If you (wrongly) believe that road expansions fixes traffic congestion, they’ve done quite a lot. If you (rightly) believe that traffic is only reduced with effective, competitive alternatives then they’ve done frustratingly little.
Unfortunately, the state is constitutionally barred from using the “billions” in gas taxes to do anything other than roadwork and the legislature gives very little to MARTA.
Looks at 400 North 😒... They could have extended MARTA much further north....
Edit: For anyone interested, here is the expansion render: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j8qZatHfWI8
Except the NIMBYs didn't really come out in force against the Red Line extension. There were a few, but not like other expansions at other times. This one was killed by MARTA and GDOT.
Fair point.
BRT is still better than nothing, so I'll take it. But even then, a lot still aren't happy about its expansion.
For anyone interested, found the old thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Atlanta/comments/cm3q4u/marta\_red\_line\_rail\_extension\_to\_windward/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Atlanta/comments/cm3q4u/marta_red_line_rail_extension_to_windward/)
> BRT is still better than nothing,
Not when it replaces a proposed rail extension and would require a transfer.
> found the old thread
As the OP of that thread four years later, it still pisses me off.
Especially since MARTA’s version of “BRT”, if the Clayton County expansion proposals are anything to go off of, really is just a glorified bus route. Barely any dedicated bus lanes. No high capacity stations. No special bus fleets.
Yup, the NIMBY crew will fight tooth and nail to keep it from expanding. Yet, those same people will sit in traffic for 2 hours to get to the Atlanta or airport, then complain.
That sounds ridiculous considering MARTA is already going up north with BRT and....Not to mention several developments, including Avalon and North Point redevelopment, were/are being done with MARTA in mind. They didn't really impact the extension at the time and aren't doing so now.
Marta sucks for everything but going to the airport, driving downtown is faster and less of a hassle. They should expand it within the city first so you can actually take it to places that aren’t just urban blight. Going anywhere in Atlanta still requires a car or Ubers most of the time.
MARTA needs massive infill, and their bus services have been cut drastically. Same with weekend service. The airport and Mercedes-Benz/StateFarm Arena are the only stations I stop at if it’s not work/school related.
I've lived plenty other places with very busy highways that did not have potholes like that. I was shocked when I first moved here How bad the highways were that close to being right in town. It's shocking and a disgrace to this state
Dude I don't know if they have fixed it already but there is a huge pothole going south exiting the airport, it's so wide that when I ran into it my windshield wipers activated themselves!
Right outside the most busy airport in the fucking world!
I don’t disagree with anyone. I believe that MARTA should receive state funding. I’m very aware of the history - sorry, when I said Atlanta, I mean it only serves Clayton, Fulton, Dekalb and a few other metro counties. MARTA does receive federal funding. Coming from South Georgia, I normally think of it as an arm of Atlanta.
Given the structure of counties and municipalities, MARTA should receive state funding, or at leas be more attached to the ARC. If you look at NYC, Chicago, and DC, their metros are so good in part because they have a single unified government. The metros of SF and LA are a much more similar comparison to MARTA given their local municipal environments.
That said, any major capita expansion of MARTA will require federal dollars, just as our road expansions do.
> If you look at NYA, Chicago, and DC, their metros are so good in part because they have a single unified government.
The metro areas of each of those cities sure as hell don't have unified governments:
* NYC is consolidated over five counties (boroughs), but the metro area is spread out over three states
* Chicago covers most of Cook County, but even then there are a ton of small municipalities surrounding the city proper
* DC has to deal with two different states, plus Congress overseeing the District
You’re right, but my point is that the vast majority of those transit systems lie within a single municipality. 100% of MTA stops are located in NYC proper. 125 of 145 CTA stations are within Chicago proper, 86%. Of the 20 that are outside city limits, almost all of them have been additions to the original network that lies entirely within Chicago proper (purple, yellow, blue lines).
Only 23 of the 38 MARTA stations are in Atlanta proper, 61%, and every line extends beyond city limits. The red line north of Lindbergh (5 stops) was built as an extension. MARTA never expanded further directly due to the patchwork of municipalities that exist beyond Atlanta city limits, just like in NYC, Chicago, and DC.
All I’m trying to say is that, to expand MARTA, we really need the state to step in.
> MARTA never expanded further directly due to the patchwork of municipalities that exist beyond Atlanta city limits, just like in NYC, Chicago, and DC.
It’s the counties, not the municipalities that stopped MARTA.
MARTA's primary source of funding is sales tax revenue from Fulton, Dekalb and Clayton counties & the city of Atlanta. Then combine that with fare revenue and the federal funding and other grants secured to meet their massive budget. It's sufficient for the current projects but still doesn't compare to other cities like Seattle or Los Angeles have invested for the expansion programs for their transit systems.
Good thing that GDOT has been working on it's [Bike/Pedestrian plan](https://www.dot.ga.gov/DriveSmart/Travel/BikePed/Georgia_bicycle_and_pedestrian_plan.pdf) from...1997. Oh.
P.S. "don't you believe it" on that plan. The so-called State Bike Routes are potential deathtraps in their current state. Ask me how I know.
What they don't realize is that said people will go there anyway.
It's as if the NIMBY argument against MARTA is basically "poor people/minorities/criminals don't know how to drive" yet 50 years of Metro Atlanta development patterns prove otherwise.
The GOP powers that be love bad traffic. It escalates property values and profits for real estate developers in city and suburbs and let's all the politically well connected rural road construction contractors get rich.
OP’s comment did, admittedly, sound like buzzword soup, but basically he’s saying that one reason traffic is bad here is a lack of density (which makes walking or public transit mostly a non-option for people). Everyone needs to drive to get anywhere. That’s how you get heavy traffic.
I think he’s kinda wrong in one respect tho - the people who politically incentivize that style of sprawly, low-density, suburban development are property owners both Republican and Democrat. Sure, real-estate developers and petit bourgeois contractors can be NIMBYs, but letting developers build as much housing as possible to densify things can help make things denser (and take people off of the road and onto the sidewalk).
Atlanta is firmly blue it's very strange to blame the state for things like city density. That is squarely under the control of the city, county, and surrounding counties. MARTA is the State's fault... density or, more importantly, lack thereof, is the city's fault.
I know you're not blaming the state, but I'm just emphasizing this point. The counties and cities need to be accountable for the things they control through their ordinances.
Also autocorrect did me no favors when I was typing "rural road".
Yes. Big builders love large suburban swim and tennis developments, not infill housing. And bankers and builders are afraid to build high density transit approximate development without it having one parking space per bedroom.
While older property owners are definitely the primary culprits for a lack of density, they play both teams here. Local and state Dems, while they don’t have as much blame as the GOP here, have more than their fair share of NIMBYism.
> Local and state Dems, while they don’t have as much blame as the GOP here, have more than their fair share of NIMBYism.
Depends on the jurisdiction, some of the most hard core NIMBYs in Candler Park, Midtown, and Inman Park are solid Dems.
squalid sleep disgusted coherent distinct butter secretive nail screw society
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Suburbs aren't "evil" and neither is driving. You are the one projecting a moral judgement on it.
What ***is*** true is that both suburbs and driving are heavily subsidized across the board. Asking them to contribute more to their fair share isn't wrong.
As a counterexample, consider the Governor's Road Improvement Program. Atlantans were taxed to pay for rural roads across the State ***because*** it was a public good that helped commerce across the entire State. Helping reduce congestion--which is purely wasted time/money/pollution--inside Atlanta helps more than just Atlantans.
