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Guys, don't be a couple of know-it-alls. Are either of y'all familiar with Concept 3 and the Atlanta Regional Commission? They have done studies and part of the long-term vision for Atlanta is building heavy rail on the west side of the downtown connector— in fact, building heavy rail there is one of the only places they recommended building heavy rail.
When you ask people what the problem is with MARTA, what is the most common answer? "It doesn't go anywhere". In every city with established heavy rail, there are lines that run a hell of a lot closer together than the line I drew up.
Expanding the rail out to Marietta, Alpharetta, Norcross, etc. is a great idea and I support it. But people are simply not going to take the MARTA rail into Atlanta if they have to get off the train and ride a bus once they get into town. If we want to solve the congestion problem in Atlanta, we have to first make the transportation system actually go to the places people commute to, or running a line out to Marietta isn't going to do a bit of good because no one will ride it.
And lastly, the line doesn't go through an "industrial" area. Georgia Tech, 14th Street, Atlantic Station, Pemberton Place, Atlanta University Center, Summerhill, the Braves Stadium— these are places that people commute to that have heavy traffic.
I know y'all have your own agendas, but don't **** on everyone else's to promote your own.
Agreed. Good post.
I like your proposal--
Similar to my own (yours with some modifications/realignments).
Are either of y'all familiar with Concept 3 and the Atlanta Regional Commission
Yeah, looking at my saved pdf of Concept 3 and thats light-rail running between the BeltLine and the North-South HRT line. The only agenda I have is to see the expansion of Atlanta's transit system.
See my map: MARTA Expansion Map
Guys, don't be a couple of know-it-alls. Are either of y'all familiar with Concept 3 and the Atlanta Regional Commission? They have done studies and part of the long-term vision for Atlanta is building heavy rail on the west side of the downtown connector— in fact, building heavy rail there is one of the only places they recommended building heavy rail.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bryantm3
When you ask people what the problem is with MARTA, what is the most common answer? "It doesn't go anywhere". In every city with established heavy rail, there are lines that run a hell of a lot closer together than the line I drew up.
Expanding the rail out to Marietta, Alpharetta, Norcross, etc. is a great idea and I support it. But people are simply not going to take the MARTA rail into Atlanta if they have to get off the train and ride a bus once they get into town. If we want to solve the congestion problem in Atlanta, we have to first make the transportation system actually go to the places people commute to, or running a line out to Marietta isn't going to do a bit of good because no one will ride it.
And lastly, the line doesn't go through an "industrial" area. Georgia Tech, 14th Street, Atlantic Station, Pemberton Place, Atlanta University Center, Summerhill, the Braves Stadium— these are places that people commute to that have heavy traffic.
I know y'all have your own agendas, but don't **** on everyone else's to promote your own.
Places people commute to are major employment areas like the Cobb Galleria and Emory University/Hospital/CDC. MARTA rail doesn't serve any of those areas and doesn't even serve the Cobb Galleria with buses. It serves Georgia Tech and Atlanta University Center. It also somewhat serves the Braves stadium. More and more of employment is moving out of central Atlanta. Even the AJC moved to Dunwoody.
Other cities with heavy rail have vastly more density than Atlanta. I'm not impressed with transit planners' (i.e. Concept 3) love affair with light rail. Its one thing when you don't have a system, but Atlanta has a great heavy rail backbone and should use it. But with our lack of density, a parallel heavy rail line should be way down the priority list. Connecting Emory and the Cobb Galleria to that heavy rail system should be top priorities. And forcing people to transfer by building light rail in those corridors is disconnecting, not connecting.
Places people commute to are major employment areas like the Cobb Galleria and Emory University/Hospital/CDC. MARTA rail doesn't serve any of those areas and doesn't even serve the Cobb Galleria with buses. It serves Georgia Tech and Atlanta University Center. It also somewhat serves the Braves stadium. More and more of employment is moving out of central Atlanta. Even the AJC moved to Dunwoody.
Other cities with heavy rail have vastly more density than Atlanta. I'm not impressed with transit planners' (i.e. Concept 3) love affair with light rail. Its one thing when you don't have a system, but Atlanta has a great heavy rail backbone and should use it. But with our lack of density, a parallel heavy rail line should be way down the priority list. Connecting Emory and the Cobb Galleria to that heavy rail system should be top priorities. And forcing people to transfer by building light rail in those corridors is disconnecting, not connecting.
