Category Archives: MARTA

MARTA recommends 4 heavy rail stations in Alpharetta

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A few weeks ago I saw a post on Twitter from a local news reporter who wrote that MARTA was planning to recommend four heavy rail stations in Alpharetta. That was the first I had heard of such a plan so I immediately contacted Mayor Belle Isle and the rest of Alpharetta’s City Council to see if any of them were aware of the recommendation. Not a single one of us had even heard of MARTA’s intentions much less been consulted on the matter.

So on August 12, 2013 I attended a meeting of MARTA’s Planning and External Relations Committee in Atlanta. At that meeting MARTA’s staff did indeed recommend extending a heavy rail line more than 11 miles along GA 400 through Sandy Springs, Roswell and Alpharetta. This plan called for putting four train stations in Alpharetta including one each at Mansell Road, Northpoint Mall, Old Milton Parkway and one on Windward Parkway which would serve as the end of line regional station.

This is not the first time a MARTA train station has been proposed for Alpharetta nor will it be the last. Traffic is consistently the number one complaint of Alpharetta residents and since we all pay a 1% sales tax to support MARTA it would be nice if we could find some way to get a better return on that money. So I welcome an open and honest discussion of how MARTA can better serve Alpharetta.

Unfortunately MARTA’s Connect 400 initiative has been woefully inadequate in seeking input from actual residents of Alpharetta. The recommendation was based solely on 30 interviews with unidentified “stakeholders” and an online survey consisting of 136 responses to an email that went out to unidentified business interests, local officials and interest groups last December.

Clearly MARTA’s staff made no effort to include Alpharetta’s mayor or city council and in fact I have yet to determine if even one Alpharetta resident was sampled in the research. And as you might expect from such a small, statistically insignificant sample the recommendation is the least practical and most unlikely to be implemented even under the best of circumstances. In an effort to raise awareness of this process I am submitting for your review the presentation which was given at  MARTA’s August 12th meeting. Please click this link to review the full 12 page Powerpoint presentation: GA 400 Briefing Presentation

Transportation is a crucial issue for us all and this process could affect the future of Alpharetta forever so I ask you to please take a moment to review the information and let me know your thoughts on this matter. MARTA is also planning to host an informational meeting about this recommendation on September 26th from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Alpharetta City Hall. It is imperative that the people most affected by this process speak up before a final determination is made. Please make the time to join us at that meeting.

United Nations applauds the Georgia Transportation Tax increase!

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The United Nations is excited about Georgia’s proposed transportation tax increase. In fact they are so excited that they devote several pages in their publication Urban World: Ten Years into the millenium to the idea.

First the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce came up with the idea:

The traffic impasse became a cause celebre for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and its president, Sam Williams. He recounted

how “we beat the drum for four years” to get permission for a regional transport sales tax add-on, enlisting the aid of the Georgia

State Chamber, top Atlanta corporations, county officials and mayors, plus Chamber allies in such regions as Savannah and Macon.

Then all of the state’s Chambers of Commerce threatened to cut off the money spigot to any politician that didn’t support their tax increase:

A pointed message was also telegraphed to would-be candidates for state office: their position on transport funding would be a

‘litmus test’ of whether they could expect campaign support from the business community.

And once the governor and state legislature were sufficiently motivated they could work together in a bipartisan way to overcome the objections of those rascally ole Tea Partiers:

…bipartisanship can be developed, ‘Tea Party’-like nihilism averted, if a governor and legislative leaders work hard to

make it happen.

Finally the article concludes by thanking Georgia for setting an example for third world countries:

That’s a fascinating model for these times, ideal for transport, maybe fresh water supply systems and other major issues.

Thanks Georgia.

Isn’t that special. You can find the publication on the United Nations website here.

No wonder Jim Galloway of the AJC reports that the entire tax is now in jeopardy:

So in January, we’ll have a full-fledged donnybrook between the two most powerful entities now existing in the Republican party: The state chambers of commerce, and the tea party.

Brilliant.

“Legislators critical of proposed rail line”

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Interesting article in the Marietta Daily Journal about the fault lines that are appearing in the political support for the transportation tax increase. You can read the whole thing here but below are some of the juiciest tidbits:

Cobb lawmakers on Monday criticized the proposed light rail line from Midtown  Atlanta to Cumberland Mall which constitutes the majority of Cobb’s take in next  year’s vote on a regional TSPLOST.

