Want Jobs? Build Rail
We’ve made the case before (albeit briefly), but let’s try to drive the point home:
Two years ago, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce invited reporters to hear officials from Phoenix and other cities talk about their new transportation initiatives. The message was clear: Atlanta and Georgia could be left in the dust.
On Wednesday, Sam Williams, president of the chamber, said in a statement that “cities that have made transportation a priority, like Phoenix, Dallas and Charlotte, continue to leapfrog Atlanta with respect to regional mobility. … While these areas make progress, we seem choked in congestion with little leadership to get us out.â€
As another legislative session begins, Atlanta remains the second-most-congested urban area in the nation. The Georgia Legislature has tried and failed to pass a transportation funding measure and is preparing for another go in the 2009 session.
Olens said plum employers with skilled jobs are slipping away. “In the last two years, I’ve had two major corporations tell me they would not move their headquarters to the Cobb Galleria area because all we had are buses,†Olens said this week.
I’ve made the case that traffic congestion harms the city and its residents and that drivers who drive into the city during rush hour need to pay for the harm they cause. There are myriad direct ill (and deleterious) effects of automobile congestion - loss of jobs is just one of the myriad indirect ill effects of automobile congestion. Cities who are serious about success will address congestion, or they’ll become second-rate cities.
In the southeast, Atlanta competes with Charlotte for business, talent, etc. [In a way, it seems odd to me that this rivalry has never manifested itself on the football field, because it seems so apparent in 'normal' life.]
Anecdotal evidence alert! When leaving university in South Carolina, I wanted to head to a place where it was ‘happening’ - realistically, that meant Charlotte or Atlanta. Atlanta was just cooler in almost every way, so it wasn’t much of a choice, and transit or ‘bikiness’ had zero to do with my decision. I suspect that’s still mostly the case for new college graduates, but I really have no idea.
Atlanta has MARTA (”It’s smarta!”), and Charlotte built rail (and is planning more) to try to become competitive with Atlanta. I’m not sure how much, if any, Charlotte’s new rail system helps Charlotte-area recruiters along the line (or anywhere in Charlotte), but I imagine it’s more than a little. Having transit in your city is more than just a practical concern, it’s a statement of seriousness, a badge of honor, something that the city and its residents can take pride in and be proud of — in some cases, it’s even something that residents can boast about. Nobody is proud of their buses.
Oh, and note the explicit rip on buses in the last line of the quote. Buses are not real transit. More people will start saying it aloud, eventually.
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