(no subject)

[yendi]

Great article on what frustrates me about Atlanta, and the hope for things to improve:

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/business/horizon/0602/24out.html

Comments

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

I doubt they will actually improve anything anytime soon. There's too much resistance to anyhing to change from one car one person. Everyone here wants to fit in a lot more people and not build more roads or do anything as common as ride public transit. Atlanta is a particularly bad city for it. I think we need to put in $10 toll booths to keep the cars from coming in from the suburbs that refuse public tranist.


I drive my daughter to daycare, and then marta to work from the nearest station to that. It gives me time to read every day.

[m0usegrrl.livejournal.com]

see, i swear by public transit, having lived in both New York and San Francisco. i liked MARTA -- apart from the somewhat messed-up bus schedules, i could get just about anywhere i wanted to within Atlanta by MARTA. it really floors me that more people don't use it, and i really don't get the suburbs that don't have even a bus system. [i mean, really!! if this podunk part of the country -- the Allentown/Bethlehem PA area -- can support a public transit system, surely the Atlanta suburbs can!!]

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

It's not a question of affording it, if you have public transit, and I'm not making this up, they think that inner city hoodlums will come out to the suburbs and steal their televisions. They also think that poor people will move into their county if they have public transit and lower property values and increase crime again. Can you spot the subtext here? They also don't want the build up and pollution of a big city. They want to work in one, and pollute it with their own cars, but they don't want anyone else in their neighborhoods.

Some suburbs have public transit of their own, like Cobb. Some have marta, like DeKalb, and some actively refuse any public transit, like cherokee. I think that the ones that have their own transit should have a moderate toll at the border, and the ones that have transit should have a giant toll at the border.

[yendi]

The thing I miss most about my second-most-recent home was the Marta commute -- a full hour (mainly because of switching buses), which meant lots of pure reading time.

Agreed about the lack in incentive for folks to ride Marta -- folks love their cars way too much here. The other problem, of course, is the lack of any building upwards -- even apartment complexes sprawl.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Yes! This place needs some tall buildings near marta stations, and some decent apartments near marta stations. All the apartments are sprawling 4 story buildings. 5 stories and you have to put in an elevator, I think. I work in busy midtown, and my building is just 7 stories, and, it's a big one for this part of town. There's a few real towers, but not many.

If this city wants to be as big as it is, we need to concentrate some population into higher density stuff, and build up some rails. Put this place on sim city and I could fix it!

[yendi]

Hell yes! I swear, if the city planners here had Sim City, it would solve all sorts of problems (they could even use SimTower and Yoot's Tower to micromanage the buildings).

I understand the reluctance to "ruin" the views with tall buildings that some have, but if that view is ruined by smog, it's a hell of a lot worse, imho.

Of course, I think tall buildings are wonderful, anyway. :-)