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My understanding is that the Bankhead line was originally designed to service the South Cobb corridor.
It was in it's original vision, but not as built today. Instead of the west half of the Blue Line, a line was to run up along the railroad right of way north and into Cobb. Since that first vision was changed, most of the Green Line expansions planned didn't have it going much further north than Bankhead.
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Originally Posted by toll_booth
That South Cobb line would definitely see some ridership if built. Getting Norfolk-Southern to play nice by sharing that very busy freight line with commuter rail, however, could take some prodding.
I'm still rather firm in my belief that if MARTA, The State of Georgia Legislature, GDOT, the regional FTA head, the respective county leaders, and CSX and NS reps. sat down for a couple of afternoons. A plan that pooled money from the state, from MARTA, and from the counties, matched by the feds, and then matched by each railroad, could be negotiated. With that money, signal upgrades, grade-crossing upgrades, switch upgrades, track upgrades, and full double-tracking could be done.
Not only would the railroads gain capacity and speed for their freight trains (something that is VERY important if those expansions to the Port of Savannah are to mean anything), but MARTA/GDOT could gain track use rights for commuter trains. It's in the comany's, state's, and Fed's best interest to have those tracks free and flowing, and it's in the State's, county's, and MARTA's best interest to have commuter rail come online. All of it can be done, it just takes people solving problems and not posturing for their political images.
There would be three logical routes for a Cobb line. One would be to join a Clayton line (HRT in Clayton is about as likely as HRT in Cobb anytime soon) at Arts Center. The second would be to join a Clayton line by running along North 285 and joining the red line at Perimeter Mall. The other would be to connect to the Green line instead of Arts Center.
A 4th, if we are dreaming, would be to cut over from the end of the Green line in subway across South Buckhead over to Lindberg.
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Originally Posted by toll_booth
True. The one concern I have, though, is what to do at the Airport station. Currently one of the platforms is for the gold line and the other is for the red line. What would they do with three lines coming into the station.
I like bu2's idea of joining together future Cobb County and Clayton County HRT lines at Arts Center Station so a future HRT line would basically be operating between Kennesaw (Kennesaw State University/Town Center Mall area) in Cobb County and Atlanta Motor Speedway at Hampton in Henry County.
In this case, the future 3rd HRT line would be operating along the same tracks as the existing Red and Gold lines only between the existing Arts Center and East Point MARTA stations.
South of the East Point MARTA Station the future Cobb-Clayton HRT line would leave the existing MARTA HRT tracks and run south along the right-of-way of the existing Norfolk Southern S-Line freight railroad tracks through Clayton County and on down to the Atlanta Motor Speedway at Hampton in Henry County.
This future Cobb-Clayton HRT line could service the Atlanta Airport by way of a people mover between the International Terminal and an HRT station on the east side of the Airport in the Mountain View area at US 19-41 Old Dixie Highway and Charles W Grant Parkway.
I also think that Cobb County is likely to see a 2nd north-south high-capacity rail transit alignment in the future that follows along the Marietta Street/Howell Mill Road/Marietta Boulevard/Atlanta Road/CSX-Western & Atlantic corridor between Acworth and the Five Points/Georgia World Congress Center/future MMPT area of Downtown Atlanta.
There is a lot of commercial and industrial property along this corridor that could be used to help pay for a future high-capacity transit line along this corridor.
Also, the city governments of Smyrna, Marietta, Kennesaw and Acworth all have expressed an increasing desire to see high-capacity passenger rail transit service implemented along this corridor so that their historic downtowns could benefit from the increased connectivity to and from Central Atlanta and the world-leading Atlanta Airport.
Originally Posted by Clayton white guy My understanding is that the Bankhead line was originally designed to service the South Cobb corridor.
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Originally Posted by fourthwarden
It was in it's original vision, but not as built today. Instead of the west half of the Blue Line, a line was to run up along the railroad right of way north and into Cobb. Since that first vision was changed, most of the Green Line expansions planned didn't have it going much further north than Bankhead.
