According to a new report by the LA-based, libertarian Reason Foundation, all Atlanta needs to solve its traffic needs are $25 billion worth of toll lanes and, yes, tunnels—count ’em, three—under the city. Sure, they admit their cost estimates are low balls (by a factor of seven). Sure, they dismiss mass transit out of hand. Sure, their toll revenue estimates are overly optimistic.
But libertarians like the idea of toll roads. So they have to work, right? Right?
One of the proposed paths doesn’t seem that off to me—it extends 400 south until it connects to 675. But a tunnel? Cause the Big Dig went so well. All in all, they’re proposing about 25 miles of tunnels. How long was the Big Dig? Five miles? Ten, tops?
Obviously, Atlanta doesn’t need a top notch transit system that takes people from where they live to where they want to go. It doesn’t need a Northern Arc so folks doing a Cobb-Gwinett commute can skip the Perimeter. What Atlanta needs is a twenty-year construction boondoggle and some smiling California libertarians.
In good news, it looks like a new commuter line may open inside of two years, and Cobb County just decided to link up with MARTA.
Traffic, Transportation and commutership…
The Atlanta blogosphere is all a-twitter over the Reason Foundation’s $25 million dollar solution (ABC version here, CL opinion here) to the traffic/congestion problem here. Read on: Radical Georgia Moderate Making Chutney In addition, we’ve got news…
couldnt they just run 1-20 fifty miles south of town?
that would certainly help me when I want to dive west to Alabama or Mississippi!
– and would probably be a lot cheaper.
and yes toll roads do help with congestion – it makes folks try to detour them!
Well. I live right by where they want to go from a 16 lane highway to a 23. Joygasms all around there.
CObb county is barely linking up with marta – they area allowing marta busses to use the terminal over by Cumberland Mall. That equated to about 2 miles within Cobb County, well away from the rich white folks that are afraid of the black people in fulton county. So its not that exciting of news, trust me.
Having 400 go down there would be just another connector nightmare. Frankly, how in the hell would they build it? Have it go right through Atlantic Station and Georgia Tech? That’s never going to happen.
How about this?
How about effective public transportation?
However, that would obligate people to move closer together to one another. This would obligate people to sell their gas-guzzling Land Rovers and ride the subway/bus like every other human being in the world.
Or, in a more realistic sense, what if we staggered the schedules of people? What if we mandated that 20% of the population began their commute at 7 am; another 20% began their commute at 8 am; another 20% began their commute at 9 am; another 20% began their commute at 10 am, and so on and so on.
Then you wouldn’t have a massive glut of people trying to get to work in the same relative time frame.
Interesting three part series on some of these topics posted a little over a year ago over on The Infamous Brad. (We’ll see if the HTML works.) Gist of it is that whatever we might want, to get people to use light rail in place of driving you’d need rail stations every quarter mile.
Oh, and on the mandatory staggered schedules… Who would be mandating this, and how would it be policed? “I’m sorry, sir, it’s 8:30 AM, and you aren’t supposed to be on the road for another half hour. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ticket you.” Personally, I’d love to see our culture get out of the 9 to 5 mindset, but I don’t see it happening that easily. Maybe as the generation that grew up with the Internet moves into positions of power, we’ll see changes in that direction.
From an enforcing standpoint, it would be tough, I agree.
I propose we go by something like last four digits of social security number. They did that during the 70s when gas had to be rationed. People whose SSN ended with even numbers got to fill up on even numbered days and people whose SSN ended with odd numbers got to fill up on odd numbered days.
And yes, there was a person who had to say, “I’m sorry, Sir, you aren’t allowed to fill up your tank until tomorrow”.
People, being people, will always find a way around something they’re not supposed to be. But then again, don’t people break the law by speeding and driving in the HOV lane when they’re not supposed to anyway?
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