I don’t live in the city of Atlanta, so I am not all that familiar with the particular developments. Jobs are scattered very widely over the Atlanta metropolitan area. MARTA covers only a very small portion of it. I expect the area MARTA covers is maybe 10% or 15% of the Atlanta metropolitan area.
These new developments seem to be connected by rail to the Five Points area in downtown Atlanta. One of my sons works at Five Points. (Lots of pan handlers there!) He takes an express bus twice a day. This is the only kind of transit available to the city from our suburb. He works in the building with the State of Georgia workers. (He is a subcontractor, not an employee). Marta does run quite a long distance North, but we don’t live North. I suppose if our son wanted to live in the city, this might be an option. But with a contract job, there is a question whether he would want to sign a lease for at least a year, when his contract will run out this summer.
I haven’t looked at the economics of these developments.
Artleads says:+++++++++++++- Artleads says:It’s relatively advanced when you can get to work by bus at all. There’s a free shuttle in my county (part of a regional shuttle service shared by northern NM and southern CO), but it arrives here at 11:30, long after commuters have gone to work. So they’re often near empty. They drop you off in the city at a mall where you can switch to a city bus to get to the city destination. But if you’re old or feeling poorly, you don’t want the hassle of asking all the drivers if they’re going your way. Somebody to advise you as you get off the shuttle would help. That person could be what I call a “synapse connector.”The shuttle drops you off in the city at a somewhat sleepy mall that has no supermarket. Folks coming in from the county village with no major food supply are often heading for the supermarket. There is a supermarket across a very busy, fast, wide street from the mall, and even a young person is living dangerously trying to cross it on foot. A synapse connector could take you in another shuttle to that supermarket across the street and return you for your shuttle when ready. The trouble is that the next shuttle back to the county leaves at 4:15, four hours after you got to the mall. But fixing that with small (maybe station wagon size) shuttles that operated at slightly better times with slightly better frequency doesn’t seem like too high of an expectation.
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