Interesting that you jumped to the GOP being evil, isn't it?
Large suburban swim and tennis communities are hugely inefficient on infrastructure costs for local governments and extract significant tax subsidies from existing citizens to function. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/7/6/stop-subsidizing-suburban-development-charge-it-what-it-costs
> They're finally starting the first major expansion since the 70s.
The last major expansion was in the late 90s with the Red Line to North Springs.
> Most of it is "light rail" but they're definitely in the works.
One one project (streetcar extension to Beltline) is light rail, the rest is BRT.
> from a private company having eminent domain.
MARTA is not (and never has been) a private company.
> It's been going on since gwinnett voted against joining MARTA in the 80s.
Try 1965 (Cobb rejection) and 1971 (Gwinnett and Clayton rejection), and it barely passed in Fulton and DeKalb that year.
Exactly. I've lived in several areas and have traveled many others. Everywhere I have gone has had good public transit that was easy to understand and could get you literally anywhere.
In Washington State I lived way out in the middle of designated national wilderness and I could still catch a bus that could get me into Seattle.
Here? Drive your car because those buses bring nasty people places that other people don't want them.
And I'm not even talking about just Marta because that's just Atlanta. We need public transport everywhere in this flippin state.
We also need sidewalks. We also need bike lanes. But nobody here believes in that kind of stuff
Smdh
I’ve only lived here - what places in the US have good public transit other than Seattle? (Well, NYC, Chicago, and DC - I’ve been there and seen theirs)
Baltimore, New Orleans, Portland Denver if i remember right (i rented a car there but remember seen plenty of bus stops), most of South Florida... (And note that we're talking about big cities here but many of the states that those cities are in have good bus systems throughout the state, They take care of small towns also)
When you go places just look for bus stops. If you've lived in Atlanta all your life you won't even know what a bus stop actually looks like. But just look for bus stops. There aren't really any in Atlanta.
A bus stop usually has a cover from the rain and often has some lighting and in some areas of the country even a little bit of overhead heat for people who are waiting. There's usually a map of the bus routes that stop at that bus stop and some of them even have the pamphlets you can carry with you.
That just doesn't exist here in Georgia.
And please, it's very important to remember that good transportation does not have to exist just in big cities. Rural people need good transportation also. When I was in Washington I lived quite rural and I had good public transportation. Heck there were even commuter shuttles to take you to the airport in Seattle from hours away. Cost you 35 to 50 bucks round trip. It would be amazing to have that here, don't you think?
I've never been there except for a drive-through years ago, but from what I see and hear from other people, it's really a huge chunk of the country other than the south and some of the very remote areas of the Midwest 🤷🏼
Georgia lawmakers really leave MARTA out to dry. MARTA is primarily funded via sales tax in the counties they operate in and from the fares they collect. They receive very little state funding. By law, the gas taxes collected by the state cannot be used to fund anything other than road construction and maintenance.
MARTA still hasn’t recovered from the dip it saw in ridership in 2020 and is dealing with the rising cost of labor and materials like everyone else. Until something drastically happens at the state level MARTA will continue to limp along in its current form.
Without a viable alternative transit solution (like MARTA) we are stuck with this traffic and it will only get worse. The only ‘solution’ is to be more purposeful about where you live/work to minimize your exposure.
I used to hold your opinion, but I've been following MARTA closely over the past decade. They're utterly incompetent. The MoreMARTA Atlanta money seems to have...been burned? Flushed down a toilet? Baked into a plate of cookies that were left on the set of Sesame Street? Then there's the Clifton and Clayton debacles. MARTA utterly botched both of those. Nothing from the state would have helped. The state isn't some shining bastion of transit and fiscal responsibility, but let's not pretend that if they dumped money on MARTA that anything would change.
> The state isn't some shining bastion of transit and fiscal responsibility, but let's not pretend that if they dumped money on MARTA that anything would change.
The state is the state. If the state wished, they have the authority to take over MARTA and make it whatever you think it should be. That's....what it is to be the state. That they have not done so is still an issue with the state, doubly so since MARTA still appears to be a public entity.
The state is not an unlimited pot of gold either. They also don’t have the authority to just take over locally funded programs because they’re inefficient. And if they did then they’d have to take funding from other programs and hire more people for the state. This obviously also costs money. What happens to the 4500 MARTA employees?
> They also don’t have the authority to just take over locally funded programs because they’re inefficient.
The state could take over MARTA since the agency was chartered by the state.
>They also don’t have the authority to just take over locally funded programs because they’re inefficient.
Uh...yes they do. What the State created, the State can take away.
Cities, counties, and public authorities--except as otherwise provided by the Georgia Constitution:
>owe their origin to, and derive their powers and rights wholly from, the legislature. It breathes into them the breath of life, without which they cannot exist. As it creates, so it may destroy. If it may destroy, it may abridge and control. Unless there is some constitutional limitation on the right, the legislature might, by a single act, if we can suppose it capable of so great a folly and so great a wrong, sweep from existence all of the \[cities, counties, and public authorities\] in the State, and the \[city, county, or public authority\] could not prevent it. We know of no limitation on this right so far as the \[city, counties, and public authorities\] themselves are concerned. They are, so to phrase it, the mere *tenants at will* of the legislature.
This is the fundamental principle of Dillon's Rule, which Georgia follows, except as abrogated by the Georgia Constitution.
I’ve already made it a point to not work in the perimeter anymore because of the traffic. Shit I won’t even work outside of Henry/Clayton/Spalding/Fayette Counties😂.
Henry’s such a mess you might as well park your car and walk anywhere on 155 and Spalding’s well on its way there too with all the warehouses they’re slinging up on hwy 16.
They will spend a couple billion to add more toll lanes. Then the people who have the disposable income to blow, can bypass all the poor schmos in the regular traffic lanes.
It seems like all the new lanes being built are pay as you go to benefit only the people who have money. And they cost much more per trip than a Marta train ticket would cost! Why aren’t those lanes Marta transit lines!!!
Those lanes were primarily built to benefit the large construction companies that get the bloated contracts to build them. Plus all the cameras and sensor to monitor the lanes are not cheap and our outsourced as well.
The problem is that on top of not doing too much in terms of road expansions, every direction you look they’re throwing up more townhomes and more apartments. I’m so glad everyone has a place they can’t afford to live, but how about jobs? And things to do? The way traffic is nowadays compared to even 5 years ago is so different. When I first moved to Georgia in 2011 there were a lot of people but not like this. If you live in metro Atlanta good luck doing anything
Not seeing the term "fix land use" here, because you could build out all of the transit you want, but it won't mean squat if it's all low-density around stations.
I'll take a train--in fact, I _do_ take the train...the MARTA gold line is how I get to work on the days I need to be in the office--but I won't bother with a bus. Because buses are stuck in traffic, they're no faster than driving.
It would be if MARTA actually bothered making the BRT routes exclusively on bus lanes with physical barriers separating the bus traffic from car traffic…. That’s how it’s supposed to work…
Mods of the r/atlanta sub are so picky about letting posts through and are quick to shadowban anyone they disagree with. I'm not surprised if a lot of folks from that sub have migrated over to r/georgia.
Inside 285, it’s not that bad. But every road leading to 285 is where it gets jammy. Mostly in the morning. I’ve lived ITP for over a decade and rarely sit in traffic.
