ATLANTA TRANSIT (Marta, Beltline, Peachtree Streetcar, LovJoy Commuter, etc...)

[cybele]

From CPT:

Toll Tunnel Under Piedmont Park?
Northern Arc Tollway?
No Way, No How, No HB 277
PLEASE URGE YOUR LEGISLATOR TO
VOTE "NO" ON HB277


Introduction

A bill to fund massive highway projects is gaining traction in the Georgia House of Representatives. A vote is likely this Wednesday. The bill would create a new statewide tax not likely to ever be spent on public transit projects. The bill would allow private developers to build a massive highway beneath Piedmont Park and northeast and southeast Atlanta neighborhoods.

It would give private firms the greenlight to build a Northern Arc tollway near Lake Lanier - Atlanta's source of drinking water.

Neighborhoods above the proposed tunnels include: Ansley Park, Morningside, Poncey Highlands, Old Fourth Ward, Inman Park, Cabbagetown, Grant Park, Ormewood Park, Edgewood, Reynoldstown, and East Atlanta.

According to a 2006 proposal by the Reason Foundation, a tunnel under northeast Atlanta would be 5 miles long from Ga 400 to I-20. A Southern Tunnel would burrow below 3.1 miles from I-20 to a new surface highway leading to I-675. An estimate from two years ago put the cost at $6.21 billion (2012 dollars). According to the Reason Foundation, tolls would only pay 39% of the projects cost. The rest would likely be funded by taxpayers.

TOLL TUNNEL ASPECTS TO BE DETERMINED:

--Number of Exhaust Smoke Stacks in neighborhoods.
--Number of Emergency Exits in neighborhoods.
--Land Use Impacts
--Air quality impact
--Carbon emissions impact
--Amount of tolls
--Impact on Beltline

The tunnels and other massive highway projects would increase traffic, air pollution, sprawl, and our dependence on unstable oil supplies.

Solution

Georgia desperately needs funding for the construction, operation and maintenance of community-oriented transit, bicycle and pedestrian projects. Communities need a way to make sure the state will not build wasteful and disruptive projects. Another bill, SB 39 would allow regions to vote on project lists. Although HB 277 lists several great projects, its funding mechanism and oversight committee ensure the money would go only to massive road projects. HB 277 gives communities no power to reject projects like highways under Piedmont Park or the Northern Arc highway near Lake Lanier.


Action Needed

Tell your representative to vote "NO" on HB 277

The vote in the House is likely this Wednesday, February 25. Click on the link below to contact your Representative today.


FIND OUT YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE:
http://www.votesmart.org

THEN PLEASE CALL AND EMAIL YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE:

http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2...use/alpha.html

Respond By - Respond by Tuesday Feb 23 to influence the House vote.

[jurban8]

holy crap that is scary stuff! but is it really feasible to expect that a road builder could get by the same area residents that stopped (I think it was named) I-475 a few decades ago? either way, what do you expect from this state government

[cybele]

Senate OKs food, drink in transit stations

Bill would help MARTA raise money by having concession stands in stations

By Associated Press

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

ATLANTA — A bill approved by the state Senate would allow passengers on Georgia’s buses and rail lines to consume food and drink in the station.

The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Gloria Butler, a Stone Mountain Democrat, said the bill would help The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority — known as MARTA — boost its revenues by opening concession stands in its stations. Consumption of food and drink would still be prohibited on buses and trains.
The measure passed 43-4.

There is currently a zero tolerance law banning food and beverage consumption at mass transit stations.

Butler’s bill would permit individual public transit stations to adopt a policy banning food and drink if they wanted.

It now moves to the House.

[cybele]

From PEDS:

ACTION ALERT: Ask Legislators to Defeat House Bill 277


A bill to fund massive road projects is gaining traction in the Georgia House of Representatives. A vote on the House floor is likely on Wednesday or Thursday of this week. Please call and e-mail your legislators now and ask them to vote NO on House Bill 277.

