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point
-MARTA has pretty much said HRT will not be able to go south/southeast from Emory. The right of way and engineering costs would just be way to much. If they go with HRT... it will be a spur between Lindbergh and Emory as presented and that is it.
question
- Given the cost differences... (actually total it up and compare) and the fact that HRT really won't operate much faster between Lindbergh and Emory... Is it really worth the extra cost?
(For me, it just seems like alot of extra expense and not much more advantage...)
-Given that MARTA hasn't put HRT going south/east of Emory on the table at all and the only way they will push forward that way is LRT... would you still rather it be HRT, even if that means no East line, Decatur, N. Decatur or Avondale connection?
I Think they should follow the CSX line and take it all the way to tucker.
If you look at the trips tab, you see that the heaviest # of trips to Emory come from NE Dekalb & Gwinnet and SE Dekalb. That's why I think HRT is better. You can connect to Doraville. I think eventually it should connect to Avondale (and not Decatur which is inconvenient for SE Dekalb people). There is industrial area that should make it easy to get ROW except for the last mile from N. Dekalb and Scott to N. Dekalb and Clairmont. Connecting eventually to Avondale could also make it an extension of the Bankside line, instead of a totally new line, which would add some efficiencies and greater connections.
Streets are very congested in the area. LRT will make a bad situation much worse and will be more expensive, less flexible and provide worse service than a bus (which can stop more frequently and doesn't have to serve only that corridor-it could be express in that corridor but be part of a longer route.) So I prefer HRT as far as it can go and then bus to Avondale with the bus eventually replaced by HRT.
you're going to love this (it's attached).
it's a plan on how to connect the clifton corridor to avondale.
sorry to be nitpicky, but the neighbourhood is 'bankhead', but for some reason they call it the 'proctor creek line' which makes it all the more confusing. it's easy to mix up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2
Streets are very congested in the area. LRT will make a bad situation much worse and will be more expensive, less flexible and provide worse service than a bus (which can stop more frequently and doesn't have to serve only that corridor-it could be express in that corridor but be part of a longer route.) So I prefer HRT as far as it can go and then bus to Avondale with the bus eventually replaced by HRT.
i totally agree. honestly i think "light rail" should only service immediately local areas on commuter routes— where the heavy rail could get you near to where you needed to be and the light rail will take you the rest of the way. it doesn't make sense to have a "light rail" run so independently of the heavy rail.
on more 'leisurely' routes, for example, the beltline, or a potential turner station stop like i mentioned before, i can see why light rail would be an advantage. in fact, i think it would be a fantastic idea to have a light rail system that connected east atlanta, grant park, cabbagetown, five points, poncey-highland and virginia highland. those are not 'commuter' routes and it would be charming and less obtrusive in that area.
on the clifton corridor, however, where there are so many hills and creeks and it is a commuter route, it just seems unfitting and less efficient.
My feeling is that if HRT has zero chance of poking through to the East Line, but LRT can and will do so, then I'm in favor of LRT along the corridor. Decatur and Emory seem like natural places to connect.
Also, I'm still very in favor of an HRT line to Stone Mountain. It would be vastly easier to construct than the Clifton Corridor Line (CSX has a wide, unobstructed ROW through the area so tunneling would be very limited, and Avondale Station was built with the spur in mind), it would promote an obvious tourism/economic development goal, and it would serve one of the densest and most transit-dependent suburban areas we have (Clarkston).
it's a plan on how to connect the clifton corridor to avondale.
I like your fervor and vision.
However, do you really think they'll be tunneling underground in that northern part of the City of Decatur, let alone through sought-after North Decatur?
However, do you really think they'll be tunneling underground in that northern part of the City of Decatur, let alone through sought-after North Decatur?
that is an issue— the connection between the ND and suburban plaza stations. once you get to suburban plaza you're in the clear.
by the way, i don't see it as being out of the question to connect the clifton corridor to the east/west line— there is a CSX railbed below the north decatur station that leads all the way to the e/w line that could easily be used. i think the issue is, how do we connect to suburban plaza/scotdale/avondale?
