HOT lanes reversal reflects lack of vision, leadership for transportation in Georgia

The plan has always been develop, develop, develop, worry about the rest later. They ain’t learned a thing in 40 years or more.

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And (E) realize you are in The State of Georgia and we are not in last place for nothing – we work for it!!!!!

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Can’t build lanes forever. And no one wants trains at least not in Gwinnett. Maybe flying cars? Hmm, even on the Jetsons there were traffic jams.

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Just destroy the economy, people will leave and traffic will be fine….oh, that happened already…..geez

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bu2

December 16th, 2011
6:46 pm

Your post describes the situation dead-on. Including the access lanes that carry local traffic and run along both sides of the Interstate, there are sections of I-10 on the westside of Houston that have up to 26 lanes!

Houston has taken a road-heavy approach in investing in their transportation infrastructure by building and widening their freeways to the maximum where ever possible.

Meanwhile Dallas, while still making much, much, much heavier investments in their road infrastructure than Atlanta has made in over 20 years, has taken a more balanced approach investing heavily in toll roads, light rail and commuter rail. Dallas now has 106 miles of rail transit lines compared to Atlanta’s 48 miles of rail transit lines.

There would be nothing wrong with taking Houston’s approach and building and widening our freeways to the max where possible, a strategy that would include stacking roads vertically where there is no more right-of-way to widen the road horizonally and the building of an outer perimeter loop to divert heavy trucks and interstate traffic away from the densely-populated urban core where local traffic is the heaviest.

The only problem is that there seems to be virtually ZERO political appetite amongst voters and taxpayers to pursue a maximum roadbuilding strategy as was demonstrated when the state proposed to build an Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc bypass back in the late 1990s and early 2000s and when the state proposed to widen I-75 to 24-26 lanes as part of the original HOT lanes/bus rapid transit proposal back in 2005.

The Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc and original I-75 HOT lane proposals where met with much public derision and disapproval, so much to the point that the terms “Outer Perimeter” and “Northern Arc” are politically radioactive around the State Capitol with not one legislator in Georgia’s dominant ruling GOP daring to even mention the term after the long-ruling Democrats were thrown out of power in part for backing the a scaled down Outer Perimeter in the form of the “Northern Arc”, a road which was ill-advisedly proposed to run through affluent country club communities full of very powerful lawyers and voters in the Golden Crescent of Forsyth and Cherokee Counties.

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jus fine. Y’all jus shut up and les get back to buildn stuff an spreadin out. Ye Ha!

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Hey, Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights? is right on. Dallas is full of dem idiot librals an train nuts. We need unutha perimter so’s we can spred out mor! An da h-ll with Atlanta – we don need it anymor an its a pain. Les be lik Deetroit and furget the stupid city and live happy in the subburbs!

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“Gwinnettians will accept trains, they just don’t want to pay into MARTA now and maybe get train and bus service like 15 years from now, at the earliest, as they have been told would be the case by MARTA itself,”
You mean like the people of Dekalb and Fulton Counties did?

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“HOT lanes reversal reflects lack of vision…”

Or maybe they witnessed the HOT fiasco on I-85 and recognized a clusterf__k when they saw it.

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Atlanta Mom

December 16th, 2011
10:39 pm

“You mean like the people of Dekalb and Fulton Counties did?”

Fulton and DeKalb Counties ALREADY have train and bus service from MARTA (bus service since 1972, train service since 1979). Gwinnettians were told at a town hall meeting in 2008 that the county would not receive bus or train service for at least 15 years if they were to agree to pay the same 1% sales tax that Fulton & DeKalb already pay.

What would be the purpose of paying taxes now and not getting service until close to 2030? Why would any community agree to that when their traffic problem is going on RIGHT NOW?

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There is bus service in Gwinett. Not they they are taxing themselves one percent to have it.
Why should they connect into Dekalb train service, when Dekalb has been paying one percent for the past 41 years?

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Anyway, gasoline will never be cheap again, and most of the morons who post here are indicative of the Georgia population–in total denial about energy. Yeah, build more lanes. Great foresight–5 decades ago. Make I-75 20+ lanes wide. No one will be able to afford gas to commute by then, but they’ll be the world’s best bike paths.

Morons, the only thing that’s going to alleviate traffic and make commutes bearable is public transportation. And people here still think criminals are going to ride the train to the suburbs, then steal your tv, and ride back home with it on the train.

I can’t wait for $6/gallon gas. I want to see you suburbanites squeal like piggies for trains and buses that you steadfastly opposed for generations. You’re already decades late to the game, but there’s hope for you yet. But it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.

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(1) Abolish all taxes except motor fuel tax. (2) Raise motor fuel tax enough to cover expenses of all state and local government. (3) People will find a way to work close to home and drive a lot less. Congestion problem solved. And maybe the ice caps won’t melt.

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Oh god, the HOT lanes were hilarious. Expect more of the same when you think the private sector will come rescue you. It’s like when Wile E. Coyote pulls his ripcord and an anvil or piano comes out of his parachute pack.

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Michel Phillips

(1) Abolish all taxes except motor fuel tax. (2) Raise motor fuel tax enough to cover expenses of all state and local government. (3) People will find a way to work close to home and drive a lot less. Congestion problem solved. And maybe the ice caps won’t melt.

With such a robust local housing market, this is a surefire plan!

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Gwinett property taxes don’t come close to Dekalb or Fulton.

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Atlanta Mom

December 16th, 2011
11:43 pm

“Gwinett property taxes don’t come close to Dekalb or Fulton.”

And neither does the bus service. Have you ever rode one of their buses or even been on their website. Except for a few reasonably well-placed commuter/express routes, Gwinnett County Transit is about as bare-bones as you can get.

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The “who’s gonna grease my pocket” crowd at the Capitol have ignored the solutions for nearly 40 years,but the last 10 are inexcusable given what everybody now knows. Road are subsidized so that is not an argument against rail. But our shortsightedness fails to accept that neighborhoods will grow around transportation and that growth takes time. The guys legislators who took thosebigcontributions from the privatisers should have been reading Alex Marahall’s “how cities work”
In the book, Marshall tackles in this hard-hitting, highly readable look at what makes cities work. Marshall argues that urban life has broken down because of our basic ignorance of the real forces that shape cities-transportation systems, industry and business, and political decision making. He explores how these forces have built four very different

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How about a column on Charlotte and Phoenix. They are a decade ahead of Atlanta with light rail thanks to the contrarian policies of our former state executive who’s dislike of The Atlanta region should cause Atlantans and those in the metro area to question their decision to elect him.

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one of the major problems is the fiasco that is GDOT. can’t trust that they will not waste the money or do what they promise. just look at the toll situation on 400. also how can you justify $60 million dollars on a feasibility study. sounds like Moreland-Altobelli really stuck it to the state!!

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ND

December 16th, 2011
11:48 pm

“Not having HOT lanes isn’t what reflects a lack of vision. Living 60 miles away from the city and expecting your commute not to be a pain in the butt is what reflects a lack of vision. If you choose to live in Canton or Kennesaw and you work in Atlanta, you deserve to sit in traffic. Keep transportation funds inside the perimeter where they belong.”

Saying that people should be punished because they live outside the Perimeter is about as realistic of a transportation policy as those who live OTP saying they don’t want rail transit because it will bring crime from the city when the crime is already there OTP in an overwhelming abundance via people who own cars (see Gwinnett’s continuing festering problem with Latin American and international drug cartels).

A region that is Atlanta’s size is such a jobs magnet that one can expect to see people who live 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 miles, etc commuting to and from work on a daily basis, especially when home prices and the cost-of-living increase with the corresponding rise in population growth. Heck, in cities like L.A. and N.Y. it is not at all uncommon to see people with one-way commutes of up to 100 miles each day.

In N.Y. and L.A. you will also hear the term “drive-until-you-qualify” where people will literally get on the freeway and drive out of the city until they reach an exit where they can afford to buy a home. The lower your income, the farther you drive in L.A. In N.Y., it may be the lower your income, the farther you ride on a train.

Another thing is that transit-dependent/transit-heavy cities like N.Y., Boston, D.C., Philadelphia and even extremely transit-heavy Toronto, still sprawl outwards, it’s just that they sprawl outwards on commuter rail lines as their road networks can no longer support being anchors for development. With a VERY inadequate, undersized and discombobulated road network that is based largely on an ancient network of Indian trails, one can infer that Atlanta has likely reached this same point as other more mature cities before it have reached (even car-crazy L.A. reached this point in the late 1990s as the L.A. Basin reached build-out just before the year 2000).

With the Atlanta Region more than doubling in population from 2.9 million in 1990 to over 5.8 million in 2010, a growth rate of more than 100% in that 20-year span, the Atlanta Region has reached the point where it can no longer grow or “sprawl” on an increasingly inadequate road network that there is virtually ZERO meaningful political will to expand. A road network that is attempting to handle more than twice the population it was ever meant to handle.

For the Atlanta Region to continue to have meaningful growth it is going to have to invest, HEAVILY, in its passenger rail and mass transit network (bus, heavy rail, light rail and ESPECIALLY commuter rail), a reality that will be forced with the coming massive expansion of the Port of Savannah which threatens to dramatically increase automobile traffic on Metro Atlanta freeways by more than a third by the end of the decade (especially already very heavy freight truck traffic on I-75, I-285 & I-20).

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I like the idea of having additional lanes put in for either a toll or high occupancy vehicles, even if an HOV is only 2 people.

But it also needs to be done in conjunction with rail if we want Atlanta to be viable in a future for business.

As far as the public/private partnerships go. . . . well, I’m skeptical because there seem to be so many backroom deals made in such arrangements.

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itpdude

December 17th, 2011
1:26 am

“I like the idea of having additional lanes put in for either a toll or high occupancy vehicles, even if an HOV is only 2 people…..But it also needs to be done in conjunction with rail if we want Atlanta to be viable in a future for business.”

