Details:
Citizens for Progressive Transit is hosting a happy hour presenting candidates running in the July 18th primaries and November 7th elections. The candidates will speak about transportation issues, but this is also an opportunity for you to tell them your views.
Click through for more info about Citizens for Progressive Transit
or to check out the Visualize World Class Transit in Atlanta Map.
Location:
The Globe Restaurant, 75 5th Street, NW
time:
06/21/2006 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location:
The Globe Restaurant, 75 5th Street, NW
Treffen mit Schnurrbart
Hey, Gabe and Scott, thanks for coming out tonight. It was good to meet y'all. There were a few other cyclists around, but I didn't get to chat with'em before they took off. Any of y'all?
And The Globe really oughta be blacklisted for want of bike racks...
Which candidates were there?
Did anybody say anything worth talking about?
biking there...
is this on tech square? i think i will be there for this. i like transportation talk. it's fun.
hey, this thing is at the globe.
lets ALLL show up on bikes. and lock them everywhere. take THAT, 5th street management!
Viele Fahrräder
Yes, all of you show up... all of you.
Since there will be more than a few candidates showing up, littering the sidewalks and area around The Globe would be a GREAT visual to show candidates how many of us are on bikes out there.
My dad's in town that night, so I'm going from the happy hour to hang out with him. Would anyone want to organize a ride to/from the happy hour?
midtown
I'm heading that way from midtown after work - from 17th and peachtree.
anybody riding that way call me or meet me at *$ at 5:30.
seriously
not even actual world class cities could implement that map
No, Seriously.
This is definitely do-able over the next 30 years.
The Beltline TAD passed last Winter, so it's a funded projected and on the go. Right now commuter rail projects, especially the so-called "Brain Train" from Atlanta to Athens, continue to gain support. The shorter light rail, trolly and BRT lines have private/institutional support.
Lengthing commute times (3.75 hours daily on average in the Metro area,) rising petro prices, and the continuing sluggishness of real wages will only help move this plan into action.
I don't want to sap your
I don't want to sap your passion, but the beltline has so far taken 15-20 years to just reach the beginning stage, and even then was really propelled as a means for the city increase its own income because they've overcommitted themselves, by spurning real estate development.
It would be great if we had a passenger rail system, petro is still very cheap, when considered historially and as a percentage of income, etc.
Keine Problemme
Nah, you don't have to worry 'bout sappin' my passion. Although framing transit issues in emotive terms like 'passion' does speak to attitudinal barriers mass transit must continue to overcome.
I'll also concede the TAD is a rather exotic form of financing, however it works with the federal matching funds available thanks to Cathy Woolard's wheelin' and dealin'.
I'm a little unsure about what you mean by "spurning real estate development." The racism that propelled white flight from the 60s onward seems more problematic to development in the past few decades than city government deterring development.
While petro cost adjusted for inflation isn't as bad as the cost during the oil crisis, this doesn't reflect increased costs for commuters going longer distances. Even CPIs reflect increased food costs as well, due to increasingly tenuous cheap-petro-dependent supply chains... but now I digress.
>spurning real estate
>spurning real estate development
Opps sorry, thats my typo.
I meant "spurring", which would be the opposite.
Basically my point was FTM (follow the money), and that the Beltline is a very nice vehicle for the city to collect lots of cash from new RE development.
I grew up in Bonn/Koln and Paris and I know metros can work, bigtime, and its about time our cities got on the ball.
PS. Thanks for the link Scott, on that rail network. It looks very promising.
What really sucks is just to take Amtrak from Atlanta to DC takes 10+ hours. FCOL, This is 2006, and that is insane.
Geldjäger
Ah. That makes more sense then, and now I understand your concern the city has overcommitted itself. As I'd mentioned previously, the TAD is an exotic form of financing. It speculates on its own success. Climbing interest rates and housing price corrections could become very real problems for the project.
Am I Crazy?
Speaking of real estate pricing corrections... does anyone here actually know anyone that lives in any of the new 'luxury' high rise developments. The high rise in Atlantic Station, in addition to the Spires, William Oliver, Healy, Metropolitan, Cathedral Towers... etc, etc, etc. At night, when I am out and about, there are hardly any lights on in these buildings (aside from the lobby and maybe 3 units). In the morning when I am headed home, there are no residents heading out the doors to their jobs.
Am I the only one that sees a problem with the largely vacant '$1900 a month for a 700sq ft one bedroom' high rises that dot ATL. Looks to me like another bubble (having been through, and survived... barely, the dot-com burst, it is the last thing I want to see happen again).
Since I only live in a
Since I only live in a mid-rise building, take this with a grain of salt. tic.
1) I love all those new buildings because they make my sunset view more interesting.