I know that in later years after the demographics had changed in the City of Atlanta from 'majority-white' to 'majority-black' that the plans for that Bankhead Line (now the Green Line) were changed so that the line would only be extended no further than the Perry Homes housing project....Here are some maps of those changed or scaled-back expansion plans: http://people.reed.edu/~reyn/MARTA.gif
Because of the change in the demographics of the City of Atlanta, the new 'majority-black' government in Atlanta likely was not all that motivated to share their hard-fought and newly-found political power over a major urban transit agency with suburban whites who had fled the city and did not really want a transit connection to the inner-city that they had just fled for the suburbs.
About the time of MARTA's inception, there were discussions as to whether MARTA would be a transit agency that was geared much more towards suburban commuters (hence the large park-and-ride lots around many outlying stations) or whether MARTA would be a transit agency that was geared much more towards urban and inner-city interests (hence, the scaled-back expansion plans to only areas of Fulton and DeKalb counties).
Because whites fled the city for suburban areas like Cobb and beyond (mostly what are now inner-ring suburbs), whites no longer held a majority in the City of Atlanta and Fulton County governments early-on (and later on in DeKalb County government)....Which meant that the new black majority in Atlanta and Fulton County was not truly really as interested in expanding the MARTA HRT system outside of Fulton and DeKalb counties as the majority-white governing interests in the City of Atlanta were when the earliest plans for MARTA were being drawn up in the 1950's and '60's.
Keeping the MARTA system inside of Fulton and DeKalb counties meant that the then-new black majority in Atlanta and Fulton County would be able to keep political control over MARTA for an extended period of time....Something which was very important to blacks who had not had much (if any) political control of any major political entity up until that point in time.
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Originally Posted by fourthwarden So, I got a bit of flack for 'ignoring Cobb', so here's a Peach Line extension into Cobb!
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Originally Posted by toll_booth
That South Cobb line would definitely see some ridership if built. Getting Norfolk-Southern to play nice by sharing that very busy freight line with commuter rail, however, could take some prodding.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fourthwarden
I'm still rather firm in my belief that if MARTA, The State of Georgia Legislature, GDOT, the regional FTA head, the respective county leaders, and CSX and NS reps. sat down for a couple of afternoons. A plan that pooled money from the state, from MARTA, and from the counties, matched by the feds, and then matched by each railroad, could be negotiated. With that money, signal upgrades, grade-crossing upgrades, switch upgrades, track upgrades, and full double-tracking could be done.
Not only would the railroads gain capacity and speed for their freight trains (something that is VERY important if those expansions to the Port of Savannah are to mean anything), but MARTA/GDOT could gain track use rights for commuter trains. It's in the comany's, state's, and Fed's best interest to have those tracks free and flowing, and it's in the State's, county's, and MARTA's best interest to have commuter rail come online. All of it can be done, it just takes people solving problems and not posturing for their political images.
I like fourthwarden's idea of extending high-capacity passenger rail transit service into Cobb County along both the I-75/US 41 Northwest and US 278/GA 6 West corridors.
But toll_booth makes an excellent point that getting Norfolk Southern to share their exceptionally busy existing freight rail tracks with commuter rail service would likely be extremely difficult if not impossible.
Those NS tracks to the west of Atlanta are some of the absolute busiest freight rail tracks on the entire planet between the Gulch and Austell....That's because one of the largest and busiest rail-truck/truck-rail freight intermodal terminals on the entire planet (and what is reported to be the largest freight intermodal terminal on the North American continent east of the Mississippi River) is located along the NS tracks in Austell.
The best way to implement future high-capacity passenger rail transit service might be to build new tracks that are dedicated to passenger trains only so that passenger trains and freight trains don't interfere with each others' operations by attempting to operate on the same tracks.
Having future passenger trains operate on their own tracks in outlying areas like Cobb and Clayton counties would also guarantee that passenger rail transit service volumes could be increased as needed on passenger rail transit-dedicated tracks while freight train volumes continue to increase on freight rail tracks as needed....That's instead of both passenger rail transit and freight rail service volumes being limited on shared tracks.