EXACTLY! Ideally, a comprehensive plan for passenger rail should have been enacted in conjunction with the completion of the “Freeing-the-Freeways” project of the 1980s. But hindsight is 20-20 and it is likely that at that time between 25-30 years ago those in state government, especially inside of GDOT, thought that roads would be the only meaningful mode of transportation OTP forever.

I also doubt that anyone in state government at that time ever looked far enough into the future to envision a time when the region’s freeway network would be virtually built-out or ever seriously expected the region’s population to reach six million people, especially at road-crazy, roads-only GDOT.

Well, it looks like we have reached the point in time where the region’s freeways are effectively built-out with very little physical right-of-way or, most importantly, political will or public desire to expand them.

Since there is very little public appetite to expand the road network to the extent that it would need to be expanded to handle more traffic, Houston-style, the only way that this town can proceed forward is to competently invest more in rail transit, especially since we have likely reached the point where no more toll-free lanes are going to be added to the freeway network.

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 17th, 2011
1:22 am

“–you don’t have to go that far outside of the city for affordable housing as you do in LA and the northeast.”

People (newcomers and transplants) may not have to go that far outside of the city for affordable housing, but they do have to go farther outside of the city for public schools that are perceived to be of much higher quality as many parents either don’t or can’t (and won’t) pay to send their children to private schools.

Real or perceived quality of an area’s public schools is a major reason that a lot of new residents may choose to locate in outlying counties like Gwinnett, Cobb (East Cobb), Douglas, Paulding, Cherokee, North Fulton, Forsyth, Hall, Fayette, Henry, Coweta, etc, as opposed to the City of Atlanta, DeKalb and Clayton Counties.

“So let them cry all they want about their commutes and gas–they brought it on themselves.”

Attempting to punish people for their living choices is neither a sound nor realistic transportation planning policy for doing so would send an extremely shortsighted and unfortunate message that the Atlanta Region and the state of Georgia refuses to constructively deal with its transportation issues out of a misguided spite to its own citizens while other (competing) areas around the country are actively continuing to deal with theirs.

Don’t want to build any roads and rail lines to serve people who choose to live outside of I-285, fine, be my guest. But don’t get upset a few years down the line when the city and the region continues to attract low-income and low-skilled transplants with no jobs to absorb them and the city and the region cannot attract the high-paying professional jobs and the highly-paid, college-educated and highly-skilled professionals who come with those jobs who buy real estate and contribute to the area’s tax base and local economy and make the low-wage jobs possible because our gridlocked traffic and outdated infrastructure repels them.

When you attempt to punish suburbanites because they chose to live outside I-285 you really punish the entire region by withholding the investment needed to attract capital, incomes and tax revenues.

Not all six million people in the Atlanta Region can live inside of I-285, it’s not physically possible as even with all of the abandoned houses in the city, there still wouldn’t be enough housing to accommodate SIX MILLION people in an area where roughly 1.5 million people currently live. And even if all six million people did attempt to live ITP, it would drive housing prices and the cost-of-living through the roof (very high demand, very little supply) causing the very dense population to spill over into the countryside outside of I-285 and effecting the creation of suburbs built around the promise of lower housing prices and lower costs-of-living and once again feeding the mantra “Drive-’til-you-qualify” where housing prices get lower the farther one moves away from the densely-populated and overcrowded city.

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We don’t want the trains because the trains bring the filth and criminals from Atlanta. They can rob your house and be back home on the train before you get off of work. Since when is it MY responsibility to provide subsidized buses and trains for the 47% that pay no federal taxes? Look at the affirmative action hires and engineers that planed 285! At the 75 juncture going West it narrows from 7 lanes to 2!!! I guess the geniuses at the DOT assumed everyone would go North and not West? Idiots all! Vote NO on T-splost!!!!

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William Quantrill

December 17th, 2011
3:31 am

If you’re a burglar or a someone who does home invasions in a robbing crew, a Metro Atlanta favorite, which mode of transportation would allow you to, a) load up more robbed and stolen stuff and, b) get away and disappear from the police quicker?

Here’s a hint: When it comes to brazen and violent crime, MARTA is NOT smarta!

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In a frank conversation with MSN writer Lawrence Ulrich, Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen has said that the Chevy Volt will fail and that anybody who buys the car is an idiot.

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The people who already HAVE transit aren’t using it. Why double down on failure? To fulfill some libtards’ wet dreams?

Public transportation in Atlanta: A proven failure.

No thanks.

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“Plan B” is to get rid of the politicians that think higher taxes are the solution.

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It was the right decision in response to the public’s rejection of additional tolls on roads already built with public money. We already have enough growth in Atlanta. It’s time to encourage new arrivals to move elsewhere.

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Lil’ Barry @6:56 – Once one resorts to name-calling, you lose any and all credibility you may have had.

Also, at some point, Americans are going to have to accept high-occupancy, public transportation.

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Let the 1% sit in traffic with the rest of us pigs.

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HOT lanes make money for the GDOT when there is traffic, meaning traffic becomes GDOT’s cash cow, more so than ever, with the most direct connection possible between traffic and GDOT cash flow.

If the HOT lanes are successful, what are the chances the GDOT would ever allow for any project that would alleviate traffic? HOT lane profits would be the nails in the coffin for EVER getting viable public transportation for this hole.

The disuse of the existing HOT lanes at any price gives me a glimmer of hope for the intelligence level of the car-commuting public in metro Atlanta. We are not falling for your scam, GDOT!

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Dear Mike, Uh.. When was the last time you visited Gwinnett or Cobb? Both counties are quite diverse. The only “those people” coming out of Atlanta these days would be gays, but who doesn’t love the gays? Criminals drive stolen SUVs. They can’t haul your 60 home on the bus, you know. The only crime brought my public transit is petty crime at the mall. The cure for that is for transit access not to be at malls. Who uses rail to go from mall to mall? Transit to the mall is such foolishness. It is Jim Crow design intended to keep regular 9 to 5 working folk off transit and paying for cars and gasoline.

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When the GOP promises services that won’t cost anything, you don’t get the services. Nothing wrong with collecting taxes and providing services. Who is running this state these days ?

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Also, at some point, Americans are going to have to accept high-occupancy, public transportation.

Oh Really?!

Says who?

You….

against millions upon millions of Americans that have made and-or continue to make a choice to reject “PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION”. (even though most of us are paying for it in some way, shape, form or another likely against our free moral will in the majority of heretofore unspoken cases)

In case you don’t care to admit it “PUBLIC” MASS TRANSIT in America is not at the top of many successful story lists.

For me a huge part of the anti- mass transit scheme begins and ends with the word “PUBLIC”, as in… drum roll please: Da GUB’MENT. (Made up of two types of “Crats” that I usually don’t like: Bureaucrats and Democrats.

My reasons are plain and simple(including Constitutional): The non-military transporting of people or goods is a function of commerce. In other words, government should never be in business competing against private enterprise or in a business that “could” conceivably exist in the private sector domain.

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Government is the problem, but not for the reasons our host believes. Suggest that you notice the traffic on the King holiday or Presidents’s Day. No trouble navigating on those normal workdays, because the government workers are absent.

State government should move as many of its functions as possible – at least, those that cannot be abolished for lack of real need – to somewhere like Macon, centrally located for the state.

Federal employees are at least as big a problem as state – here the Ragnar solution differs some. Need to establish a Federal ghetto in Clayton County, so the airport would be convenient for those free-spending overlords.

Get the government out of Atlanta and there will be no need for new transportation expenditures for the next generation.

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How about let’s get rid of some government including its’ Bureaucrats a.k.a. GUB’MENT Employees, ragnar?

Just say…

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Whatever happened to the northern arc. Looking at Jimmy Carter Blvd and Ga Hwy 20 and State Bridge Rd on the north side, it seems there’s a tremendous amount of east west traffic.

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“….I will never go into the morass…”

And the Ragmuffin has never been more of an a$$.

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Well, I see the hate-filled liberals like BILLY MAYS HERE and GWINNETT DAVE are spewing their vile visciousness on anyone who commits the crime of disagreeing with them.

My favorite fantasy of liberals like them is the insane idea of taxing gas to the point of unaffordability to “force” me out of my car.

Yeah, right… like we’re going to let that happen.

Wake up, libs… you are a demographic minority that is dying. Conservatives outnumber you over 2 to 1, and we’re having 3 kids for every one of yours. Your fascist utopia is never going to happen… and no, we are not addicted to oil, we are adicted to our FREEDOM, symbolized by the automobile and our freedome to come and go as we please, and THAT drives you control freak liberals crazy.

That’s what all this traffic hysteria is relly about… control freak liberals just can’t handle the fact that free people are free to go where they want, when they want, and the liberals can’t stop it.

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Kyle, you reference the the DOT and its planning or lack thereof. Do you for a moment consider that the DOT simply responds to its numerous overlords, including Gena Trash Talk Evans, the former Governor, every single DOT commissioner, and every other GA legislator that can potentially make trouble for anyone in the DOT food-chain. You give the DOT credit for far too much power. Please – follow the money. Who is the “private” in these public private partnerships. Why did the HOT lane work need to involve a Spanish company? What is the ownership of the Spanish company’s subsidiaries that actuall performed the work? The answers are all there. In the case at hand, it was simply a matter of one project too far. Given the loud and angry repsonse to the 85 HOT lanes, a lot of people in power began to fear control of the gravytrain if they pushed it one step further. This stuff ain’t complicated.

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Just part of living in a red state.

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Instead of building more lanes, why not begin requiring all new vehicles to have crash avoidance systems? The vehicle would be programmed to avoid collisions and put on brakes when vehicle in front signals it is automatically stopping. These systems already in some luxury cars. It would take a period to transition from driver control to auto control but when HAVE to go to Atlanta, traffic moves fine until a wreck occurs, then the problems arise. Equipped vehicles could drive closer to front vehicle at faster speed. Believe this would be much cheaper in long run–think of the lower insurance costs, plus fewer requirements for more lanes.