2) You just can't believe how much money there is in this town. 10% of the owners in my building, have 1 or 2 more homes/properties just in Atlanta metro. On top of that, I'd say 25-33% own at least a second or third home, somewhere. Heck a guy on my floor has two homes just in Midtown.
3) I read somewhere that ~40% of new home sales last year were not for primary residences. Baby boomers love lots of homes, makes them feel good/important.
4) $1900 for an apartment is chump change to alot these customers. Heres the deal, Atlanta is a top 10 media market and 1900 is cheap rent compared to DC, NYC, Chicago, Cali, etc.
5) FYI, a penthouse at the Mayfair rents for $10k/month, and its considered a bargain.
6) Midtown is a very unique RE market in the whole country. Back in the late 80's a boneheaded Swede came to town with his own bank, and literally bought most of midtown. This rocket scientist had the mad idea of building a "Lenox Mall" jobby on 10th street, lots of highrise condos, and other nonsense. As time passes, he goes BK, and its only been within the last few (5+) years that the deeds on these Midtown parcels got cleared up, etc. So basically his very complex bankruptcy put Midtown in a decade long hermetically sealed bubble. (ironic?)
7) Thus all the development of the last 5 years normally would've unfolded over the last 15 years.
8) A number of the new developers are Florida developers, so that should be a hint about the florida market.
9) Don't worry, be Happy. Empty buildings are a good thing, because part-time neighbors are the BEST. They don't bitch about music, and other nonsense.
10) Midtown highrises are for the little-people, the macdaddy money is all in Buckhead. There's a new building going up near Phipps where the lowest floor condos start at $2m. But Buckhead is itself very rare, because in 5 minutes you can be at Georgia's second busiest airport to hop on your private jet.
As a fatcat jetsetter at PDK once said to me, "Dude, its only money."
...
What I am really worried about is that these buildings are built on borrowed money with a bit coming from the city in the form of revitalization funds... all this is based on speculation that the units will be rented and the builders can then pay back these loans and then profit madly (and finally be able to afford that home on the moon). If the units aren't rented then the investment goes sour and the company (most likely a shell company made just to build the high rise) will fold and the loans get written off, but the city or whomever is left with the bill, and we all know how shit rolls down hill.
According to the experts
The real estate market probably won't drop out the bottom like you are saying. Its more likely that prices will plataeu. What was said above about the bankrupt developer is interesting, but what you see taking place (lots of in-town residential construction) is also a result of developers' late reaction to real estate conditions 5-10 years ago. In the late 90's, leasable office space in atlanta peaked and the amount of people working in those offices dropped (companies moving to the perimeter, slack economy, etc). So we had (and still have) all this empty office space. Part of the problem was the discrepency between the amount of in town office space vs residential space. Developers were slow to react and are only now balancing the equation. If the economy continues to improve and developers don't overdue it, our city could be a healthy mix of commercial and residential space that could support a great city. With more intown residents, the tax base goes up and things like the beltline become more possible.
But about the plateauing: The last few years have seen record low interest rates, causing many people to buy their first, second, and third homes. Housing prices skyrocketed and buyers, seeing the investment potential, kept buying. Once again, the developers are slow to react to this increase in demand. Now that supply is catching up, prices will flatten and demand will probably flatten to. This will (hopefully) create a renter's market. We poor bikers can look forward to a lot of cheap rent in the near future!
That was on my mind also, I
That was on my mind also, I have nothing against living in a 'luxury condo' turned affordable apartment.
interssante
http://www.southeastalliance.com/index.html
Toll
I didn't know about this. Thanks Scott!
you're welcome
good to meet you!
actually
it was only picked up as a viable plan when cathy woollard was city counci president. before then it was just an idea in a grad thesis. Then, it gained even more momentum after Shirley was elected (5 yrs ago). this thing is moving fast. they are in the middle of their first 5 year plan right now.
>before then it was just an
>before then it was just an idea in a grad thesis
The beltline idea existed long before the grad student's thesis. Its real problem was competing with the Olympics for some city government mindshare, etc. Atlanta was awarded the Olympics in Sept 1990, and anything not directly related was non-grata.
Nevertheless the grad student angle makes for a nice narrative.
nope
it was the Ryan Gravell's thesis idea.
don't dream it
be it.
Or as the rappers say, "fake
Or as the rappers say,
"fake it until you make it"
Faker
Or fakir?
.
That map... is seriously a work of art. I may have to print it out and hang it up in a place of prominence. It kind of makes me want to cry because I know that most of that will never happen.
.
That map... oh man, if that map were real, especially the light rail into Cobb County, I'd throw away my car if that were real. Then ATL would be awesome and not be some second rate city that I am counting down the days until I leave.