Marta bus route 12 serves the cobb galleria are. Also the current proposal for the clifdon corridor is Heavy Rail.
Yeah, looking at my saved pdf of Concept 3 and thats light-rail running between the BeltLine and the North-South HRT line. The only agenda I have is to see the expansion of Atlanta's transit system.
See my map: MARTA Expansion Map
sorry, i was thinking of the citizens for progressive transit map which has it as heavy diesel powered rail. the concept 3 map has it as high-capacity light rail.
i like your map. there are a lot of good ideas on it. however, i don't see how you can think the track i proposed would be "less useful" than yours. by the way, i'm not saying this is the *only* new track we need or even the *first* new track we need. i'm saying it's *a* track we need. and it's a cheap one to build— it mostly follows existing railbeds, and it's a rather short track.
Guys, don't be a couple of know-it-alls. Are either of y'all familiar with Concept 3 and the Atlanta Regional Commission? They have done studies and part of the long-term vision for Atlanta is building heavy rail on the west side of the downtown connector— in fact, building heavy rail there is one of the only places they recommended building heavy rail.
When you ask people what the problem is with MARTA, what is the most common answer? "It doesn't go anywhere". In every city with established heavy rail, there are lines that run a hell of a lot closer together than the line I drew up.
Expanding the rail out to Marietta, Alpharetta, Norcross, etc. is a great idea and I support it. But people are simply not going to take the MARTA rail into Atlanta if they have to get off the train and ride a bus once they get into town. If we want to solve the congestion problem in Atlanta, we have to first make the transportation system actually go to the places people commute to, or running a line out to Marietta isn't going to do a bit of good because no one will ride it.
And lastly, the line doesn't go through an "industrial" area. Georgia Tech, 14th Street, Atlantic Station, Pemberton Place, Atlanta University Center, Summerhill, the Braves Stadium— these are places that people commute to that have heavy traffic.
I know y'all have your own agendas, but don't **** on everyone else's to promote your own.
Relax man... You have to learn to take differences of opinion and/or criticisms. There Are too many people here with too many opinions to get stressed out over it, so don't be taken back by it. Appreciate it... that means people are actually listening to the details of your ideas.
The bad thing about details. The more there are and the more people pay attention. The more things people tend to disagree about.
Now... that aside.. I actually somewhat agree with the other posters and I'll explain why, but I hope you realize I am doing so with a great deal of respect to you. You have clearly put alot of thought into your ideas.
First... I know the Concept 3 plan really well. There are many details in the current Concept 3 plan I feel you might have missed. There are no HRT extensions planned on a western GT-Homepark-Atlantic station alignment in Concept 3. On the map they pass around there are blue lines indicating a LRT and/or streetcar alignment.
First a quick discussion about the LRT of that. The intention is to run the Cobb LRT down one of three seperate alignments Concept 3 never finalized, but left open for options. (1- A route to the northern part of the Beltline to a north transit hub at Armour Yard or Lindbergh, 2- The route down 17th st. into Midtown/Arts Center Station, and 3- The route directly downtown following Marietta St.) Concept 3 never stipulated that all alignments should be built. Currently the most likely and prominent one is the line to Midtown via 17th street/Atlantic Station. So LRT isn't even necessarily a vision of the Marietta St. corridor in Concept 3 if this happens. However, there is a great deal of interest in streetcar alignments for the city of Atlanta to run its planned streetcar system with routes that primarily run East-West to also use the Marietta St. Corridor if this doesn't happen.
The problem I have with a full north-south western alignment is that would be an expensive HRT alignment. and about half that corridor is very narrow as it is cut off by train tracks to the west and a fenced off campus to the east. There isn't much develop-able land to serve there vs. the cost per mile of putting in a line. This is the reason why the Cobb LRT plans to go straight into midtown via 17th street have gained much more traction. There are more destination, and potential/existing for development along the route.
The main benefit to the Marietta St alignment has less to do with serving Marietta St. and more to do with ferrying commuters downtown w/o a transfer to the N/S line.
The other thing I'm curious about is the candy-cane shape of the southern part of your alignment. That would be a very expensive piece of infrastructure to build, but yet the only new area served really is just Turner Field. (maybe Pittsburg). My issue here... it would be cheaper (which means we can put more money elsewhere) to build an extension just to Turner Field and add an infill station on the N-S line at McDaniel St, which would go a long way at helping provide coverage to Mechanicsville, Pittsburg, and the Southern part of Castleberry Hill. This is actually something I have spent alot of time pondering myself.
