Fantastical Atlanta Transit Dilemma: Pick One
Decatur Metro | July 7, 2009Wheatley reports over on the Loaf about an Atlanta Business Chronicle story that teases the transit-minded with visions of a revived Peachtree streetcar, thanks to that debt-driven dreammaker, the Federal Stimulus package.
But is a Peachtree Streetcar the best use of Atlanta transit money? A commenter on Freah Loaf argues that transit should instead focus efforts toward expanding into Gwinnett, Cobb and Cumming (and ignore the desire of voters, apparently).
To me, this dilemma strikes at the heart of competing Atlanta visions. City-lovers are inclined to support the streetcar, which would strengthen public transit in-town and give the city a much-needed iconic image (without employing Calatrava). In contrast, metro-visionaries see the streetcar as putting the train before the engine at this stage since the reality is still that 4 out of 5 people in the metro-area live in the tragically transitless ‘burbs. These folks call for a much larger MARTA network.
At a high-level, transit advocates agree that both these components are key to Atlanta’s overall transit vision, but which is more important and therefore should receive priority in the current battle over dollars?
If suburbanites wanted, instead of feared, MARTA, it might actually be a tough call.
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I have to admit I love the idea of streetcars not just on Peachtree but connecting historic areas in Atlanta and near-burbs like, uhhhh, DECATUR! I want clang clang clang of trollies on Oakview Road!!
But the need for a comprehensive and intelligent public transportation system is dire, and probably just maybe outweighs my romantic dream….
The real issue is a region-wide comprehensive transportation plan, which we don’t have. Bits and pieces – a streetcar here, an express bus there, don’t really address the overall problem. Just another example of the parochial attitudes that in this and many other areas (take water, for example) hamper Metro Atlanta’s ability to reach its potential and are causing other areas (like Charlotte) to catch up and pass.
I wish I could add to Steve’s comment, but it is perfect in its succinct clarity.
If the metro did have a regional plan, the funds could be just plugged in. The dollars and public transportation benefits could start working almost immediately. Instead….
I wanted to say something like this (but a less articulate version) but my mantra seems to be “plans”, so I am so glad Steve said it so I could stick to Rice a Roni dreams
Right (or ride) on, NB! Why should San Francisco have a monopoly on Rice-A-Roni commercials?
BTW, do some old tracks still emerge from the asphalt occasionally at the intersection of McClendon and Clifton? Or did the City of Atlanta finally recognize their scrap value and mine them?
McLendon was repaved a few years ago and the tracks are way buried now. The cost to dig them out and salvage them would be far exceeded by the cost to put the street back.
In principle I like how the Peachtree streetcar would create a new transit option in Atlanta. Aesthetically, it also paints a nice image of a transit-serviced main street corridor. But i think it’s a little crazy to spend all that money on a route that is already serviced by rail transit. If I wanted to get from Fort McPherson to Buckhead without a car right now, I could just jump on Marta and do it very easily. The same could not be said if I wanted to get from Decatur to Marietta.
If the burbs don’t want it, don’t force it on them. Ultimately it’s their problem.
The aesthetic gift that a streetcar brings is actually a huge part of bridging the gap between the city and suburbs. People live in the burbs in part because of their perception of the city as full of homeless and crime. They don’t want transit because MARTA ridership is 95% black.
A streetcar line announces that intown has some quaintness to it, softer edges and more traditional forms, and the ridership demographics would be much different, given the areas serviced. If this impacts the suburban perception of both city life and transit, then that’s part of the battle.
We have a regional transportation plan. In 2006 ARC created the Transit Planning Board comprised of the top leadership from MARTA, GRTA, ARC, the City of Atlanta and the 10 surrounding counties. GDOT also participated. Hiring consultants they produced a transit plan calling for extension of MARTA, bus rapid transit using HOV lanes on the interstate, light rail or street cars for the beltline, commuter rail and suburban bus. This plan called Concept 3 was completed in late 2008. It examined the costs and funding sources and called for a regional sales tax and greater State participation. The Transit Planning Board has now morphed into an implementation board and asked GDOT to participate in meetings to determine governance of the planning process, implementation and operations. Go to
http://www.tpb.ga.gov/Documents/TPB%20Final%20Technical%20Report%20-%20January%202009.pdf
I know about the TPB and Concept 3. IMHO, it’s still a paper tiger. If it were real, the thing that started this discussion would never have come up.
