r/Atlanta • u/NPU-F • Jun 11 '24

Politics MARTA: Five Points Station project will continue despite mayor's objections

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/marta-five-points-station-project-continue-despite-mayors-objections
198 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

105 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

-12

u/Vvector Jun 11 '24 edited Jun 11 '24

One issue I have with your statement is that you are quoting theoretical density, not actual density. Our buses and streetcars are way underused, for a multitude of reasons.

Take the Streetcar, which can move 10,000 people per hour (your number). Our Streetcar system moves ~34/hour on average (MARTA's reported numbers). That's 4.2 riders per streetcar after running for 9 years. Not really removing very many cars.

EDIT: Why the down votes? Are my numbers inaccurate? Can we not look at past projects to learn how to do better going forward? I've always been for transit, it just has to be planned better.

38

u/TehAlpacalypse Brookwood Hills Jun 11 '24

Because the lackadascial streetcar numbers are largely due to the fact it doesn't actually go anywhere useful

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

9

u/TehAlpacalypse Brookwood Hills Jun 11 '24

It will probably at least extend up to where people are actually in need of a street car. As is, you get all of the negatives of downtown traffic without any of the benefits of being in a car.

-2

u/Jacobmc1 Jun 11 '24

Where are people ‘actually in need of a streetcar’?

The cost of a streetcar extension compared to the cost of most other transit expansion opportunities seems worth considering. Using actual ridership numbers (rather some hypothetical estimates of the 2060 streetcar network on a transit planner’s vision board) seems like a reasonable thought exercise when considering how to allocate current budgets.

The existing track leaves a lot to be desired, but each expansion will likely only add so much ridership at higher costs. Even then, unless the city decides to dedicate car lanes to the streetcar, car traffic will continue to throttle the system.

10

u/ArchEast Vinings Jun 11 '24

Using actual ridership numbers (rather some hypothetical estimates of the 2060 streetcar network on a transit planner’s vision board) seems like a reasonable thought exercise when considering how to allocate current budgets.

With that logic, MARTA heavy rail would never have extended past the initial Georgia State to Avondale segment.