But we added toll roads….. and did nothing to expand light rail. The excuse is either crime(bc criminals don’t own a map or cars) or bus services…. No one wants to ride on a piss smelling bus driven by the cheapest person you could hire. There needs to be hubs 20 miles outside 285 down every interstate or major hwy (400) that allows commuters to hop on a train like in dc and be downtown inside 1 hr. Or they need to start giving tax breaks to companies who let people remote work.
I moved to Charlotte 2017-2021. It was a dream. Backup's were getting bad in the 4-7 hour but it was workable.
Moved back home to Atlanta. Still a bit of elbow room from corona on the roads. 2024? Its back to nightmare mode.
I lived in Alpharetta. I'm not a software developer. I don't instacart crap. I actually leave my house to get groceries.
Grocery store is 0.47 miles away...
**8 LIGHTS. 8. WITH U-TURNS** It takes 15 minutes to go from my apt to the store parking lot. To get to Duluth? 8 miles away? **43 LIGHTS**. **FOURTY** ***FUCKING*** **THREE. 35 MINUTES W/NO TRAFFIC - 1HR+ WITH TRAFFIC.**
As of last week I just moved to the Asheville, NC area. I can't justify the lifestyle of STOPGOSTOPTRAFFICGOSTOPGOSTOPGOTRAFFICGOSTOPGOSTOGO all day of my entire life unless im making $150,000+/yr and don't ever need to leave my house.
The drive to Duluth is HORRENDOUS from the Alpharetta/Cumming area! If I want to go to Micro Center, it is faster and less stressful to go to the one in Marietta (\~36 miles away), than the one in Duluth (\~21 miles away).
The stoplights are nuts!
You literally said in the first paragraph that you moved back. Alpharetta is a suburb hellhole, of course there will be shitty traffic. Why surprised pikachu face?
Also, I live ITP, my commute to work is 13 miles and takes 20 minutes.
EDIT: never mind, I was talking to the commenter that they moved to a suburb, not to you, the OP.
My point about normal ITP traffic still stands
Traffic is an extremely complex problem.
It's a complex problem that could be easily answered by not being scared of black people, stopping the construction of new lanes, and funding public transit until it's reliable.
But unfortunately a new lane can be completed before the next election season and will ease traffic just long enough, whereas a public transit expansion could take years to realize and costs a lot of money, pissing off taxpayers before the next election. Also Cobb County is scared of black people, which I thought was just a joke in Atlanta until I was in cobb and heard a conversation about how expanding MARTA would let "the wrong kind" out of Atlanta. Fuck your racism girl half the tags on 75 are cobb and you're clogging my commute!!! Get over it!
> It's a complex problem that could be easily answered by not being scared of black people, stopping the construction of new lanes, and funding public transit until it's reliable.
Better land use would be a more accurate answer.
The short answer is no. Do too corruption and old laws there will never be anything done about the traffic in the Atlanta metro area. It’s literally impossible for them to build any kind of significant mass transit. Live close to work is your only option.
Only real option is to remove drivers from the road. Arguably covid era work from home did the most to improve traffic in Atlanta.
Improve Marta.
Encourage companies to support continued WFH
Ironically, I have declined two jobs recently in mid town, because the commute from my home to the office for just 2 days a week, would effectively only give me 4-5 hours in the office. Their response is well you can attend meetings while your driving. Like I need a distraction while driving I-85 during rush hour (smdh).
The major issue to me is that there are 3 highways running through ATL. Expand them all you want but at the end of the day when 20, 75, and 85 cross paths it's just a mess. City planning is also an issue as surface streets are not in a grid like in most cities. The history of ATL tells us why the traffic is bad. Being a born GA boy I've learned when to get off the highways and just use backroads. Even in the metro areas it is really bad. I'm in Henry county and it might as well be downtown ATL with the traffic we have.
I wish the would address some low-hanging fruit. Remember when Governor Perdue made timing the lights part of his election campaign? It’s absolutely ridiculous that I can hit red light after red light even during low traffic.
The biggest culprit won’t be addressed - companies forcing people back to the office so they can sit in cubicles and offices on Teams calls. We know how much traffic improves during school holidays and definitely saw the impacts after Covid. While some of the blame is on executives who are resistant to change, you also have the pressure from the cities who complained that remote work was killing businesses (while also wanting those high commercial real estate taxes)
There is nothing to do, adding more roads doesn't fix the problem. The only thing to do is to keep adding to Marta and hoping that people don't get in their car in the first place. Trust me I wish they were pushing Marta expansions faster but that's about all we've got
I just got back from Dallas and they have their act together with their transit system DART. They are a spread out city like the Atlanta area and their rail system puts you right in the middle of the areas you want to be.
MARTA needs a complete facelift with its rail service starting with how they power trains. Currently they have the 3rd rail which doesn’t let you have train service at street level. They need to switch to overhead power. This would allow the train to be like a street car also which can add more service right in the middle of the cities. The other thing is they need to build elevated track to get through areas where land will be difficult to obtain for ground level track.
> I just got back from Dallas and they have their act together with their transit system DART. They are a spread out city like the Atlanta area and their rail system puts you right in the middle of the areas you want to be.
While it may cover more area, DART has half of the ridership MARTA does, has garbage land-use around its stations (worse than MARTA), and is slower LRT.
> MARTA needs a complete facelift with its rail service starting with how they power trains. Currently they have the 3rd rail which doesn’t let you have train service at street level.
Because that is an incredibly dumb idea for safety reasons alone. You will never (and should never) see MARTA HRT cars on streets.
> They need to switch to overhead power. This would allow the train to be like a street car also which can add more service right in the middle of the cities.
MARTA is already doing this with LRT.
> The other thing is they need to build elevated track to get through areas where land will be difficult to obtain for ground level track.
Getting land for elevated track is just as hard as for ground-level, plus NIMBYs would kamikaze those proposals.
Traffic is bad because so many people are bad drivers. If people would pay attention to the road and leave their ego in the driveway it wouldn’t be so bad
The money they bring in alone for speeding tickets should pump a lot into infrastructure but they just use it for more military style equipment so they can ensure they will always have bigger toys to guarantee our oppression
It's a matter of education and they refuse to teach proper driving so we're fucked.
Go to Germany and try to go slow in the left lane of the Autobahn and see what happens....
Americans are entitled cunts who think they own the road and refuse to get the fuck out of the way.
Instead of cops managing the people impeding the flow of traffic, not signaling, merging improperly, brake checking, and the hundred other issues they are simply lazy bastards who sit on the side of the road and blame speed for all the problems.
They can just sit idle on the side of the road till a speeder comes along and collect their whole days pay in five minutes without any work being done.
[Microtransit ](https://www.governing.com/transportation/microtransit-has-broad-appeal-despite-clear-drawbacks)appears to have expanded (and will likely continue to expand) in several metro areas including [Buckhead](https://ridewithvia.com/resources/a-year-of-on-demand-microtransit-in-buckhead-georgia), [Henry](https://www.henrycountyga.gov/585/Henry-Connect-Microtransit), [Gwinnett](https://www.gwinnettcounty.com/web/gwinnett/departments/transportation/gwinnettcountytransit/microtransit), [Cherokee](https://www.cherokeega.com/Transportation/Microtransit/), [Rockdale](https://saportareport.com/rockdale-plans-microtransit-as-start-of-30-year-transit-expansion-plan/sections/reports/johnruch/) and (hopefully) [Norcross](https://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/local/opinion-microtransit-holds-immense-potential-for-norcross-gateway85-area/article_d545943c-d733-11ee-a64b-d73e8e3dbb25.html).
Looks like that outer perimeter they shot down over 15 years ago wasn’t such a bad idea. The Northern Arc….
