Category Archives: Transportation

Look out Milton… it’s time to hide ya kids, hide ya wife

Posted on by
2

Monday the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Livable Centers Initiative will be used wipe out 1800 potential jobs in Alpharetta and  make room for 500 more condos. Now they will bring that same astute land use planning to the quiet City of Milton. You can read the whole thing on the Alpharetta Patch here but the key passage is:

The ARC reports that since the first LCI grants were awarded in 2000, more than 84,000 residential units, 20 million square feet of commercial space and 35 million square feet of office space are either planned, under construction or complete in these areas. Region-wide, 67 percent of all office space built since 2000 has been built within LCI areas. And, LCI areas have attracted 8.5 percent of all new residential units and 21 percent of all new commercial development built in the region.

No wonder Miltonites didn’t want to expand sewer service. The sharks are circling. Noted analyst Antoine Dobson speaks on the subject:

Seriously though, if you care about what happens to the City of Milton you had better pay close attention to the LCI process. You wouldn’t believe the garbage that comes out of it if residents don’t get involved.

Charrette, Charade… Tomato, Tomahto

Posted on by
5

Most normal people don’t know what a “charrette” is. They are lucky. As someone with the masochistic desire to participate in the future of my community I have been unfortunate enough to have seen this process firsthand. Just imagine watching sausage being made with B.S. as filler and you get the general idea.

The people that make their living as consultants use the term charrette as if it were synonymous with “organized meetings to solicit public participation and input on developmental goals”. But Dictionary.com doesn’t get paid to host charrettes and it defines them as “a final, intensive effort to finish a project, especially an architectural design project, before a deadline.” You decide for yourself which one is more objective.

In the ancient days of Alpharetta history, back in 2003 or 2004, our city council representatives used to solicit input from neighbors or the other parents at a ballgame when deciding the future of our city. But those were simple times and only served to make Alpharetta one of the greatest places in the state of Georgia to live.

Now when our city officials determine the future of Alpharetta they judiciously rely on input from “stakeholders” at charrettes. Of course neighbor input was free and successful but at least the city can usually get the North Fulton Community Improvement District, the Atlanta Regional Commission or some other group of people that live somewhere else to pay for it… as long as they get to pick the consultants and direct the work. So that’s just like free input from people that live in Alpharetta, right?

If you haven’t heard, the city of Alpharetta has been participating in an enormous effort to determine how to address our city’s future transportation needs. You didn’t know anything about the comprehensive transportation plan? You were probably too busy going to church or soccer games to attend charrettes. That’s why most charrettes are attended by consultants, politicians and “stakeholders” that don’t live in Alpharetta. It is part of their jobs or it affects them financially so they are obligated to skip soccer games to attend.

But one night I decided that I would take time away from my family, do my civic duty and attend a transportation charrette. It was an eye opening experience.

At the charrette I had the privilege of sitting at a table with a MARTA bus driver from Atlanta and a land use attorney. The land use attorney didn’t live in Alpharetta but she does sit on the board of directors for the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce and the State Roadway and Toll Authority. The SRTA Board is the group that voted to extend the tolls on GA 400.

There was also one other average Alpharetta voter at my table. There were also several other tables at the meeting and, based on the people I recognized and spoke to, each table seemed similarly composed. Not exactly a cross section of Alpharetta voters.

It was also interesting to see how the process was manipulated as consultants directed our input. The other person from Alpharetta and I were focused on road bottlenecks and widening the secondary roads that strangle traffic in Alpharetta. But the consultants specifically directed us to map out bike paths and bus routes, light rail corridors and such. Alternative methods of transportation weren’t a big concern for either of us but the format required them to be included so we did as we were told.

In addition to the push for alternate transportation modes there were two major projects introduced to our table by members of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce. The land use attorney pushed hard for a new exit off of GA 400 at McGinnis Ferry Road and the president of the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce came by to pitch his idea for a bridge over GA 400 in the Mansell Road area. Neither of the people from Alpharetta at my table cared anything about those two projects and it is likely they would actually increase traffic by allowing more high density development in the area. Yet I will be shocked if they aren’t in the final transportation plan.