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As long as it is cheaper and quicker the car will prevail. Mass transit dumps you downtown, where you have to transfer to a train, then a bus, and then walk. Very expensive, time consuming, and ineffective.

System was “planned” from outside to inside, should have been planned beginning with an effective way to get around downtown and then add routes going into and out of downtown. I fear it is too late to overcome prior absysmal planning and we have to move the government jobs out of downtown and build arterial roads to get people to work, as Ragnar suggests.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

Well, the Atlanta Region as a whole is virtually as big, land area-wise, with a land-area of over 8,000 square miles (an area that is larger than six separate states) and a regional population of just under six million people that places Atlanta in a class with Washington D.C., Boston and Philadelphia.

DENSITY
COST OF HOUSING

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

Attempting to punish people for their living choices is neither a sound nor realistic transportation planning policy

We’re not punishing anyone. They punished themselves by living so far out of the way in hilariously spread out housing developments. Their problem.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

It’s not, which is why buses and trains should be subsidized with USER FEES in the form of FARES.

lol this guy’s never heard of a public good

“WHY SHOULD THE FIRE DEPARTMENT BE PAID FOR BY RICH EAST COBBERS YET THEY TEND TO POOR PEOPLE!?!?!? RRRAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!”

Take your insufferable conservative whining somewhere else, bro.

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Michael H. Smith

against millions upon millions of Americans that have made and-or continue to make a choice to reject “PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION”. (even though most of us are paying for it in some way, shape, form or another likely against our free moral will in the majority of heretofore unspoken cases)

That’s fine, but don’t complain about your commute ever again–or gas prices.

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zeke

If the morons classified as transportation engineers and experts would use some old fashioned common sense… MARTA, buses or other mass subsidy projects are not and never will be the answer!…

So much for common sense

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BW

This is the epitome of reaping what you sow on tax policy. Really it’s a lack of leadership overall. People in Georgia actually believe that user fees will pay for everything and tax increases are never needed for large scale infrastructure projects. This has got to end…those people who believe Georgia has grown enough will be dismayed when the cash cow, which is metro Atlanta (75% of Georgia’s economic activity according to the Economist), dries up.

Yes! Yes!! Finally, a little rationality!!!

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My search for land is narrowing, although Kyle says there is no land available. According to Kyle’s bloggers…

the City of Atlanta is engulfing all things North, East & West.

Ragnar wants to move “the free spending overlords” to Clayton County.

I guess it’s further South for me. Too far South and I’ll be dealing with gnats the size of predator drones.

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BILLY MAYS HERE
December 17th, 2011
12:40 pm

First of all I turn off all noises emanating from narcissistic sources:

Click! You don’t have any authority to tell me what to do.

Secondly, public mass transit has little, if anything at all, to do with gasoline prices.

Thirdly, as long as I pay taxes, particularly the ones designated to pay for roads I have every right to complain at any time about anything concerning commuting or other things concerning public mass transit for reasons federal taxpayer money is used to support it.

Fourthly, be against PUBLIC MASS TRANSIT does not preclude all forms of supporting en masse’ transit (the non-government operational non-unionized non-socialist welfare kind. Whereas I’m very much in support of statewide Private and Public-private mass transit system entities.

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Fourthly, be against PUBLIC MASS TRANSIT does not preclude all forms of supporting en masse’ transit (the non-government operational non-unionized non-socialist welfare kind. Whereas I’m very much in support of statewide Private and Public-private mass transit system entities.

Good luck finding a private or unsubsidized mass transit system! I wish you well!

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December 17th, 2011
1:26 pm

As I said… CLICK!

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Kyle, the voters do get it—you don’t. The middle class commuter has finally realized that this whole boondoggle was about a taxpayer subsidized private road for the wealthy and nothing about reducing congestion for your average citizen. And savvy pols like Gov. Deal realized his voters (the suburban white middle class) had gotten it and that he would be a 1 term governor if he continued down the 1% path. You also seem to be obtuse about DOT Commissioner Beach’s thought that for $500 million we weren’t getting much in congestion relief (actually zero per studies) and pointing out that by spending the whole budget of $1 billion DOT could shape it provide real congestion relief for all of us. If we can’t afford that then fine—all taxpayers will suffer equally in their congested lanes or get jobs closer to home. People will be resourceful.

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BW: I understand that some people don’t want to be around other people… What is your solution?
————————–

I’m around plenty of other people…in my roomy, quiet, safe subdivision, in the local shopping areas, at the business park where I work, etc.

What is my solution, you ask? To what? You’ll have to articulate a problem I care about before I can respond.

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Public-private partnerships would also work better for mass transit because its objective of luring people off of crowded roads at peak times would provide much better congestion relief than adjustable tolls on existing selected lanes that contribute to increased congestion in the remaining untolled lanes during peak hours when traffic is the heaviest.

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yuzeyurbrane

December 17th, 2011
3:38 pm

“You also seem to be obtuse about DOT Commissioner Beach’s thought that for $500 million we weren’t getting much in congestion relief (actually zero per studies) and pointing out that by spending the whole budget of $1 billion DOT could shape it provide real congestion relief for all of us.”

Very good point. Spending the entire transportation budget for zero congestion relief or even INCREASED overall congestion, as is the case with the I-85 HOT Lanes, is just not a wise long-term transportaion, or POLITICAL strategy.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

Public-private partnerships would also work better for mass transit because its objective of luring people off of crowded roads at peak times would provide much better congestion relief than adjustable tolls on existing selected lanes that contribute to increased congestion in the remaining untolled lanes during peak hours when traffic is the heaviest.

If public-private partnerships would work so great, why aren’t there any?

You know what you remind me of? A fresh-out-of-econ 1101, know-it-all college student who has not even held down a full time job yet. Or maybe you’ve already graduated and are schlepping away for 30k and meager benefits thinking you’re gonna strike it rich someday if you just work hard enough, because you’re Mr. Bootstrappin’ Free Market Guy. You just haven’t been dumped on by the system yet. Your time will come.

Your posts would be soooo much better if they weren’t boring walls of text.

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“To what extent is automobile use a “free” good? According to Hart and Spivak, government subsidies for highways and parking alone amount to between 8 and 10 percent of our gross national product, the equivalent of a fuel tax of approximately $3.50 per gallon. If this tax were to account for “soft” costs such as pollution cleanup and emergency medical treatment, it would he as high as $9.00 per galion. The cost of these subsidies-approximately $5,000 per car per year-is passed directly on to the American citizen in the form of increased prices for products or, more often, as income, property, and sales taxes. This means that the hidden costs of driving are paid by everyone: not just drivers, but also those too old or too poor to drive a car. And these people suffer doubly, as the very transit systems they count on for mobility have gone out of business, unable to compete with the heavily subsidized highways.1

Even more irksome is the fact that spending on transit creates twice as many new jobs as spending on highways. Every billion dollars reallocated from road-building to transit creates seven thousand jobs.2 Congress’s recent $41 billion highway bill, had it been allocated to transit, would have employed an additional quarter-million people nationwide.”
Spivak, The Elephant in The Bedroom

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 17th, 2011
8:27 pm

“lol you are pedantic as hell, get a new act”

You can get angry and try to attack all that you want, but you know that it’s the truth. People relocate into surrounding areas outside of I-285 because the quality of the public schools are perceived, often rightfully so, to be better than the schools in the city.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

You can get angry and try to attack all that you want, but you know that it’s the truth. People relocate into surrounding areas outside of I-285 because the quality of the public schools are perceived, often rightfully so, to be better than the schools in the city.

Yeah no kiddin?!?!?!?!?!

Except that’s not what we were talking about.

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Best of luck finding those “public-private partnership” rail systems!! Write us when you do.

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 17th, 2011
8:35 pm

“If public-private partnerships would work so great, why aren’t there any?”

There aren’t any public-private partnerships in urban passenger rail transit because the concept and the idea of using them for mass transit is one that has only come back on the scene in the last few years.

Though it should be noted that public-private partnerships still exist in a relative abundance in the freight rail industry, though on a much smaller scale than traditionally.

Hundreds of private freight rail companies, with Norfolk Southern and CSX being the absolute largest, still ship cargo across the country on private and publicly-owned freight rail lines everyday.

Public-private partnerships in passenger rail were also very common in this nation before the automobile became the dominant mode of personal transport at the behest of the Federal Government who, under heavy pressure from the then very well financed big three automobile makers (and then well financed airline industry), in effect “picked the winners” in the transportation industry by subsidizing extensive roadbuilding (and air travel) at the fatal expense of the passenger rail industry.

Except for a few pockets geographical viability, in the Chicago area and the densely-populated Northeastern U.S., passenger rail has been dying a very slow painful and agonizing death ever since.

Though there has been renewed interest in both intracity and intercity passenger rail in an era of spiking gas prices and increasingly miserable traffic congestion (and gridlock) caused by overdependency on automobiles and endless sprawling road-centered development.

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 17th, 2011
9:26 pm

“Except that’s not what we were talking about.”

It is what you were talking about when you referred to why so many people choose to live outside of I-285, sometimes as far as 50 miles or more outside of the city, and commute to and from work over what can be very long distances.

People commute long distances to and from work by car and/or train in every large major metro area in North America. Heck most of those large and mega-large cities’ (N.Y.C., Chicago, D.C., Boston, Philly, Toronto, Houston, Dallas, etc) transportation infrastructures are setup to deal with the fact that millions of people are going to be commuting to and from work every single workday.

To think that Atlanta, a region of close to six million, shouldn’t have to setup its transportation infrastructure to accommodate the millions of its residents who have to commute to and from work everyday because they should be punished for having to do so is totally and completely delusional at best and totally self-defeating at worst.

Every major city has legions of commuters who have to travel from one part of a population center to another. Atlanta is no different.

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ragnar danneskjold

December 17th, 2011
9:31 am

“State government should move as many of its functions as possible – at least, those that cannot be abolished for lack of real need – to somewhere like Macon, centrally located for the state……”

“…..Get the government out of Atlanta and there will be no need for new transportation expenditures for the next generation.”