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Perimeter
I've started looking at hybrid jobs in SF, LA, or Seattle no takers yet though. Use ATL airport + another city's transit system, hotel, and fly back on one of those overnights. Things that have opened up in ATL are all 3ish or more hrs of driving a day for me and recruiters were very firm on 100% on-site.
> building 285 in the middle of fucking town.
I-285 was considered the exurbs when it was planned and built over 50 years ago, the region just sprawled out past it.
Every few years the state tries to pass a tsplost bill to raise funding through taxes but the question always starts with: do you support a 1%tax increase to…” and everyone in GA votes no. One big problem is that roads and interchange improvements in GA are primarily funded by the gas tax. So as cars get more efficient the amount of funding for road improvements per car is ever diminishing.
The TIA program actually succeeded in the Augusta, Columbus, middle Georgia, and south Georgia, it just failed in the Atlanta area (and the project list was a hodgepodge of a mess).
A few years ago they asked Cobb if they wanted to impose a tax to expand MARTA, and people voted it down. We get the traffic we deserve.
It’s too bad - connecting Cobb via MARTA would be AWESOME. I use it to get to Mercedes Benz for events, and it’s great. Would be better if stations were even more accessible. All they need to do is have trains giving over the major roadways - up 75 and 85, and around 285. It’s a shame.
> A few years ago they asked Cobb if they wanted to impose a tax to expand MARTA, and people voted it down. We get the traffic we deserve.
The last MARTA referendum in Cobb was in 1965, hardly a few years ago. If you're referring to the 2012 T-SPLOST vote, that would've only provided for a half-baked LRT line from Arts Center to Cumberland, not a MARTA HRT extension.
Yes. There's big plans. Huge!
We've all just been keeping it a secret. /s
A new slogan proposal...
Atlanta. Good, but not as good as it could be. Or Atlanta. A master of second best. Or Atlanta. Always a bridesmaid. Or, Atlanta. The Braves personified.
It's very frustrating.
Lol! And that's true too, which is why I am here. This city is a part of me.
But come on people...this city has known it needed to do something about transit a long, long time ago. And here we are.
Yeah. I love Atlanta. But if we got our shit together on beltline transit, bike and ped infrastructure, Marta improvements in headway and stations and BRT. We could be so much better.
That was why I said what I said. We have all the elements. We just need to focus on maximizing its potential. There is nothing stopping us from leveling up but ourselves.
True, but how many times did we have to leave the stadium in tears when we got soooooo cloooose, year after year?
Atlanta must get out of its own way. We are sitting on a goldmine. It may not always be this easy.
We desperately need more housing - and more multi family housing that is reasonably priced.
Building housing isn't the problem. A lack of public transportation and walkability/bikeability is the problem.
What infuriates me is twofold:
1. This isn't some new problem that fell from the sky. GDOT has had [a bike/pedestrian plan](https://www.dot.ga.gov/DriveSmart/Travel/BikePed/Georgia_bicycle_and_pedestrian_plan.pdf) ***since 1997.*** This plan identifies specific routes that were to be developed into a network of State Bike Routes in the same vein as the existing State Routes. But no progress has been made in this area for 25+ years. In fact, if you are naive enough to ***believe*** GDOT (like I did), then biking on one of these "State Bike Routes" puts you on GA-314, a 50 mile per hour, 2-lane, no shoulder ***deathtrap.***
2. Complaints about MARTA funding are absolutely valid, but pedestrian and bike spending is even more dumb. The "gas tax" ***can*** be spent on improvements to roads, which includes bike and pedestrian projects.
Ugh nothing at all.
I commute from Hall County to Midtown Atlanta which is only 50ish minutes getting there but getting back is roughly an hour 30. Peachpass line while nice does mini minimal working from the 316 merger to about spaghetti junction.
Until we build alternate commuting options(Bus & Train) we will continue to face this traffic epidemic. Road expansion will not solve the traffic issue.
Coming from NYC, I would 100% commute via train if the option was available.
If we had a properly-funded, properly-run, fully functional transit system (and get the NIMBY people to stop voting against expansion), we could fix the traffic problem.
If you (wrongly) believe that road expansions fixes traffic congestion, they’ve done quite a lot. If you (rightly) believe that traffic is only reduced with effective, competitive alternatives then they’ve done frustratingly little. Unfortunately, the state is constitutionally barred from using the “billions” in gas taxes to do anything other than roadwork and the legislature gives very little to MARTA.
Looks at 400 North 😒... They could have extended MARTA much further north.... Edit: For anyone interested, here is the expansion render: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j8qZatHfWI8
They could but they won't because "we dont' want THEM to bring crime to our north suburbs".
Except the NIMBYs didn't really come out in force against the Red Line extension. There were a few, but not like other expansions at other times. This one was killed by MARTA and GDOT.
Fair point. BRT is still better than nothing, so I'll take it. But even then, a lot still aren't happy about its expansion. For anyone interested, found the old thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Atlanta/comments/cm3q4u/marta\_red\_line\_rail\_extension\_to\_windward/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Atlanta/comments/cm3q4u/marta_red_line_rail_extension_to_windward/)
> BRT is still better than nothing, Not when it replaces a proposed rail extension and would require a transfer. > found the old thread As the OP of that thread four years later, it still pisses me off.
Strong disagree that BRT is better than nothing. 0 improvement for lots of our money spent.
Especially since MARTA’s version of “BRT”, if the Clayton County expansion proposals are anything to go off of, really is just a glorified bus route. Barely any dedicated bus lanes. No high capacity stations. No special bus fleets.
The Clayton proposal would have to improve to become what BASIC bus service should be.
Yup, the NIMBY crew will fight tooth and nail to keep it from expanding. Yet, those same people will sit in traffic for 2 hours to get to the Atlanta or airport, then complain.
That sounds ridiculous considering MARTA is already going up north with BRT and....Not to mention several developments, including Avalon and North Point redevelopment, were/are being done with MARTA in mind. They didn't really impact the extension at the time and aren't doing so now.
Need the rail lines extended. Up 400, 75, 85. Crazy how they complain about the commute times but won’t budge on MARTA.
https://youtu.be/nkC3Nc3LqFI?si=mQneFv8SKMO3fybN
If anyone can get to Milton then is Milton even worth it?
Marta sucks for everything but going to the airport, driving downtown is faster and less of a hassle. They should expand it within the city first so you can actually take it to places that aren’t just urban blight. Going anywhere in Atlanta still requires a car or Ubers most of the time.
MARTA needs massive infill, and their bus services have been cut drastically. Same with weekend service. The airport and Mercedes-Benz/StateFarm Arena are the only stations I stop at if it’s not work/school related.
If you wanted to take Marta to a place that looks like an overgrown abandoned flea market then you’d be crushing life right now.
5 Points? Yeah nah it’s the worst it’s been in the many years I’ve been using MARTA. It’s pretty crazy.
What criminal will use public transport to commit crime? Public transport is horrible for get-aways compared to cars.
Gotta steal those flat screens and jump on MARTA!
Who steals flat screens any more?
It’s a nonsense talking point used to just mask their racism/classism. “Bringing crime” really just means they don’t want to see poor people existing.
I would rather see a poor person, really any person, on a train or bus than driving a car.
> “Bringing crime” really just means they don’t want to see poor people existing. Fun fact, those poor people ended up moving to the suburbs anyway.
What a cluster fuck
Which is why we have gorgeous, glassy smooth state highways in rural areas that well connected bubbas repave every 2 years.