All in all the charrette was a frustrating experience and I was disappointed in the manipulated results. But I was glad I went. I am not hopeful about the plans that will come out of the session but I hate to think what would have happened without the handful of Alpharetta residents that actually showed up.

“High-speed rail is a fast track to government waste”

Posted on by
1

I have been saying that for years but it is nice to see the Washington Post finally coming around to the truth in this editorial. The author, Robert J. Samuelson, does a great job of dismantling the false information used to justify the trains which are the darlings of the transportation crowd. I recommend you read the whole thing but I will give you a small sample:

Rail buffs argue that subsidies for passenger service simply offset the huge government support of highways and airways. The subsidies “level the playing field.” Wrong. In 2004, the Transportation Department evaluated federal transportation subsidies from 1990 to 2002. It found passenger rail service had the highest subsidy ($186.35 per thousand passenger-miles) followed by mass transit ($118.26 per thousand miles). By contrast, drivers received no net subsidy; their fuel taxes more than covered federal spending. Subsidies for airline passengers were about $5 per thousand miles traveled.

******************

The reasons passenger rail service doesn’t work in America are well-known: Interstate highways shorten many trip times; suburbanization has fragmented destination points; air travel is quicker and more flexible for long distances (if fewer people fly from Denver to Los Angeles and more go to Houston, flight schedules simply adjust).

*****************

High-speed rail is not an “investment in the future”; it’s mostly a waste of money. Good government can’t solve all our problems, but it can at least not make them worse.

Commuter rail service is the least effective way for this country to address our transportation needs and I am amazed there are so many people that ignore this fact.

Thanks to Kyle Wingfield of the AJC for pointing this article out to me. If you aren’t reading Kyle regularly, you should be.

When your adversary is making a fool of himself, get out of the way

Posted on by
Reply

Kyle Wingfield had another great column in the AJC this week about the unhealthy obsession many Georgians have with what is going on in North Carolina. It is a great article and it I have noticed the same phenomenom.

To put it simply there are a lot of liberals in Georgia that are constantly harping about the way Charlotte, NC is beating us to the punch in adopting liberal policies. Of course many of these policies are currently driving the states of California, Illinois and New York into bankruptcy but that doesn’t seem to worry them as much as the possibility of Atlanta without more trains.

You can read all of Kyle’s column here.

Lyndon Johnson once said “When your adversary is making a fool of himself, get out of the way”. I hope Georgia’s political leaders heed that thought.

MARTA and the future of Alpharetta

Posted on by
2

In 2007 I had a conversation with an employee of Alpharetta’s Community Development Department about the future of our city. At the time the city was planning to approve a 13 story condominium building in my children’s school district and there was a lot of opposition from my neighbors. At one point in that discussion I told her,”The only reason you are trying to force this down people’s throat is so you can justify bringing MARTA up to Windward. Now people can disagree whether that is a good thing or not but it will completely change the city of Alpharetta and the people who live here should know what you are doing and have some say in it. We should be holding hearings or something.” Stunned silence was her only response.

I was reminded of that conversation when I read Hatcher Hurd’s column “Future transportation still keys off Ga. 400” in the Alpharetta Revue Thursday. In the column Mr. Hurd recalls his own epiphany about MARTA and how Alpharetta would be forced to change in order to accommodate heavy rail expansion.

 “Like a patient father, the MARTA exec told me that the Beltline would have the density of development that would make the MARTA service fiscally tenable. Windward or Roswell just don’t have the numbers – yet.”

I find it very peculiar that Mr. Hurd would liken a MARTA bureaucrat to a father figure but I do appreciate him pointing out what has been going on behind the scenes in Alpharetta for years now. It is about time that a local media outlet shed some light on the transformation that is taking place in the shadows while Alpharettans are too busy raising their families and struggling to keep their heads above water to notice. The timing of Mr. Hurd’s revelation is also fortunate that because it comes as the city is looking to choose a new mayor that will to guide us in this process.

