Atlanta 2019

Do a trip report here....go to another city and want to relate it to what KC is doing right or could do better? Give us a summary in here.
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flyingember
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Atlanta 2019

Post by flyingember »

I was just in Atlanta for a work trip.

The airport is insane. One my way back their terminals were buzzing with activity and got back to KCI and it was basically dead. The food courts inside the airport were packed. The between terminal train was super useful.

Their metro line gets insanely heavy airport use. I was in Buckhead but I rode around a lot and back into downtown or just north of it. I managed to visit a quarter of the stations in total. On every trip there were people with a rolling bag with a luggage tag on it. I wasn't convinced before, but now it feels like the future of KC transit is having rail to the airport. Their airport is 12 miles from downtown, ours is 18. On the way back to the airport 3/4 of the train car rode all the way to the airport. We need to put rail to KCI and put a focus on building Tiffany Springs up in height and density with multiple stops. Use rail as a development incentive.

Their streetcar is nowhere near as well setup. The loop made it really hard to get back to a place without taking the whole loop again. One lesson with a loop design is you need to have at least one stop about halfway where you can change directions just by crossing the street. I rarely saw people at the stops and there's no real time arrival information at stations. The fare card didn't work for it which was stupid.

There's lessons to be learned from their business district design. Buckhead is about the distance from downtown to Merriam Ikea and the district was super walkable and people did. There was next to no surface parking in the core of the district. Imagine if College Blvd parking was only parking garages and all the buildings on the corridor were between Antioch and Roe.

Centennial park was boring. The Georgia Aquarium was decent, the whale shark was worth admission by itself. The Coke Museum the best part was to try the different beverages. The 72nd floor observation deck in one hotel was nice but I never want to take a glass elevator up the outside of a building again.

They're ahead of us on street design. So many corners have bumpouts to see around the parking row and they use paint to mark no parking zones all over the place.

Photos will be coming later in a reply.
mean
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Re: Atlanta 2019

Post by mean »

You do realize Hartsfield is the busiest airport in the world, right?
beermestrength
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Re: Atlanta 2019

Post by beermestrength »

And the Atlanta Metro Area is over double the size of KC. (5.8 million vs 2.1 million)
Apples and Oranges.
flyingember
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Re: Atlanta 2019

Post by flyingember »

mean wrote: Sat Mar 23, 2019 10:17 pm You do realize Hartsfield is the busiest airport in the world, right?
17x the passenger count but it was just a dramatically better airport even adjusting for size. There wasn't 17x the number of people at the Atlanta Southewest gates, there was more like 40x and it operated better.

The dropoff/pickup zones were less crowded than at KCI. I left at the end of Big 12 going there but the luggage dropoff for KC was over 100 people deep on Sunday and zero deep at Atlanta returning. It wasn't even a contest. The self-tagging system is that much better because people are using their waiting time getting their bags tagged, the slowest part of the process. The security line at KCI was as quick as at Atlanta and the line was 10x longer returning as going.
flyingember
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Re: Atlanta 2019

Post by flyingember »

Atlanta itself is the same size as Kansas City itself.

Airport dropoff north side with brand new covers

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Metro gates, same across whole system

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Ticket machines

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Old Train

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Slightly less old train

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Deepest station on the system

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The wayfinding signs are well done

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Streetcar warning

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Streetcar (ugly ad)

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Streetcar stops were all felt cramped, I saw a total of 10 riders on Sunday at ~5pm despite thousands of people out walking

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Streetcar inside

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Buckhead station between freeway lanes

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Super brutalist Five Points station

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Super popular Georgia Aquarium and Coke museum. The streetcar doesn't go there. The closest stop is just below the bottom left corner

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Interesting business inside a shipping container. Put in a parking lot next to the sidewalk to fill in extra parking space

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Downtown ped street

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Train stop in midtown, rough equivilent of our Plaza. The bus transfer point is next to it on the far side

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Walkable area equivilent to Merriam in distance
Very few parking lots within the core of Buckhead, people out walking for lunch

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Super interesting playground in midtown

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Urban designed neighborhood just east of Lennox Square, 8 miles away on the same scale as Columbus Park
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Building elevated over the train and freeway, 8 miles from downtown

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1/3 of Lennox Square. Has a train stop next to a mall and 3x this number of tall towers. A freeway separates it from Buckhead and is served by two train lines

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Ferris wheel next to a streetcar stop

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The Olympic rings were popular for photos. Most people just walked through the park

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Americasmart. Shows that having a business reason for tons of people to visit your city drives a need for major development.

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One train station is directly below me

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Olympics landmark
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Corner bump outs, planters, scooters, painted crosswalks

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Marta corridor next to freight tracks

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Historic home surrounded on all sides by tall towers

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Painted crosswalk

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Satellite train entrance in midtown, to the right is a pedestrian street

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beermestrength
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Re: Atlanta 2019

Post by beermestrength »

Great pics...thanks for posting.
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