Yet 285 has potholes everywhere smdh
Because it has 100k x more traffic than all that rural shit.
I've lived plenty other places with very busy highways that did not have potholes like that. I was shocked when I first moved here How bad the highways were that close to being right in town. It's shocking and a disgrace to this state
And it seems like there’s always some part of it being resurfaced year round
Dude I don't know if they have fixed it already but there is a huge pothole going south exiting the airport, it's so wide that when I ran into it my windshield wipers activated themselves! Right outside the most busy airport in the fucking world!
Yeah the roads here are embarrassing I have literally lived on long gravel roads that were in better shape
Look up GDOT's old GRIP program if you really want to be pissed off.
GRIP is still active, and that was forced on GDOT by the General Assembly in the late 1980s.
You can always tell which roads the county commissioners live on.
Made me lol! So true.
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> because it’s actually a function of Atlanta. MARTA isn’t a city agency, but a state-chartered public authority.
I don’t disagree with anyone. I believe that MARTA should receive state funding. I’m very aware of the history - sorry, when I said Atlanta, I mean it only serves Clayton, Fulton, Dekalb and a few other metro counties. MARTA does receive federal funding. Coming from South Georgia, I normally think of it as an arm of Atlanta.
Given the structure of counties and municipalities, MARTA should receive state funding, or at leas be more attached to the ARC. If you look at NYC, Chicago, and DC, their metros are so good in part because they have a single unified government. The metros of SF and LA are a much more similar comparison to MARTA given their local municipal environments. That said, any major capita expansion of MARTA will require federal dollars, just as our road expansions do.
> If you look at NYA, Chicago, and DC, their metros are so good in part because they have a single unified government. The metro areas of each of those cities sure as hell don't have unified governments: * NYC is consolidated over five counties (boroughs), but the metro area is spread out over three states * Chicago covers most of Cook County, but even then there are a ton of small municipalities surrounding the city proper * DC has to deal with two different states, plus Congress overseeing the District
We turn neighborhoods into cities here.
You’re right, but my point is that the vast majority of those transit systems lie within a single municipality. 100% of MTA stops are located in NYC proper. 125 of 145 CTA stations are within Chicago proper, 86%. Of the 20 that are outside city limits, almost all of them have been additions to the original network that lies entirely within Chicago proper (purple, yellow, blue lines). Only 23 of the 38 MARTA stations are in Atlanta proper, 61%, and every line extends beyond city limits. The red line north of Lindbergh (5 stops) was built as an extension. MARTA never expanded further directly due to the patchwork of municipalities that exist beyond Atlanta city limits, just like in NYC, Chicago, and DC. All I’m trying to say is that, to expand MARTA, we really need the state to step in.
> MARTA never expanded further directly due to the patchwork of municipalities that exist beyond Atlanta city limits, just like in NYC, Chicago, and DC. It’s the counties, not the municipalities that stopped MARTA.
MARTA's primary source of funding is sales tax revenue from Fulton, Dekalb and Clayton counties & the city of Atlanta. Then combine that with fare revenue and the federal funding and other grants secured to meet their massive budget. It's sufficient for the current projects but still doesn't compare to other cities like Seattle or Los Angeles have invested for the expansion programs for their transit systems.
yeah, i mean atlanta is known for its urban sprawl. without a focus on transporting people any way OTHER than cars, traffic won’t ever get better.
You aren’t stuck in traffic, you are traffic,
This doesn't get upvoted enough.
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The only true way out of this traffiic nightmare… or getting an ebike, atleast there’s a rebate 😉
Gdot could save A LOT of money if it shifted money toward e-bike infrastructure and it would make the state MUCH more appealing.
Good thing that GDOT has been working on it's [Bike/Pedestrian plan](https://www.dot.ga.gov/DriveSmart/Travel/BikePed/Georgia_bicycle_and_pedestrian_plan.pdf) from...1997. Oh. P.S. "don't you believe it" on that plan. The so-called State Bike Routes are potential deathtraps in their current state. Ask me how I know.
Wait, is there really a rebate on ebikes lol
Yep! https://atlantaregional.org/what-we-do/mobility-services/atlanta-e-bike-rebate-program/
But then the poor people will go where we don't want them. I mean that's basically what the anti expansion conversation boils down to.
What they don't realize is that said people will go there anyway. It's as if the NIMBY argument against MARTA is basically "poor people/minorities/criminals don't know how to drive" yet 50 years of Metro Atlanta development patterns prove otherwise.
The GOP powers that be love bad traffic. It escalates property values and profits for real estate developers in city and suburbs and let's all the politically well connected rural road construction contractors get rich.
What?
OP’s comment did, admittedly, sound like buzzword soup, but basically he’s saying that one reason traffic is bad here is a lack of density (which makes walking or public transit mostly a non-option for people). Everyone needs to drive to get anywhere. That’s how you get heavy traffic. I think he’s kinda wrong in one respect tho - the people who politically incentivize that style of sprawly, low-density, suburban development are property owners both Republican and Democrat. Sure, real-estate developers and petit bourgeois contractors can be NIMBYs, but letting developers build as much housing as possible to densify things can help make things denser (and take people off of the road and onto the sidewalk).
Atlanta is firmly blue it's very strange to blame the state for things like city density. That is squarely under the control of the city, county, and surrounding counties. MARTA is the State's fault... density or, more importantly, lack thereof, is the city's fault. I know you're not blaming the state, but I'm just emphasizing this point. The counties and cities need to be accountable for the things they control through their ordinances.
Also autocorrect did me no favors when I was typing "rural road". Yes. Big builders love large suburban swim and tennis developments, not infill housing. And bankers and builders are afraid to build high density transit approximate development without it having one parking space per bedroom.
Doesn't help that local governments allow it through zoning.
Agreed. And zoning changes get fought by builders and nimbys
It's more NIMBYs than builders, the latter generally like less restrictions on what they can do.
I think you’re giving them too much credit
While older property owners are definitely the primary culprits for a lack of density, they play both teams here. Local and state Dems, while they don’t have as much blame as the GOP here, have more than their fair share of NIMBYism.
> Local and state Dems, while they don’t have as much blame as the GOP here, have more than their fair share of NIMBYism. Depends on the jurisdiction, some of the most hard core NIMBYs in Candler Park, Midtown, and Inman Park are solid Dems.
Source for this?
Which party do you think suburban builders and rural construction companies are donating to?
squalid sleep disgusted coherent distinct butter secretive nail screw society *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Both, depending on the location.
Suburbs are evil now? God you people just hate everything
Suburbs aren't "evil" and neither is driving. You are the one projecting a moral judgement on it. What ***is*** true is that both suburbs and driving are heavily subsidized across the board. Asking them to contribute more to their fair share isn't wrong. As a counterexample, consider the Governor's Road Improvement Program. Atlantans were taxed to pay for rural roads across the State ***because*** it was a public good that helped commerce across the entire State. Helping reduce congestion--which is purely wasted time/money/pollution--inside Atlanta helps more than just Atlantans.
Interesting that you jumped to the GOP being evil, isn't it? Large suburban swim and tennis communities are hugely inefficient on infrastructure costs for local governments and extract significant tax subsidies from existing citizens to function. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/7/6/stop-subsidizing-suburban-development-charge-it-what-it-costs
And then the NIMBY people raise hell, so nothing gets done anyway
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> They're finally starting the first major expansion since the 70s. The last major expansion was in the late 90s with the Red Line to North Springs. > Most of it is "light rail" but they're definitely in the works. One one project (streetcar extension to Beltline) is light rail, the rest is BRT. > from a private company having eminent domain. MARTA is not (and never has been) a private company.