Another reason why moving state government out of Atlanta would not work is because it is not necessarily all that advisable to push away a very large part of your economic activity out of a city.

Sure, state politicians and bureaucrats may seemingly have nothing to contribute to the city intellectually except a lot of hot air and the sometimes stagnant economy of Macon and Central Georgia could use the pick-up that would come with being the center of state government and hosting thousands of government employees.

But, despite the way that they are very negatively viewed by the public, often deservedly, those thousands of state employees also contribute very heavily to the economy and the tax base of Metro Atlanta with their presence.

Those hundreds of politicians and thousands of bureaucrats own homes and pay property taxes contributing to the property tax revenues of their local Metro Atlanta city and county in which they reside.

Those thousands of people in state government jobs also shop and purchase retail items contibuting heavily to the sales tax revenues of the metro area. Pushing them out of town would push away millions-of-dollars in economic activity and tax revenues.

Also, it’s not like those state employees, especially the politicians, would ever want to move their jobs out of Atlanta as there are too many corporate and lobbyists goodies to get into in Atlanta.

Many legislators LOVE coming to Atlanta because they know that some large corporation is going to shower them with gifts and perks like free meals at five-star restaurants, tickets to sporting events, all-expense-paid multiple nights at five-star hotels, nights out at all-nude strip clubs and even female escorts.

State legislators and bureaucrats know “which-side-their-bread-is-buttered-on” and it ain’t at a Waffle House next to a roadside motel in Macon.

Anyone who thinks that unethical state politicians and bureaucrats who often spend much of the legislative session as very much welcomed escape from their poduck small towns partying-it-up out of the view of their wives, families and communities, is going willingly move their “jobs” out of fun big-city Atlanta to boring small-town Macon is somewhat very delusional in their own right.

Moving the State Capitol is an idea that may make logistical sense from a physical standpoint, but there are so many reasons, including legislators who would NEVER cooperate, why it will never happen.

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@ Will the last…

I’m not sure why the idea of moving the Capital would even be proposed as a solution. After all, much of the problems with the congestion surrounding any capital city has to do with the businesses and support services that pop up to service the government along with the people that then move to the area to be closer to their work. Relocating them would only shift the problem o to another area without providing a real solution.

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Mahopinion

December 17th, 2011
11:21 pm

@ Will the last…

“I’m not sure why the idea of moving the Capital would even be proposed as a solution. After all, much of the problems with the congestion surrounding any capital city has to do with the businesses and support services that pop up to service the government along with the people that then move to the area to be closer to their work. Relocating them would only shift the problem o to another area without providing a real solution.”

Relocating the State Capital, the businesses, support services and employees would also shift tens-of-millions of dollars in economic activity.

It’s an idea that comes from, A) Lack of leadership on transportation at the state level over the last 20 years, B) People who think that the only way to deal with a problem is to run it away and, C) People who would like to see Atlanta return to being the much smaller more provincial city that it was in years past.

There are honestly people out there that would like to chase over five million people out of Metro Atlanta so that it can be the cozy small town that it was back in the “Good-Ole-Days”, an approach that is about as realistic of a way to deal with traffic congestion as “punishing people who outside of I-285″ and “not building rail outside of I-285 because it may bring more crime from the city”.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

It is what you were talking about when you referred to why so many people choose to live outside of I-285, sometimes as far as 50 miles or more outside of the city, and commute to and from work over what can be very long distances.

Cobb (just outside 285) ≠ Cherokee (which is many miles outside 285)

But you can find good schools in both.

So, clearly, moving far outside 285 just to find good schools is nonsensical.

Ask yourself why I have to hold your hand through this. You’re a big boy right?

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Mahopinion

I do drive more than 30 miles to my work, not because I CHOOSE to, but because that’s where my job relocated. So while you are whining about urban sprawl, remember that not everyone chooses to live in an over crowded neighborhood. Some people actually prefer not being quite so cozy with their neighbors.

If you want to be an antisocial coot and never see nonwhites (let’s face it, that’s the real reason you want to live so far out), that’s perfectly fine but you pretty much have no ground to stand on if you think traffic–or gas prices–are problems you want the state to fix.

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BILLY MAYS HERE: If you want to…never see nonwhites (let’s face it, that’s the real reason you want to live so far out)
——————————–

BILLY MAYS HERE makes decisions about people without having the facts at his disposal.

BILLY MAYS HERE: Prejudiced.

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I say just wait a couple years. The way some of these idiots drive and kill themselves and others, coupled with the pisspoor excuse for “drivers education” and the fact that the DMV will hand out a license to anyone……we just have to wait until the lowest common denominator thins out the herd a little more.

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I agree with Smokey above – as long as the new HOT lane is an added lane, and will pay totally for itself in tolls – I don’t mind it being built.

Also, when I-575 was built a number of years ago, it was overcrowded when it opened. I thought that the DOT was supposed to make ten-year projections and buid for the projected traffic. They could easily have made it three lanes in each direction, but they stopped at two. Now to install that third lane would be construction traffic.

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What are you guys are talking about??? Governor Nathan Deal just recently stated that everything is working just as intended and it is working well, especially the HOT lanes, people are using them and the demand is growing.

All guys have no clue what you are talking about!

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The millage rates for the counties are not truly comparable without taking into consideration the fact that Cobb County and Gwinnett County do not have a sales tax that is used to help fund operations. Fulton County has imposed a Local Option Sales Tax, the proceeds from which must be used to offset operating cost of Fulton County government and result in a millage rate reduction. In Dekalb’s case, the Homestead Offset Sales Tax reduces the amount of property taxes paid by homeowners. For Cobb and Gwinnett, no sales tax is imposed for County operations; in fact they are two of the very few counties in the State that do not use sales tax in this manner.

To properly compare millage rates and the tax burden for each of the four counties, one must use the millage rates before the application of the rollback for Local Option Sales Tax to Fulton and the Homestead Offset Sales Tax to the millage rates for Dekalb. In other words, the millage rates for Cobb and Gwinnett are even more favorable for the property owner than the incorrect comparison portrays.

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Rick in Grayson
December 17th, 2011
10:01 am

“Business has been very slow to embrace tele-working and they continue to be entrenched within the perimeter defined by 285.

Tax companies more for building roads and provide tax breaks for those companies based on percentage of tele-workers and much lower rates for those that provide work places outside the perimeter.”

***

I work for a large company on the perimeter, think BIG and ORANGE. They allowed me to telecommute 3 days a week and it was close to commuting heaven. But a few people abused their privilege and because they did not know how to manage it, they made everyone suffer by reducing the telecommuting days to once a week. Remember the ice storm last January that shut down the city? I did not lose a single day of productivity as I worked every single day by telecommuting!

Atlanta is one of the most high tech cities in the U.S. and telecommuting is a part of the solution. Use tax policy to modify social behavior. I propose taxing large employers with over 300 employees and based on the number of onsite parking spaces they provide and then turn that around and give them a tax break based on the number of telecommuting days they provide. I believe that would help change many employers mindset about traffic and telecommuting.

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Its not a surprise when you see how these thieves in our legislature rip us off every day!

http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/lawmakers-expenses-top-1-1263001.html

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RW-(the original): Well I just completed my “Plan A.” Moved to an Exurb and work in a Suburb.
————————

You’re part of the solution.

Why do libtards hate sprawl? It’s the only thing that makes sense for Atlanta.

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When gas costs $10 a gallon, there will be great demand for public transit.
Communities will have a central transit area, with open spaces.

It would take 30 lanes to handle downtown traffic efficiently.
It ain’t gonna happen.

The best that will happen is HOT lanes, where you will spend $100 round trip to travel at 40 MPH.

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‘When gas costs $10 a gallon, there will be great demand for public transit”

Or people will get jobs closer to where they live, in the suburbs, rather than commute down to the Big City.

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This project has been mismanaged from the start. First it was an expansion with BRT. Then on a whim, truck lanes were added because a consortium said it was a good idea and provided their own studies to prove it. Millions later, GDOT removed the BRT and realized the truck lanes would not work either. Then came the HOT lanes idea, which was all the rage with the Bush GOP, but goes so blatantly against the open road / I paid my taxes already mindset of most Georgians that it was a debacle waiting to happen as soon as the average commuter learned of the idea (right around the time it directly effected them). The short-sightedness is amazing.

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Lil Barry…I see you every week on these boards and your generous use of the term libtard makes any valid point you may have seem rather pointless. If you cannot convey a message with tossing an insult at everyone that may think differently from you then I suggest just STFU. Merry Christmas.

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When is someone going to be FIRED over the HOT lanes? We want justice!

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mountain man

One reason Dekalb and Fulton have such high property taxes: Grady Hospital.

Can you back any of this up?

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Lil’ Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)

Why do libtards hate sprawl? It’s the only thing that makes sense for Atlanta.

You have to be told why sprawl is bad for long-term growth?

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mountain man, they’ve tried that and it usually is a huge failure. OTP is not a single point on the map, it’s a huge sprawled out mess. Put your office in Lawrenceville and you can only attract people from a portion of Gwinnett County. For everyone else it takes longer to get there than it does to get to the central business district of Atlanta. For some businesses, that’s fine because their skill requirements and manpower needs aren’t great enough to need access to the entire metro. But for large corporations, they need access to as many potential skilled workers as possible. There is no where very far OTP that can give equal access to the entire metro as the business districts ITP.

If you’re running a small automotive parts business or a mailorder baby clothes shop, you could locate anywhere but if you’re Coca-Cola or Georgia-Pacific and want to attract employees from the ENTIRE metro, you have to locate ITP or on the very edge of the perimeter. Locating in Dallas or Woodstock would be great for a three or four percent of employees who live near that particular town but for everyone else, it would be a much worse commute.

