We have heard much recently about “making Atlanta a great city” and “moving forward not backward” and “keeping up with other cities” by giving politicians and developers a massive amount of tax money to spend on their favorite projects.
Atlanta is already a great city and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Our suburban lifestyle is the best in the nation by far. IBM and other corporations discovered long ago that once they moved executives into Atlanta, they would give up further promotions to stay here. As a region we have been in the top 10 in growth for years and are very likely to continue that growth.
We have a congestion problem because our transportation planning has been dysfunctional for years. We have planned (and spent) as if Atlanta is still the hub-and-spoke city that it was in the 1960’s. We have ignored the suburban growth pattern and failed to create a grid of arteries.
In his excellent study on this subject (“Getting Georgia Going”) Baruch Feigenbaum notes:
“The arterial network that should serve as the backbone for transportation is underdeveloped. Atlanta has quite possibly the worst arterial network of any of the 10 largest metro areas in the country. A great deal of attention is focused on the shortcomings of the region's transit network, but the region's highway network is not much better. Creating a grid network would improve Atlanta's traffic flow.”
The Atlanta region has grown into a network of clusters. From a growth viewpoint, this is a very strong structure and one that we should encourage and promote. That requires very different thinking on the part of the state as well as local government officials. Regional governance structures that attempt to cement in place a dominant “urban core” are misguided and in the end will prevent rather than encourage the region’s growth.
We should begin by focusing on the origin of the problem – a dysfunctional GDOT. The GDOT board should be elected, similar to the Public Service Commission, and minimal professional standards for its top management established.
Our transportation planners should begin by identifying roads that should serve as major arteries in the regional grid, and developing innovative, continuous-flow roadway designs for these arteries. This can be done without building full-scale expressways. Other cities have done it with flyovers, roundabouts and cross-unders, yet preserved the ability for local access to stores when desired. Roadways designated as arteries should have minimal standards for such design, preventing local officials from putting stoplights every ¼ mile to slow them down.
Companies don’t move to Atlanta because of our urban core or transit system. They come because of the airport, the suburban lifestyle and great housing values. Companies that avoid Atlanta do so because of our state income tax, our dysfunctional governments at state, county and city levels and our abysmal school systems. If we want to compete effectively we should focus on those problems.
The competitive regions in the next century will be strong networks of suburban clusters with great arterial grids, not central cities. This does not mean that in-town lifestyles will deteriorate. Quite the opposite. There will always be a segment of the population that desires high-rise apartment living close to the city center. Developers can and will meet that need as the market demand dictates.
As witnessed by the Avalon complex in Alpharetta, there is even demand for that lifestyle in the suburbs, and Avalon’s developers are constructing a product to meet that demand without grossly distorting our transportation planning or requiring massive tax subsidies. What is interesting to note is that the Avalon market study makes clear that its success will be dependent on the surrounding suburban neighborhoods.
You've forgotten one of the most important reasons why a company would locate here: people, specifically an educated work force. The Atlanta metro area is home to several large universities, including one of the top engineering schools in the nation. I can't speak for the other schools, but I know with Tech a very large percentage of graduates accept jobs out of state. It's true that many student are also from out of state, but if this "great suburban lifestyle" were so appealing, then why do so many leave? It's not like companies are lining up to move to GA; if they were, we wouldn't have below average growth. While you personally may like this suburban sprawl, er, lifestyle, it is a fading trend. Look at where young people want to move; less people want (or even can afford any more) the huge McMansion in the burbs which requires a legion of caretakers and effort. Young people are attracted to urban cores which are more lively and personal. Companies are attracted to young people. If you don't believe me, just look at Austin, TX as a model.
Transportation planning should monitor the trends and plan for the most cost-effective solution possible to meet the real demand, not attempt to impose behavior modification to make us do things we don't want.
I think this would only be feasible if you lived in your own town, population 1. You seem to be using this argument to say "Why should I pay for a mass transit system that I never use and think is terrible?"....when plenty of people such as myself would never use a bunch of these new roads you propose and feel the same way about funding neverending road projects. It's because there are significant groups of people with both opinions that both need to be funded if we're going to use public funding which is collected from everyone's taxes. The only way around this that I can see if by implementing a fee for service system, similar to the HOT lanes on I-85. If you eliminate all public services and make users pay for the miles they drive, or the distance they commute on public transit, then it would be fair as far as no one subsidizing someone elses lifestyle. But the costs would likely skyrocket so high as to create a huge public outcry. Not to mention that a system like this would be unsustainable for lower income folks. And yes, I believe your gardener and trash man who both work deserve the same basic societal benefits as everyone else. The problem with your second statement is the chicken and egg argument. If you build a world class mass transit system, you will likely see population and economic growth along the new mass transit routes, and same for new roads.
