ATLANTA | Development Thread VI

[One ATLien]

Originally Posted by Libertarian

Right now it took me 47 minutes to get to the airport. According to Google Maps, if I had taken mass transit (MARTA), the time required would have required exactly one hour more. This means that, for me, personal vehicle transport in Atlanta with all the headaches is far more efficient than the alternative. The cost to equalize the playing field for mass transit is prohibitive. You say we in Atlanta should live more densely? Maybe so, but it's not reality now or in the foreseeable future. For the purists maybe the alternative is in NYC because that's the only place in America where I see an efficiency advantage for mass transit.

Addressing specifically your point about how much longer it would have taken you to go the airport using MARTA rather then driving..
I drive mainly in Atlanta simply due to the fact that our transit system is not intricate enough yet, not because it may take longer for me to do so. Even in cities with a major transit system like London for example, if you are travelling a distance being in a car will get you there faster, in almost all cases unless traffic is at a near standstill. The point of transit is not making it faster for an individual to get from point a to point b but to simply keep you out of a car, for multiple reasons. With that being said, in most of Atlanta it is still realistic to prefer driving, and 1 hr extra time to get the airport using MARTA is excessive, it should not take that much longer.

[scania]

Originally Posted by One ATLien

Addressing specifically your point about how much longer it would have taken you to go the airport using MARTA rather then driving..
I drive mainly in Atlanta simply due to the fact that our transit system is not intricate enough yet, not because it may take longer for me to do so. Even in cities with a major transit system like London for example, if you are travelling a distance being in a car will get you there faster, in almost all cases unless traffic is at a near standstill. The point of transit is not making it faster for an individual to get from point a to point b but to simply keep you out of a car, for multiple reasons. With that being said, in most of Atlanta it is still realistic to prefer driving, and 1 hr extra time to get the airport using MARTA is excessive, it should not take that much longer.

Depends on what part on the metro area you live. I'm not sure how you can justify saying that his commute time using Marta is excessive.

[arctk2014]

Originally Posted by Libertarian

Right now it took me 47 minutes to get to the airport. According to Google Maps, if I had taken mass transit (MARTA), the time required would have required exactly one hour more. This means that, for me, personal vehicle transport in Atlanta with all the headaches is far more efficient than the alternative. The cost to equalize the playing field for mass transit is prohibitive. You say we in Atlanta should live more densely? Maybe so, but it's not reality now or in the foreseeable future. For the purists maybe the alternative is in NYC because that's the only place in America where I see an efficiency advantage for mass transit.

Did you use rideshare services or park at the airport (which in the end costs more money either way)? You wouldn't want to try to drive to the airport at 7 am or around 5 pm if it put you through commuter traffic at that point taking MARTA will definitely be quicker and more efficient.

[One ATLien]

Originally Posted by scania

Depends on what part on the metro area you live. I'm not sure how you can justify saying that his commute time using Marta is excessive.

I agree it depends where you live.. should have been more specific, my point about an hour extra being excessive was more of a general one, most of the suburbs in Metro Atlanta would have very slow transit options to get to the airport, simply because our rail lines barely cover them. I believe that Marta/transit options should cover much more of the city and metro area to the point where an average transit time say from a suburb in north Atlanta should be greatly reduced. More bus lines, more rail lines. I'm just going back to the point that our transit system doesn't cover nearly the area it is supposed to considering how spread out Atlanta is.

[Verge]

Originally Posted by montydawg

It appears on Wikipedia alone, there are many different ways to calculate a population of a metropolitan area. If you are looking at city limits alone, Atlanta city proper has fewer residents than Virginia Beach and Mesa, AZ, ranked at #40 in the US. That is eye opening for me- perhaps Atlanta has a lot of pent up demand for city living considering all the business located here- so that is probably good for Midtown/Downtown/Buckhead.

Wikipedia has a few ways to calculate population on surrounding areas, and the link below has Atlanta ranked at #11 as of 2016. If you look at the growth, though, we have twice the rate of growth than boston (who has 1.75 million more residents), and we have 4 times the rate of Philidelphia. We seem to be running neck and neck with Miami, but with global warming and potentially higher taxes to pay for all the flood control for flooding they are having now, that may change. It does not appear we will eclipse anything in Texas.

I put together a small spreadsheet based on these numbers, and assuming the rate of growth between 2010 and 2016 would remain the same for all cities, Atlanta would overtake Phili in 2028 and Boston in 2058, but even at 2100, Miami would have a few hundred more residents than Atlanta. Perhaps land prices would get much more expensive in Miami, changing the current growth rate.

The unexpected big surprise was (I added Chicago later to the spreadsheet), that Atlanta in on track to overtake Chicago by 2058.

Based on this, in 2058, I had the ranking at NYC, LA, WAS, DAL, HOU, SF, MIA, ATL, CHI, BOS, PHI with ATL at #8. I'm sure either the entity that published the study was a lot smarter than I am, or they cherry picked some statistics to make ATL look a lot better than other competing cities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combin...tistical_areas

The census bureau sets the definitions of both MSAs and CSAs-- In many ways CSAs (multiple related MSAs) are a better for comparison-- San Francisco being a good case in point-- its MSA is smallish (4M) but the CSA which includes San Jose is 8M+-- a much better representation of a major, major metro area. Boston is similar as is DC-Baltimore.