Besides, both Cobb and Clayton counties are so heavily-developed and urbanized at this point in time that they (along with Gwinnett County) desperately need high-frequency Heavy Rail Transit service on grade-separated tracks (on multiple corridors in Cobb and Gwinnett counties) instead of relatively lower-frequency commuter rail service on existing at-grade tracks shared with rising volumes of freight trains.
With the talk being of the Atlanta region's population continuing to grow into the range of 8-10 million people, heavily-populated and heavily-developed areas like Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton are absolutely going to need HRT service on grade-separated tracks.
I like fourthwarden's idea of extending high-capacity passenger rail transit service into Cobb County along both the I-75/US 41 Northwest and US 278/GA 6 West corridors.
But toll_booth makes an excellent point that getting Norfolk Southern to share their exceptionally busy existing freight rail tracks with commuter rail service would likely be extremely difficult if not impossible.
Those NS tracks to the west of Atlanta are some of the absolute busiest freight rail tracks on the entire planet between the Gulch and Austell....That's because one of the largest and busiest rail-truck/truck-rail freight intermodal terminals on the entire planet (and what is reported to be the largest freight intermodal terminal on the North American continent east of the Mississippi River) is located along the NS tracks in Austell.
The best way to implement future high-capacity passenger rail transit service might be to build new tracks that are dedicated to passenger trains only so that passenger trains and freight trains don't interfere with each others' operations by attempting to operate on the same tracks.
Having future passenger trains operate on their own tracks in outlying areas like Cobb and Clayton counties would also guarantee that passenger rail transit service volumes could be increased as needed on passenger rail transit-dedicated tracks while freight train volumes continue to increase on freight rail tracks as needed....That's instead of both passenger rail transit and freight rail service volumes being limited on shared tracks.
Besides, both Cobb and Clayton counties are so heavily-developed and urbanized at this point in time that they (along with Gwinnett County) desperately need high-frequency Heavy Rail Transit service on grade-separated tracks (on multiple corridors in Cobb and Gwinnett counties) instead of relatively lower-frequency commuter rail service on existing at-grade tracks shared with rising volumes of freight trains.
With the talk being of the Atlanta region's population continuing to grow into the range of 8-10 million people, heavily-populated and heavily-developed areas like Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton are absolutely going to need HRT service on grade-separated tracks.
I just don't see HRT being a financially viable option, not when there's a chance to expand freight capacity and introduce commuter rail at the same time. Chicago manages to do it, I don't see why we can't. Especially since it doesn't even seem as if any one has attempted such an agreement here. All I've seen are railroads saying they can't do it, without offering alternatives.
I just don't see HRT being a financially viable option, not when there's a chance to expand freight capacity and introduce commuter rail at the same time.
I and virtually everyone who knows anything about transportation agrees that freight rail capacity desperately needs to be expanded in the Atlanta region.
Most transportation observers also agree that the Atlanta region and the state of Georgia appear to be in desperate need of regional commuter and regional interurban passenger rail transit service.
Heavy Rail Transit (and most any other high-capacity transit mode including Light Rail Transit, commuter rail and, Bus Rapid Transit and commuter/express bus) is a financially viable option but only if large-scale P3's (Public-Private Partnerships) are used as the primary funding mechanism.
Without the large amounts of private money that P3's can bring to the table (particularly from large-scale private sponsorships and large-scale transit-oriented real estate development profits and fees), nothing (including commuter rail and BRT) is financially viable except maybe the current bare-bones levels of transit service throughout the Atlanta region.
County-by-county referendum-approved sales taxes alone just are not a good way to fund high-capacity transit service while both the state and federal levels of government have not even taken in enough revenue to adequately maintain the road network without heavy amounts of borrowing in recent years and decades.
Both the freight rail and passenger rail networks are in desperate need of expansion throughout the Atlanta region and North Georgia at this point in time.
But both networks should probably be upgraded, expanded and operated separately so that train volumes can be increased as needed on both networks without interfering with each others' very important operations.
