Toll tunnel under east Atlanta a top DOT proposal

[Fiorenza]

Plus, I won't usually ride a bus unless it's designed to look like rail, on dedicated lines and have no step up. Most people are of the same mindset.

1. Where I live the big old buses run empty
2. There's no money to buy smaller-scale, newer ones - even though they'd be cheaper to operate

[cybele]

Seems like a toll tunnel would pay for itself. They say the tolls just on that little short stretch of GA400 have turned a profit.

[smArTaLlone]

Originally Posted by cybele

Well we're on the same page with that. Sometimes you just get the impression that people hate cars and hate the suburbs when in fact they are what made the city what it is today.

It has nothing to do with hating cars and everything to do with a desire for actual smart planning as opposed to trying to add roadway capacity to accommodate traffic volumes that existed 15 years ago. The road building itself is entirely one dimensional with no true network of roads, everything dumped onto the interstates, and few good alternatives to traverse the metro area.

You (and Andrea) love to repeat the "this is a car town" line. Well of course it is when the powers that be are so devoted to auto-centric transportation that they are seriously considering spending $300+ million/mile just to build a new road. There is nothing in the DNA of people that happen to live in Atlanta that makes us more attached to our cars than any other city. Its a car town because of the transportation decisions made over the last several decades and thats the point here. Most people want better, smarter decisions and even the DOT in their new plan is finally beginning to realize that adding enough capacity to relieve congestion is NOT POSSIBLE.


I can't help but agree with ATLaffinity. Baiting seems like a good word to describe most of this discussion but I couldn't resist.

[CT340]

Originally Posted by cybele

Seems like a toll tunnel would pay for itself. They say the tolls just on that little short stretch of GA400 have turned a profit.

And just where does this profit going??????

[atl2phx]

Originally Posted by CT340

And just where does this profit going??????

400 has been profitable for a LONG time. the profits go to the GDOT.

purdue proposed an order to redirect proceeds toward more AUTO-DEPENDANT improvement projects along the 400 corridor, but i don't know if it was ever executed or if it's in place today.

in the late 80's/early 90's i recall the GDOT sold the tollway as "being a tollway only as long as it took to pay for the road" then it was supposed to convert to free access. that milestone passed long ago.

[cybele]

Originally Posted by CT340

And just where does this profit going??????

Well first they are supposed to pay off the bonds used to build the dang thing which they already have more than enough money to do but they are holding off for some kind of accounting reason. The profit they have built up goes to transportation.

[atl2phx]

Originally Posted by cybele

Well first they are supposed to pay off the bonds used to build the dang thing which they already have more than enough money to do but they are holding off for some kind of accounting reason. The profit they have built up goes to transportation.

i see where andrea is trying to butch it up by using supposedly masculine nomenclature like 'dang'.

i'm not buying.

[cybele]

Originally Posted by smArTaLlone

I can't help but agree with ATLaffinity. Baiting seems like a good word to describe most of this discussion but I couldn't resist.

Well I can't speak for this andrea fellow but it sure seems like a lot of you folks are obsessed with him (or her, I can't tell).

In any event I fail to see how it's baiting to mention that the automobile is still the dominant way the vast majority of folks get around in this city. If there's any baiting going on it seems to me that it's more like people saying, "TAKE THE DAMN TRAIN! NO EXCUSE!!" or "Move into the fucking city. We don't care if it's convenient for people to get to the airport" or "gimme an effing break" or "I hate when peep have complaints about almost everything. They complain that is cold and it is the winter" or "Deal with it or move. This isn't a difficult concept for anyone in any city or town to understand" or "Cars + suburban real estate was the biggest ponzi scheme in the history of the United States". Or telling people they don't know how to use the English language.

To me baiting is a mean spirited or unfair attack and I'm sure as tooting not the one doing that.

[atlantaguy]

Originally Posted by Fiorenza

1. Where I live the big old buses run empty
2. There's no money to buy smaller-scale, newer ones - even though they'd be cheaper to operate

Well, the Gwinnett Transit express buses to the City are certainly not running empty. When I used to work out there, I noticed there was never any parking available at the Discover Mills terminus - on a daily basis.

