Woo! And the hits just keep coming.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that a big relocation consultant thinks that the ATL’s traffic congestion has reached the point where it threatens the city’s future growth. More:
Atlanta’s traffic problem has put it “at the point of no return,” said Dennis J. Donovan.
Clients of his company, New Jersey-based WDG Consulting, include at any given time about a third of the Fortune 500 companies. And something new is happening in his client meetings that didn’t in the 1990’s, Donovan said.
“Up until seven or eight years ago when we had Atlanta on a recommended short list” for places to relocate or expand a business, “we rarely heard grumbling,” he said.
That has changed. Now, he said, when Atlanta shows up on a short list, “Every one of our companies, every one of them, says, ‘Boy, isn’t there a lot of traffic down there?'”
While he had not yet seen his own clients refuse to consider Atlanta, he said he believes that some companies are quietly rejecting Atlanta because of traffic. He cited MeadWestvaco, which relocated its headquarters —and hundreds of new jobs— to Richmond, Va., instead of Atlanta because of traffic.
Better still, Donovan delivered his observation to the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, which — surprise! — is pushing the idea of local dedicated taxes to pay for roads. Now where have I heard that idea before? Oh, yeah — the Charlotte Chamber wants a quarter-cent sales tax hike to pay for roads.
But there is more:
Also present at the chamber meeting Monday were representatives of the Dallas and Charlotte chambers. The Dallas official advocated public-private toll roads, and the Charlotte official talked about that region’s half-cent tax that’s paying for bus expansion and a newly opened light rail line. Both said light rail in their regions have had high ridership.
Wait, wait, wait. Mass transit cannot meaningfully impact congestion — otherwise Atlanta would not be in the fix it is in. It started building light rail in the mid 70s. But here comes dopey Charlotte to say, yes you have growth-stunting congestion but we have a half-cent for trains. Congratulations on that Nigel Tufnel answer.
More to the point, if our half-cent for transit helps fix traffic congestion, why is the Charlotte Chamber pushing the need for another $35 million a year to build roads? Why go to Atlanta and tout the half-cent as a congestion buster? None of it makes any sense.
And notice what the folks from Dallas say. Build public-private toll roads. Months ago I said Dallas was the best near-model for Charlotte’s transportation future, with similar costs for light rail, population density, and commuting patterns. Someone in Dallas has evidently figured out that building trains does not improve traffic congestion.
We have a tremendous opportunity — still — to junk the North Line or the North Line Lite and build a BRT/HOT solution down I-77 that would specifically target traffic congestion, not land-use re-development. There is even a chance that “free” federal money — as opposed to local property tax dollars — could help pay for such a capacity-adding project.
You’d think, that upon returning from Atlanta, the Charlotte Chamber would be eager to explore such on option. Dream on.
And wake up in 10 years when some consultant tells a shocked and somber Charlotte Chamber audience that companies do not want to move to Charlotte because the traffic congestion is too damn bad.
Bonus Observation: Both said light rail in their regions have had high ridership. Whomever it was from Charlotte who said such a thing is a fraud and a fake. Less than 30 days into operation and we are already claiming “high ridership?” Based on missing opening day targets by 100 percent? Based on off-peak — ie, not congestion-choked rush hour — ridership being higher than expected? What a joke.