Courtney, no one is going to be fired. SRTA held public meetings on the HOT lanes for almost ten years. No one really paid attention until the lanes were implemented but that’s not the fault of SRTA or GDOT. The simple fact is that as much as we are rah-rah about democracy, most of us are much more interested in American Idol or Dancing With the Stars than in the actual details of how our government runs. Living in a citizen run nation requires the citizens to be involved but most don’t care to be beyond maybe going to the voting booth and pressing all of the buttons with the right political party marked on it or watching some emotion driven factless pundit and mindlessly nodding agreement.

The HOT lanes weren’t secret, it’s just that no one cared. If you want to be mad at someone, be made at your elected officials in Gwinnett whose job it is to deal with such matters and to inform the citizens of any issues that might negatively affect them. Too bad for Gwinnett that corrupt insider land deals were much more important than working with GDOT and SRTA on whether HOT lanes were the best way to get congestion relief for Gwinnett.

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“Translation: “I don’t want to have to go downtown there are brown people there…” bwuhhhh huhhhuuuhhh *sobs*”

No, I don’t mind brown (and black) people anywhere I go as long as they are good, hardworking people. What I don’t like are the constant panhandlers (white and black) and the criminal element like those stalking the students at Ga Tech.

I will take a good hardworking black man any day over a piece of crap white skinhead on dope and without a job.

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So only Gwinnett gets hit with this tax? Good to know come November.

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“Can the DOT explain how removing one lane of traffic from a busy highway – at considerable monetary expense – serves the need of the public or improves the flow of traffic?”

They didn’t do it to “serve the needs of the public” or to “improve the flow of traffic”, they did it to MAKE MONEY!!!!

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BILLY MAYS HERE: You have to be told why sprawl is bad for long-term growth?
——————-

Yes I do. What’s bad about peaceful, safe, roomy, inexpensive, laid-back living, short, easy commutes to nearby office parks, convenient shopping areas, and friendly, small-town ambience?

Sprawl is the answer.

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Can the DOT explain how removing one lane of traffic from a busy highway – at considerable monetary expense – serves the need of the public or improves the flow of traffic?

My guess would be, if somebody could figure out who has their finger in the pie, that would be the real answer.

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mountain man

If you can’t argue with facts, just call people names. My first wife used to ride the CCT and love it, versus trying to ride MARTA by going to North Fulton, catching a bus to the train station, catching the train, switching trains, then walking the last four blocks to her work (lovely when it rains). Took her two hours one way on MARTA, took 1 hour on CCT.

You anger is really scattershot here, not sure why you’re ragging on MARTA, obviously she should just be using CCT.

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mountain man

Yes, because there are lots of us that don’t believe it. Better sprawl than everyone being cooped up in one area in a city. You know lemmings mass suicide when the population in a certain area is too much.

Damn. Just damn, it’s like you’re stupid, but you’re proud of being stupid, and want everyone to be just as stupid as you. I mean even a cursory glance at Wikipedia would give you, in a nutshell, why low density urban development isn’t sustainable in the long run, but you don’t even want to take the time to read something like that. Chances are you’ve done made up your mind how bad them libruls and thur mean ol’ smart growth strategies are, so you want to keep on with your increasingly unsustainable high-energy lifestyle simply because you’re a dull reactionary. If there was a way to turn cognitive dissonance into fuel, you’d be a billionaire.

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mountain man

I will take a good hardworking black man any day over a piece of crap white skinhead on dope and without a job.

Translation: “I like nonwhite folks! But only the ones who are above my arbitrary standards”

The suburbs were an easy why for whites to stay away from blacks, and that sentiment is still strong today as evidenced by you.

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Some folks want to live in the city, some want to live in the suburbs, and some want to live in the country. Live and let live, I say.

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If the public schools were better and the crime were lower and the house prices not so exorbitant, I think you would see a lot of people returning to Atlanta. But you aren’t going to see that with APS test cheating, and hoodlums holding up Ga Tech students, getting caught, sentenced to one month for armed robbery, and then let loose to do it another 9 times!

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“The suburbs were an easy why for whites to stay away from blacks, and that sentiment is still strong today as evidenced by you.”

The suburbs were an easy way to stay away from HOODLUMS, whatever race they may be.

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Mahopinion

December 17th, 2011
11:14 pm

“”I do drive more than 30 miles to my work, not because I CHOOSE to, but because that’s where my job relocated. So while you are whining about urban sprawl, remember that not everyone chooses to live in an over crowded neighborhood. Some people actually prefer not being quite so cozy with their neighbors.”"

BILLY MAYS HERE

December 18th, 2011
12:30 am

“If you want to be an antisocial coot and never see nonwhites (let’s face it, that’s the real reason you want to live so far out), that’s perfectly fine but you pretty much have no ground to stand on if you think traffic–or gas prices–are problems you want the state to fix.”

BILLY MAYS HERE: Dude, what are you talking about? Nonwhites are found in an abundance in outlying counties, making up over 42% of the entire Metro Atlanta population, including 38% of the population in Cobb County, 45% in Henry County, 47% in Gwinnett County, 48% in Douglas County and 54% in Rockdale County.

In the 21st Century, if you live in a suburban OTP county, chances are that you’re going to be living in a diverse environment. Just because someone chooses to live outside of I-285 doesn’t mean that they are trying to get away from non-whites, especially in this day-and-age where there are many relatively high-income census tracts that are predominantly non-white.

But then again, you’re an admittedly proud “elitist” who lives Intown, so you obviously don’t know that the world does not end at I-285.

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brother bill

December 18th, 2011
11:46 am

“When gas costs $10 a gallon, there will be great demand for public transit”

Very good point, but with gas prices already well north of $3.00/gallon with recent peaks of close to $5/gallon, there is already overwhelming and increasing demand for mass transit in traffic-choked Metro Atlanta. The only problem has been the increasingly super-incompentent leadership at the state level under the Gold Dome who have refused to even address or acknowledge our rapidly deteriorating traffic and mobility problems over the last decade or so.

For Atlanta to be the 10th largest metro region in the country and be one of two of the 10 largest metros that do not have high-frequency commuter rail service, with seemingly none soon to come, is totally inexcusable and completely pathetic, especially considering our very limited surface road network and the very high volume of traffic congestion and the exceptionally high volume of truck freight on the freeway system.

“……It would take 30 lanes to handle downtown traffic efficiently….It ain’t gonna happen….The best that will happen is HOT lanes, where you will spend $100 round trip to travel at 40 MPH.”

Great observations, especially considering that GDOT has recently admitted that they will most likely NOT be adding any more untolled through lanes to the freeway system in the Atlanta Region.

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mountain man

December 18th, 2011
10:06 am

“I agree with Smokey above – as long as the new HOT lane is an added lane, and will pay totally for itself in tolls – I don’t mind it being built……”

“…….Also, when I-575 was built a number of years ago, it was overcrowded when it opened. I thought that the DOT was supposed to make ten-year projections and buid for the projected traffic. They could easily have made it three lanes in each direction, but they stopped at two. Now to install that third lane would be construction traffic.”

GDOT doesn’t want to widen I-575 because they have switched from a roadbuilding-only mindset to a mindset that they are going to make minimal road additions while funneling single-occupant vehicle traffic to mass transit at the behest of the state politicians who are controlled by land spectulators and real estate developers who have become enamored and obsessed with dense transit-based development and grown bored with and tired of traditional road-based suburban sprawl.

For the I-575 corridor, this includes not building any additional lanes on I-575 and pushing all additional and most existing traffic onto a proposed light rail and commuter rail line on the Georgia Northeastern Railroad line that runs parallel to the east of I-575 between Marietta and Canton by way of Woodstock and Holly Springs.

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“With rockbottom fares that have been intentionally held low over the years that fund increasingly inadequate service, MARTA appears to attempt to appeal only to the poorest of the poor people without cars instead of attempting to appeal to people with cars that are the biggest part of the congestion problem”

That is correct. Why don’t they just take away the one cent sales tax and have MARTA charge what it costs to run the system? Because the poor people without cars would revolt, that’s why!

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A little perspective. Back when the MARTA system was first being discussed, Roswell and Alpharetta were just two country towns and I-285 wasn’t completely finished. The area where Perimeter Mall is now, was a diary farm.

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mountain man

December 18th, 2011
6:39 pm

“Why don’t they just take away the one cent sales tax and have MARTA charge what it costs to run the system? Because the poor people without cars would revolt, that’s why!”

They already have. When MARTA first proposed to raise fares to a bare minimum of $2.00 a few years ago, advocates for the homeless went berserk, holding rallies and protesting in the streets, basically screaming “bloody murder” while acting like it is the end-of-the-world.

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last Democrat

Yeah when you drove from Atlanta to Marietta, up 41, or the Marietta 4 Lane as it was called back then, you passed through a lot of open area. It wasn’t wall to wall people, like now. You could actually tell when you were leaving Atlanta and entering Marietta. Of course, even then, all directions started at the Big Chicken.

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Hillbilly D

December 18th, 2011
8:07 pm

The biggest problem is that all these years later, even after all of the crushing population growth and overdevelopment in that area (the Cobb County/Hwy 41 Corridor), Cobb Parkway/Hwy 41 still has only four through lanes from Smyrna all the way to the Bartow County line.

And we wonder why the traffic is so bad?

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Hillbilly D

Some folks want to live in the city, some want to live in the suburbs, and some want to live in the country. Live and let live, I say.

Agreed! But the folks who want to live in the country shouldn’t expect anyone to come save them from ridiculous commutes and high gas prices.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

With rockbottom fares that have been intentionally held low over the years that fund increasingly inadequate service, MARTA appears to attempt to appeal only to the poorest of the poor people without cars instead of attempting to appeal to people with cars that are the biggest part of the congestion problem.

I call him stupid for the same reason I call you stupid, look at what you’re proposing: making the poor people that both of you say makes up MARTA’s base… pay more? Yeah, great idea, can’t see that one being doomed to failure, meanwhile you guys will pat yourselves on the back and laugh heartily because your stupid user fees would set back the only realistic answer to congestion in the metro area. Make the poor cough up more, I mean seriously what are you guys snorting.