I've also been Downtown when they load up in the pm. Some are standing room only. Same thing goes for Cobb's CCT buses.

The cross-county buses do appear to be pretty empty, but they still provide a needed service.

[L41A]

Originally Posted by cybele

Well I can't speak for this andrea fellow but it sure seems like a lot of you folks are obsessed with him (or her, I can't tell).

In any event I fail to see how it's baiting to mention that the automobile is still the dominant way the vast majority of folks get around in this city. If there's any baiting going on it seems to me that it's more like people saying, "TAKE THE DAMN TRAIN! NO EXCUSE!!" or "Move into the fucking city. We don't care if it's convenient for people to get to the airport" or "gimme an effing break" or "I hate when peep have complaints about almost everything. They complain that is cold and it is the winter" or "Deal with it or move. This isn't a difficult concept for anyone in any city or town to understand" or "Cars + suburban real estate was the biggest ponzi scheme in the history of the United States". Or telling people they don't know how to use the English language.

To me baiting is a mean spirited or unfair attack and I'm sure as tooting not the one doing that.

For me, baiting is a provocative post used to entice a response. I can see why some may see some of your posts that way.

Your posts are often contrary, self-centered, and full of imagery – your cousin with a pickup truck in Gwinnett driving to Perimeter Mall, your 89 year old mother-in-law flying into Hartsfield-Jackson and needing her getting-older son/daughter-in-law to pick her up, and you/someone having a yard with garden and pets with the convenience to the airport, etc.

When a response is given that may differ from your already formed opinion, it is countered with more questions and very specific personal situations – like your cousin, “Billy Bob” driving his pickup to Perimeter Mall from Trickum Road in Gwinnett. Perimeter Mall just doesn’t seem like a ‘Billy Bob’ type of place. ‘Billy Bob’ is more likely to drive to a strip mall somewhere in Gwinnett than drive to Perimeter Mall. But ‘Joanne’ that live in Duluth and works every day at Hewlett Packard in Perimeter may find additional transit choices beneficial. (I only used the pseudonyms for effect for imagery that you have created)

Your posts just seem picky to me. Look at the bright side.
Be thankful your 89 year old mother-in-law is alive and has the facilities to fly alone.
Be thankful that the airport is in the location where it is – with access from three major interstates that are basically free-flow 24 hours a day. Imagine catching a flight or picking up your 89 year old mother-in-law if the airport was at any other interstate interchange in Atlanta - especially any on the northside.

[cybele]

Well I'm mighty thankful for all of the above and have never said one word to the contrary. What you call imagery is what life is all about - real people doing real things, going to work and picking people up at the airport and such. Show me a son-in-law who wouldn't do that at any age. Don't let yourself fall into the trap of thinking that people who drive pickup trucks and live on Five Forks Trickum are a bunch of ignorant hayseeds. As to the objection that my posts are "just too picky" all I can say is that in my experience that when folks start complaining about that something is getting mighty close to the bone.

I'm not close to having all the answers even after all these years I'm just saying it ain't cut and dried. Different strokes for different folks and so forth. No point in hollering and cussing at a man just because he's got a slightly different point of view.

[cybele]

Well maybe this tunnel fits in with the GDOT's new plan to force people off the roads they've already paid for.

Most Georgians — and most members of the state Legislature — don’t yet appreciate the full impact of policy changes being contemplated at the state Department of Transportation.

One change in particular — the use of “demand management” techniques to ease congestion on metro Atlanta interstates — has the potential to be pretty volatile politically.

In fact, I suspect that state transportation officials are far more eager to embrace that new approach than are members of the traveling public, most of whom are not even aware of what might be coming.

In effect, demand management attempts to reduce the number of people trying to use the highways at peak time. The theory behind it is drawn from basic economic theory — if too many people try to use a fixed resource, the solution is to charge more money for it.

In effect, demand management uses tolls not just to raise money, but to change behavior.

Under Georgia law, the DOT already has legal authority to implement what it calls “a robust and proactive push on tolling.” But in a draft report to the Legislature outlining its plans for the next 20 years, the agency admits that demand management “reflects a significant shift from past state policy.”