If you doubt that this transformation is actually taking place I refer you to the MARTA North Line Transit Oriented Development Study which was developed in 2006 with the cooperation of Diana Wheeler, the director of Alpharetta’s Community Development Department. You can find the report online and I suggest you start by reading the 22 page appendix here. I’d like to point out a few of the highlights:

“This is just a concept to help the local jurisdictions create more transit-friendly development. The density has to happen before transit service can be extended. The next step is for the local jurisdictions to create the environment to support the MARTA expansion.”

“We know that higher density development leads to traffic and most officials won’t zone for higher density in order to prevent more traffic.”

“More than just carrots; developers should be incentivised to concentrate development and create higher densities.”

So as the fatherly MARTA exec said, Alpharetta may not “have the numbers-yet” but the city has been trying to change that for 5 years now. Too bad they didn’t include the citizens of Alpharetta in the conversation. Neither the mayor nor a single city councilperson has dared tell us what they are doing.

It is time for the residents of Alpharetta to finally join that conversation and there could be no better time to get their attention than during this year’s mayoral race.

Things I learned from Atlanta Progressive News

Posted on by
Reply

You may recall that last year the Clayton County Commission eliminated that county’s public transportation network, C-Tran. At the time you could hear the ululating of the transit advocates (the fact that people identify themselves as advocates for a mode of transportation amazes me) as they mourned the loss of a public transportation system regardless of the fiscal justification.  

So I tried to find evidence that Clayton County has suffered a negative economic consequence from a lack of public transportation. I can’t find a single shred of evidence that the county did the wrong thing. If any of you have evidence one way or another I would love to see it. I have no doubt that it was inconvenient for some people to arrange for their own transportation needs without government subsidies but I can’t find any empirical evidence which proves that eliminating C-Tran was a bad economic decision for the county.

What I did find was that after C-Tran was eliminated the Clayton County voters passed a non-binding resolution asking the county to join the MARTA system. I am sure there must have been some news coverage of the vote but I missed it and only learned of the referendum when I stumbled across an article on the Atlanta Progressive News website. The article says that the voters passed a resolution to raise the county’s sales tax by one percent and then use the money to buy into the MARTA system. Who knew? It is amazing what you can learn from the interwebs.

For example I also learned that Sonny Perdue served as governor for 10 years. I always thought the former governor served two 4 year terms but according to someone identified only as Biola, ” There’s been a complete lack of leadership for the last ten years under Perdue.” That rascally Perdue. Who knew he was neglecting transportation needs even during the last two years of the Roy Barnes administration?

But that’s not all. I also learned that Clayton County residents will be paying up to $35 million dollars in additional sales tax if the MARTA tax were passed. And that the voters have been lead to believe that $35 million dollars is enough to extend train service as well as buses into their county. That seems odd since Fulton County residents have paid billions of dollars into the MARTA system for 3 decades but the trains still don’t go into much of the county. But if transit advocates say so it must be true. Of course $35 million dollars would barely cover 10% of MARTA’s yearly operating deficit but why quibble over details.

Another thing I learned from APN is that even transit  advocates don’t expect the state’s proposed transportation tax increase to pass in 2012. The singularly named Biola reportedly also said, “he doubts the regional transportation sales tax is going to pass in 2012 in Metro Atlanta, given the difficulty of finding agreement on a project list between progressives in Atlanta and Tea Party elements in other counties.” I have to concede that Biola may have a point on that one. Those darn tea partiers just keep getting in the way every time some glorious government spending initiative comes up for an actual vote. That’s why SRTA had to pass the toll extension on GA 400 without one.

Well I think I’ve learned enough for one day but there is plenty more at AtlantaProgressiveNews.com if you want to check it out for yourself. And if you have that much time on your hands you may want to check out my previous blogposts regarding MARTA. They are listed under the MARTA category on the right side of the GA Jim home page.

Abolish the State Roadway and Toll Authority?

Posted on by
Reply

Now that is change I can believe in!

Apparently Georgia State Representative Bobby Franklin has introduced a bill, HB 18, which would eliminate the State Roadway and Toll Authority this summer. If you aren’t familiar with SRTA, it is the organization that recently extended the tolls on GA 400 to the chagrin of many North Fulton residents and elected officials.