The pros and cons of infill stations. Is the benefit of more localized coverage better than the benefit of slowing down riders from further away (and potentially decreasing ridership from further away).
As far as other cities go... Most of the cities that have subway lines closer together than that... are usually much older cities and the subways were originally built by separate competing companies...as is the case in NYC.
Guys, don't be a couple of know-it-alls. Are either of y'all familiar with Concept 3 and the Atlanta Regional Commission? They have done studies and part of the long-term vision for Atlanta is building heavy rail on the west side of the downtown connector— in fact, building heavy rail there is one of the only places they recommended building heavy rail.
When you ask people what the problem is with MARTA, what is the most common answer? "It doesn't go anywhere". In every city with established heavy rail, there are lines that run a hell of a lot closer together than the line I drew up.
Expanding the rail out to Marietta, Alpharetta, Norcross, etc. is a great idea and I support it. But people are simply not going to take the MARTA rail into Atlanta if they have to get off the train and ride a bus once they get into town. If we want to solve the congestion problem in Atlanta, we have to first make the transportation system actually go to the places people commute to, or running a line out to Marietta isn't going to do a bit of good because no one will ride it.
And lastly, the line doesn't go through an "industrial" area. Georgia Tech, 14th Street, Atlantic Station, Pemberton Place, Atlanta University Center, Summerhill, the Braves Stadium— these are places that people commute to that have heavy traffic.
I know y'all have your own agendas, but don't **** on everyone else's to promote your own.
Wow. You mad bro?
Your plan just has too many holes to be practical. Pointing them out does not mean I have an agenda. Perhaps you are the one who has an agenda seeing how defensive you got to defend your plan.
It does not make sense to extend to Turner Field. What is the purpose of this extension? To get 5,000-10,000 riders 81 days a year? Do you really think you'd get more than that? That hardly seems worthwhile when you can run busses from existing MARTA stops and capture riders that way. Who rides to Turner Field the remaining 284 days a year?
Your Mechanicsville Station is 0.6 miles from the West End Station.
You Castleberry Hill Station is 0.3 miles from the Garnett Station.
The Georgia Dome is an existing stop.
Your World of Coke stop is 0.7 miles from the Civic Center and 0.8 miles from the Peachtree Center Station. The World of Coke is only 0.5 miles from the Civic Center stop and 0.6 miles from the GA Aquarium. Not really much benefit gained here.
Your Tech Parkway station is 0.6 miles west of the North Avenue Station.
Your 10th street station is literally 0.6 miles west of the Midtown Station.
Your 14th St station is 0.6 miles away from the Arts Center Station.
If you want to increase ridership, extend the system to where more people live and add a better connecting streetcar system downtown and midtown. The streetcar system would be much cheaper and have the same effect. Tunneling a multi-billion dollar heavy rail line 0.3 - 0.7 miles parallel to the existing line is a waste and doesn't add much connectivity.
With an unlimited budget, your plan would be great, but we have to prioritize our transportation efforts to maximize returns.
i don't see how you can think the track i proposed would be "less useful" than yours.
I never meant to attack your proposal, just that there isn't high enough density to warrant another HRT line a couple miles west of the North-South line. At least you are interested in seeing the expansion of MARTA and for that a applaud you.
Marta bus route 12 serves the cobb galleria are. Also the current proposal for the clifdon corridor is Heavy Rail.
Since it is out of the service area, how is MARTA able to serve the Cobb Galleria? I know there are Cobb County Transit busses there, but they are a separate system.
The present proposal for the Clifton Corridor is Heavy Rail, but from the comments on the official site, there seems to be a push by MARTA or someone to switch to light rail which I believe would be a monumental mistake. A 2-3 mile light rail stub that only goes from Lindberg to Emory adds little if any value. The heavy rail proposal which goes from Doraville (Perimeter is also one of the proposals) to Emory will encourage non-transit dependent to use it as they will have fewer transfers.
The main benefit to the Marietta St alignment has less to do with serving Marietta St. and more to do with ferrying commuters downtown w/o a transfer to the N/S line.
That is really a huge benefit when you lose 25-40% of ridership with each transfer.
Unless its just concerns about racial undertones and resistance because of that, I don't see why an extension of the Bankside line isn't being seriously explored. That line has very little reason to exist currently as it only serves 1 unique station.
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