Quote:
Originally Posted by Julien
I'm not overly promoting EV Pods and I'm fine with the way it is. Love the Beltline as a Ped/VRU only. Streetcars just seems to be such a waste of money ESPECIALLY when you consider it was almost $100M for 2.7 miles and ridership is only a little over 100 people a day average last year.
And the limited Beltline extension is expected to cost $230M that MARTA could desperately use elsewhere. Just imagine how much it would cost to cover all 33 miles of the Beltline.
My point is before poring ¼ of a billon dollars down the toilet for a few people to ride on a small section of the Beltline a better option is to spend a fraction of that amount on EV Pods and cover all 33 miles OR BETTER yet leave it as is.
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yes, the current streetcar line does not go anywhere truly useful,
yet. it's also slow because it gets stuck in traffic. the whole point of putting it on the beltline covers both of these issues.
it will finally go somewhere (downtown to the burgeoning office/retail subdistrict that is O4W as well as the beltline in general) and it will have its own right of way which will make it much faster along that stretch (at least a consistent 20mph) when it doesn't have to fight traffic lights and parked cars.
transit is expensive, but this is actually very much on the cheaper side of things comparatively. heavy rail is many times more expensive to build. the right of way exists, and gravel's original intention included a tram running alongside the path.