What I am calling for is an elected, properly compensated board just as we currently have for the PSC. Nothing is going to take all the politics out of it, but we can at least have representation that we can get rid of when there is malfeasance or incompetence.
No one on the Public Service Commission has any experience with Energy decision-making. They are all political party hacks who've gotten on the job training from the energy lobbyists. At least the leadership in the DOT has professional experience, management and engineering experience - a requirement for true public service that you don't get in a politician.
For the past 67 years in the post World War II-era of increasingly suburban growth and sprawl, that land speculation and real estate development in (mostly-suburban) Atlanta and other urban regions was driven by the automobile and the close proximity to major road junctions (Town Center Mall near I-75 & I-575 & Barrett Pkwy in Cobb; Gwinnett Place Mall near I-85 & GA 316 in Gwinnett; the Mall of Georgia near I-85 & I-985 & GA 20 in Buford), but we seem to have now entered an era in the 21st Century where land spectulation and the resulting spectulative real estate development will be increasingly driven by proximity to rail transit lines, both inside and outside I-285. This behavior modification is not being imposed on transit-averse suburbanites by the government so much as it is being imposed on the motoring public by the deep-pocketed, well-heeled and well-connected land spectulators and real estate developers who are the unimaginably large financial contributors of the politicians that get into office in North Georgia at the local, state and even federal levels.
The HOT Lanes are not necessarily designed to relieve traffic so much as they are to set the table for a massive rail-anchored transit expansion in the Atlanta Region and North Georgia with the use of congestion pricing as the thinking is that motorists who will pay up to what eventually may be $15 one-way or more to use HOT Lanes to get out of traffic will be more receptive to paying the same amount to ride rail transit lines that parallel those busy spoke freeway corridors between the job centers in the urban core and the suburbs/exurbs.
In fact, the irony is that the pending public rejection of this highly-flawed and increasingly unpopular T-SPLOST referendum may push this region ever closer to the land spectulator and real estate developer-driven vision of Metro Atlanta being a much more densely-developed transit-oriented community along the lines of a Washington DC, Toronto, Chicago (which, btw, are three cities with much better road networks than auto-dominated but severely road infrastructure Atlanta), New York or Boston. Basically, one who is really cynical could say that there is a method to the madness at the Georgia Department of Transportation as the powers-that-be don't have any real intention of letting Metro Atlantans escape from those increasingly severe traffic jams until their planned network of high-density (and higher-profit) development-anchoring rail lines are in the process of being built-out.
http://www.dot.state.ga.us/travelingingeorgia/rail/Documents/CommuterRailMap.pdf http://www.dot.state.ga.us/maps/Documents/railroad/nga_passenger.pdf Another example of the mega-corporate money and influence that looks to take advantage of the Atlanta Region's increasing political and social aversion to road expansion is the family trip that House Speaker David Ralston took to Europe to "research trains" in late 2010, a trip in which the expenses were fully paid by a German trainmaker to the tune of $17,000.
Mr. Lowry, you are very correct that companies and people move to Metro Atlanta because of the airport (which because it is located inside of I-285, is in the urban core), the great suburban lifestyle and great housing values. But, in a way, while some people may not move here to live directly in urban neighborhoods, many companies and individuals do move here for our urban core as there are many activities that just are not necessarily in the suburbs, like football games at the Georgia Dome, Hawks games at Philips Arena, Braves games at Turner Field, etc. And despite the challenges of living in the city, there are still many people who move here to live in popular and trendy Intown neighborhoods like Inman Park, Virginia-Highland, Little Five Points, East Atlanta, Decatur and, of course, high-end Buckhead, which despite being a very high-income and upscale area that is very suburban in nature, is a key and indispensible part of the Metro Atlanta Intown/Inside-the-Perimeter urban core.
Heck, there are other major cities, especially say in mostly-flat and vegetation-challenged Texas and other western locales and even a few eastern ones that would love to have the scenic suburban and exurban assets that the Atlanta Region has.
I agree that aged urban neighborhoods with an abundance of streetlife, charm and character are big draws for those around the region, even from surrounding suburban and exurban areas. But, on the other hand there are some really nice dining jewels in the form of great restaurants to be found in what seemingly may be a nondescript suburban shopping center. I've personally dined at many a high-quality eating establishment tucked into strip malls all over OTP suburban Metro Atlanta. Just like in the city, the burbs have got some really nice dining establishments, too.