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

[bu2]

If employment gets too spread out, transit can't service it. Right now we've got concentrations along the north route to Perimeter Mall and the Cumberland Galleria. Encouraging more development in the northernmost part of Fulton County practically to Cherokee is not beneficial to service long term.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by erick295

If the best example of privately funded rail transit you can come up with is a fragmented system that folded more than half a century ago and left Atlanta with the very mess that MARTA is trying to solve, I think I made my point.

Actually, the absolute best example of privately-funded passenger rail transit can be found in Hong Kong where the mass transit system has a farebox recovery ratio of 186 PERCENT!

...That means that Hong Kong's farebox revenues cover all of that system's operating expenses and brings in healthy profits from from the system's distance-based fare structure and the system's prime land holdings at and around its stations and along its transit lines.

(...Compare Hong Kong's farebox recovery ratio of 186% to MARTA's current farebox recovery ratio of only about 32%, meaning that MARTA's farebox revenues only cover about 32% of its operating expenses).

Hong Kong's mass-transit system is operated by a company named MTR Corporation Limited which is also a major property developer and landowner in Hong Kong and also operates mass transit systems in other very-major international cities like London, Stockholm, Beijing, Shenzhen (China), Hangzhou (China) and Melbourne.

Hong Kong's massively-successful transit-operating model demonstrates that transit entities like MARTA not only can remain solvent, but can also generate healthy profits when they utilize an inflation-indexed distance-based fare structure and lease-out the prime real estate they own for the construction of ridership-generating and revenue-generating large-scale mixed-use transit-oriented development at and around transit stations and along transit lines.

MARTA's main business should not be transit, MARTA's main business should be REAL ESTATE because that's where the money to keep a large transit system in good financial standing can come from...

...That so a transit system like MARTA will have the financial resources available to maintain, improve, upgrade and expand itself as needed without having to beg indifferent and hostile local and state levels of government for financial help that MARTA is likely to never receive.

It is so critically-important that a system like MARTA harness lucrative revenue streams from sources like:

...Inflation-indexed distance-based fares that aim to cover absolutely no less than 60% of a transit system's operating expenses;

...Real estate transactions (the leasing of a transit-system's prime real estate holdings out for the construction of ridership-generating and revenue-generating high-density mixed-use development at and around transit stations and along transit lines);

...Tax Increment Financing (portions of property tax revenues from new development that pops up along transit lines);

...Tax Allocation Districts (sales and property taxes from new and existing development...as opposed to politically-unpopular and politically-unviable countywide sales taxes)...

...So that a transit system like MARTA will be financially self-sufficient and won't have to be everyone's favorite punching bag in a large major metro region that is in severe need of a dependable and expansive transit option.

[bu2]

I don't trust a public entity to make good real estate decisions. I don't want MARTA in the real estate business any more than necessary.

[erick295]

Originally Posted by jsvh

I think it is a great example of the damage that has been done by dumping tax dollars into highways. Why do you think no sprawl existed before that? Why do you think sprawl is still missing from places where they make users pay for transportation?

If roads are so great and that is all that is economically viable then why are you opposed to having users directly pay for how much transportation they are using like people do for water or power? It would just mean more roads.

If you're saying roads should be funded by users, then I agree. That type of funding is viable for them since they're used by the majority of people (like water, power, and streetcars before cars existed). In fact that's how roads are funded today.

If you're saying MARTA should be funded by users, then that's where we disagree. MARTA is too expensive and used by too few people to survive on user funding alone.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by erick295

If you're saying roads should be funded by users, then I agree. That type of funding is viable for them since they're used by the majority of people (like water, power, and streetcars before cars existed). In fact that's how roads are funded today.

Incorrect. Georgia only covers ~25% from users fees: Gasoline Taxes and Tolls Pay for Only a Third of State & Local Road Spending | Tax Foundation

Compare that to MARTA that has a farebox recovery rate of 31.8%.

[MattCW]

Originally Posted by bu2

Look at the MARTA studies. Beyond the mall there's nothing near the MARTA corridor until you get to North Alpharetta.