Actually, E, the fact that so many voters in the suburbs don’t want MARTA to extend their routes and rails into their counties IS my problem. It’s a problem for ALL of us. We have to suffer the effects of their polluting cars they use to shuttle themselves – one person to a car, of course – to the city.
ATL Mayor Franklin’s congestion charge would’ve been a step towards redeeming the costs that suburban commuters inflict on the central city areas. It’s still not too late to stop rewarding bad behaviors.
If you make it expensive to come into the city, people will stay in the burbs. How is that a good thing for the city of Atlanta?
Moving employment centers closer to commuters in the burbs is not the worst thing that could happen. A more evenly distributed patchwork is more sustainable and actually resembles the old timey network of self-supporting small towns!
Unless one is convinced that all serious employment must be concentrated inside the perimeter and that ITP employers and citizens should continue subsidizing the suburban happy motoring fantasy.
Nice Kunstler reference!
Well, I understated it’s impact on us, but my point is that it harms them more than us.
What we can do about it is less about forcing transit down their throats and more about doing a better job of improving it’s perception. It’s the old soft power vs. hard power argument. Let’s face it, MARTA has a horrid perception for good reason. I’ve had plenty of bad experiences on MARTA, and I’m a “rugged intowner”. I can see why suburbanites want no part of it.
I’ve used MARTA trains and buses for almost 3 years, almost every day, and NEVER had a problem! People’s fears about MARTA are pretty unrealistic, IMHO…
East-West line has been real reliable for me too over last 3 years. Not so sure about north-south line–I seem to hear about delays a lot. Buses run too infrequently. I have spent hours trying to coordinate bus and train schedules so I could go somewhere on MARTA after work and figured out that the only decent option many times was to go back home on the train and then drive.
I’m talking more about the experience than the reliability. Drunken homeless beggars with poop along the outside of their pants hitting me up for change (on the train), insane people threatening to break my nose while I’m waiting on the platform, drunk old ladies singing at the top of their lungs – I doubt that these things only happen to me.
Oh, and I’ve taken transit all over the world. MARTA is the worst I’ve experienced, by far.
I still use MARTA, but like I said, I get why less adventurous people don’t want it around.
The regional transportation plan is, at best, a band-aid and, at worst, a red herring because it is not integrated with land use planning, nor does Atlanta metro have any kind of regional land use plan with any level of authority at all.
That means that the private creation of employment centers will exploit whatever transportation networks and assets are in place for maximum benefit, just as they did after the creation of the Interstate system.
Sending Marta rail out to Cobb and Gwinnett in a hub and spoke system only works if you have land use controls that direct employment centers to the core. We don’t. So the rail extensions will do nothing to solve the real problem — suburb to suburb commuting.
Transportation planning without land use planning is hardly worth the paper it’s printed on. Addressing both is what Charlotte is doing, and that’s why it’s getting results.
I agree that the region doesn’t have much control of land use, but there is some. DRI reviews are helping to ensure that regional transportation resources are not overmatched by private deveopment. Suburban Nimbyism is also checking some new development in scattered locations. Cobb county for example has a land use plan that limits office development to a few centers
In the last building boom development inside the perimeter was concentrated along Marta lines, and that trend is likely to continue. I suppose that is a positive example of “the private creation of employment centers will exploit whatever transportation networks and assets are in place for maximum benefit, just as they did after the creation of the Interstate system.”
The Concept 3 is not the end, but it is a step in the right direction and an indication that suburban elected officials understand the regional value of transit. It would take another century for the regiona to devlop a transit system as advanced in many European cities to accomodate suburban to suburban commutes. In the meantime developing multiple nodes is completely appropriate. I agree with the previous post. It is better for Gwineetians to live and work in Gwinnett than commute to Marietta or Atlanta.
That’s right, PD. The infill development along transit lines in the last boom is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. They were instances where transportation infrastructure and urban form intersected to provide greater value. Simply put, their accessibility made them attractive.
Limiting office development to certain places in the ‘burbs is not enough. Land planning needs to take place at a finer grain so that development, from the neighborhood street to the boulevard and all streets in between are networked in ways that specifically support transit. Perimeter has a Marta stop, and people do use it, but no one would classify Perimeter as a transit-oriented place. It’s an auto-oriented place because the policies that built the roads, and the policies that governed the development, and the policies that brought Marta in were not integrated.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m a big transit advocate — but there are certain ways all the pieces need to fit together and we’re not there yet.