Interesting. It's not that different from my proposal in post #508 (Line 5). I agree that some point in the future, we need a second north-south line for downtown/Georgia Tech/Turner Field. It'd be horribly expensive, though.
One thing about bringing Turner Field online--the Braves typically draw anywhere between 20,000 and 40,000 on any given home game. If we round that to about 30,000--which, according to the attendance figures over the last decade, seems reasonable--then multiplied by 81 home games per year, that's 2.43 million attendees per year. Now, if about 10% of the fans would ride the train to the ballpark, that gives an annual total of 243,000 people. Not bad considering that this does not include anything else on the line, nor people that would use the station for general use.
Side note: I could not find the Braves Shuttle ridership numbers ANYWHERE. I think that whatever those numbers are, converting the MARTA connection to direct rail would easily increase that number by 1.5-2x.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bryantm3
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.
There are two problems to rail expansion around here, and they're basically opposing arguments.
One is the blind contempt for any transportation having to do with trains. Some people, for whatever reason, hate passenger rail, and they will do whatever it takes to block its expansion.
The other is the classic chicken-and-the-egg problem. Rail transit encourages high-density development, but high density is generally needed to justify the rail in the first place. I'm looking at most of the stations east of Georgia State and north of Lenox as primary offenders of this--particularly Brookhaven, which IMO is a huge opportunity for an urban renewal site.
The best bet, IMO, is to have policies that encourage people to build not outward but upward. For those that want the relative peace and quiet of the exurbs, this can help preserve that. For those who want better services and connectivity in an urban setting, this can help that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2
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.
You're making the classic mistake of equating overall density to uniform density.
Consider Miami's heavy rail system, which is somewhat in a similar predicament to MARTA as far as I can tell. Miami isn't a particularly dense city, but there are pockets of high density--particularly those close to the coast--that rank up there with the central district densities of major metro areas. That's where they'd want to expand.
I definitely agree with the heavy rail > light rail thing, however. Some cities have gone for light rail, and in many cases it hasn't worked out nearly as well as it could have. Now some have beaten the odds--Denver, Houston, and Dallas by some standards. But Charlotte, St. Louis, and especially Austin are a few of the cities with abysmal ridership numbers, at least IMO. I just don't know if it's the lack of track or the lesser service that light rail gives.
One thing about bringing Turner Field online--the Braves typically draw anywhere between 20,000 and 40,000 on any given home game. If we round that to about 30,000--which, according to the attendance figures over the last decade, seems reasonable--then multiplied by 81 home games per year, that's 2.43 million attendees per year. Now, if about 10% of the fans would ride the train to the ballpark, that gives an annual total of 243,000 people. Not bad considering that this does not include anything else on the line, nor people that would use the station for general use.
Side note: I could not find the Braves Shuttle ridership numbers ANYWHERE. I think that whatever those numbers are, converting the MARTA connection to direct rail would easily increase that number by 1.5-2x.
243,000 sounds like a lot of people using the line until you realize that equates to only 665 people per day. I can't imagine anyone trying to justify spending a few hundred million in capital expenditure to gain 665 people per day + maybe a few hundred who would get on at that station. That is horrible business and makes no sense when there is already connectivity to Turner Field for the events that require connectivity.
243,000 sounds like a lot of people using the line until you realize that equates to only 665 people per day. I can't imagine anyone trying to justify spending a few hundred million in capital expenditure to gain 665 people per day + maybe a few hundred who would get on at that station. That is horrible business and makes no sense when there is already connectivity to Turner Field for the events that require connectivity.
Not to mention if taxpayer money is partly paying for it and you know the Braves suck and will continue to suck so you never use the line whats the point?
I can't imagine a business case for HRT to Turner.
My idea has always been LRT/streetcar along Abernathy from West End to the zoo. That will serve numerous purposes and be vastly easier to construct. Extend down Cascade eventually.
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