Particularly with freight rail traffic volumes continuing to grow quickly on an already highly-constrained freight rail network due in large part to the explosive growth that is taking place at the Port of Savannah, freight trains should be operated on freight rail-dedicated tracks and future passenger trains should be operated on passenger rail-dedicated tracks in the Atlanta region.
Future passenger trains should particularly operate on passenger rail-dedicated tracks so that passenger train volumes can be increased without potentially being constrained and/or restricted by high (and growing) volumes of freight trains on shared tracks.
Even back 50-60 years ago, part (but not all) of the motivation for the creation of the MARTA HRT system was because of the lack of excess freight rail capacity on which to operate high and increasing volumes of passenger trains as needed.
Back in the mid-20th Century, some very forward-looking demographic experts (especially for mid-20th Century Georgia) projected and predicted that the Atlanta metro region might one day be home to as many as 3-5 million people and that water supply and transportation infrastructure would become a problem when this happened....Those experts predicted the explosive growth in the Atlanta region and North Georgia because of the then-emerging trends of people moving from the Rustbelt and Snowbelt in increasing numbers to the Sunbelt by way of cars and airplanes (two modes of transportation that spiked in popularity after World War II) and because of the advent of air conditioning during the 20th Century (something that made hot Southern summers much more bearable for the masses).
The MARTA HRT system was proposed to be a regional rail transit system in place of conventional commuter trains on freight rail tracks partly because the Atlanta area (even then) did not necessarily have the excess existing freight rail capacity on which to operate high volumes of passenger trains like some other large major metro areas did (particularly New York and Chicago and even Washington D.C., etc).
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Originally Posted by fourthwarden
Chicago manages to do it, I don't see why we can't. Especially since it doesn't even seem as if any one has attempted such an agreement here.
That is a good point that you bring up about Chicago.
Chicago is able to operate high-frequency regional commuter trains on freight rail tracks because the Chicago area has been abundantly blessed with excess freight rail capacity (or additional freight rail tracks) on which to operate high-frequency commuter rail service.
Chicago is able to operate high-frequency regional commuter rail service on abandoned and semi-abandoned freight rail tracks because the Chicago area reportedly has more freight rail tracks radiating in more directions from its city center than any other metro area on the North American continent.
In most cases, the Atlanta region does not have excess freight rail capacity (abandoned and semi-abandoned freight rail tracks and right-of-ways) on which to operate high-frequency/high-capacity regional commuter rail service.
Heck, in most cases the existing freight rail tracks throughout many parts of the Atlanta region and North Georgia operate either at and/or even overcapacity to the point where freight rail gridlock is a common occurrence at some key points (...see Howell Junction on Atlanta's near North-Northwest side where freight train traffic gridlocks on a frequent basis through an outmoded and outdated at-grade junction in area of multiple major freight rail yards).
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Originally Posted by fourthwarden
All I've seen are railroads saying they can't do it, without offering alternatives.
It is not the job of the freight railroad companies to offer alternatives....The job of offering high-capacity transit alternatives belongs to our state and regional policymakers.
Besides, at this point in time, the freight railroads really have no financial incentive to share their existing (and future) freight rail tracks with passenger trains that would significantly interrupt their freight rail operations and potentially adversely impact their financial bottom lines.
Though, maybe, the freight railroads would have some kind of financial incentive to let the state use their right-of-ways (not their existing freight rail tracks, but the land adjacent to their existing freight rail tracks) for the construction of new passenger rail-dedicated tracks where needed.
Norfolk Southern was at one point in time (about at least a decade ago) willing to let the state use its then lesser-used existing Clayton County freight rail tracks for regional commuter rail service between Atlanta and Lovejoy....But the State of Georgia was never willing to come up with a match to the money that the Feds had provided and the state was never willing to come up with continuing operating funds for the line.
Time eventually ran out and the Feds took back the start-up funds for the line while spiking and record cargo-handling activity at the Port of Savannah caused Norfolk Southern to back away from their offer to let the state use their tracks for commuter trains so that those Atlanta-Macon via Clayton County tracks could be used for excess freight rail capacity to handle the freight rail traffic that spills over from the much busier tracks that are east of I-75.