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The $856.5 million number is the conservative estimate. The maximum cost is  targeted at $1.234 billion, according to the county.

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“We’ve got huge infrastructure needs in far west Cobb  County, and to ask those people that I represent to support a mile’s worth of  rail that’s finished in 2026 when they have to drive to work every morning would  be something that doesn’t fix the here and now, and I doubt they’d be very happy  with me for supporting something like that.”

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Cooper said the rail line would clearly benefit one area of the county, the  Cumberland Community Improvement District.

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Setzler reiterated what he told the Journal on Friday, which is the rail line  would only benefit five percent of the county while at the same time costing  each household in Cobb $4,000.

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“We know that rail offers some things that you can’t get from just building  roads,” Rogers said. “But we also know that rail doesn’t do a great job in  lessening traffic, and at a time when we need traffic to be lessened  significantly..”

Although this article is about legislators in Cobb County it is especially relevant to the people of North Fulton county for three key reasons:

1. The political climate in North Fulton is almost identical to that of Cobb County.

2. Elected officials in Cobb County acknowledge transit is really just a subsidy for commercial property owners in the local CID.

3. Traffic is the primary concern for voters in both areas yet transit projects will have no positive impact on traffic during the supposed 10 year duration of the tax.

As North Fulton opponents of the tax increase become more vocal I expect we will see our elected officials do the same.

North Fulton mayors vote to trade MARTA funds for roads

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This morning I noticed an article on NorthFulton.com which reports the mayors of North Fulton county have voted to sacrifice extending MARTA into their communities in exchange for more road money:

The North Fulton Municipal Association decided to try to trade $37 million in MARTA engineering funds for the restoration of road projects to be funded by the 2012 transportation-improvement sales tax.

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He said Fulton is a net donor to the tax while Cobb County and DeKalb County get a 120 percent return on their investment.

Bodker then criticized the Beltline streetcar project in Atlanta. He said it is an Atlanta project, not a regional one, but it is slated to receive $600 million in funds intended for regional transportation development. He said Atlanta is getting more than its fair share of the revenues and this money is being taken from North Fulton’s hide.

“If Atlanta wants to fund it, they have 15 percent off the top of this thing,” he said.

He said Atlanta would be paying for the project using other people’s money.

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Sandy Springs Mayor Eva Galambos suggested heavy rail would never come to North Fulton, so the $37 million was money wasted.

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The representatives of Alpharetta, Milton and Johns Creek voted in favor; Wood, representing Roswell, voted against it. No representative from Mountain Park was present.

While the shift of $37 million of a $8 Billion dollar tax is a small gesture it does show that the mayors of North Fulton are finally yielding to the political realities in their communities. The strange thing is that just one week earlier the same newspaper published a story from the same reporter which lead readers to believe the mayors unanimously suppported the MARTA funds: 

Bodker said all the mayors support transit, but are concerned there is no regional transit system that all participating governments support. As far as the projects are concerned, the mayors support extending MARTA to Holcomb Bridge Road and eventually Windward Parkway. At the very least, the tax should pay for the necessary engineering, which would cost $37 million. The mayors also unanimously supported completing the proposed Clifton Corridor that would connect MARTA to Emory University, Atlanta’s largest employer, and extending MARTA up I-75 to at least Cumberland Mall.

A complete reversal of the North Fulton Municipal Association’s position in one week? How curious.

Georgia’s statewide transportation charade

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Yesterday the AJC posted an editorial by Neal Boortz titled Our transportation record shows lack of leadership. He makes some excellent points so I hope you read the whole thing. Below are a few choice selections:

I’ve been reading the AJC’s coverage of the machinations surrounding the  multibillion dollar transportation infrastructure tax referendum scheduled  to descend upon us next summer. And so, a question: Considering the  transportation track record of the brilliant traffic planners and engineers  in the Atlanta region, do you really have the confidence to put a few  billion dollars in their hands for more projects and “improvements”?

Let’s just look at the record. First we’ll deal with that traffic monstrosity  known as the Downtown Connector. If you weren’t born here you probably don’t  know that what is now the Downtown Connector was supposed to be the route of  I-85. I-75 was supposed to come roaring in from the North along what is now  Northside Drive to cross I-85 around the airport. Someone decided we could  save some money by simply combining the two through the city. That certainly  worked out well, didn’t it?

