Everyone who lives near a city knows all too well how much location – specifically, proximity to the commuter rail — matters. The shorter the drive is to the station, the better. And the ability to walk there trumps just about everything.
Such convenience is about to come to thousands in Atlanta. That city’s metro system MARTA has started making real estate deals to build housing to unused transit parking lots. MARTA plans to turn the space at the King Memorial, Edgewood, and Edgewood/Chandler Park stations into combination residential and retail developments.
“People have been looking at these parking lots for decades wondering why they were just sitting there,” Amanda Rhein, senior director of transit-oriented development at MARTA, told City Lab.
Now, that is finally changing — and it’s not only helping commuters, but also the railroad itself. Without state funding, MARTA’s bottom line is very easily impacted by the ups and downs of the economy. So, when Keith Parker took over the agency in 2012, he decided that a bold project like this is what was required to keep it competitive. The development will not only produce revenue from all the train riders, but also with each unit sold, will raise money for the transit system that it can use for improvements.
And so far, Parker’s decision is looking like a good one. MARTA has successfully leased land to developers for mixed-use buildings that are focused on the adjacent transit opportunities, including a project on a four-acre unused parking lot that features 13,000 square feet of retails space and 386 housing units.
The boon does not only belong to the railroads, though; it is the entire community’s as these projects could decrease traffic on the roads. And on top of that, there is more to the new spaces then one might think. Beyond all the great new housing and shops, each development will also feature a public park as well as have at least 20 percent of the units dedicated to affordable housing.
While construction has yet to start, there’s already hope for more in the future since this model is good for both the city of Atlanta, its citizens and the transit system itself.
“We’re going to make the stations themselves and the surrounding areas more pleasant and more easily accessible, and we’ll be providing amenities to our riders and to the surrounding community. So I think people will realize that and give MARTA a chance,” says Rhein.
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Tag: train
Why Salt Lake City May Become the New Leader in Public Transportation
Salt Lake City seems like an unlikely candidate to be a pro-public transportation city. Cars are king in the capital of Utah, where city blocks are long and streets are an unusually wide 132 feet — a measurement Brigham Young allegedly described as enough room to turn a wagon team without “resorting to profanity.” With much of the majority-Mormon city shutting down on Sundays, pedestrians struggle to transverse the Rocky Mountain-backed landscape.
Which is why Robin Hutcheson, a new executive-board member of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, is becoming something of a Salt Lake City rock star: She’s instrumental in diversifying transportation options in the metropolitan area of 1.2 million to include bike lanes and a commuter rail line. And the measures she’s taking could provide a crucial blueprint for other urban centers.
Atlantic Cities profiled how Hutcheson is harnessing Salt Lake City’s increasing friendliness to public transportation. She’s been head of the transportation planning division of Salt Lake City since 2011, and is a biker, runner, and all-around public-transit devotee. With the help of state and city investments into public transportation, more pedestrian-friendly streets, and business and church cooperation, Salt Lake City has self-adapted to the idea of reducing reliance on cars.
The reason doesn’t just lie in ease of movement, it’s about the environment, too. Salt Lake City suffers from visible smog, and has been named one of the ten worst cities in the U.S. for short-term particulate pollution by the American Lung Association. “As the air-quality issue has risen in the public eye, people are accepting that we need to do more than just say we’re going to do better,” Mayor Ralph Becker told Atlantic Cities. “It’s about people being able to move around in their city without having to use their car. How do we get from where we are today to having a city where people easily get around, can drive if they wish, but that isn’t their only or necessarily their best option?”
Enter Hutcheson. Her initiatives include a new low-cost transit card called the Hive Pass that allows holders unlimited access to buses, light rail within the city, and commuter trains for only $360 a year. Others, like the rail line connecting Salt Lake to Provo that opened in December 2012, caused public transit ridership in Utah to rise an astonishing 103 percent. TRAX, the city’s light rail system, saw its ridership increase 6.8 percent last year and a current plan calls for two more lines to open by 2015.
Meanwhile, Hutcheson and her team have also been working hard to make Salt Lake a more welcoming city for people on bicycles and on foot. Last December, a streetcar line with a walking and biking trail alongside it opened in the rapidly-developing Sugarhouse neighborhood. The city also has a seasonal bike-share and are designating new bike lanes in town. Salt Lake has been granted a budget for bike and pedestrian capital improvements that will be about $3.5 million for 2014-2105, a marked increase from just under $500,000 in 2009.
With Hutcheson making a positive imprint all over Salt Lake City, so is her city’s chapter of the Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS), which she founded. The organization itself was established in 1977 for the professional advancement of women throughout the transportation industry — from road engineers to airline pilots. Her perspective on public transit is partially shaped by WTS, which believes that women have an unmatched lens into what commuters need. For instance, they have an acute sense of the dangers of a long wait at a dark bus stop, or traffic patterns when driving children back and forth between activities.
With or without her WTS foundation, one thing is for certain: Hutcheson’s work in Salt Lake City is likely to have reverberations in cities across the country.