BATBlog
Priorities and distractions
The AJC breathlessly reported that BRN supporters recently turned up at a MARTA Board meeting to denounce the board’s decision to cancel the Eastside Beltline streetcar.
How vast was this protest? A whopping 20 speakers, or 0.0037% of the city’s population, who proceeded to yell at MARTA Board members and accuse them of selling out to Big Oil, a group that I’m sure was just in a panic about a two-mile-long streetcar extension.
Water & traffic may flow, but don't try bathing in an expressway
Here's a question for you to consider: if a road is congested, should it be widened? If you answered yes, can you name a major urban highway expansion project that didn't revert within five years to the same average traffic speed as before the expansion? Don’t try too hard, because they don’t exist.
Can paths put Atlanta in the same league as Paris?
Paris went with a big mix of infrastructure to get its system going fast. Bi-directional bike/scooter lanes, center-running bikeways, concrete-protected lanes, parking-buffered lanes, and off-road paths are scattered throughout the city. City officials are finding that some of these options work better than others, which gives us the opportunity to learn from their trials and forgo their errors.