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Pity also, if you will, the poor saps traveling down Ga. 400 toward downtown.  Your typical suburban families eager for an evening of fun at Underground  Atlanta. There our transportation wizards funnel four lanes of traffic down  to one for the transition to I-85 … and Lord help you if you cross the  gore, that white line separating the highways from the on- and off-ramps.  See you in court.

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The new tax is also supposed to fund some rail projects as well, right? Will  these projects be designed by the same geniuses who didn’t put a MARTA  station at what was then Atlanta-Fulton County Station — a station that  would now serve Turner Field — because Atlanta was afraid it would lose  parking revenue at the stadium? Can the people who made this decision be  banned from getting anywhere near even 1 cent of this new tax revenue?

Boortz is right. How can any rational person believe that the dysfunctional politicians, consultants and bureaucrats that got us into this mess will ever solve anything?

If you doubt me just consider that after months of political haggling the geniuses in charge have managed to compile a list which would spend more than 6 Billion Dollars without making any noticeable impact on Atlanta’s traffic problem. Look at the list yourself.

Notice anything strange? The state is trying to sell people on higher taxes for a plan that doesn’t even begin to cover the cost of the projects they are including!

The state list says that they will spend $172,000,000 to improve the exchange at GA 400 and I-285. But the cost of the project is projected to cost $450,000,000. The list also calls for $37,000,000 to bring MARTA to Roswell… but it projects the total cost to be more than $900,000,000. Transit advocates have been all excited about the inclusion of One Billion Dollars to expand MARTA into the I-20 and Clifton Road areas. But apparently it doesn’t bother them that the state expects it to actually cost nearly Two Billion Dollars. So even if those projects could relieve traffic the state would still need another Two Billion Dollars to get them all done.

But we are falling into a trap if we worry too much about the list anyway. It is an illusion. The project list will carry no more weight than a flyer handed out by a used car salesman.

The list to be voted on next year will not be a binding contract… on the state. When the state takes money from one promised project to cover the gap they have in another, taxpayers will have no recourse. Remember what they did with the GA 400 tolls?

So realize that the entire transportation tax charade is just one big, happy waste of time intended to get the “buy-in” of Georgia taxpayers and facilitate a new pipeline of money for the people responsible for our transportation mess in the first place. The same people that created the downtown connector and routed MARTA away from Atlanta Fulton County stadium will decide where Billions of dollars in extra tax money go and there won’t be a darn thing we will be able to do about it. Yay!

Another nail in the coffin of Georgia’s proposed transportation tax increase…

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The Dekalb county commission just raised property taxes 26% to cover the county’s budget deficit. As a result Dekalb County residents will suffer a 50 million dollar tax increase even as their property values have declined. In exchange for that $50 million Dekalb residents won’t receive any additional services or benefits and are already being warned that the higher taxes still may not be enough.

As reported in the AJC:

Residents also will need more money. The new incorporated tax rate is 21.21 mills. The tax hike adds $93 a year to the tax bill on the average home, which dropped in value since last year.

But tax bills increase far more where home values have remained the same, with a $420 increase, for instance, on a home that remained at $300,000.

Those kinds of hikes will hit northern and central DeKalb particularly hard, because many home values there barely dropped. Commissioner Elaine Boyer, who represents northern DeKalb, called the tax hike a “slap in the face” for her constituents.

Boyer, who with May and Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton voted against the budget, said she also worried that without long-term forecasting, no one could say another tax hike won’t be needed next year.

Dekalb taxpayers are the only Georgia residents other than those in Fulton County that already have to pay a 1% sales tax to support MARTA. The new $50 million tax increase makes it less likely those same residents will choose to pay another 1% for transportation every time they spend their hard earned money.

The coffin nails are starting to add up at what be an alarming rate for those people determined to raise taxes in Georgia and proponents of the transportation tax increase know it. That is why they are moving the vote to a time when more tax and spend Democrats will likely be voting.

But even tax and spend Democrats have a limit to what they can tolerate. One must wonder if even Dekalb County Democrats may reach that limit before the transportation tax increase comes up for a vote.