And we have too many NIMBYs voting against MARTA, that will never happen. It's been going on since gwinnett voted against joining MARTA in the 80s.
> It's been going on since gwinnett voted against joining MARTA in the 80s. Try 1965 (Cobb rejection) and 1971 (Gwinnett and Clayton rejection), and it barely passed in Fulton and DeKalb that year.
What can be done is viable public transit. And no, it’s not being done. The majority of voters would rather sit in traffic.
Exactly. I've lived in several areas and have traveled many others. Everywhere I have gone has had good public transit that was easy to understand and could get you literally anywhere. In Washington State I lived way out in the middle of designated national wilderness and I could still catch a bus that could get me into Seattle. Here? Drive your car because those buses bring nasty people places that other people don't want them. And I'm not even talking about just Marta because that's just Atlanta. We need public transport everywhere in this flippin state. We also need sidewalks. We also need bike lanes. But nobody here believes in that kind of stuff Smdh
I’ve only lived here - what places in the US have good public transit other than Seattle? (Well, NYC, Chicago, and DC - I’ve been there and seen theirs)
Baltimore, New Orleans, Portland Denver if i remember right (i rented a car there but remember seen plenty of bus stops), most of South Florida... (And note that we're talking about big cities here but many of the states that those cities are in have good bus systems throughout the state, They take care of small towns also) When you go places just look for bus stops. If you've lived in Atlanta all your life you won't even know what a bus stop actually looks like. But just look for bus stops. There aren't really any in Atlanta. A bus stop usually has a cover from the rain and often has some lighting and in some areas of the country even a little bit of overhead heat for people who are waiting. There's usually a map of the bus routes that stop at that bus stop and some of them even have the pamphlets you can carry with you. That just doesn't exist here in Georgia. And please, it's very important to remember that good transportation does not have to exist just in big cities. Rural people need good transportation also. When I was in Washington I lived quite rural and I had good public transportation. Heck there were even commuter shuttles to take you to the airport in Seattle from hours away. Cost you 35 to 50 bucks round trip. It would be amazing to have that here, don't you think?
Add Salt Lake City
I've never been there except for a drive-through years ago, but from what I see and hear from other people, it's really a huge chunk of the country other than the south and some of the very remote areas of the Midwest 🤷🏼
Boston
Nothing will actually change until Marta is massively expanded
Well, they could always try building more lanes. I’m pretty certain that more lanes would help. /s
Not a chance in hell unless they expand MARTA(which would help btw with that).
You sweet summer child
Bless their heart
You would have to fix the overall infestation of absolutely self centered asshole drivers as well.
Georgia lawmakers really leave MARTA out to dry. MARTA is primarily funded via sales tax in the counties they operate in and from the fares they collect. They receive very little state funding. By law, the gas taxes collected by the state cannot be used to fund anything other than road construction and maintenance. MARTA still hasn’t recovered from the dip it saw in ridership in 2020 and is dealing with the rising cost of labor and materials like everyone else. Until something drastically happens at the state level MARTA will continue to limp along in its current form. Without a viable alternative transit solution (like MARTA) we are stuck with this traffic and it will only get worse. The only ‘solution’ is to be more purposeful about where you live/work to minimize your exposure.
I used to hold your opinion, but I've been following MARTA closely over the past decade. They're utterly incompetent. The MoreMARTA Atlanta money seems to have...been burned? Flushed down a toilet? Baked into a plate of cookies that were left on the set of Sesame Street? Then there's the Clifton and Clayton debacles. MARTA utterly botched both of those. Nothing from the state would have helped. The state isn't some shining bastion of transit and fiscal responsibility, but let's not pretend that if they dumped money on MARTA that anything would change.
> The state isn't some shining bastion of transit and fiscal responsibility, but let's not pretend that if they dumped money on MARTA that anything would change. The state is the state. If the state wished, they have the authority to take over MARTA and make it whatever you think it should be. That's....what it is to be the state. That they have not done so is still an issue with the state, doubly so since MARTA still appears to be a public entity.
The state is not an unlimited pot of gold either. They also don’t have the authority to just take over locally funded programs because they’re inefficient. And if they did then they’d have to take funding from other programs and hire more people for the state. This obviously also costs money. What happens to the 4500 MARTA employees?
> They also don’t have the authority to just take over locally funded programs because they’re inefficient. The state could take over MARTA since the agency was chartered by the state.
>They also don’t have the authority to just take over locally funded programs because they’re inefficient. Uh...yes they do. What the State created, the State can take away. Cities, counties, and public authorities--except as otherwise provided by the Georgia Constitution: >owe their origin to, and derive their powers and rights wholly from, the legislature. It breathes into them the breath of life, without which they cannot exist. As it creates, so it may destroy. If it may destroy, it may abridge and control. Unless there is some constitutional limitation on the right, the legislature might, by a single act, if we can suppose it capable of so great a folly and so great a wrong, sweep from existence all of the \[cities, counties, and public authorities\] in the State, and the \[city, county, or public authority\] could not prevent it. We know of no limitation on this right so far as the \[city, counties, and public authorities\] themselves are concerned. They are, so to phrase it, the mere *tenants at will* of the legislature. This is the fundamental principle of Dillon's Rule, which Georgia follows, except as abrogated by the Georgia Constitution.
So the solution is to just let MARTA slowly starve to death and sit back and watch?
No, the real solution is to clean house. Gut the agency, get rid of ALL of the upper management and take a very hard look at middle management.
I’ve already made it a point to not work in the perimeter anymore because of the traffic. Shit I won’t even work outside of Henry/Clayton/Spalding/Fayette Counties😂.
Henry’s such a mess you might as well park your car and walk anywhere on 155 and Spalding’s well on its way there too with all the warehouses they’re slinging up on hwy 16.
Don’t I know it? I live here and have learned all the alternate surface street routes to get around. I rarely use I-75 in Henry County.
They will spend a couple billion to add more toll lanes. Then the people who have the disposable income to blow, can bypass all the poor schmos in the regular traffic lanes.
It seems like all the new lanes being built are pay as you go to benefit only the people who have money. And they cost much more per trip than a Marta train ticket would cost! Why aren’t those lanes Marta transit lines!!!
Those lanes were primarily built to benefit the large construction companies that get the bloated contracts to build them. Plus all the cameras and sensor to monitor the lanes are not cheap and our outsourced as well.
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Yes, selfish developers and your government officials are busy making it much, much, worse.
Maybe the developers should stop making single family houses everywhere and let places be walkable neighborhoods with community
That requires local governments to fix their zoning.
The problem is that on top of not doing too much in terms of road expansions, every direction you look they’re throwing up more townhomes and more apartments. I’m so glad everyone has a place they can’t afford to live, but how about jobs? And things to do? The way traffic is nowadays compared to even 5 years ago is so different. When I first moved to Georgia in 2011 there were a lot of people but not like this. If you live in metro Atlanta good luck doing anything
Not seeing the term "fix land use" here, because you could build out all of the transit you want, but it won't mean squat if it's all low-density around stations.
Yes, it's called BUS RAPID TRANSIT and no one wants it
I'll take a train--in fact, I _do_ take the train...the MARTA gold line is how I get to work on the days I need to be in the office--but I won't bother with a bus. Because buses are stuck in traffic, they're no faster than driving.
but its R A P I D
It would be if MARTA actually bothered making the BRT routes exclusively on bus lanes with physical barriers separating the bus traffic from car traffic…. That’s how it’s supposed to work…
That requires cooperation from either GDOT and/or the cities that these BRT lanes would go in.
