great article on Steve Munro. Here:
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/556683
TO those who do not know, Steve was instrumental in saving Toronto's streetcar network. Personally, I do not know how Toronto would have looked without them.
Post a Comment