Video: Atlanta gets blown away by other cities’ transit systems
September 18, 2009 at 10:25 pm by Thomas Wheatley in NewsThe most depressing (and eye-opening) video of the day comes courtesy of Citizens for Progressive Transit, the metro region’s biggest advocate for getting residents out of their cars.
Atlanta was first among such peer cities as Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle to build a transit system. But then its expansion came to a screeching halt. And as you can see below, it’s now got a lot of catching up to do.
September 19th, 2009 at 12:13 am
As a note of full disclosure: some of the lines depicted have not yet been built, such as the orange line and most of the green line in Dallas, though portions of the Green line open this month, and the remainder is under planning/construction. The orange line is also in the planning phase.
September 19th, 2009 at 6:27 am
Yup… notice the timeline at the bottom goes through 2020.
September 19th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Thanks for adding that, ptkdude. Atlanta does have additional transit plans — i.e. Connect Atlanta, Concept 3, Beltline — but thanks to the questionable issue of how those expansions could be funded, I decided not to wade into that tricky territory.
September 19th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Thanks for posting! I created the video for the CfPT / Sierra Club talk on transit in Atlanta on Sept 10. Regarding the 2009-2020 portion — generally, the future segments shown are limited to projects that have an identifiable funding source and path to implementation, typically with a specific target opening date set. For instance, the late-’10s Seattle projects are the ones to be funded by the “Sound Transit 2″ ballot referendum that passed last summer. Ditto for the FasTracks initiative in Denver.
It’s true that Atlanta has many plans for various future lines, but nothing nearly as concrete as the future segments shown for the other cities. The funding source, opening date, and in some cases even the building/operating agency are still big question marks for all of the local expansion proposals.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:13 am
No transit system in ATL will be any good until more sidewalks are built. What’s the point of taking people from Point A to Point B if they can’t walk anywhere once you let them off? Sidewalks seem to start and stop mysteriously around here. You can’t build a transit system around a city that seems to be particularly anti walking… I notice many cross walks in the few parts of town that are “walk able” have to have little “reminder signs” that pedestrians have the right of way… as though most people consider them targets. Good Luck ATL
September 20th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Bethann — that’s a very good point, and that’s why both the Peachtree Streetcar and Beltline projects are more than just transit projects. The Streetcar is part of a larger initiative to make the Peachtree corridor more pedestrian friendly, and the Beltline includes plans for more street connections, paths and other enhancements specifically designed to make it easier to talk to the stations.
October 13th, 2009 at 4:15 am
@ bethann
We are indeed considered targets…