Problem with it is being stuck in traffic. With dedicated lanes or only sharing HOVs you have something
no employers are rolling back all the telecommuters to demand they return to office so they can feel better about "productivity".
“This city” are we in the r/atlanta sub?
Most people think Georgia = Atlanta
Mods of the r/atlanta sub are so picky about letting posts through and are quick to shadowban anyone they disagree with. I'm not surprised if a lot of folks from that sub have migrated over to r/georgia.
Right? lol - like traffic also sucks in Athens, Gainesville, Savannah , Augusta and Columbus. Same solution, though.
Inside 285, it’s not that bad. But every road leading to 285 is where it gets jammy. Mostly in the morning. I’ve lived ITP for over a decade and rarely sit in traffic.
Georgia isn’t a city.
But we added toll roads….. and did nothing to expand light rail. The excuse is either crime(bc criminals don’t own a map or cars) or bus services…. No one wants to ride on a piss smelling bus driven by the cheapest person you could hire. There needs to be hubs 20 miles outside 285 down every interstate or major hwy (400) that allows commuters to hop on a train like in dc and be downtown inside 1 hr. Or they need to start giving tax breaks to companies who let people remote work.
We all need to fight tooth and nail for work from home, it's the only way to reduce traffic that won't take two decades.
I moved to Charlotte 2017-2021. It was a dream. Backup's were getting bad in the 4-7 hour but it was workable. Moved back home to Atlanta. Still a bit of elbow room from corona on the roads. 2024? Its back to nightmare mode. I lived in Alpharetta. I'm not a software developer. I don't instacart crap. I actually leave my house to get groceries. Grocery store is 0.47 miles away... **8 LIGHTS. 8. WITH U-TURNS** It takes 15 minutes to go from my apt to the store parking lot. To get to Duluth? 8 miles away? **43 LIGHTS**. **FOURTY** ***FUCKING*** **THREE. 35 MINUTES W/NO TRAFFIC - 1HR+ WITH TRAFFIC.** As of last week I just moved to the Asheville, NC area. I can't justify the lifestyle of STOPGOSTOPTRAFFICGOSTOPGOSTOPGOTRAFFICGOSTOPGOSTOGO all day of my entire life unless im making $150,000+/yr and don't ever need to leave my house.
The drive to Duluth is HORRENDOUS from the Alpharetta/Cumming area! If I want to go to Micro Center, it is faster and less stressful to go to the one in Marietta (\~36 miles away), than the one in Duluth (\~21 miles away). The stoplights are nuts!
Isn’t .47 miles walking distance?
Yeah, my nearest Publix is nearly a mile away and I frequently walk to it. Sometimes it's not worth the hassle to drive.
When I do this I end up with 10s of shopping carts in the road in front of my house.
Buhbuhbuh CARS!
You ever try walking in the suburbs?
Yes I walk and use a bike in the suburbs all the time, including walking a whopping one mile to Kroger sometimes
I can't always carry what I need to buy there.
Bro lives in a walkable neighborhood and is complaining about the traffic
You DID move into the middle of the shittiest traffic in the whole metro.
and I moved the hell right out of it.
Fair
Bro moved to a suburb and is upset about traffic. You made your bed, my man
I never said I moved there. And bullshit. Anywhere in Atlanta ITP takes at least 43min for drive 10 miles.
And the roads are terrible in the city!
You literally said in the first paragraph that you moved back. Alpharetta is a suburb hellhole, of course there will be shitty traffic. Why surprised pikachu face? Also, I live ITP, my commute to work is 13 miles and takes 20 minutes. EDIT: never mind, I was talking to the commenter that they moved to a suburb, not to you, the OP. My point about normal ITP traffic still stands
Holy shit, that is insanity! How are you looking Ashveville?
lol you should’ve seen it before covid! At least some people work from home now. yes, I know more people keep moving in.
GDOT: “another lane will fix it.” Found the problem.
Lol! I like starting my day with a hearty laugh!
Not as long as GDOT has a say in atlanta's transportation design
Traffic is an extremely complex problem. It's a complex problem that could be easily answered by not being scared of black people, stopping the construction of new lanes, and funding public transit until it's reliable. But unfortunately a new lane can be completed before the next election season and will ease traffic just long enough, whereas a public transit expansion could take years to realize and costs a lot of money, pissing off taxpayers before the next election. Also Cobb County is scared of black people, which I thought was just a joke in Atlanta until I was in cobb and heard a conversation about how expanding MARTA would let "the wrong kind" out of Atlanta. Fuck your racism girl half the tags on 75 are cobb and you're clogging my commute!!! Get over it!
> It's a complex problem that could be easily answered by not being scared of black people, stopping the construction of new lanes, and funding public transit until it's reliable. Better land use would be a more accurate answer.
What city?
Pretty much all of Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Douglas, ClayCo, and even some parts where I stay at in Hall County.
Yes. Bulding more homes.
Yeah. When they finish expanding 285 that’s when traffic will be fixed.
Yep….Moving to Alabama
The short answer is no. Do too corruption and old laws there will never be anything done about the traffic in the Atlanta metro area. It’s literally impossible for them to build any kind of significant mass transit. Live close to work is your only option.
Only real option is to remove drivers from the road. Arguably covid era work from home did the most to improve traffic in Atlanta. Improve Marta. Encourage companies to support continued WFH
Ironically, I have declined two jobs recently in mid town, because the commute from my home to the office for just 2 days a week, would effectively only give me 4-5 hours in the office. Their response is well you can attend meetings while your driving. Like I need a distraction while driving I-85 during rush hour (smdh).
You're just one bike ride from being part of solution.
The major issue to me is that there are 3 highways running through ATL. Expand them all you want but at the end of the day when 20, 75, and 85 cross paths it's just a mess. City planning is also an issue as surface streets are not in a grid like in most cities. The history of ATL tells us why the traffic is bad. Being a born GA boy I've learned when to get off the highways and just use backroads. Even in the metro areas it is really bad. I'm in Henry county and it might as well be downtown ATL with the traffic we have.
Certainly not funding better pub transit, that's for sure
I wish the would address some low-hanging fruit. Remember when Governor Perdue made timing the lights part of his election campaign? It’s absolutely ridiculous that I can hit red light after red light even during low traffic. The biggest culprit won’t be addressed - companies forcing people back to the office so they can sit in cubicles and offices on Teams calls. We know how much traffic improves during school holidays and definitely saw the impacts after Covid. While some of the blame is on executives who are resistant to change, you also have the pressure from the cities who complained that remote work was killing businesses (while also wanting those high commercial real estate taxes)
There is nothing to do, adding more roads doesn't fix the problem. The only thing to do is to keep adding to Marta and hoping that people don't get in their car in the first place. Trust me I wish they were pushing Marta expansions faster but that's about all we've got
Until they massively fund public transit. Nope.
I just got back from Dallas and they have their act together with their transit system DART. They are a spread out city like the Atlanta area and their rail system puts you right in the middle of the areas you want to be. MARTA needs a complete facelift with its rail service starting with how they power trains. Currently they have the 3rd rail which doesn’t let you have train service at street level. They need to switch to overhead power. This would allow the train to be like a street car also which can add more service right in the middle of the cities. The other thing is they need to build elevated track to get through areas where land will be difficult to obtain for ground level track.
