Atlanta 2019
Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2019 11:48 am
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.
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.