Land planning at a finer grain is not going, and frankly shouldn’t take place at the regional level. Those are local planning decisions. ARC has a regional land use plan, and the recent versions are much more contextural than historical versions. While ARC has very limited implementation/enforcement capabilities, local planning (IMHO) in suburban counties has also improved
Heavy rail is not going to be the only solution for places like Perimeter. The finer grain requires shuttles and street cars. Perimeter could become much more tranist oriented if another form of transit beyond Marta rail was availble. In places with intense development like Perimeter, and others where it is low density single-family, it is unlikely the rights of way will be significantly altered. In most situations, we’re going to have to work with the ROW we already have.
I’m not suggesting site-specific planning should take place at the regional level. I’m saying it needs to take place, period.
A significant majority of our metro municipalities are not approaching their planning as the fine grain of a larger, comprehensive regional plan. Many are not even plugging in to a larger plan in any meaningful way at all because our regional planning has no teeth. So we’re back to what I said initially: Transportation planning that is not integrated with land planning is of limited value at best.
GRTA, in theory, could have been our way out of this mess. But, like in most regional planning efforts, politics took care of that.
Nice work Scott. Agreed, agreed.
Now, DM, I’m sort of upset with the way that you poised this question. First of all, responders on CL, may or may not have too many brain cells, so to take our cues from them is frustrating. It should not be a “pick one” question. We can back the streetcar (or not) without it having a bearing on extention of rail to the suburbs. The money’s not going to come from the same pot (assuming it comes).
Ha. GAK, I agree that it’s not my most inspired post ever, but at least people were good enough to run with it.
And I would argue that for the sake of a theoretical blog argument, of course it should be a “pick one.” Even though you can support both (as I said in my original post), at the end of the day, one must rank above the other on each person’s priorities list. That’s all I was wondering. Essentially I’m asking, which is more important to you, local or regional?
That said, I appreciate that you value the dialogue here enough to stick up for it.
Developing regional MARTA is more important to me than reinstating a symbolic trolley car (singular or plural), although I love the SF trolleys. A great many of those single-driver cars choking the roads into the city in the a.m. and the tidal wave out in the p.m. could be cut in half with appropriately located MARTA lines/routes, either trains or buses. The private “suburb commuter buses” seem to run full, but there are too few of them at this point. If people aren’t afraid to ride those buses, why would they disdain riding MARTA buses/trains? As for E’s comments above about bad experiences on MARTA, I guess I’m not the kind to feel discouraged by a few impolite persons encountered on MARTA and certainly feel no fear regarding any verbal antics. I have met the same kind of people walking around Decatur square, and I’m sure not going to forsake that entertaining location!
Duluth, Norcross, Suwanee, Marietta, Kenesaw, Stone Mountain, Roswell, Decatur, Alpharetta, Symrna, College Park, Chamblee – all have decent land use plans and they are being implemented. Many of these cities used ARC Livable Center Initiative money to do the fine grain planning that matches land use to transportation. In fact, that regional land use planning program has becme a national model and recently won one the highest awards from the American Planning Association.
PD, in terms of whether or not transportation should be tied to land planning, we’re basically arguing from the same side of the fence. The only difference of opinion we seem to have is whether or not this is actually taking place in metro ATL.
You cite a solid list of communities and their efforts are notable. In some cases, they’re even laudable. But almost all of them are exclusively reactionary. They’re not plugging in to a larger plan so much as they’re reacting to a built reality. The DOT did what they wanted. MARTA did what they wanted. Etc. Now these communities are, commendably, trying to do the best with what they have. It may be a very positive step but it is not integration at the planning stage, and that’s what we’re quibbling about.
Maybe we’re just arguing over semantics but, to me, cleaning up a mess is not the same as preventing a mess. They require different approaches. That’s all I’m sayin…
I actually agree with you, Scott. Too much of metro Atlanta “planning” is reactionary as opposed to proactive. That’s why the sewers are clogged, the roads are clogged and the condo market is clogged.
And though I am befuddled by E’s assessment of the people s/he meets on MARTA (I rode MARTA everyday for nearly a decade due to an irrational fear of and utter lack of skill in driving and still hop on about once a week now because my son likes BUS and TRAIN and it’s a like a cheap theme park for him, and I never really had problems), I do think E is 100% right about racial issues with expansion of MARTA and I am glad s/he was brave enough to say it out loud.