The bill authorizes a referendum on a statewide sales tax that could be used to fund a long list of transportation projects. The cost of the listed projects far exceeds the amount that will be raised by the tax. As a result, there's no guarantee that transit, bicycle, or pedestrian projects on the list will actually get funded. The oversight committee created by this bill is likely to favor big road projects. Residents of metro Atlanta might be stuck paying a sales tax that funds an enormous toll tunnel under NE Atlanta neighborhoods, a northern arc toll road, road widenings in the Atlanta exurbs, and unneeded four-lane highways elsewhere in the state.

Metro Atlanta is experiencing a transportation funding crisis and needs new sources of funding. Senate Bill 39, which authorizes a regional transportation sales tax, is a much better solution.


Click on the link below to get your representative's contact information:

Contact Your Representative

Then call and e-mail to ask your state representative and to
vote NO on HB 277.

A vote on the floor of the House is likely on February 25 or 26. Act now!

[cybele]

If you're interested in transit in the City of Atlanta, I would urge your attention to House Bill 277, which will be voted in the Georgia House today or tomorrow. If it passes, I think you can pretty much kiss the idea of improved transit and walkability inside the city goodbye.

[RobMidtowner]

I think I remember hearing commuter rail lines were part of the bill though, is that right?

[WestsideATL]

Originally Posted by cybele

If you're interested in transit in the City of Atlanta, I would urge your attention to House Bill 277, which will be voted in the Georgia House today or tomorrow. If it passes, I think you can pretty much kiss the idea of improved transit and walkability inside the city goodbye.

The House will most likely pass their statewide tax bill and Senate will stick with their TSPLOST bill. It will come down to the joint committee to work up some sort of compromise (although the two proposals are so divergent, other than the fact that they're tax programs for transportation projects, that I don't see any sort of middle ground).

Also, apparently Mayor Franklin is interested in kickstarting the Peachtree Streetcar project with stimulus funding. http://www.11alive.com/news/politics...storyid=127287 I'm not sure if it's got much political traction given the City's current financial crisis.

[plorenc]

I'm keeping up with SB 39 (TSPLOST). It's already been passed by the Senate and has now gone to the House while HB 277 still hasn't been passed by the House. I'm hoping SB 39's presence prevents HB 277 from passing.

It's not like SB 39 benefits Metro Atlanta more than it does the entire state of Georgia, it just allows us to have more control over its effects, which I believe is the most important aspect. For example, HB 277 has provisions in it to tunnel a highway under Piedmont Park and older neighborhoods, the complete opposite of what is needed and something that would harm Atlanta in the long run.

Contact your House Representative to turn down HB 277 and support SB 39!

[jew4life4948]

Originally Posted by plorenc

Contact you House Representative to turn down HB 277 and support SB 39!

I also made it my Facebook status....see the youth do know how to give back.

[Atlwest281]

Hey I want to add it to my facebook as well and get the word out do you have a link I can join up to? I think its an atrocious idea to put these freeways under the city. God the idiots in this states governmental level never cease to amaze me.

[jew4life4948]

MARTA to Roxboro phase: Bids expected soon
The second half was set to begin June 2008

By KRISTINA TORRES
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, February 16, 2009
The transformation of Peachtree Road in Buckhead got off to a great start, a dazzling $21 million makeover from just south of Piedmont Road to the Buckhead MARTA station, right in the heart of the Atlanta enclave’s glitzy business district.

The work includes dramatically wider sidewalks, buried utility lines, a landscaped median and turn lanes, bicycle lanes and a row of oak trees lining the street. Mayor Shirley Franklin cut the ribbon on the project’s first phase in October 2007.

But what happened to the project’s other half, phase two, which was supposed to have gotten under way last June?

“We’ve hit a lot of various setbacks,” Scotty Greene, executive director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District, said Friday.

“It is expected to be under construction by July of this year.”

Behind-the-scenes work on the second phase — north from the Buckhead MARTA station to Roxboro Road — has included mining for funding as well as working out design issues. Greene said it has also taken time to gain the necessary rights-of-way along the corridor, either through purchased or donated land.

He said the last of those deals should be completed in March and the project put out to bid in May. Greene said he also hoped it would benefit from the national $787 billion economic stimulus package.

