Tuesday, July 21, 2009
News Atlanta City Council approves Peachtree streetcar study
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 2:57 PM
The Atlanta City Council yesterday approved a deal that could once again see streetcars running along Peachtree.
The Midtown Alliance and Central Atlanta Progress have offered up to $600,000 for MARTA to study the streetcar project, which last year was placed on hold after the city realized its budget woes.
Yesterday's deal also allows officials to determine if the project could compete for up to $300 million in federal transportation stimulus cash. According to City Council President Lisa Borders' mayoral campaign website, streetcars could become a reality in five years.
The $1 billion streetcar project, which includes new parks and streetscapes along the streetcar route, proposes connecting Fort McPherson to Buckhead. The first phase eyed for implementation — estimated at $120 million before the market tanked — would connect Midtown to downtown and include an east-west tourist loop stretching from the King Center to Centennial Olympic Park.
As funds become available, councilmembers requested studies be conducted on extending the line along Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, to Grant Park, to the downtown government center and to Fort McPherson.
None of the councilmembers had the courage to demand skybuckets be included as part of the study. For this, they will never be forgiven.
(Courtesy Peachtree Corridor Task Force)
Comments (6)
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Screw mass transit - Atlanta needs more and bigger roads and additional parking. Maybe then we can raze crammed sections of town like V-H and E. ATL to make way for some more strips malls. I don't want to get anyone too excited, but these new malls might even have a TJ Max.
Adam, Might you join my committee to bring Mervyn's back to Georgia, starting with a massive superstore in the middle of Candler Park?
Awesome - I love studies....especially studies which duplicate other studies. Let's just keep studying this streetcar until it builds itself
This particular study is a required for the streetcar to be eligible for the "stimulus" program. But if our city government hadn't obligated so much our tax dollars be spent on people who no longer work for the city we could have funded this thing ourselves. The increase in funding going to the pension plan ($30 million/yr in 2001 vs. $100 million/yr today) could pay for the streetcar in 4 years.
Peachtree street is already a traffic nightmare. Some geniuses - I think associated with the Midtown Alliance or Central Atlanta Progress - thought it would be smart to increase that congestion by taking away a lane for brick sidewalks. Now they want to take away even more lanes for this streetcar? How can this possibly be a good idea? I'm not against mass transit. I took MARTA to work every day until I had to drive my wife to her job because of her health condition. But the only way I see a streetcar on Peachtree improving things is if it makes a SIGNIFICANT number of people who would otherwise have driven on Peachtree take the streetcar instead. And I just don't see that happening. Seems more likely it'll transform Peachtree from a traffic nightmare to a traffic standstill.
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