Congratulations Mr. Lowery you did it. Now it’s time to put the deck of race cards away.

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The referendum on Georgia’s transportation tax increase won’t be on the ballot for more than a year but the Reverend Joseph Lowery is already playing his race card. In writing about the process surrounding the transportation project selection Mr. Lowery writes:

Originally, the committee was composed of all white men, mostly from the suburbs. This glaring imbalance prompted Rep. David Ralston, Speaker of the state House of Representatives, to intervene and request that Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed be added to the executive committee.

The painful truth is that Ralston, a white Republican from the north Georgia mountains, should not have been involved in such a local issue.

It’s also telling that other committee members failed to recognize that they did not reflect the region’s diverse demographics. It certainly was obvious to many average citizens in Fulton, DeKalb or the City of Atlanta, who collectively represent 40 percent of the vote within the 10-county region.

A similar misstep was brought to light by Mayor Reed last month. During a meeting of the Regional Roundtable, Reed pointed out that a team of consultants selected to manage the $5 million referendum campaign is also exclusively composed of white men.

You can read Mr. Lowery’s column here.

Of course the appearance of the race card during the transportation tax debate isn’t the only time Mr. Lowery has used it lately. Just a few months ago the news broke that the Reverend filed a lawsuit to dissolve cities in the state of Georgia because of he believes the incorporation of the cities were racist acts. You can read about that issue here.

It is sad to see a man with such a proud history stuck in the past. I have spent nearly 5 decades living in Georgia and I remember how things used to be. I am also well aware of the role that Mr. Lowery played during the civil rights movement. I respect what he did and I am grateful that my children will never be exposed to the kind of racism Mr. Lowery fought.

But with all due respect, this is 2011 and the world is not the same as it was in the 1950’s and 60’s. Children born today are 50 years removed from the segregationist policies that Mr. Lowery fought so valiantly. The vast majority of young white people think of segregation as something that might as well have happened in the stone age.

I am 46 years old and the Civil Rights Act was passed before I was born. People born today are farther removed from institutionalized racism than I was from the Great Depression and the depression seemed like ancient history when grown ups talked about it back then.

Time moves on… so do societies. Leaders need to move on as well.

I’m not saying that racism has been wiped off the face of the Earth any more than greed, lust or avarice have. But the world of 2011 is nearly a half a century removed from the racism that the Reverend Joseph Lowery is still fighting. Someone needs to help him understand that he tarnishes his place in history by continuing to fight battles that are already won. Incorporating a city and raising the taxes on every Georgian are policies we can debate but that does not make them racist acts.

Congratulations Reverend Lowery. You did it. Racism may not be extinct but it has been vanquished. It’s time to put the deck of race cards away.

The Yin and the Yang of Senior Transit in Atlanta

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First there was Yin in the AJC:

Metro Atlanta seniors beware:  By 2015, 90 percent of area residents 65 and older are expected to live in neighborhoods with poor or nonexistent access to mass transit.  That’s the worst showing among metropolitan areas with more than 3 million people, according to a new study released Tuesday, “Aging in Place: Stuck Without Options.”

The study was conducted by the Center for Neighborhood Technology and released by Transportation for America, groups that advocate for sustainable development.

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According to the American Association of Retired Persons, when older people lose transportation options they make 15 percent fewer trips to the doctor and far fewer trips to family, friends and other places.

The groups called for a federal investment in mass transit expansion.

You can read the whole Yin here.

Then there was Yang from the CATO Institute:

Most seniors don’t ride transit. Census data show that more than 12.5 percent of all Americans are over 65, yet data from the American Public Transportation Association show that only 6.7 percent of transit trips are taken by senior citizens. The average American rides transit less than 34 times a year; the average senior citizen less than 18 times a year.

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Transportation for America wants transit agencies to extend frequent bus or rail service to every remote suburb where there might be a few people over 65 — not because those people want to ride transit, but to simply give them “options.” In order to pay for service extensions to suburbs, many transit agencies have reduced transit service in the central cities where most transit riders are actually located. As a result, since 1985, per-capita transit ridership has plummeted in such major urban areas as Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta.

Congress expects to pass legislation this year that will decide how to spend $40 billion in annual federal gas tax revenues over the next six years. In recent years, 20 percent of those gas taxes have been spent on transit. Transportation for America’s goal is to further increase that share. But after decades of huge transit subsidies, per-capita transit ridership today is no greater than it was in 1970 — mainly because the subsidies have focused on extending transit service to those who don’t need it rather than providing better service to those who do.

