How do you connect the last mile or half-mile between transit and the commuter’s destination? How do you pay for it? And if you can identify those things, can you convert that commuter from a rush hour lane ranger to transit rider?
MARTA’s Red Line to Sandy Springs. Ben Gray/bgray@ajc.com
That was the topic of a meeting Friday of the Perimeter Business Alliance, which gathered an executive from MARTA, the Atlanta Regional Commission, Atlanta’s airport and an entrepreneur with an idea for a monorail-type transit system he said could be much cheaper than traditional heavy rail.
The Perimeter Community Improvement Districts, a self-taxing group of office complexes and other businesses, has partnered with the cities of Brookhaven, Dunwoody and Sandy Springs for a $100,000 transportation study to look at ways to better connect the traffic-clogged area around Perimeter Mall. The Central Perimeter area is metro Atlanta’s largest office sub-market and it also boasts two major freeways and a MARTA line with four stations.
But the area lacks a conventional street grid, developments are spread out and most of the office workers don't live in the immediate area. The Central Perimeter area also is suddenly awash in rising towers or drawing-board plans that promise more congestion.
This rendering shows the first new office tower planned as part of State Farm’s Park Center campus in Dunwoody. The project is one of three national campuses State Farm is building across the U.S. The building will attach to MARTA at the Dunwoody transit station.
State Farm is building the first of four office towers near Perimeter Mall and
the MARTA's Dunwoody station. Two other developers have proposed projects with five towers each at the Dunwoody and Sandy Springs stations.
A Boston developer is expected to soon bring forward plans for the High Street project, just west of the Dunwoody MARTA station, with thousands of residences, office space and retail that’s been described as a possible new downtown for the young city.
Bob Voyles, CEO of development firm Seven Oaks Co., said the last-mile issue is critical to get people out of their cars.
“If we want to see successful transit-oriented development, we are going to need to solve this last-mile problem,” said Voyles, whose firm owns the Perimeter Summit office complex in Brookhaven. Seven Oaks recently started construction on the project’s third office tower.
Talk of intra-Perimeter area fixes comes as Atlanta expects to bring forward this year a sales tax referendum to expand MARTA.
Yvonne Williams, president and CEO of the PCIDs, said the study will put all forms of transportation on the table – from automated trains like those seen at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, to light rail, to shuttle buses and more. The cities have taken some flak when talk bubbled up about monorails and gondolas, but the point is to study as many types of transit as possible.
Williams said the study will incorporate the state’s plans for managed toll lanes and express bus service on I-285 and Ga. 400, and look for ways to connect cloistered office parks. The study is expected to be finished this year.
The PCIDs have helped seed a number of transportation projects near Perimeter Mall, including the Perimeter Center Parkway bridge over I-285, a diverging diamond interchange at Ashford Dunwoody Road and the upcoming overhaul of the I-285/Ga. 400 interchange.
Officials discussed the potential for an automated “people mover” like the two at Hartsfield-Jackson. The train under the airport moves about 90 million passengers a year, while the one to the Georgia International Convention Center and the airport’s rental car center moves about 6 million people a year.
An ATL SkyTrain moves down the rail Monday, December 7, 2009 before the grand opening of the new rental car center at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. John Spink, jspink@ajc.com.
The train to the rental car center, which opened a few years ago, cost about $225 million for three miles of track, but the cost was elevated because of the need to cross a freeway, freight rail lines and MARTA tracks, said Kevin Williamson, the airport’s aviation transportation systems director.
An entrepreneur on the panel, Bill Owen of Owen Transit Group, said his firm has a mode of transit that it believes can deliver the service of heavy rail at a fraction of the cost. His proposed system – called HighRoad – would be a monorail-like system with cars riding along the side of single beam.
A model of Owen Transit Group’s proposed HighRoad Rapid Transit System. J. Scott Trubey/strubey@ajc.com
Owen said his firm, which has a design but not a system currently in operation, believes it can build a track in Central Perimeter for about $25 million per mile, much cheaper than heavy rail. Owen said after the panel his system would be financed by bonds and the system could pay for itself from the fare box. Ideally, it would be owned by the state.
At a recent panel held by the Bisnow real estate publication, Dunwoody Mayor Denis Shortal said the Perimeter Mall area “needs to think outside the box” for answers to expensive transportation problems.
Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul said at the Bisnow event that he is a big proponent of expanding MARTA, but more needs to be done than just a rail link north to Alpharetta that was once proposed but has since been put on the back burner.
A regional solution is needed, Paul said, and it should include transit along the Perimeter. He credited MARTA’s turnaround in recent years, but until it is expanded, he said MARTA cannot do all that it is capable of to help ease gridlock.
About the Author