[Verge]

Originally Posted by Atlriser

There is something way off on that list of CSAs. It doesn't list Phoenix and several other large metros. The Census lists Atlanta metro as the 8th or 9th largest in the country currently. I'd trust the census over Wikipedia everyday. In addition growth projections are not just based on the past 5 years. They are based on many many factors from national economic factors all the way down to local tax policies and even just population and opinion polls on future outlooks and attitudes of citizens in areas. Also, they are just 'projections'. With that said, metro Atlanta has consistently outperformed all projections of growth since the 1950's. While that is good; it doesn't guarantee anything. However, I'd place my bet on Atlanta continuing to shine and outperform. It will be 6th largest by 2050 without a doubt and challenging for 5th as climate change challenges Houston and south Texas.

Some cities DON'T have CSAs-- there are no other related metro areas close by. Atlanta did not until 2010, when Gainesville and Athens got added to Atlanta. Atlanta's CSA population is 6.4M+.

[jsvh]

I agree for most in Metro Atlanta today getting around by car makes more sense today. But to get to the root of that and why getting around our metro is so difficult you have to go down a few levels:

People don't take transit because they don't have good access to it.

But the lack of transit is not really just a lack of coverage or even government funding when you dig into it. If you look at about every other major transit system in the world (besides things like hourly commuter rail service) they all have a comparable coverage span to MARTA. And most of those larger systems across are less subsidized than MARTA.

Now how is that? Well, population density. Transit works best with denser areas. People need to be easy walking distance to transit stations for it to be a really attractive option. And transit stations need enough viable riders near by to justify the cost.

So, why don't we have the density? We used to be as dense as Amsterdam and had dozens of private rail transit lines that crisscrossed the city. What changed?

Well at the local, state, and federal level we decided that taking the car between scattered larger developments was the future and we passed laws and subsidies to ensure that future happened.

Take a look outside the US, you will find few examples of cities with density as low as ours. Australia for example should be comparable, lots of open space in the country as a whole, similar amount of wealth, age of the cities are similar. Well, even most of their outer ring suburbs are denser than a lot of our core Urban neighborhoods here in Atlanta and have good transit connections.

The average new suburban single family home in Australia would be too dense for all but the densest R zoning even within the city limits here.

So if we want better housing options and thus better transportation options we need to legalize them. Because running subway lines to every low-density cul de sac is never going to make sense. It is far easier to build more attractive housing options near transit than trying to build transit out so far. We don't need to force anyone out of the suburbs, just make denser suburban (and urban) options broadly legal and many will take the option.

Luckily there is already solid work going on in this area within the city limits with the zoning rewrite: zoningatl.com

TLDR: Legalize Density!

[Atlanta3000]

First post-recession office projects planned at Atlantic Station

https://www.hines.com/news/hines-and...atlantic-yards
http://www.myajc.com/business/first-...9EJ2OB7NHltUI/

Sorry for the size, but it looks even better - bigger.

[mayhem]

What a waste of apace

[Atlanta3000]

Originally Posted by mayhem

What a waste of apace

Really - I love it. I really like industrial architecture and this project incorporates it perfectly. I am curious what do think should be built in this location?

[joecool]

I LOVE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!

Any ground breaking date yet?

[sbrptree]

Originally Posted by Atlanta3000

Really - I love it. I really like industrial architect and this project incorpotares it perfectly. I am curious what do think should be built in this location?

I love it too!

[briantech]

Yeah I think it looks great. Loft style feel to it, almost like the Sears building, but more modern.

[Student]

Too bad the actual district of Atlantic Station didn't execute well on an industrial design.

[Student]

And is Coda not a post-recession office project?

[Atlanta3000]

[Atlanta3000]

Originally Posted by Student

And is Coda not a post-recession office project?

The article is focused on Atlantic Station specifically.

[scania]

Originally Posted by briantech

Yeah I think it looks great. Loft style feel to it, almost like the Sears building, but more modern.

Perfect analysis/comparison.

[themaguffin]

The census bureau sets the definitions of both MSAs and CSAs-- In many ways CSAs (multiple related MSAs) are a better for comparison-- San Francisco being a good case in point-- its MSA is smallish (4M) but the CSA which includes San Jose is 8M+-- a much better representation of a major, major metro area. Boston is similar as is DC-Baltimore.

I would argue that in most cases, the MSA is most representative of a city. The one you noted are great examples of areas that should generally be considered in CSAs numbers though. San Francisco just can't be separarted from Oakland and San Jose. While Baltimore is independent in some ways, it's still connected to DC and very close to it. Akron to Cleveland and a few others.

First post-recession office projects planned at Atlantic Station

https://www.hines.com/news/hines-and...atlantic-yards
http://www.myajc.com/business/first-...9EJ2OB7NHltUI/

Sorry for the size, but it looks even better - bigger.

I like it. Not sure if Atlantic Station makes the most sense, but it's certainly nice.

[3yonce]

Originally Posted by themaguffin

I like it. Not sure if Atlantic Station makes the most sense, but it's certainly nice.

Agreed. I like this project better than most this cycle, but it seems like an odd stylistic choice for Atlantic Station. I'd love to see something like this on the Westside, certain portions of the Eastside Beltline Trail, or even Downtown, though I'm glad to see some of the holes in Atlantic Station hopefully getting filled in with this, T3, and the AMLI project. On that note, has anyone heard any updates on those projects?