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Planners
Counting on New Stations to Ease Ga. 400 Congestion
MARTA's
Next Stop: Northern Suburbs
Stacy
Shelton - Atlanta Journal and Constitution Staff
Tuesday, December 11, 2000
Destination:
traffic vortex. MARTA trains this week begin slashing two
miles further north through the 'burbs, into one of the most
congested spots in metro Atlanta. The Sandy Springs and North
Springs train stations opening at noon Saturday are in easy
walking distance to office parks, shops, movie theaters, restaurants
and apartments. Some Dunwoody homeowners could even make the
walk to a station.
But who
actually will? More importantly, will Ga. 400 drivers notice
they're gone? Nefertiti Yungai, a receptionist at an office
in Northpark Town Center, plans to try the train. It can take
her an hour or more to drive between her Briarcliff neighborhood
in DeKalb County to Exit 5 at Abernathy Road. She figures
she can save as much as half an hour by parking at Lindbergh
station and taking the train.
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"Traffic
in this Perimeter area is lock-solid. You can't move.
... It takes 20 minutes to get out of the parking lot,"
Yungai, 25, said. "It'll at least get my car off the
road. If it works, I'll keep doing it and if not, I'll
just be stuck in traffic."
Regional
transportation planners are counting on the Metropolitan
Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority working for Yungai and
thousands like her. A plan approved by the feds to bring
billions of dollars in road, mass transit and sidewalk
money depends on it. Every day, about 147,000 cars squeeze
through Ga. 400 in each direction at Abernathy Road,
near the new Sandy Springs station. The state highway,
once a traffic solution, has become a miserable commute.
People move to avoid it. To fix it, the state plans
to widen it, build carpool lanes and add parallel roads.
But MARTA is also a big player in the people-moving
answer.
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Sandy
Springs MARTA station
Cost:
$120 million
Estimated
daily ridership by 2005: 5,500
Features:
Underground station with a pedestrian tunnel crossing
under Abernathy Road
Parking
deck capacity: 1,075 spaces
Estimated
travel time to Hartsfield airport: 40 minutes
Properties
Within Walking Distance: Northpark Town Center,
Embassy Row, REI Outdoor Store, Internet Security
Systems, 1117 Perimeter Center West, Mt. Vernon Place
Apartments, Crown Pointe, Southern Energy
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A 25-year
transportation plan shows rail extending up past North Point
Mall, to Exit 11 at Windward Parkway, at a cost of more than
$1 billion. That's little consolation now. According to traffic
data and projections, things are going to get worse long before
they get better. In five years, when MARTA says as many as
18,000 riders will pass through its two northernmost stations,
Ga. 400 at Abernathy is going to funnel more than 150,000
cars in each direction. Road improvements along the highway
would still be as much as five years away.
But in
25 years, if everything is built as hoped, the daily stream
of northbound cars could be down to about 121,000. By then,
conservative estimates show MARTA's North Line will take on
43,500 riders. There's no immediate relief, then, except for
the 7,000 or so riders who are expected to use the new MARTA
stations in the next three months.
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"I
think our stations will be full, at least the parking
lots will be, the very first day," MARTA board Chairman
William Moseley said. The transit agency built a six-level
parking deck at each station, enough room for 3,575
cars.
"Ten
years ago, 15 years ago, if we went up in those areas
we had people fighting tooth and nail. They didn't want
people up there, they didn't want MARTA stations. Moreover,
they're fighting for it tooth and nail," Moseley said.
"We've seen a complete change of attitude."
Traffic
is the reason. It's pushed the dinner hour further back
and is keeping families apart for more of the day. With
its North Springs station, MARTA is catering to those
frustrated commuters who live in north Fulton and work
in Buckhead or downtown Atlanta.
A
$13 million dedicated exit ramp will take southbound
Ga. 400 drivers right into the station's parking deck,
where they can park for free for up to 24 hours. Another
will send them back northbound at the end of the day.
If there's no parking available, an electronic message
board on Ga. 400 will let drivers know so they can try
for a spot at the Sandy Springs station, the next exit
down.
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North
Springs MARTA station
Cost:
$46 million
Estimated
daily ridership by 2005: 12,500
How
passengers will get there: 55 percent on buses,
27 percent will drive and park, 14 percent will walk
or ride bicycles and 4 percent will be dropped off
at the kiss/ride
Features:
Exclusive exit ramp for southbound Ga. 400 drivers,
with message board warning drivers when the parking
lot is full
Parking
deck capacity: 2,180 spaces
Surface
parking lot capacity: 300 spaces
Estimated travel time to Hartsfield airport:
42 minutes
Within
Walking Distance: Dunwoody Place Apartments
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MARTA
also made sure it would be accessible to its closest neighbors.
At North Springs, a $680,000 pedestrian bridge, paid for with
help from Dunwoody Place Apartments, connects the apartments
to the parking deck. At Sandy Springs, a pedestrian tunnel
brings riders to the doorway of Northpark Town Center office
park on the other side of Mount Vernon Highway.
Plenty
of MARTA watchers say that's too much coddling of a suburban
base that hasn't been a friend to the mass transit system.
Worse, the two new stations are the main reason for the 25-cent
fare hike that goes into effect Jan. 1.
Sherrill
Marcus is project coordinator for the Metropolitan Atlanta
Transportation Equality Coalition, which looks for fairness
in transportation. He said the money could have been spent
extending west and southwest lines into DeKalb, where more
transit-dependent people live. "The question of discrimination
is in the back of the minds of MATEC folk, when we see large
sums of public money continuing to subsidize affluent, primarily
white areas of the MARTA service area," Marcus said.
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