The reason MARTA has inadequate service is because it is poorly funded. It’s the only rapid transit system in the US that receives no state funding.

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mountain man

That is correct. Why don’t they just take away the one cent sales tax and have MARTA charge what it costs to run the system? Because the poor people without cars would revolt, that’s why!

Then the inner city poor people couldn’t get to their jobs because transit would be too expensive and they’d just start going on welfare in droves, something I’m sure you hate so much it makes you foam at the mouth. So which would you rather do, subsidize transit or pay for legions of more people to get on welfare? Very hypothetical, but I’m trying to convey to you why the idea of “public good” isn’t pure evil, I’m sure you’re too deranged to see that though. Every mass transit system in the US and possibly the world is subsidized or outright funded through public sources, get over your dream of them being self-sustaining because (just like the interstates), they’re not.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

At the time that MARTA was under consideration, no one could have imagined that a much more provincial Metro Atlanta that had recently just eclipsed the one-million population mark would eventually have close to six million people clogging up 16-20 lane roads.

lol, nope, and even today you’re putting your head in the sand about mass transit. Metro Atlanta will expanding until it breaks because people like you think there’s no such thing as bad growth or sprawl, and the glorious free market will save us all before we’re completely gridlocked/out of water.

There will be a day when your electric bill will pale in comparison to your water bill.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

When the population of the metro area eclipsed the 3.5 million-4 million mark in the late 1990s is about the time when both MARTA and the freeway system rapidly began to become obsolete.

No it wasn’t. The Metro in Washington DC commenced construction about the same time MARTA did, now let’s compare:

Metro: 106 route miles on 6 lines with a new line under construction
MARTA: 47 miles on 3 lines, no expansion in 10 years

MARTA has never been properly funded for many reasons, and it’s never been seen as an advanced rapid transit system since the early 80s.

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 18th, 2011
11:35 pm

“I call him stupid for the same reason I call you stupid, look at what you’re proposing: making the poor people that both of you say makes up MARTA’s base… pay more? Yeah, great idea, can’t see that one being doomed to failure, meanwhile you guys will pat yourselves on the back and laugh heartily because your stupid user fees would set back the only realistic answer to congestion in the metro area. Make the poor cough up more, I mean seriously what are you guys snorting.”

User fees are the ONLY answer to helping MARTA be able to improve service and expand its geographical footprint as taxes just simply are not going to be raised in this anti-tax, anti-government political climate.

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When Atlanta won the Olympic games in 1990, the population of the Atlanta Region was 2.9 million, so the 47 miles or less of MARTA rail track provided service to a much higher percentage of the population than the same miles of unexpanded track serves today with a population of 5.8 million in the metro region.

Cobb was still a suburb completely dominated by lily-white ultraconservatives, Gwinnett was still considered an inconsequential lily-white exurb and the traffic on I-75 NW, I-85 NE and the Top End of I-285 was still completely manageable.

MARTA may have only covered Fulton and DeKalb Counties back in the 80’s and may have still been unfunded and unsupported by a then-Democrat dominated state legislature, but those low fares went much farther back then they do today in helping to operate, maintain and expand the service, which was then still considered to be one of the most comprehensive mass transit systems on the North American continent.

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mountain man

December 18th, 2011
6:39 pm

“That is correct. Why don’t they just take away the one cent sales tax and have MARTA charge what it costs to run the system? Because the poor people without cars would revolt, that’s why!”

BILLY MAYS HERE

December 18th, 2011
11:42 pm

“Then the inner city poor people couldn’t get to their jobs because transit would be too expensive and they’d just start going on welfare in droves, something I’m sure you hate so much it makes you foam at the mouth. So which would you rather do, subsidize transit or pay for legions of more people to get on welfare?”

Besides the homeless, mentally and physically handicapped, the poorest of the poor, schoolaged children and some underclassmen college students, most poor people don’t stay dependent on a service as increasingly undependable as MARTA which becomes more and more dependent on an increasingly meager 1% sales tax due in part to its stubborn refusal to raise its fares to a high-enough level to help better support a higher level of service.

As was the case when Clayton County ceased operating C-Tran instead of opting to raise fares to keep the buses going, many poor people without cars who are truly dependent on MARTA would much rather pay higher fares and get a higher level of service than to pay really low fares and have increasingly poor or no service at all.

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 18th, 2011
11:42 pm

“Very hypothetical, but I’m trying to convey to you why the idea of “public good” isn’t pure evil, I’m sure you’re too deranged to see that though. Every mass transit system in the US and possibly the world is subsidized or outright funded through public sources, get over your dream of them being self-sustaining because (just like the interstates), they’re not.”

That “dream” of self-financing is likely the only way that mass transit is going to be substantially improved and expanded in the Atlanta Region in this anti-tax and anti-government climate.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

MARTA was considered to be so impressive to the international community at one time that it, along with the then-newly widened freeway system, were two of the key reasons that Atlanta won the Olympic games in 1990.

lol nope, we bribed the IOC like every other place has

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

…At about the same time that MARTA was considered to be one of the best mass transit systems in North America…

Stop saying this, you’re making it up.

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 19th, 2011
1:38 am

“lol nope, we bribed the IOC like every other place has”

LOL, no doubt…But it wouldn’t have been a bribe that was “acceptable” to the world if Atlanta wouldn’t have had what was a then-critically lauded MARTA and a then-cutting edge freeway system.

Simply put: No MARTA, no “Freeing-the-Freeways”, no Olympics.

Even if you’ve got the money to bribe, you’ve still gotta have the tools to do the job.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

User fees, in the form of increased fares, are the ONLY way that improved mass transit options are ever going to come into fruition.

You keep saying this, but it keeps being not true

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

Even if you’ve got the money to bribe, you’ve still gotta have the tools to do the job.

Dude MARTA has never been lauded as advanced, I’d like to see where anyone has said that

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

As was the case when Clayton County ceased operating C-Tran instead of opting to raise fares to keep the buses going, many poor people without cars who are truly dependent on MARTA would much rather pay higher fares and get a higher level of service than to pay really low fares and have increasingly poor or no service at all.

Here we go again, circular logic wherein you think poor people have the money to keep paying increasingly higher fares.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

December 19th, 2011
1:39 am

“User fees, in the form of increased fares, are the ONLY way that improved mass transit options are ever going to come into fruition.”

BILLY MAYS HERE

December 19th, 2011
1:47 am

“You keep saying this, but it keeps being not true”

Well, transit sure-as-[heck] ain’t gonna be improved with increased taxes, now is it?

The Georgia General Assembly would rather run through [Heck] with gasoline drawers on than to have to face their conservative base in a primary after voting to raise taxes.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

December 19th, 2011
12:34 am

“As was the case when Clayton County ceased operating C-Tran instead of opting to raise fares to keep the buses going, many poor people without cars who are truly dependent on MARTA would much rather pay higher fares and get a higher level of service than to pay really low fares and have increasingly poor or no service at all.”

BILLY MAYS HERE

December 19th, 2011
1:52 am

“Here we go again, circular logic wherein you think poor people have the money to keep paying increasingly higher fares.”

Some poor people would much rather pay higher fares than be walking or not be able to get to work.

Although, without bus service many, if not most, poor people cough up the money to buy cars.

A LOT more poor people own cars than ride the bus as rich people ain’t the only ones who own cars.

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It was hard enough (and decades in-the-making) just getting a Republican-dominated Georgia General Assembly to agree to let Metro Atlantans (and Georgians in other regions of the state) have the right to vote on whether they wanted to raise their own taxes by one-percent to fund supposed transportation improvements out of fear that their ultraconservative and libertarian anti-tax, anti-government GOP base would label them as R.I.N.O.s and Liberal-sympathizers.

Even with the one-percent tax increase, it still will not be anywhere near remotely enough to fund all the numerous transportation improvements that are critically-needed after years of wanton neglect by state government.

Even with little or no tax increases, the transportation challenges will still be there in sobering full-effect, which means that the state is gonna resort to user fees in the form of tolls on existing lanes in the city, suburbs and exurbs and substantially fares on mass transit in order to upgrade and expand where urgently needed, which at this point is pretty much everywhere.

The impending massive increase in freight truck traffic that will flood Atlanta Region roads after the expansion of the Port of Savannah, one of the busiest seaports in the Americas, makes drastic, if not draconian, transportation-planning measures non-negotiable from this point going forward.

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 19th, 2011
1:46 am

“Attempts were made at expanding MARTA and initiating commuter rail but no one OTP would have it, now that the free market is pricing them out of their commutes (along with more nonwhites moving out of the city) it’s somewhat of a different story now, but your worn-out “we want it, but I want the the private sector to do it” bit isn’t going to work, if you want effective mass transit built and run by the private sector you’re going to be waiting for a long time. Face it, you want trains and buses, your taxes will go up.”

Personally, I don’t have any qualms about paying either slightly or moderately higher taxes or higher fares to fund a better overall transportation system.

But we’ve already been waiting a very long time for effective mass transit (and better roads) to be built and run by a highly-dysfunctional and incompetent public sector, so what’s the difference? Either way we’re going to likely continue to wait.

Ironically (but not surprisingly) it’s the public sector (local, regional and state government) which has gotten in the way of both itself, the public sector, and the private sector from improving mass transit.

It’s a total lack of competent leadership in government (starting with state government) why we are in the huge mess we are in now with transportation, water and education infrastructure.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..
December 19th, 2011
3:13 am

A few things to keep in mind about “Public” mass transit: “Public” mass transit fares are intentionally held below TRUE COSTS: That partially answers why no or very little public private mass transit ventures are in the mobility marketplace. Under capitalism you must make profits. Under socialism authored by government you can lose money continually and pass all those loses onto the backs of the taxpayers.
Even with ridiculously highly over subsidized fares where the riders pay far less than half in some cases or less in other cases to use “Public” mass transit, it is not supported by the majority of Americans.