“We should be ‘shovel-ready,’” he said.

Greene pegged the cost of phase two at $30 million, with the funds coming from the privately backed Buckhead Community Improvement District — commercial property owners that tax themselves to fund roads and other projects — as well as state, federal and city sources. He expected construction would take about 16 months.

[Ansley]

February 25, 2009



Upcoming Event Reminder: BeltLine Quarterly Briefing




Thursday, February 26th
6-8pm
BeltLine Quarterly Briefing
Location:
APS Auditorium
130 Trinity Avenue Atlanta, GA 30303


Agenda Includes:
2009 BeltLine Priorities
BeltLine Partnership Capital Campaign Update
BeltLine Implementation Update
Affordable Housing Trust Fund Update
<!--[endif]-->

[jew4life4948]

Is this the language in the bill that designates the tunnel?

"(12) On a program for the negotiation and granting of a concession for the construction, improvement, and operation of a tolled roadway connection between Interstate 75 and Interstate 85 not less than 15 miles north of the northernmost point of Interstate 285;
(13) On a program for the negotiation and granting of a concession for the construction, improvement, and operation of a roadway tunnel for the improvement of traffic flow along a north-south axis in the commission area;"

[cybele]

State transportation board fires Commissioner Evans



By ARIEL HART

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Thursday, February 26, 2009

The state Transportation Board on Thursday voted to fire Department of Transportation Commissioner Gena Evans and appointed Gerald Ross as interim commissioner.

Ross is the first African American chief engineer in the Department of Transportation.

Evans took office in late 2007 following a bitterly contested election, which she won by one vote. Her tenure has seen frequent controversy as she slowed road spending to a trickle and, backed by state auditors, said the department’s books were billions of dollars out of balance.

Most recently, highway contractors have voiced concern that the department’s slowing of road development has left it unprepared to take full advantage of federal stimulus dollars.

As scandals erupted over Evans’ personal relationships, violation of DOT policy and other issues, she continued to hold the support of the majority of the board, but always had ardent opponents.

This month, one of her supporters on the board, Raybon Anderson, resigned, saying the position took too much time.

Also, many board members are unhappy that Gov. Sonny Perdue, Evans’ most important supporter, this month introduced a plan to gut the powers of the DOT board.

Board members have sometimes bridled at what they perceived as Evans looking to Perdue for direction rather than to them. For example, last year they passed a resolution asking for a committee that she served on to hold a vote in favor of a toll road expansion proposal for Ga. 400. Perdue’s office had argued against the vote and against rushing to pass the proposal.

The committee held the vote, but she voted to kill the proposal. She said she thought the board had just asked her to vote, one way or the other.

Board Chairman Bill Kuhlke said he did not necessarily support the board’s vote on the Ga. 400 proposal, but whatever it was, Evans should have followed the board’s direction.

The 13-member board elected Evans commissioner, with the support Perdue, over Rep. Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain), the candidate backed by House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram). She soon announced findings of dire disarray.

Before the board went behind closed doors Thursday to debate the move, Board Vice Chairman Larry Walker said everyone in the room knew what they were about to discuss, and he argued to just adjourn instead.

“I believe that is a mistake,” he said. “The time is not good on it.”

[Atlwest281]

Im not really sure how to take this news. She was the first person in a long time in that office who was backing rail and transportation and a balanced view to roads, not to mention her finding serious issues with the budget and dot funds. I just hope they bring somebody whop gets the clue that we need public transportation and options for personal mobility besides more roads and highway tunnels.

[jew4life4948]

Could somebody possible map (google map?) the possible route of the double decker tunnels?

and also even the old proposed I-475 and I-675 from the 1970's to compare the routes.

[Mike D]

Double-decker tunnels? That would be an even bigger disaster than Boston's Big Dig. That project is notorious for how far over budget it went. They could construct five or six streetcar lines and put them in a downtown subway tunnel for less money. Why, maybe that's what they should be doing.

[jew4life4948]

[ATLaffinity]

^ please resize picture !!!

[smArTaLlone]

Seriously!