Atlanta Still Not Trying Hard Enough

Take a look at the map, I'm wondering if its forward thinking enough. Any thoughts?

USA Today Kinda Covers the Space Race

Except the articles is about freeways taking care of congestion. As I've stated before Atlanta is running scared...

Atlanta's boosters say that unless drastic steps are taken to unclog the highways here, the city won't be able to compete with fast-growing places such as Phoenix, Denver, San Diego, Charlotte and Dallas — all of which have made long-term commitments to major transportation improvements.

What the article fails to mention is that all of those cities are investing not only in roads, but heavily in light rail networks. Dallas, Denver and San Diego have a head start but Charlotte and Phoenix are planning large systems as well. This is in comparison to Atlanta which has a smaller heavy rail system. The problem is that it was never built out as planned and shows the difference between Washington DC Metro's build out which they have achieved as planned and Atlanta which stopped short of its goals. Now Atlanta is known as the road capital of the United States.

But we know that spending a bunch of money on roads won't relieve congestion. Lyndon Henry did an analysis of the big dig and found that for the $15 billion investment they made the new road only takes 1.8% of the total vehicle miles traveled of the whole region. Isn't that the same argument that the road warriors have been using about rail? Yet at a hypothetical 30 million per mile, Boston could have built 500 miles of light rail. That would have taken more than 1.8% of VMT for sure. Wendell Cox and company have been against government waste but their goals are sure. More roads and oil dependence are the answer. The USA Today article might not get it, but the transit space race is a key part of cities reducing their dependence on the automobile and creating more sustainable cities.

The Billion Dollar Peachtree

An article in today's Atlanta Journal Constitution talks about plans for a Peachtree Streetcar and a total streetscape overhaul. They even figured out how to pay for it. The breakout is below

ROAD TO THE FUTURE

A group of business and civic leaders is fine-tuning a $1 billion recommendation to transform the Peachtree corridor, including a streetcar line and other improvements.

How would the money be spent?
Streetcar lines: $450 million
Land / right of way: $160 million
Streetcapes: $100 million
Burying utility lines: $75 million
Parks / green space: $70 million
Road improvements: $70 million

Where would the money come from?
Special tax district: $450-$650 million
Southside tax allocation district: $100-$150 million
Federal grants: $100-$150 million
Parking tax: $50 million
City of Atlanta: $25 million-$50 million
Private donations: $15 million-$20 million

That's a lot of cash. More info on the project can be found at AtlantaStreetcar.com

Transit Space Race Update: Atlanta

I missed these articles but it is a good example of whats going on in the space race, specifically that folks in Atlanta are worried that other southeastern cities are going to eat their lunch.

A recent article in the Gwinnet Daily Post claims other cities are leapfrogging Atlanta for transit supremacy in the Southeast.

While Atlanta’s inner core has been served for decades by the MARTA rail system, efforts to connect the city with its more distant suburbs via commuter rail service have languished. As a result, smaller Southeastern cities like Nashville and Charlotte, N.C. — which now features light rail — have moved ahead of Atlanta in offering commuters an alternative to driving on clogged highways. "They’re beginning to outstrip the transportation hub of the Southeast,’’ said Emory McClinton of Atlanta, a member of the State Transportation Board and longtime proponent of commuter rail.

In December, the former king of Road Warriors in Atlanta had this to say in an Op-Ed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

How then does Georgia expect to compete for industry and jobs against cities such as Miami, Charlotte, Nashville, Dallas, Denver, and Orlando, whose transportation alternatives are more than a decade ahead of Georgia's? Commuter rail just started operating in Nashville. Denver, Dallas and Portland have light rail in operation, while Charlotte is in the advanced stages of comprehensive regional alternative transportation planning.

Hopefully Atlanta wakes up from its congestion creation machine soon. They do have some interesting projects going on including the Beltline, The Brain Train, The Peachtree Streetcar and the embattled Lovejoy Commuter Rail. Those will help but a possible expansion of MARTA along with other improvements would go a long way.