Public mass transit needs excuses, not only subsidies in order to survive: The argument or excuse to justify the money losing venture of Public mass transit most often used is that buses will take cars off the road, which supposedly translates into needing building fewer roads. Yeah, I know… but try not to laugh as hard as I do when reading that hogwash.

Example: In my county we have a bus system where so few ride the darn things those buses are only taking up more road space instead of saving it, all at greater taxpayer expense. And, the only reason we got those buses… drum roll please… was to get Ga Hwy 20 south of Larry town widened by one lane for a short distance as a result from a “buses-for-asphalt” deal made with Ole King Roy E. Barnes. Well, I can tell you those buses wastefully take up more asphalt than we received from that deal.

Private and Private public mass transit system ventures can work but these entities can’t compete with or against money losing by design socialist government welfare transit schemes.

PS. CSX and Norfolk Southern are part of future planning in the State transit picture. I’ll go with them any day of the week before something as stupid and socialist as a MARTA that is trying to reinvent-rebuilding the railroad – Kind of like, reinventing-rebuilding the wheel DUH!

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

“The Georgia General Assembly would rather run through [Heck] with gasoline drawers on than to have to face their conservative base in a [GOP] primary after voting to raise taxes.”

Oh I get it, you’re a simpleton who thinks that Republicans never raise taxes and Democrats always raise taxes.

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Michael H. Smith

Private and Private public mass transit system ventures can work but these entities can’t compete with or against money losing by design socialist government welfare transit schemes.

You should be embarrassed to post things this simple. You whine about public transit being subsidized (as if the mean ol gubbamint is just trying to stymie the private sector), but you never complain about highway improvements being gigantic subsidies for trucking companies, airports being subsidies for airlines, and port expansions handouts to shipping companies.

There’s never been a public transit system anywhere that’s turned a profit–in that sense, they’re like the interstates. Gigantic money losers–but of course you wouldn’t dare whine about that. They serve a public good by reducing congestion and decreasing reliance on gasoline, plus they reduce emissions. But you think its socialism because you only have a child’s grasp and knowledge of the subject.

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mountain man

What they should do is put a transportation tax on every business that builds in the downtown area (or any other too-populated area). This tax would go to extending MARTA rails out to where their employees need them i.e up the 75 corridor. This would also discourage builder from building YET another skyscraper in downtown to add to the traffic problems. Bring the jobs to the peopls; don’t make people commute downtown to the jobs.

Better yet implement a congestion pricing system (a user fee), similar to the one in London. As soon as you enter a prescribed zone, you pay a fee to use the roads in that zone based on congestion and the length of time you stay in the zone. Then the suburbanites wi,l start paying the true costs of commuting into the city–some of them, anyway.

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Michael H. Smith

A few things to keep in mind about “Public” mass transit: “Public” mass transit fares are intentionally held below TRUE COSTS: That partially answers why no or very little public private mass transit ventures are in the mobility marketplace. Under capitalism you must make profits. Under socialism authored by government you can lose money continually and pass all those loses onto the backs of the taxpayers.

It’s funny when knuckle-dragging hillbillies like Michael H. Smith think they’re smart.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

December 19th, 2011
2:47 am

“Poor riders in Washington D.C. benefit greatly from the increased level of service that $5 and $6 dollar peak-hour one-way fares help to provide.”

BILLY MAYS HERE

December 19th, 2011
3:38 pm

“Yes, I’m sure raising fares has greatly helped the working poor.”

Higher fares have greatly benefitted the working poor, actually.

Without the increased level of service that the higher fares help to provide (more frequent trains and buses with shorter headways, earlier start times, later end times, more geographical coverage, etc) the working poor wouldn’t be able to get to work and other appointments and wouldn’t have even the slightest chance of not remaining the working poor.

The transit-dependent working poor can’t remain working if the buses and trains don’t run.

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mountain man

December 19th, 2011
6:18 am

What they should do is put a transportation tax on every business that builds in the downtown area (or any other too-populated area). This tax would go to extending MARTA rails out to where their employees need them i.e up the 75 corridor. This would also discourage builder from building YET another skyscraper in downtown to add to the traffic problems. Bring the jobs to the peopls; don’t make people commute downtown to the jobs.

BILLY MAYS HERE

December 19th, 2011
3:47 pm

“Better yet implement a congestion pricing system (a user fee), similar to the one in London. As soon as you enter a prescribed zone, you pay a fee to use the roads in that zone based on congestion and the length of time you stay in the zone. Then the suburbanites wi,l start paying the true costs of commuting into the city–some of them, anyway.”

Not necessarily the way that I might do it, but the state looks to want to go maybe a few steps further by wanting to use congestion pricing on major roads in both the city and suburbs.

As of now, the state (still) has plans on the books to put tolls on all radial freeways going into and out of the city, except I-85 South outside of I-285 and Hwy 78 East/Stone Mountain Freeway as part of a proposed network of HOT lanes that will cost (at least) $16.2 billion dollars and cover 285 miles of freeway across North Georgia.

The proposed HOT lane network includes plans to place tolls and HOV-3 restrictions on at least two existing lanes of the Downtown Connector and plans to eventually have tolls and HOV-3 restrictions on up to THREE lanes on each direction of I-85 North in DeKalb and Gwinnett Counties where the recent conversion of the HOV-2 lane to an HOV-3/HOT lane has caused such an uproar in Northeast Metro Atlanta.

Something that may particularly make you Intown transit advocates happy is that the reason why the state is attempting to place tolls on existing lanes is to push motorists, in particular single-occupant vehicle or SOV motorists, off of the freeways and on future mass transit lines that are proposed to run parallel to those freeways into, out of and around the city and metro area.

The state wants to push SOV motorists to either carpool or take one of the many future commuter rail, light rail, heavy rail, bus rapid transit, express bus (and streetcar lines) as a way to clear the interstates to allow for the coming massive increase in already very heavy freight truck traffic that is expected to coincide with the expansion of the Port of Savannah later this decade.

http://dot.ga.gov/informationcenter/programs/studies/managedlanes/Documents/Corridor%20Evaluations%20and%20Recommendations.pdf

Using congestion pricing and putting tolls on existing lanes is unnecessarily as most Metro Atlantans are already very aware that the traffic that they drive in everyday is very bad and would likely jump at the opportunity to utilize improved mass transit options at this degenerative point.

Congestion pricing is not needed to push commuters onto mass transit as just mere having the increased options available is all the motivation that Metro Atlantans need to use it.

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BILLY MAYS HERE:

Of course highway improvements are “gigantic subsidies for trucking companies” as trucking companies (and roadbuilders) have tremendous pull in state legislatures in Georgia and across the country.

If rail and transit advocates want improved and increased mass transit, then they will likely have to find a way to gain as much political pull as roadbuilders traditionally have had in state legislatures like the Georgia General Assembly, though that may be changing in the favor of rail advocates as Georgia House Speaker David Ralston was treated to an all-expenses paid family vacation to Europe by a German trainmaker late last year.

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Lots of common sense in Kyle’s assessment:

“a) Recognize there is neither the land nor the money available for building highway lanes ad infinitum, and that new general-purpose lanes quickly become as full as the older lanes;”

A basic truth proven over and over and over again in Atlanta and elsewhere in the US. In Atlanta, we have already done all the “easy” lane building we could. Additional lanes on I-85 and I-75 would be VERY expensive – every overpass bridge would need to be replaced to widen roads. Bridges are what make road construction expensive. Grading and paving are relatively cheap.

“b) Acknowledge the final piece of the Interstate portion of the corridor comprises high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes that may or may not relieve congestion in older lanes, but which will guarantee someone who needs to travel rapidly at a given time can do so (for a price);”

Possibly the only way to add any capacity to suburban highways, but let’s make sure these projects have a decent benefit/cost ratio and not just do them because they “don’t cost too much”.

“c) Devote more resources to nearby arterial roads to add parallel capacity for motorists, particularly those traveling relatively shorter distances;”

Cheaper local projects are a good idea. They don’t even need state or Fed funding.

“d) Ensure any funds for mass transit are dedicated to uses such as commuter rail, which can provide high capacity at peak travel times without attempting to change lifestyles or prioritize developers’ dreams over commuters’ frustrations.”

I’d go so far as to say “ensure any funds for ANY TRANSPORTATION project must be ranked by benefit/cost”. Commuter rail will surely rise to the top as it uses existing right of way and can easily provide a few lanes of peak highway capacity for a low cost.

When looking at cost and benefit it is important to remember that projects with a low capital cost might require an ongoing operating subsidy, but the overall cost may be lower.

Would you rather pay $10,000 now in a lump sum or pay $1000 now and a dollar a day?

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Contrary to the prevalent, and pervasive, popular belief amongst anti-road environmental greenies and the like who falsely think that roads are “gigantic money losers”, roads, ESPECIALLY, the Interstate System, have generated immeasurable amounts of wealth and prosperity for the American people by allowing raw materials to be shipped and transferred into production and the goods produced to be shipped from production to market much more quickly than if there were no Interstate system.

Oh I see it’s your favorite way of doing business, privatized profit and socialized losses. But you have yet to declare your love for toll roads.

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If I’ve got to pay $6 one-way like on the D.C. Metro or even $11.00 one-way like on BART in Northern California, then I and most upper class, middle class and working poor would much rather pay it and be able to get there sooner than pay $2.50 one-way and get there later or not all.

I looked at the BART fare calculator and the highest fare I could find was just over $6. Anyway, what about the people who are priced out of riding by higher fares? Naw, you don’t really have an answer for that. I’d challenge you to find even middle class families who could afford a $22 daily round trip commute. Even a car becomes cheaper than transit at that cost, so whether you are doing so explicitly or implicitly you’re dooming transit in such a scenario to failure, or at the least just making it a plaything for people with above average incomes (the only people you care about).

