Is efficient governance enough to drive Atlanta to sustainable transportation?
Atlanta’s leaders are investing much hope in the pending legislation to unify rapid transit governance in the region. They believe that with increased voter confidence in the efficient management of MARTA, voters will vote “yes” in the 2012 referendum proposing a sales tax that would fund public transportation in the region.
While the legislation marks a significant, and long overdue, coordination of local governments on public transit, Atlanta’s leaders must continue to acknowledge the other real challenges MARTA faces. They must also do more to promote public transportation as part of a larger vision of sustainability.
Though it prides itself on being an up-and-coming metropolitan mecca, Atlanta has not fully developed a culture, or infrastructure, of mass transit.
The legacy of grand, sweeping Southern development is partly to blame; compared to Chicago and New York, Atlanta’s early city planners had limitless land and a manageable population. But even as the environmental, social and economic costs of urban sprawl have become apparent, Atlanta has been slow to transition to more sustainable development.
According to the American Public Transportation Association, Atlanta has a relatively low average weekday public transit ridership among other cities even though it is the ninth largest transit system in the country. Ridership fell even further in 2010 when `MARTA reduced bus and rail service by more than 10 percent and raised ticket prices.
Efficient rapid transit governance is necessary, but unless the city addresses these disincentives, MARTA will remain a lackluster skeleton of its potential.
The success of MARTA relies not only on good governance, but a myriad of other elements. Safety concerns should be addressed. Rail lines should be more convenient to more people. Regional-scale development patterns should follow mixed-use, high-density patterns instead of urban sprawl. Downtown living should be revitalized. Bus and train stops should be walkable or bikable from neighborhoods and businesses. And perhaps most of all, Atlanta must put on a new lens to align itself with a sustainable vision.
This will not happen as long as the only arguments for public transportation are confined to “avoiding gridlock” and the vague promise of “economic prosperity.” These arguments are decent, and they are probably what people think of day to day. But there is a larger picture, and Atlanta can handle it.
Atlanta’s leaders should communicate the intricate connections between public transit and public health, water quality, green space, more time with family, equal opportunity and collective action. Atlantans and their leadership need to think about sustainable transportation in the context of a broader sustainable vision for the city.
To move to a truly sustainable future requires that a holistic framework of economic, social and environmental sustainability — known as the triple bottom line — be envisioned and enabled.
The Legislature should consider legislation to make MARTA governed more effectively. Voters should pass the referendum next summer dedicating funding for public transportation.
Atlanta and its leaders should not, however, forget the bigger picture, both for getting people on the bus and connecting the bus to the world.
Farley Lord Smith, an Atlanta native, is a graduate student in environmental management at Duke University.
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