Quote:
Originally Posted by AtlMidtowner
I honestly do not understand at all how you guys think an interstate divides a city. Most major cities in the world are divided by a river, or other natural barries.....well Atlanta, as virtually every city in America, may be sliced by a highway (please look at mapquest before making comments about cities). And, so what, what is the real negative effect? A few people pschologicially think their neighborhood was divided????? I could care less about that, as what is more important is FAST access to all parts of Atlanta for all. Over time, there can be two neighborhoods, and people would think of a highway any differently than you can think of a river, ocean or mountain!!! And anyway, just think how interstates divide rural areas where sometimes you must drive 10 to 20 miles to cross the other interstates. Everytime we get development, we always here some people whining about their how the development has ruined their life or neighborhood. To them, as always, I say, the only ones I feel sorry for are the American Indians.....
Peachtree Industrial Blvd outside the perimeter used to be surface street in the 1990s was built to be a limited access road. I used to have an office on PIB, and the traffic was always a disaster with all the red lights. Now, it is MUCH better. I simply do not understand the arguments against limited access highway other than abusrd emotion arguments of a handful of residents that think their neighborhood has been damaged. Later on I purchased an office park on the access roads of Peachtree Industrial Blvd. I lost a few tenants because of the difficulty of accessing my office buildings by my tenants; however, it never would have occured to me to argue against the limted access highway just because I lost a few rental dollars.
I live in Midown, and I, as probably most other people living in Midtown that dont work exclusively in Midtown or on the Marta line, I would never consider living here unless we had fast access to the entire city, not just a few blocks. I am an realist, and dont have enough years left in my life to think that public transportation will ever be sufficient in Atlanta to remotely be able to conduct my real estate business in Atlanta unless I can get to all points quickly and easily. The overwhelming majority of the people in Atlanta will feel the same. I dont want some unrealistic childish pipe dream of getting rid of the limited access highway system in Atlanta or even just downtown Atlanta and hoping someday we will have a public transportation system that can efficiciently bring me from Midtown to Riverdale the Norcross to Alpharetta to Marietta and then back to Midtown, all in one day.
Get rid of the interstates in downtown, and you can scrap half the projects on the construction forum!!! Get the opintion of any real estate investor, devloper and especially the larger investors, and they will all agree with me!!
As a first generation German-American, I definitely support improving our public transportation system. I give my support under the exclusive condition that high density living must be zoned in areas near light rail and metro. On the short run it will be expensive, but on the long run, the "marta stations" will create mini development booms in close vicinity of t the stations So far, Atlanta failed miserably on its first test in refusing to allow high density for Mason at Piedmont Park. (I was so much looking forward to looking out my spare bedroom and seeing Stone Mountain view blocked by several high rises on the other side of the park!!)
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Some good points, but...
I actually think the GaTech proposal is pretty brilliant, but not in an practical way. More the crazy concept car at the auto show way. It gets you thinking and is pretty cool to look at, but you pretty soon realize that you'll never see it on the street. It does still though sort of help shake things up and get people thinking out the box and questioning the status quo.
The comparison of interstates to rivers is interesting, but I don't see it. River cities were built on rivers and grew up organically around them. The neighborhoods and areas grew up around the rivers. Interstates were pretty much sliced through cities in fairly recent history, mostly regardless of neighborhoods and traditional boundaries. And though yes, some divided neighborhood may work on their own, look at North Grant Park, or North Ormewood north of I-20. Those have suffered tremendously. Those areas also lost some of the retail "villages" and never recovered. So it's hard to brush off the damage done by interstates as incidental and minor.
I'm sorry to see that you could care less about psychological issues with neighborhoods, and only care about quick n easy transporation. Though that's part of the equation, it's not the only thing to consider. Psychological issues are extremely important in city planning, people have to feel good about their city and neighborhoods.
While you may consider much of the public transporation planning "pipe dreams" the truth is Atlanta is way behind the curve on these solutions. Especially when you consider lead, planning, and construction times. Many of these pipe dreams should have been concrete and steel a long time ago.
I'm torn on the issue of interstates myself. Though it's interesting to look at alternative plans for what might have been. But actually the interstates played a major role in the development of Atlanta, in many positive ways. i can't help but notice that in the revised interstate map shown, there would not be a) a fast direct route from the airport to the convention hotels, and b) easy access from the main train yards to I-20, c) high traffic visibility for corporate towers and hotels. In these and countless other ways the interstates have helped grow and shape the city.
If the interstates had been done differently, we may still have been talking about the same problems, but just in other areas.
Given that though, there is a balance. First you have to realize that they've been a mixed bag, and though yes overwhelming having a positive impact on the city's development, there have been some negatives as well. The Interstate development very much parallel's Atlanta's 70s-80s "growth at any cost, whatever they won't to build let them, let's tear down the old junk" mentality.
However, moving into a new period of "enlightened urbanism" and for many now considering for the first time, things like pedestrian friendliness, street presence and scale, mixed uses, etc. it's time for Atlanta to take a more balanced approach.
No we're not going to lose any interstates, but maybe we won't be getting any more ultra expensive, mega widenings anytime soon; maybe the era of pave our way out of trouble is coming to an end, and maybe people can still zoom through downtown Atlanta just as quickly, but maybe with a few more wider bridges and parks over the interstate.