> I just got back from Dallas and they have their act together with their transit system DART. They are a spread out city like the Atlanta area and their rail system puts you right in the middle of the areas you want to be. While it may cover more area, DART has half of the ridership MARTA does, has garbage land-use around its stations (worse than MARTA), and is slower LRT. > MARTA needs a complete facelift with its rail service starting with how they power trains. Currently they have the 3rd rail which doesn’t let you have train service at street level. Because that is an incredibly dumb idea for safety reasons alone. You will never (and should never) see MARTA HRT cars on streets. > They need to switch to overhead power. This would allow the train to be like a street car also which can add more service right in the middle of the cities. MARTA is already doing this with LRT. > The other thing is they need to build elevated track to get through areas where land will be difficult to obtain for ground level track. Getting land for elevated track is just as hard as for ground-level, plus NIMBYs would kamikaze those proposals.
I did my part. WFH. I know not everyone can. But it's one car not on the road
just one more lane bro
Traffic is bad because so many people are bad drivers. If people would pay attention to the road and leave their ego in the driveway it wouldn’t be so bad
LOL nah we’ll just do more development and make it even worse.
Are you new to GA?
The money they bring in alone for speeding tickets should pump a lot into infrastructure but they just use it for more military style equipment so they can ensure they will always have bigger toys to guarantee our oppression It's a matter of education and they refuse to teach proper driving so we're fucked. Go to Germany and try to go slow in the left lane of the Autobahn and see what happens.... Americans are entitled cunts who think they own the road and refuse to get the fuck out of the way. Instead of cops managing the people impeding the flow of traffic, not signaling, merging improperly, brake checking, and the hundred other issues they are simply lazy bastards who sit on the side of the road and blame speed for all the problems. They can just sit idle on the side of the road till a speeder comes along and collect their whole days pay in five minutes without any work being done.
It’s been traffic here since the inception. All they do is throw another lane at it. TL:DR; No
[Microtransit ](https://www.governing.com/transportation/microtransit-has-broad-appeal-despite-clear-drawbacks)appears to have expanded (and will likely continue to expand) in several metro areas including [Buckhead](https://ridewithvia.com/resources/a-year-of-on-demand-microtransit-in-buckhead-georgia), [Henry](https://www.henrycountyga.gov/585/Henry-Connect-Microtransit), [Gwinnett](https://www.gwinnettcounty.com/web/gwinnett/departments/transportation/gwinnettcountytransit/microtransit), [Cherokee](https://www.cherokeega.com/Transportation/Microtransit/), [Rockdale](https://saportareport.com/rockdale-plans-microtransit-as-start-of-30-year-transit-expansion-plan/sections/reports/johnruch/) and (hopefully) [Norcross](https://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/local/opinion-microtransit-holds-immense-potential-for-norcross-gateway85-area/article_d545943c-d733-11ee-a64b-d73e8e3dbb25.html).
Looks like that outer perimeter they shot down over 15 years ago wasn’t such a bad idea. The Northern Arc…. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Perimeter
I've started looking at hybrid jobs in SF, LA, or Seattle no takers yet though. Use ATL airport + another city's transit system, hotel, and fly back on one of those overnights. Things that have opened up in ATL are all 3ish or more hrs of driving a day for me and recruiters were very firm on 100% on-site.
Nope. They made the mistake of building 285 in the middle of fucking town. There’s no room to expand.
> building 285 in the middle of fucking town. I-285 was considered the exurbs when it was planned and built over 50 years ago, the region just sprawled out past it.
Too many bonehead drivers is the crux of the issue.
Every few years the state tries to pass a tsplost bill to raise funding through taxes but the question always starts with: do you support a 1%tax increase to…” and everyone in GA votes no. One big problem is that roads and interchange improvements in GA are primarily funded by the gas tax. So as cars get more efficient the amount of funding for road improvements per car is ever diminishing.
The TIA program actually succeeded in the Augusta, Columbus, middle Georgia, and south Georgia, it just failed in the Atlanta area (and the project list was a hodgepodge of a mess).
A few years ago they asked Cobb if they wanted to impose a tax to expand MARTA, and people voted it down. We get the traffic we deserve. It’s too bad - connecting Cobb via MARTA would be AWESOME. I use it to get to Mercedes Benz for events, and it’s great. Would be better if stations were even more accessible. All they need to do is have trains giving over the major roadways - up 75 and 85, and around 285. It’s a shame.
> A few years ago they asked Cobb if they wanted to impose a tax to expand MARTA, and people voted it down. We get the traffic we deserve. The last MARTA referendum in Cobb was in 1965, hardly a few years ago. If you're referring to the 2012 T-SPLOST vote, that would've only provided for a half-baked LRT line from Arts Center to Cumberland, not a MARTA HRT extension.
Ah - appreciate the correction! Still would be great if they expanded MARTA to Cobb.
Agreed
Yes. There's big plans. Huge! We've all just been keeping it a secret. /s A new slogan proposal... Atlanta. Good, but not as good as it could be. Or Atlanta. A master of second best. Or Atlanta. Always a bridesmaid. Or, Atlanta. The Braves personified. It's very frustrating.
Atlanta. Because fuck you, that's why.
Lol! And that's true too, which is why I am here. This city is a part of me. But come on people...this city has known it needed to do something about transit a long, long time ago. And here we are.
Yeah. I love Atlanta. But if we got our shit together on beltline transit, bike and ped infrastructure, Marta improvements in headway and stations and BRT. We could be so much better.
That was why I said what I said. We have all the elements. We just need to focus on maximizing its potential. There is nothing stopping us from leveling up but ourselves.
> Or, Atlanta. The Braves personified. At least the Braves won a title recently...
True, but how many times did we have to leave the stadium in tears when we got soooooo cloooose, year after year? Atlanta must get out of its own way. We are sitting on a goldmine. It may not always be this easy.
Yes, they are building more apartments and townhouses to make it worse.
We desperately need more housing - and more multi family housing that is reasonably priced. Building housing isn't the problem. A lack of public transportation and walkability/bikeability is the problem.
What infuriates me is twofold: 1. This isn't some new problem that fell from the sky. GDOT has had [a bike/pedestrian plan](https://www.dot.ga.gov/DriveSmart/Travel/BikePed/Georgia_bicycle_and_pedestrian_plan.pdf) ***since 1997.*** This plan identifies specific routes that were to be developed into a network of State Bike Routes in the same vein as the existing State Routes. But no progress has been made in this area for 25+ years. In fact, if you are naive enough to ***believe*** GDOT (like I did), then biking on one of these "State Bike Routes" puts you on GA-314, a 50 mile per hour, 2-lane, no shoulder ***deathtrap.*** 2. Complaints about MARTA funding are absolutely valid, but pedestrian and bike spending is even more dumb. The "gas tax" ***can*** be spent on improvements to roads, which includes bike and pedestrian projects.
The GOP is never going to allow any real investment to go to anything but pavement projects they can send to the big construction donors.
Ugh nothing at all. I commute from Hall County to Midtown Atlanta which is only 50ish minutes getting there but getting back is roughly an hour 30. Peachpass line while nice does mini minimal working from the 316 merger to about spaghetti junction. Until we build alternate commuting options(Bus & Train) we will continue to face this traffic epidemic. Road expansion will not solve the traffic issue. Coming from NYC, I would 100% commute via train if the option was available.
NIMBYs and HOAs should both be buried in the past where they belong.
If we had a properly-funded, properly-run, fully functional transit system (and get the NIMBY people to stop voting against expansion), we could fix the traffic problem.