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Actually, I’d like to take us forward to an era where there is very frequent train bus service with very low headways and much larger geographical coverage, an increased high level of service that cannot come into being with minimal fares of $2.50 one-way no matter how long the trip and minimal revenues from a paltry 1% sales tax.

Welp it’s never going to happen in your LOLbertarian utopia, and despite that every transit system in the world is subsidized by governments you keep saying “la la la, USER FEES TO THE RESCUE!”

Even with different fare structures (such as BART), the public transit agencies rely on funds from public sources.

User fees sound too good be true–and they are!

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 20th, 2011
1:40 pm

“lol, you’re such a card”

Takes one to know one, and as a major TOOL, you definitely are one.

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Kyle Wingfield

Last Democrat and Billy Mays: I believe y’all have hashed out this one well beyond the point of diminishing returns. Let’s drop it.

Last Democrat is your alt account, isn’t it

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

Gosh, do I have to do EVERYTHING for you?

lol you hail this as a victory while shelling out more of your money to use a basic transit service.

What planet are you from, spaceman?

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

User fees are the ONLY way that we are going to get improved mass transit service in this town and state where the Republican-dominated and controlled Georgia General Assembly is not going to, nor would they even dare, vote directly for a tax increase to fund transit anytime soon.

There’s never been a transit system anywhere purely funded on fares, but you keep skipping over that.

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Kyle Wingfield

December 20th, 2011
2:09 pm

“Last Democrat and Billy Mays: I believe y’all have hashed out this one well beyond the point of diminishing returns. Let’s drop it.”

If only our highly-esteemed state legislators cared as much about transportation as we do, eh?

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

That’s because toll roads should be used in very limited quantities, being well-placed in high-traffic corridors where they can pay for themselves over time.

Why? They’re the only profitable roads.

Or is it because, deep down, you like the idea of toll roads but only for other people? That’s a common conservative thing.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

It is a victory for Bay Area residents as there is no way that they could get around an area that has such a very-limited road infrastructure without the assistance of BART, which has such high fares for a heavy rail-anchored bus service because it acts as a hybrid heavy rail/subway-commuter rail system that covers both relatively short, intermediate/moderate and longer commuting distances.

You of all people should know the price of a good or service is a function of demand, not its cost of production.

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 20th, 2011
2:24 pm

“Why would transit advocates laud the HOT lanes? Before they opened most people knew they were a gift to wealthy commuters while removing capacity for middle class and poor commuters. There’s no reason to favor HOT lanes, unless you are wealthy enough to be able to use them daily.”

Actually, the I-85 HOT lanes are more of a gift to wealthy real estate developers and international rail and trainbuilders, who both think that there’s A LOT more money to made in passenger rail transit-anchored density than the traditional post-World War II road-centered (post) suburban sprawl.

Real estate developers and land spectulators now have their eyes on land around and near future (and existing) rail transit stations as opposed to the suburban and exurban freeway junctions that they often keyed-in on in years past.

Future growth will be centered and anchored on rail lines and train stations in both the city and the ‘burbs, not freeways.

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“You of all people should know the price of a good or service is a function of demand, not its cost of production”

The higher fares on BART are a function of demand as there are only two automobile crossings (bridge crossings) that connect the West Bay (the San Francisco side) with the East Bay (the Oakland side).

Transportation across the San Francisco Bay, especially to get to the job centers in the Financial District in Downtown SF and SF Int’l Airport is at a premium because of the geographical divide of the Bay that severely restricts automobile traffic.

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The state is already looking at bids to build the large MMPT (Multimodal Passenger Terminal) that will be located near Five Points in “The Gulch” in Downtown Atlanta, which is also a hotbed of real estate speculation activity in anticipation of that area’s development into a major passenger rail hub for the entire Southeastern U.S.

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“Okay so you’re saying that user fees (like higher fares) exist because people have no choice but to pay them (and do), instead of them being necessary for expansion?”

The higher fares are necessary because there is no way that the public subsidy alone could provide for the very high level of service (low headways, frequent trains, extensive geographical coverage, etc) needed to help take cars off of a very limited road network. The higher fares also provide for continued expansion as there are plans to eventually expand the train network so that it will wrap all the way around the South End of the Bay and connect back up to the City of San Francisco in a complete loop.

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In 2005, only 53% of BART’s revenue was paid by fares, the rest was from public sources or advertising. And that’s considered good for public transit.

So, if on a good day BART’s fares (user fees) pay just over half of the bills, it can be said that user fees alone won’t keep the system running, much less expand it. They’re haven’t in the past on any public transportation system, and won’t in the future. Why do you keep saying they will?

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There’s no way that BART could provide headways as low as four minutes during peak hours with only a flat $2.50 fare like MARTA, even with extensive public subsidies.

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

The speculators are not just snapping up land there JUST because of gentification, but because all of the real estate insiders and major players know that Atlanta’s future is as a rail town, not the car-crazed city that everyone has always known for the last 50 years.

That’s pretty objective, even for an opinion

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Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?…..

There’s no way that BART could provide headways as low as four minutes during peak hours with only a flat $2.50 fare like MARTA, even with extensive public subsidies.

Irrelevant point… your precious, precious user fees don’t come close to keeping the system running as you stated all along

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 20th, 2011
3:30 pm

I might have stated it before, but one of the same high-ranking state legislators who is bat-sh** crazy over extending HOT lanes to every major roadway in Metro Atlanta is also one of the state’s biggest advocates of high-speed rail.

State Senator Jeff Mullis, who has been going around referring to the I-85 (and I-75) HOT lanes as “his baby” is also a very loud advocate for high-speed and commuter rail on the CSX freight rail line that parallels I-75 between ATL and Chattanooga (a line that will go right by Mullis’ home in NW Georgia just outside Chattanooga) and on the NS/Amtrak line that parallels the stretch of I-85 with HOT lanes in Gwinnett.

HOT lanes are being used as the state’s bungling way to drive traffic off of the interstates and on to those future soon-to-be rail transit lines.

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“Ahhh, but that’s the thing, user fees don’t just include higher fares alone, but they also include revenue streams from traffic fines and tickets, parking fines and tickets, fees on parking rates, etc, just call it “creative financing””

Keep-in-mind that the fees on the parking rates, parking fines and traffic fines in the Bay Area are officially defined as “public sources”, not user fees, but I regard them as user fees.

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 20th, 2011
4:04 pm

Well, I sure as hell don’t disagree that you need taxes to fund public transit, but, ESPECIALLY, in this political environment when extra tax revenue isn’t available you’ve got to increase and expand the service some way.

With the extra tax revenue not coming anytime soon, the best way to add service where needed at this point would be for the state to float bonds to pay for expansion up front (as mass transit is one of the best infrastructural investments that can be made as many of those who are traditionally transit-averse are in the process of finding out) and then pay off those bonds with higher fares over time (probably a period of 20-40 years).

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BILLY MAYS HERE

December 20th, 2011
2:11 pm

“Oh god, using existing freight rights-of-way sounds easy and cheap but it’s a bad, bad idea. You’ll always be at the mercy of the freight line, and essentially private railroads will get free infrastructure upgrades while still maintaining control of their lines.”

You’re right, using existing freight rail rights-of-way is not nearly as cheap and easy as it sounds as it’ll take well over $300 million alone to upgrade the CSX (Old Western & Atlantic) tracks that run parallel to the west of I-75 between Atlanta and Calhoun to accommodate high-frequency commuter rail.

But the $300 million or so is still relatively comparately cheaper than the $1.2 billion that the state wanted to spend on building HOT lanes on I-75 NW.

In the case of the NW metro CSX line, the state actually owns the right-of-way that the existing freight rail line runs on as shown here in a 2004 map sample:

http://www.dot.state.ga.us/maps/Documents/railroad/RAIL_MAP_SAMPLE.pdf

Owning that geographically-crucial CSX rail line gives the state a lot more leeway in saying how and when freight trains can run.

I know, it’s not the idea situation, but that CSX NW corridor runs directly through the historic, walkable and dense downtowns that are ideal to serve commuter and high-speed rail, much better than a park-and-ride located in a deserted and lifeless sprawled out post suburban mall parking lot.

“Operationally it’s a bad move because freight trains are more susceptible to delays en route (not to mention so much slower) than passenger trains.”

We’ll have to modify the tracks so that passenger trains and freight trains interrupt each other as little as is possible in those existing freight rail corridors which are targeted for commuter rail and eventually high-speed rail by the state.

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BILLY MAYS HERE
December 20th, 2011
3:44 pm

The frt RRs are “agnostic” when it comes to commuter rail projects. They really don’t care either way if they get done or not. They only care that they are made whole at the end of the day. The planning and negotiating process are a bit of distraction, and the trains are a bit of a pain to dispatch around, but that is rather minor. The capacity improvements that are added don’t generally amount to much of a windfall, either.

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Don

The frt RRs are “agnostic” when it comes to commuter rail projects. They really don’t care either way if they get done or not. They only care that they are made whole at the end of the day. The planning and negotiating process are a bit of distraction, and the trains are a bit of a pain to dispatch around, but that is rather minor. The capacity improvements that are added don’t generally amount to much of a windfall, either.

I assume you’ve never worked in the railroad industry?

You can’t run freight and passenger at the same time. I mean, legally and operationally you can, but practically you cannot. Freights are slow and prone to mechanical troubles, that’s why some railroads have morning and afternoon windows wherein they rush passenger traffic down the line while holding freight back. Obviously, this slows down freight. When there’s not a window, you have to try to get fast commuter trains around slower freights. And if the freight train gets a knuckle, busts an air hose, or derails, everything melts down. And most railroad mainlines in the US already run near or at their capacity.

Freight carriers don’t like passenger trains–commuter or long-distance. They put up with it for the free infrastructure upgrades, but they’d prefer not to have it.

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The only way a freight carrier will go with any commuter rail plan is a lot of political will, a lot of public money, and if its executives are convinced it will come out ahead in the end. The railroad industry has never welcomed change with open arms.

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