Design Your Own MARTA Expansion (Atlanta, Washington: closing, paint, jobs)

[toll_booth]

^ Just noticed the implied 24-hour service. Nice. And you sure have a lot of restrooms on there!

[skbl17]

Maybe I should make a new map. All these good ones are giving me motivation!

Originally Posted by toll_booth

^ Just noticed the implied 24-hour service. Nice. And you sure have a lot of restrooms on there!

When you've gotta go, you've gotta go!

- skbl17

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by skbl17

Maybe I should make a new map. All these good ones are giving me motivation!

Mine are nearly complete, but I don't want to steal fourthwarden's thunder. These are good maps, and I want to let the well-deserved hype settle first.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

^ Just noticed the implied 24-hour service. Nice. And you sure have a lot of restrooms on there!

I figured, with any new station (or at least with most of them), there could be those fancy automatic restrooms added. And, yeah haha, I hope 24 hr service, even with 20 or 30 min headways, is in the works. it doesn't have to be crazy, just an option for those who are drunk or out late/early.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

And, yeah haha, I hope 24 hr service, even with 20 or 30 min headways, is in the works. it doesn't have to be crazy, just an option for those who are drunk or out late/early.

It is great that you are recommending that trains operate 24 hours.

That is because there is actually quite a bit of activity occurring during the overnight hours of roughly between 1am and 6am.

The first outbound flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport actually depart as early as 5:20am.

There are actually about at least 20 flights or so that take-off from Hartsfield-Jackson during the 5am hour on most days....Meaning that passengers on those earliest departing flights need to be at the airport to be checked-in and go through security roughly sometime between the hours of 3:20am-4:30am if they are leaving on a flight that departs at 5:20am.

Just the fact that flights depart from the world's busiest airport as early as 5am is a good reason that train service should continue to operate during the overnight hours....Not to mention the other activity that goes on overnight at the Atlanta Airport and at other places throughout the Atlanta metro region.

Hospitals, other medical services (like 24-hour health clinics), laboratories, manufacturing, logistics (like FedEx and UPS), food services, etc, all continue to operate during overnight hours....Not to mention the Atlanta area's fairly robust nightclub and social club scene which does not end on most nights until the late-night/early-morning hours.

There are many job shifts which terminate at odd times during the late-night/overnight hours (like in air logistics) while there are many other job shifts which may begin at odd times during the extreme early-morning hours (like hired car and airport shuttle logistical jobs, airport food and maintenance services (which have to be in place 1-2 hours in advance of the earliest departing flights), etc).

In any case, it is often more than a few stragglers who may be out during the late-night and overnight hours. There are many people who actually leave and arrive at some very important jobs during those late-night and overnight hours....Which is why high-capacity transit service should continue to operate at reasonable frequencies during late-night and overnight hours...So that people can still get from work, to work and to the airport on transit during late-night and overnight hours when the world is still operating between the hours of 1am and 5am.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

I figured, with any new station (or at least with most of them), there could be those fancy automatic restrooms added. And, yeah haha, I hope 24 hr service, even with 20 or 30 min headways, is in the works. it doesn't have to be crazy, just an option for those who are drunk or out late/early.

If nothing else, I'd really like to see overnight service on the weekends. For people who are lucky enough to live near MARTA bus lines or rail stations, getting home after a night on the town is much cheaper via MARTA than via taxicab, Uber, or Lyft.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

If nothing else, I'd really like to see overnight service on the weekends. For people who are lucky enough to live near MARTA bus lines or rail stations, getting home after a night on the town is much cheaper via MARTA than via taxicab, Uber, or Lyft.

Yeah for the drunk train!

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Yeah for the drunk train!

And the club/ bar staff train haha.

[CJ314]

Here's a thought about adding a Cobb County line (like to KSU). The logical assumption would be to (finally) use the provisionary tunnels north of Arts Center Station.

HOWEVER

At Lindbergh Center station, we already have two lines funneling into one. With three lines, keeping service at every five minutes would result in 15-minute headways on individual lines (ugh). Increasing frequency would decrease reliability since there'd be less fudge room for dwell times. Inevitably, we'd end up with one train loaded to crush capacity (with people still trying to board... unsuccessfully) and four trains blocked up behind it.

My proposal would be to make Lindbergh Center a two-layer station (like Five Points, but parallel instead of perpendicular). The Red Line (or the Gold, I suppose) could be routed OVER the existing lines to a new upper platform. With five minute lead time (or whatever number) on all lines, service would be more predictable. More importantly, issues on one line wouldn't impact the other. Trains could be every 5 minutes on ALL lines during rush hour. With an expanded Red Line, the 5-minute service would likely be needed due to increased ridership.

... assuming MARTA ever expands into Cobb

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

I figured, with any new station (or at least with most of them), there could be those fancy automatic restrooms added. And, yeah haha, I hope 24 hr service, even with 20 or 30 min headways, is in the works. it doesn't have to be crazy, just an option for those who are drunk or out late/early.

i'm hoping that we at least get 24 hour service on friday and saturday in the next couple of years... there are so many drunk drivers at that time that having MARTA close at 1 AM seems terribly irresponsible.