I have no idea if this bill can pass in this session or if this would actually remove the tolls which were extended but it’s introduction is one of the first signs of sanity to come out of the gold dome this year.

You can read the bill here.

Alpharetta faces the fork in the road

Posted on by
2

Today there will be a very important meeting of the Alpharetta Planning Commission. The commission will review the request by MetLife to convert their property on Haynes Bridge Road from an office complex to a high density Mixed Use Development.

This will be the third such mega development to have been brought before the planning commission in the last few years. The first two projects were Prospect Park on Old Milton Parkway (the enormous dirt pile which serves as the entrance to our fair city) and the Windward Mill project which was approved on Windward Parkway. Neither of those projects complied with Alpharetta’s long term land use plan and neither one has yet to be completed. In fact it is extremely unlikely that they will ever be developed as proposed given the drastic changes in the commercial real estate market in the past two years. But that won’t stop the city’s Community Development Department from foisting another of these projects on the unsuspecting citizens of Alpharetta.

I hope that as the City of Alpharetta considers approving the MetLife project they will take the time to read this article which was originally published in the Atlanta Journal when MetLife first came to Alpharetta:

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. held a grand opening this week for its headquarters in Alpharetta. The 81-acre campus, at Ga. 400 and Haynes Bridge Road in the Georgia 400 Center, is expected to hold some 800 employees in about two years. MetLife will occupy four of six floors and lease the rest. MetLife’s business in metro Atlanta includes pensions, brokerage, group insurance, real estate investments, disability insurance, securities and corporate investments. The company moved its corporate headquarters from Perimeter Center because of the increasing traffic problems there. MetLife sold Perimeter Center last year for $336 million.

The key section of the article says,”The company moved its corporate headquarters from Perimeter Center because of the increasing traffic problems there. MetLife sold Perimeter Center last year for $336 million.”

So in 1998 MetLife came to Alpharetta because they had developed the Perimeter Center of Sandy Springs into a concrete jungle with disastrous traffic. Now they would like to do the same here. The Atlanta Regional Commission’s review of the proposed MetLife project shows that it will take road improvements that cost 10’s of millions of dollars just to accommodate the extra 12,000 cars a day at that intersection.

I fully expect this project to be approved because influential business interests support it and our community development department is determined to cram enough people into Alpharetta to justify a billion dollar expansion of MARTA into this city. But it is sad to see this happening in my adopted hometown.

As a community we have come to a fork in the road. We can choose growth that compliments our attractiveness as a quiet place to raise families or we can choose growth that turns us into the next Perimeter Center.

I hope we choose the path less traveled but I’m not optimistic. Wonder how long it will be before we read an article notifying us that MetLife has sold their gridlocked property on Haynes Bridge Road and moved to Forsyth County?

If you care about this decision please contact city hall today 678 297-6000.

SRTA’s informational meeting about the GA 400 toll projects

Posted on by
Reply

I stopped by the State Roadway and Toll Authority’s meeting in Alpharetta tonight. The handful of residents there were outnumbered by consultants about 4-1 but I did see a few locals I knew.

I walked away thinking that the SRTA folks and their supporters are probably very nice, earnest people that believe they are just doing what’s best for us but they are completely oblivious to how angry taxpayers are that SRTA just appropriated millions of our dollars against our will to do it. They just don’t get it.

GA 400 Toll meeting in Alpharetta

Posted on by
Reply

The State Roadway and Toll Authority will be in Alpharetta this Wednesday to hear how the public wants them to spend the $67 million they will take from North Fulton County residents. 

The toll collectors plan to be at the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce 11605 Haynes Bridge Road, (Suite 100, Alpharetta, GA 30009) on Wednesday, January 5th from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. As I pointed out in this previous post, some Georgia legislators aren’t too happy about the way the Georgia Department of Transportation and SRTA circumvented their authority so the meeting may be more entertaining than you would ordinarily think.

Either way you should come out and see how the bureaucrats plan to spend your money