As for Clifton, its not that expensive to have dedicated ROW from Lindberg to Emory. If you use the RR tracks to East Lake (not that that is necessarily the best route), that ROW will not be extraordinarily expensive. Instead, they've got a slow line that takes traffic lanes from an already over-burdened area for a ridership that is less than half the ridership that would go only on a heavy rail stub from Lindberg to Emory. Since they will force a transfer to use the system, they won't get many people who actually have a choice.

I've seen the studies, and I'm also looking at a map and satellite view of the area. There is plenty of development close enough to GA-400 to support a transit line. The main purpose isn't to bring people into the area, it's to provide a station people drive to and then ride. There are plenty of people within easy driving radius that this service would be immensely beneficial to.

The point of Clifton Corridor isn't just to bring trains to Emory, it's to provide transit across the whole area from Avondale to Lindbergh so the CSX RoW along existing MARTA is useless for that. I also think you've severely overestimating the number of people lost in a transfer. Sure, it's a nonzero amount, but people already transfer on MARTA all the time.

Originally Posted by bu2

Actually, that's part of the reason for not going out to the tech hub in North Alpharetta, in addition to what I've said about there being very little between the mall and that tech hub.

Do we really want to encourage businesses to locate on the fringe of the north metro area by putting a heavy rail stop?

The point isn't so much to move the job centers up that way, it's to let people living up there to get to the job centers such as Perimeter and Atlanta. Yes, you'll always have reverse commuters, but the bulk of people are already commuting south in the morning and north in the evening anyways and as someone else already stated, we can't expand GA-400 any further, so what other options are there?

Originally Posted by bu2

If employment gets too spread out, transit can't service it. Right now we've got concentrations along the north route to Perimeter Mall and the Cumberland Galleria. Encouraging more development in the northernmost part of Fulton County practically to Cherokee is not beneficial to service long term.

See above, that's not what will happen.

Originally Posted by bu2

I don't trust a public entity to make good real estate decisions. I don't want MARTA in the real estate business any more than necessary.

So what should they do with all that land then? Sell it off so someone else gets rich off the service? Or just rent it out to a developer who in-turn rents it out to tenants? In an apartment built as part of development built on MARTA land, the tenant won't be writing their monthly check to the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, they'll write it to a developer, who in-turn will write their check to the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority.

Originally Posted by jsvh

Incorrect. Georgia only covers ~25% from users fees: Gasoline Taxes and Tolls Pay for Only a Third of State & Local Road Spending | Tax Foundation

Compare that to MARTA that has a farebox recovery rate of 31.8%.

Incorrect, Georgia must cover 100% from users fees since it comes from taxation.

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Actually, the absolute best example of privately-funded passenger rail transit can be found in Hong Kong where the mass transit system has a farebox recovery ratio of 186 PERCENT!\

Communist countries are very nice places.

[bogans]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

Communist countries are very nice places.

If you are referring to Hong Kong, the Heritage foundation has ranked it the worlds freest economy for something like 20 years straight. Hong Kong and China have completely separate economies and laws. When Hong Kong was given back to China part of the deal was to remain a sovereign state for 50 years before full reunification to the mainland.

edit to say: While I understand B2R's argument about Hong Kong's transit being self sufficient, they are an extreme example. Hong Kong's density is insane. Other mass transit systems that have farebox recovery ratios above 100% do so with extreme density and heavy regulation. Where this thread started was with a comparison between San Fran BART, DC Metro and MARTA. Those other two cities with twice as large a system have 64.5% and 62.1% farebox recovery respectively. That's twice the size of MARTA. While of course there are other factors, it would stand to reason that the larger the system the larger revenue ratio.

[erick295]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Incorrect. Georgia only covers ~25% from users fees: Gasoline Taxes and Tolls Pay for Only a Third of State & Local Road Spending | Tax Foundation

Compare that to MARTA that has a farebox recovery rate of 31.8%.

I still don't know what point you're trying to make. That's news to me but to be honest I don't care one way or the other. I'm talking about MARTA. My point is MARTA can't survive as a user funded system. That's it. Do you disagree with that statement?

[scobby]

Sorry guys,i don't like that the debate turn to public vs private.
Some proects things can be done by private sector others can be done by the public sector.
I'm for a combination of both and Marta is the perfect example for such partnership