Many people also don’t understand the politics outside the perimeter. Cities like Marietta don’t necessarily consider themselves part of Atlanta and don’t want to be part of Atlanta, except as it benefits them rather than the region. This is especially true with those born and bred there. I work with a regional nonprofit and trust me, we have to make tons of branding, language and other concessions to keep our donors/volunteers in Cobb and Gwinnett willfully ignorant that the parent organization is Atlanta based and it’s not a local nonprofit providing the services. We have been in these counties for 40 years, so we aren’t new kids either.
It’s not just race, it’s also capitulating to becoming part of big, bad Atlanta that stymies development of regional transportation planning. I encourage everyone to read Clarence Stone’s Regime Politics for a good discussion of why we have the transportation system we have.
Re ambience of MARTA: Got to agree with E. that it is more akin to 1970’s rundown NYC IRT/IND or Boston Combat Zone than with the San Francisco BART system. Chicago seems to have managed to keep a traditional feel to its transit system without remaining in 1970s grunge. To improve MARTA’s ambience, two things would have to happen that I doubt are happening anytime soon:
1) Make it more efficient and go where people need to go so everyone would be attracted to it, not just committed or in town commuters
2) Proactive policing to get rid of all petty infractions like noise disturbances, panhandling, loitering, minor assaults (I know of two Decatur women who have been victims in the last 2 years of minor assualts by crazy or intoxicated types, both female too, while riding MARTA trains) etc, both within and around MARTA stations, especially Five Points. This would make a tremendous difference in the ambience but, in a city that can’t even handle 911 calls properly, not sure it will happen soon. This is where even a progressive, politically liberal person can be a social conservative–there’s no reason to allow disturbing behavior in a public place. It’s not good for the ambience or commercial viability of the public setting and it’s not good for the disturber either who probably needs some kind of legal, medical, or other intervention. I’m not saying this to invite a whole other thread on how to handle the homeless, mentally ill, or petty criminals; just noting that not handling them affects the attractiveness of mass transit.
I think you guys must look much more open and nice than I do. I must be mean and angry looking cause no one ever bothers me! That’s kind of sad for me
Nelliebelle, I agree with you. No one has actually ever bothered me on MARTA, I just stand/sit back and watch whatever is going on. The same people who ride MARTA are on Decatur Square, for heaven’s sake! I agree that those who need help should receive it, if possible, but other than that I don’t see why I need to worry about traveling on MARTA. When I have visitors, I get them on MARTA as soon as possible, and most of them love the experience and can easily see the advantages over cars, parking lots/fees, maps, and vehicular hassles. It “turns their head around” to find themselves on MARTA without any stress other than how to swipe the MARTA card and watch the map for their station. I never pick visitors up at the airport in a car; I either ask them to come to me via MARTA or I go meet them and introduce them to the system, fare cards, etc.
I don’t let the ambience stop me from riding MARTA either. It’s the best way to get to downtown. (Works for airport only if you’re SURE your returning flight won’t get delayed and land in the middle of the night. That’s happened to me countless times). The NYC subway technique to not being bothered by anyone is to look blankly at nothing, slack-jawed, with absolutely no expression on your face. Has worked fine for me on MARTA too but that body language doesn’t add to the commercial attractiveness of MARTA!
My guess is that many of us in Decatur are MARTA veterans and cope just fine with it, however unappealing the sounds and smells at Five Points are at times. But MARTA can’t survive on Decaturites alone. It needs the will and financial resources to become a truly useful and attractive mass transit system.
NelleBelle, sounds as if I must have been sitting opposite you on the way home last night! Just kidding – but it sure was a mean looking lady!
I have to agree with Snowflake: that blank look is a learned survival skill. I learned it at a very young age riding the NYC subways. Despite his statement that he has used mass transit all around the world, apparently E (see above) has not learned that.
Another Rick, I can assure you that I keep as low of a profile as possible on MARTA. What’s important here is that any of us HAVE to do so in order to avoid trouble/confrontation/discomfort. Which gets back to my original point, that many many people are simply not going to be comfortable with the atmosphere on MARTA as it currently stands.
Either it gets cleaned up, or we just accept that it’s an intown-only thing forever.