Teaching the ARC "Reverse Urbanization"

A great article in tomorrow's AJC by Maria Saporta describes the Atlanta Regional Council's recent visit to Vancouver. They were blown away by the city's success in what I call "reverse urbanization". They want density and traffic jams. They refuse to expand any road in downtown by even a single lane, and they are the only city in the northeast to not have a major highway running through the center of town.

I've always thought the downtown connector was Hartsfield's greatest blunder. If anything, he could have at least broken them up and put the downtown strip in between them. The way they see it, gridlock is good. Bad traffic convinces people to get out of their cars and onto transit. They've also made all their roads extremely pedestrian-friendly, with "wide sidewalks bordered by trees, and crosswalks are well defined."

Vancouver has designed their city as a "cradle-to-the-grave" city rather than a "where-ya-from? (...before moving here)" city like Atlanta has always been. Here in Atlanta the reality of building more roads to solve our problems has resulted in the development phenomena "if you build it: they will fill it" meaning that in a city as spread out as we are, any new lanes will encourage more driving rather than ease traffic congestion. This idea of taking away roads from drivers would seem the logical opposite to our 'city of dreams' , and it sounds crazy without any explanations to back it up, but I think this is genius.

Imagine how different downtown would be right now if we never had highways going through the center of Atlanta. It would be one big sanctuary of a city! Here's downside to Vancouver though. "The lack of affordable housing, the number of homeless people, the prevalence of drug addicts and the growing number of immigrants have strained the urban area." We do not have most of these problems right now. However, if we follow the 4 rules that Vancouver follows, maybe reverse urbanization can succeed where the highways have failed.

Vancouver's 4 rules for a Successful City:

1) Protect Green Space
2) Develop in Compact Areas
3) Increase Transportation Choices
4) Build Complete Communities

Source: AJC - Maria Saporta

Cubix expanding Breeze Cards to Park 'n Rides

Speaking of Breeze Cards.... Cubic Transportation Systems, the company MARTA hired to develop their new fare system, is showcasing their plans for the next phase of the Breeze Card network. Today at the International Parking Institute's annual conference in Tampa, Cubic presented current plans to incorporate the park and ride lots throughout the system beginning June 1st. As far as specifics go:

There are no parking fees for patrons who enter the lot, ride on the MARTA system, and exit the lot on the same day. For those who park and ride for more than one day or for those who park in the lot but do not ride the system, the fees can be paid via stored value debits at the exit controller or at either ticket vending machines or cashier terminals upon exit.

Not only do they work with current Breeze cards, but they will incorporate VoIP technology for instant customer service from all parking gates. MARTA is the first network in the country to utilize an "all-contactless public transport smart card fare system", but not to be outdone by any other system in the near future, Cubic has awarded $5.78 Million in contracts to integrate all 4 of the major regional bus systems into the Breeze Card system. This includes Gwinnett County Transit, Cobb Community Transit, Clayton County C-Tran and the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority. Getting Gwinnett, Cobb, Clayton, and GRTA in on the system is a huge step in consolidating Atlanta's transit systems and it's good to see these ideas actually becoming reality.

Source: MarketWIRE

Breeze Card System Crashes

MARTA's Breeze Card fare system crashed this morning and is still down this afternoon. The crash is attributed to a software upgrade and anyone with a breeze card, plastic or paper, is being allowed on by customer service representatives in all the stations. "Things are running smoothly, despite the technology snafu," reports Mike Morris of the AJC. This incident, while temporary, highlights a major problem facing transit systems "upgrading" to all-electronic fare systems.

These systems, while being robust in the sense that fees can be changed across the system fairly quickly to reflect a move toward distance based fares, these same systems are still sensitive enough that a glitch in the central server will crash the entire system. MARTA must be very careful as they go through their debugging process to make sure they have the resources available to make the all-electronic fare system work.

MARTA has a great way they can get out of this mess though. They can turn these potential bad-media days into free days to help their image. Anyone who can scrounge up a fare card can basically get in for free today, so why not just call it a free day? Other transit systems have free-ride days, and it does wonders to bolster their image. With MARTA's image hurting right now, they could use these problematic days for good public relations by making these free-ride days. Otherwise, these outages will make the $190 Million MARTA spent on the Breeze system look more like a liability than an asset.

Source: Mike Morris - AJC

Fearless in the Loaf

In this week's Creative Loafing:

For some strange reason people in this metro love to brag about how scared MARTA makes them. I suspect many of these people are the same ones with “No Fear” stickers on their trucks.

– Joe Winter at Joeventures.com, quoting a regular MARTA user. Joe has blogged extensively about the Peachtree Street streetcar proposal. He serves on the board of Citizens for Progressive Transit.

The reality of safety on MARTA still hasn't reflected in its image. Sadly people continue the cycle of fear of riding on MARTA. Irony is bittersweet retribution I suppose.

Bidding Wars for C-TRAN Before Deadline

The Clayton County Transit system is currently being run by First Transit, which underbid MARTA to run the system back in 2004. MARTA had been running the system for its first 3 years in service and now they've been asked to take over the reigns again...maybe. First Transit's contract is up at the end of May and "county officials are leaning heavily toward giving the contract back to [MARTA]," according to today's Clayton News Daily.

Mis-communication within the Clayton County government has led to confusion as to which transit authority will control C-TRAN after June 1st. Yet again First Transit has underbid MARTA, but if Clayton County picks MARTA, then they can get a 1 percent sales tax on Hartsfield-Jackson Airport to fund the system thanks to the 1965 MARTA Act. First Transit underbid MARTA by $600,000. Tax revenue from the airport would be around $3,000,000 PER YEAR for the system. Yes. 3 Million. Per year.

Money talks, and there are very powerful incentives for C-TRAN to join back up with MARTA. This is good for transit throughout the metro area because it reminds everyone of the benefits of a unified metro Atlanta transit system. County by county, transit is gaining converts. Come June 1, we will be one step closer to that dream.

MARTA Wins Taxes, Turns to New Projects

Today, MARTA gained the support it has been desperately fighting to get in order to extend the penny tax beyond 2032. Atlanta's City Council and, as of today, the DeKalb County Commission have signed off on the tax extension which will fund MARTA through 2047, allowing MARTA to borrow against the future money and start up on new ambitious capital projects which they've been holding off on while rebuilding and renovating during a financial slump earlier this decade.

MARTA, now doing much better financially than in recent years, has started to change their language during meetings and the general focus now it seems will once again be on capital projects, with Bus Rapid Transit on I-20, the Beltline, and a new line from Lindbergh Station (MARTA HQ) to the Emory area.

Senate Bill could extend MARTA into Gwinnett

A bill has been presented to the state Senate which, if passed, would allow MARTA to extend rail service to Gwinnett County up I-85 without requiring a county-wide approval. SB332 was presented last week by Sen. Curt Thompson (D-Tucker) to the Urban Affairs Committee. According to the Gwinnett Daily Post, the bill was presented so late in the session (on purpose maybe?) that the extension will only be discussed this summer and it will not be voted on until next year.

However, this is still a huge break for MARTA. Not only is Gwinnett investing in transit feasibility studies and is lobbying for more transit options in the suburbs, but Cobb and Clayton counties are also watching very closely how this bill is treated. Cobb is considering rail service to the Cobb Galleria and Clayton has been considering rail service beyond the airport. The result of this bill could greatly influence how previously hostile counties will react to increasing transportation difficulties.

On a side note, MARTA is still ignoring Roswell and N. Fulton's pleas for extended rail service further up GA-400 citing, among other things, a lack of density.