Also, the city governments of Smyrna, Marietta, Kennesaw and Acworth all have expressed an increasing desire to see high-capacity passenger rail transit service implemented along this corridor so that their historic downtowns could benefit from the increased connectivity to and from Central Atlanta and the world-leading Atlanta Airport.
Those cities need to have the political fortitude to pay for it or ask their voters to pay for it.
As the demographics of Atlanta change for the better and more low income people are pushed to the suburbs, transit will have to expand of the urban/suburban counties of Cobb and Gwinnett will soon face a rising tide of unemployed people, crime, etc that was seen in the urban core in the 80's and 90's. BRT needs to be implemented along major corridors now, US 278, to show that with minimal investment, transit can work.
Dallas operates 4 lines on their downtown tracks. The headways appear to be about 15 minutes, so you get about 16 trains an hour with normally 3-4 minutes between trains.
Let's not compare the speed and capacity of HRT to LRT, apples to oranges. One always has grade separation the other is not.
I'm just saying, it's not like all of Metro Atlanta will be dense enough in about 50 or so years for MARTA, like Downtown, up to, say, Covington or the Mall of GA area, so why bother extending it farther? One thing is allowing for efficient, quick transport within the metro area, but pushing MARTA heavy rail to Newman, Cumming, Cartersville, or the like just encourages sprawl by promoting growth 30-40 or so miles outside of Central Atlanta. "Capping the line" as fourthwarden says, caps sprawl as well; freeways aren't the only things chiefly responsible for sprawl in major cities, anyway. Might just as well not aggravate the suburban beast any longer.
Of course, commuter rail is always an option for these exurban areas. Why even try too hard with heavy rail in these areas? If the people want to preserve the rural quality of their county (Bartow, Paulding, or Newton), listen to them. If they don't want MARTA stretching its tentacles throughoutall of North-Central Georgia, so be it. As long as they have reasonably easy access to the MARTA HR system, it doesn't matter that MARTA ends in Cobb or Gwinnett, or even extreme Henry or Dekalb. For now, commuter rail works the absolute best for these areas.
On a final note: my MARTA map was more meant for a long-term period than for a decade. That's why I bring up commuter rail right now. Heavy rail in cities like Cartersville or Newnan is just not practical right now.
I'm just saying, it's not like all of Metro Atlanta will be dense enough in about 50 or so years for MARTA, like Downtown, up to, say, Covington or the Mall of GA area, so why bother extending it farther? One thing is allowing for efficient, quick transport within the metro area, but pushing MARTA heavy rail to Newman, Cumming, Cartersville, or the like just encourages sprawl by promoting growth 30-40 or so miles outside of Central Atlanta. "Capping the line" as fourthwarden says, caps sprawl as well; freeways aren't the only things chiefly responsible for sprawl in major cities, anyway. Might just as well not aggravate the suburban beast any longer.
Of course, commuter rail is always an option for these exurban areas. Why even try too hard with heavy rail in these areas? If the people want to preserve the rural quality of their county (Bartow, Paulding, or Newton), listen to them. If they don't want MARTA stretching its tentacles throughoutall of North-Central Georgia, so be it. As long as they have reasonably easy access to the MARTA HR system, it doesn't matter that MARTA ends in Cobb or Gwinnett, or even extreme Henry or Dekalb. For now, commuter rail works the absolute best for these areas.
On a final note: my MARTA map was more meant for a long-term period than for a decade. That's why I bring up commuter rail right now. Heavy rail in cities like Cartersville or Newnan is just not practical right now.
There's only one user here who's pushing for MARTA heavy rail service out to Gainesville/Cartersville/Dahlonega though. Most of us are just thinking about heavy rail service in the metro's core (DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Clayton, and Cobb).
I just pushed the system out to the boundaries of Metro Atlanta as I saw them, far from Atlanta as they may seem.
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