Americans will be better off by privatizing transit. Private operators will provide better service to those willing to live in denser, transit-friendly neighborhoods without wasting a lot of money trying to attract a few suburbanites out of their cars.

You can read the whole Yang here.

I remember attending a transportation charade charrette once where I had a discussion about senior transportation with Alpharetta’s Director of Engineering and Public Works, Pete Sewczwicz. Pete suggested that it would good if the city of Alpharetta could use excess capacity in shopping center parking lots as transit stops for seniors that weren’t able to drive to the doctor’s office. I then pointed out to Pete that if seniors couldn’t drive to the doctor’s office they couldn’t drive to the shopping center either and it was doubtful they would be walking the several miles from their homes to catch a bus.

As the Yang points out, most seniors have no intention of giving up their cars and the only transit helpful to those unable to drive is the kind that picks them up at their house. MARTA already spends millions providing door-to-door transportation for some elderly residents but Georgia’s taxpayers simply can’t be expected to provide door-to-door transportation for every senior citizen in the metro Atlanta area. It might be nice if every senior citizen could get free transportation but unfortunately the service wouldn’t be free, it would be paid for by taxpayers that are already facing 10% unemployment in the worst economic environment of our lifetimes.

Yin may seem like a sympathetic cause but government’s attempt to provide for every possible need of its citizens is simply not sustainable nor desirable. Put me down for Yang on this one.

With advocates like that mass transit doesn’t need enemies

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A few years ago I was completely baffled by the fact that expensive, inefficient transit projects were sucking up billions of taxpayer dollars while more efficient methods of relieving congestion were constantly denigrated by politicians. As my curiosity led to some research I stumbled upon an entire subculture of people referred to as “transit advocates”.

Author Michael Barone discussed this “transit advocate” phenomenom in his recent piece The folly of fixed rail projects which appeared in the San Francisco Examiner. Mr. Barone concluded:

“as a form of transportation, fixed rail makes little sense in most parts of the United States. The fact that promoters of fixed rail almost inevitably produce hugely optimistic projections of cost and ridership indicate that we are dealing here with people who are less committed to rational argumentation than they are to the promotion of something which for them takes on the importance of a religious faith.”

Over the years I have reviewed numerous materials that “transit advocates” use to support their positions and I usually get a good laugh from them. Almost inevitably the document being cited documents that public transit is not the solution to transportation problems.

For example this morning I ran across this tweet from @Transit_Tripp on Twitter:

Study: “Roads Cause Traffic ”  http://tiny.ly/Rp1p

Yes I know the headline is nonsensical but that is to be expected on Twitter. Saying roads cause traffic is like saying roads cause drunk driving but the headline did get my attention so it was effective. I read the article and suggest you follow the link and do the same. Once you have finished come back and compare notes with what I read. I’ll wait for you here………

……….

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Ok, all done? So here is what I read:

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

The Toronto economists were careful to point out that adding transit options has no effect on highway congestion: so long as highway capacity is plentiful and free, there will always be new drivers to take the place of those who switch to transit. This doesn’t mean, though, that more rail routes and frequencies shouldn’t be provided, it just means that more transit won’t reduce congestion
unless it is coupled with policies that make it costlier or harder to drive.

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

So transit advocates tout the news that transit does not relieve congestion? And the transit advocate solution to traffic is to make it “harder and costlier to drive” thus forcing people onto trains that are expensive and inefficient? With advocates like that mass transit doesn’t really need enemies.

Kyle Wingfield: “One conservative’s approach to mass transit: Control costs”

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The Atlanta Journal and Constitution’s Kyle Wingfield has a great column on the astronomical expense of public transit projects. Read the whole thing here.

This is a sample:

  • For a five-phase light rail line parallel to I-85, from Doraville to the Gwinnett Arena: $70 million per mile.
  • For a combination heavy- and light-rail line from the Lindbergh MARTA station to Emory University, $92 million per mile.
  • Some kind of “fixed guideway” transit — light rail or possibly bus rapid transit — from Doraville across the top end of I-285 to the Cobb Galleria area, at $67 million per mile