MARTA News

[Datdudebrah]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Here's a man who's trying to buck our time-honored multi-generational approach to transit.

That's good he's trying to find other funds, but these are the same strategies Marta is already pursuing with sales tax funds. If Dekalb is serious about expanding transit they're going to need to bring money to the table, there are no shortcuts. Federal funds and private partnerships need matching local money to happen.

[Mossberg]

It would also help if the actual state government would commit to properly funding the entity they control.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Well, I have ridden it several times and it seems jerky and bumpy to me, not a very smooth or comfortable ride. And maybe it's just my advanced age, but the stops didn't seem all that convenient either.

I would personally prefer a system with smaller cars that runs on rubber tires and makes smoother stops, more like a tram.

I'm pretty sure that's more a matter of operation than mode. And I wouldn't doubt that the smoothness of the ride, or the lack thereof, has something to do with the drivers and pedestrians the streetcar shares the road with.

[primaltech]

Haven't had a chance to post, but I'm pretty excited that it at least sounds like there are (finally, after a frigging lifetime), going to be some actual new MARTA train stations, eventually, in the form of 4 infill stations around the Beltline. We'll see...

I like the idea that the Murphy Crossing station (and hopefully the Krog St station with the potential there with redeveloping Hulsey Yard), TBD with the others, will be planned/built with/integrated with a big commercial/mixed use development. Especially if that means that businesses with a stake in it could directly or indirectly help with the funding of the stations?

As always, there's so much potential with Atlanta and that rail system and actually building it out so that people could really use it a lot. But it seems like the opposition to improving it in a useful way is always a stronger voice in GA power circles & politics than the opposite, IMO smarter choice of embracing it, investing in it (public/private/whatever) and building stuff.

The idea that Cobb or Gwinnett are going to pay a 1% sales tax for transit (if those referendums even pass), to both not join MARTA, and not get any rail... it's like... huh? It's just sad and ridiculous. The time to act with transit infrastructure for that booming metro was in the 20th century, and the ball was totally dropped.

The value of new potential infill stations near popular attractions on the Beltline (along with the value/usefulness/utility of the existing rail stations, like Airport and North Avenue and etc.) would go WAY up, if the 6 million people of the metro (who mostly live in subdivisions scattered OTP), had better access points to those train lines. If the Gold Line had a station at Gwinnett Place (with its own mixed use development/mini-city thing), if the Blue Line had a station at Six Flags park (and maybe at Stone Mountain park on the other side), if the Red Line went up to Alpharetta like it should, and if there was a northwest line to Cumberland/Braves stadium, or an extension of the Green Line up to there.

Especially when it comes to the temptation of real estate developers to build TOD skyscrapers and stuff around the existing Midtown stations. Right now they might do it, but it would come with huge parking decks.

If the heavy rail system was just twice as extensive (like 70+ stations instead of 38), and extending into Fulton/DeKalb/Clayton/Cobb/Gwinnett as originally envisioned, with lots of OTP park & ride stations and such, then... ridership would probably be like 1000% higher. It's always been a half-built stub of a system. That's the sad part to me.

Anyway, I hope that good things happen in the future for that metro and transportation infrastructure.