Keith Parker: MARTA’s rail system ideally would be double its size (Atlanta: house, neighborhood)

[demonta4]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Few transit systems cover suburbs and exurbs. MARTA should not be trying to build a station at the front door of every home in the suburbs.

Georgians need to move past sprawl. If people want to live way out in the boonies they need to be paying for their long drive. Paying for their highways with property taxes taken from city dwellers who may not even own a car leaves little incentive to live somewhere with transit. If they had to pay for tolls / gas taxes to cover those roads then their will be a reason for people to move closer in near transit or pay for the transit to come to them. Transit is a cheaper option to travel around in cities if users were having to pay directly for both.

But, people in suburban Fulton and Dekalb have been paying for decades and they still haven't got a rail line. And Clayton, Gwinnett, and Cobb were supposed to get rail a long time ago. All three counties would probably vote yes if they had another chance. Especially Clayton and Gwinnett.

[Caleb Longstreet]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Keith Parker: MARTA’s rail system ideally would be double its size | SaportaReport

Double? Wow Parker, your sights are set low. You do know we are approaching 6 million folks.....To have any MEANINGFUL effect you would have to quadruple the thing in the first wave. Why? Our sprawl. San Fran is just a very dense Decatur and Mid-Town. It doesn't sprawl as much. They have an ocean on 1/2 of the city.....

1) Feeders to Douglasville, Kennesaw, Cumming, Gwinnett somewhere much much futher...perhaps Buford, Snellville, Henry somewhere, P'tree City. LESS stops, MORE aggregation points with mega parking lots.

2) Cost? Who cares as it has to be less than what we are paying in fuel and time today...to a point

3) ALL riders have to pay more. Less subsidy.

4) Sales and visitor taxes up the wazoo. Add another 10 cents per gallon to gas.

Highly, highly scrutinize the cost to expand....this 25million a mile crap smells fishy. They built the AlCan highway in WWII in 18 months. Certainly we can add another 200 miles of Marta rail as quickly and more cost-effectively than proposed. If necessary, drop the Snellville and perhaps Douglasville routes. The others are too necessary based on density.

System works. Just not enough of it to make a dent in the commute for most.

Of course, tax breaks for more telecommuting could kill all of this.....oddly enough, it's the most feasible and easiest to implement. Plus, it would be quite a bit harder to graft, cheat and steal from. We just don't have the chimichangas to do it.

Slam an IP phone ($60 or less) on each employees desk at home, monitor and track their activities. Most people would take a pay CUT to not have to drive in every day. A thought.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by jsvh

All highway funding should be 100% paid directly by drivers. 100% of transit should be paid directly by riders. Not that complicated, if there are not enough people that would use and thus pay for a road or transit line than it should not be built.

I won't go through the same reply I've typed before, but I'll make a point again that roads are a primary purpose of government, going back centuries. They're used by public safety providers, commerce, transit, private citizens, defense/military. Roads are necessary...transit is a luxury.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by Caleb Longstreet

Double? Wow Parker, your sights are set low. You do know we are approaching 6 million folks.....To have any MEANINGFUL effect you would have to quadruple the thing in the first wave. Why? Our sprawl. San Fran is just a very dense Decatur and Mid-Town. It doesn't sprawl as much. They have an ocean on 1/2 of the city.....

1) Feeders to Douglasville, Kennesaw, Cumming, Gwinnett somewhere much much futher...perhaps Buford, Snellville, Henry somewhere, P'tree City. LESS stops, MORE aggregation points with mega parking lots.

2) Cost? Who cares as it has to be less than what we are paying in fuel and time today...to a point

3) ALL riders have to pay more. Less subsidy.

4) Sales and visitor taxes up the wazoo. Add another 10 cents per gallon to gas.

Highly, highly scrutinize the cost to expand....this 25million a mile crap smells fishy. They built the AlCan highway in WWII in 18 months. Certainly we can add another 200 miles of Marta rail as quickly and more cost-effectively than proposed. If necessary, drop the Snellville and perhaps Douglasville routes. The others are too necessary based on density.

System works. Just not enough of it to make a dent in the commute for most.

Of course, tax breaks for more telecommuting could kill all of this.....oddly enough, it's the most feasible and easiest to implement. Plus, it would be quite a bit harder to graft, cheat and steal from. We just don't have the chimichangas to do it.

Slam an IP phone ($60 or less) on each employees desk at home, monitor and track their activities. Most people would take a pay CUT to not have to drive in every day. A thought.

MARTA can only serve those areas that approved the 1% sales tax to fund the system. Fulton and DeKalb counties only. Clayton County residents did approve a non-binding vote, but the county commission never put a binding vote to the public.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by neil0311

I won't go through the same reply I've typed before, but I'll make a point again that roads are a primary purpose of government, going back centuries. They're used by public safety providers, commerce, transit, private citizens, defense/military. Roads are necessary...transit is a luxury.

And all those that use roads should be paying directly for them and enough will get built. If people find transit unnecessary then there will not be enough fares collected from users for it to be built. If there is a major national military crisis the military will commandeer roads (and rail is critical too) as needed as has always been the case. That still doesn't mean city dwellers should be paying for your long highway commute.

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by jsvh

And all those that use roads should be paying directly for them and enough will get built. If people find transit unnecessary then there will not be enough fares collected from users for it to be built. If there is a major national military crisis the military will commandeer roads (and rail is critical too) as needed as has always been the case. That still doesn't mean city dwellers should be paying for your long highway commute.

jsvh - There is nothing particularly special about city dwellers. If that's your argument, then non-city dwellers shouldn't have to pay city sales tax when they spend money in the city. This user fee argument about roads is about as ungrounded in reason as this sales tax example.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

jsvh - There is nothing particularly special about city dwellers. If that's your argument, then non-city dwellers shouldn't have to pay city sales tax when they spend money in the city. This user fee argument about roads is about as ungrounded in reason as this sales tax example.

I agree: Non-MARTA users should not be paying the MARTA sales tax (because transit should be funded 100% by users too).

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by jsvh

I agree: Non-MARTA users should not be paying the MARTA sales tax (because transit should be funded 100% by users too).

It just won't ever work that way, friend.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

It just won't ever work that way, friend.

Things are already moving back that way here in the US and it is still that way many places overseas, buddy.

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Things are already moving back that way here in the US and it is still that way many places overseas, buddy.

I didn't use the word "friend" derogatorily. Please don't take it that way. Things are done differently all over the world. Your point is certainly valid there. Yes, there are more than one way to do most things. But, a complete user fee would certainly disenfranchise those who depend most on public transit - the poor who cannot afford other forms of transportation. And, it would probably cause the casual user to jump in their cars instead, thus defeating the purpose of public transit.