Yes, it does. Putting rush-hour tolls in the range of $3 to $5 a trip on existing traffic lanes — highways that the people of Georgia already have paid for once — would indeed be a significant shift in state policy. And by approving the draft report, the Legislature would in effect be approving the tolling strategy as well.

In its report, the DOT also envisions higher in-town parking fees to discourage car use. The agency estimates that together, tolls and parking fees could raise as much as $12 billion for transportation by 2030.

Of course, if you’re going to try to price people off of roads, you better give them another traveling option. The DOT recognizes that reality by proposing to tap that toll revenue to finance projects such as an extensive bus-rapid transit network and perhaps even the Beltline.

Overall, the DOT estimates that more than 90 percent of the state’s toll revenue would be generated right here in the metro area. In effect, tolls would become a special metro tax on transportation. If that pans out, regional leaders will have to demand ironclad guarantees that the money raised here will be spent here as well.

The DOT report also documents how cash-starved it will be over the next 20 years without new resources, pointing out that we are 49th in per-capita spending on transportation.

But it doesn’t explain why we should build the intrusive, extensive and expensive infrastructure to collect tolls, complete with a nice profit skimmed off the top by private tollway operators, when a direct, easy-to-collect user tax is already available.

Last year, Georgia collected the lowest motor fuel tax of any state other than Alaska. The state of Georgia collected 13 cents a gallon, according to DOT, while North Carolina collected 30 cents a gallon, Florida charged 35 cents a gallon and Alabama charged 21 cents.
Raising the state fuel tax or the state sales tax on fuel to levels comparable to our neighbors would go a long way to solving the resource problem.

As a user fee, the gasoline tax also would be more fair than funding transportation through an increase in the general sales tax, another alternative likely to be floated in the Legislature.

The DOT report is the first such analysis provided to the Legislature under Senate Bill 200, which was written hastily and signed into law last year. The law itself is still flawed, but its provisions requiring a strategic overview will pay important dividends if this report generates the debate that it should.


State leaders propose to ration access to transportation

[Fiorenza]

Yeah, charge taxpayers twice for what they already bought. I'm sure that will fly politically.

You really wonder what these these DOT bureaucrats are smoking.

[cybele]

Well personally I'd favor people paying the true cost of gas and having a fuel tax equal to other states, but John Q Public will probably be against it. You know how people down here are about the price of gas.

[Curious Atlantan]

It may not fly politically, but I think this makes a lot of sense. First of all, the roads were not entirely paid for. A road is never entirely paid for, there is always maintenance, expansion, etc that needs to be funded somehow. Currently, like the article says, the roads are is underfunded and somehow we need to bridge that gap. We could increase the gas tax but that would maintain the status quo in terms of congestion. The solution proposed is more elegant in that it also addresses the congestion, by taxing more the roads with bottlenecks.
Am I missing something?

[JoshYent]

Ooo this will be a hot topic for sure =D

[Fiorenza]

Why do the geniuses at DOT even propose something that's already dead politically? They must have a death wish. As Cybele says, people personally don't want to have to pay gas tax or user fees.

[echinatl]

Originally Posted by Curious Atlantan

We could increase the gas tax but that would maintain the status quo in terms of congestion.

Not if you increase the gas tax a lot, which I'm totally for.

[Curious Atlantan]

Originally Posted by Fiorenza

Why do the geniuses at DOT even propose something that's already dead politically? They must have a death wish. As Cybele says, people personally don't want to have to pay gas tax or user fees.

So what would you suggest in order to solve this problem?

[Fiorenza]

My suggestion is also a politically incorrect nonstarter. I'd mandate the car companies must sell small, natural gas powered vehicles. You can accomodate more small vehicles per mile of road. Also, I'd provide the legal framework to encourage Google to start a webapp that lets people contract with one another (using a bid-ask market) to provide transportation from point A to point B. Let's say you're driving downtown. You could make a few bucks by picking up a person or two in your general area who want to go to the same general area as you at about the same time. It could specify age, gender and race requirements for those who are racist, sexist or ageist, or whose wives don't want them driving around with females, etc.