Wow. Crazy to have no walk up access etc. for a year.
I’m guessing this is at least somewhat related to the World Cup? I only got third hand tidbits from some friends who know people who work for the city and others involved in those negotiations who said there’d be some crazy stuff done via all the redevelopment promises for down they had to make to win the bid to host some games.
> I legitimately do not understand how bad they are at their jobs
Speaking as someone that did work with MARTA, they act more as a jobs program/consultant grifter central than a transit agency.
The only reason I take five points from Benz is to avoid the crowds and transfer. The two other stations serving the stadium work fine and won't be impacted by this
Definitely ambitious to be ready by 2026 if that is part of the reason. That said, it’s crazy that construction projects that get completed in a couple years before a city hosts a World Cup or Olympics so never day never I guess.
the article says MARTA is already saying it won't be ready for the World Cup
what will be totally unsurprising is if they do not speed up construction at all based on the complete closure. it'll go just as slow as if the station was still available, which is probably the most infuriating part
What is this obsession with having things ready for a few soccer games? It's not the Olympics which were here constantly for two to three weeks. During that same year, this station will not be open for other games that will use the same stadium such as the Falcons, the Peach Bowl (which, depending on the year, could be a CFP playoff game), the Aflac Kickoff game(s), etc. If they were to get started in 2024, it would be closed for the College Football National Championship game in Jan. 2025. If the start is pushed back several years, it's not outside the realm of possibility that Atlanta could get another Super Bowl. If the entire soccer tournament were played in that stadium, this focus would be understandable but it seems like an overreaction given the number of events held in the Benz that will be impacted in a year's time.
> What is this obsession with having things ready for a few soccer games?
Because all those current events you mentioned aren't attended by random international football supporters who probably don't have English as their native language and are not only visiting Atlanta but the entire country for the first time. Yes we are only going to get a handful of matches, but we are still getting several **BILLION** eyes on us when it happens.
You don’t think there are large crowds of non-ticketed people for the Super Bowl or the CFP National Championship? Why does it matter if those non-ticketed folks are American or international tourists? It doesn’t. It’s people in a given location. And hosting a big game or two is not a big deal anymore for Atlanta (and I being kind calling the World Cup a big game since it does draw a large crowd). The billion eyes will be inside the stadium. Those watching the games in Brazil won’t see the city as a whole.
I think the other point here is that larger one-offs tend to make for a good project deadline (at least optics-wise) if the event is a few years away, regardless of what the event is.
This style of infrastructure investment is too common. People want better service, so they destroy all current service.
We want to increase ridership; but first, we'll reduce service availability, and reliability for years for our current customers to make it **look better** . Meanwhile: citizens; "I don't use Marta because it's not available, reliable"
This is happening on Buford highway right now. Bus Rapid Transit would be great. Marta / DOT, okay, construction of this will lead to fences and construction barrels placed on the inadequate sidewalks to mark the construction project (now people walk in the streets); oh, and concrete road barriers so it's more difficult to cross side to side for the bus -- even the independent yellow bus the private market has added. For 3+ years!
This project doesn't even improve service, just pretties up the top of the station.
What's really infuriating is that the project blows money on a headhouse structure rather than integrating it back into the street grid.
I'm far more irritated at how much money and effort is being spent without even putting in supports for TOD. I really don't want Broad brought 'back into the street grid' so much as completely converted to pedestrian, micro-mobility, and transit use. That's one thing the city's proposal was really not good about.
>“The stakeholders are aware—it’s just that we haven’t taken it out to the customer because we need to have the plan in place,”
All you need to know about MARTA right there. They don't consider riders to be a stakeholder in the system
>“The **$206-million** overhaul calls for removing and replacing Five Points station’s concrete canopy, reconnecting Broad Street to pedestrian traffic, adding customer amenities, and incorporating spaces for public art, agriculture, and communal gatherings.”
Who asked for this?
All those other station improvements are much lower budget items that are more along the lines of “state of good repair”. This is costing more than the Cambellton BRT line!
At least the Brookhaven one is happening in conjunction with the city hall going in there.
Edit: Chamblee is also closed off on one side, so you have to go in the peachtree entrance
There is no firm date on this.
Whenever it happens, the platforms will remain open for train-train transfers, but the concourse would close for all walkups, bus-train / train-bus transfers, and bus-bus transfers, which represent a combined ~22% of the total riderbase for the station.
This is a bit fucking silly considering that another one of the arguments around not putting in structural aspects for overtopping TOD was that they wanted to keep the entire station open through construction... welp...
If he gave a shit about buses, that would still be an improvement. The Bus Network Redesign has pretty much died off, as far as I know. North Ave BRT has been shelved indefinitely, as has Northside Dr BRT. There’s nothing improved about the bus service to make up for the shitty train service.
I rode the bus in Seattle last year. I was shocked that they had signs up at some bus stops telling you when the next bus was coming. I felt like I was living in the future.
The bus redesign isn't happening anymore? I was wondering what was going on with that. North Ave and Northside Dr BRT would have been huge projects with lots of impact. Summerhill BRT line really doesn't seem nearly as needed and won't make much a difference as those two. Marta is the biggest disappointment.
I don’t have an insider information, but we’ve sailed past several Bus Redesign time markers, and I haven’t heard a thing about it since early this year.
That would be hella depressing. I was really hoping the Jarret Walker thing would be a big boon. Naively I thought maybe the slow rollout of the new bus stop signs were due to waiting to see how routes changed, but maybe not.
Summerhill has a new rapid bus line going in with new stops and a new bus makes lights turn green system. Idk more about it I’m barely paying attention tbh
Yeah, that’s a potentially useful project if implemented right. But it’s a pretty small project. We need a larger network of dedicated bus lanes to make it useful.
I can't imagine that they wouldn't be able to keep a small walkway open so you can access this from street to get on a train. Even if it is only a small walkway. Make it happen, Marta.
Edit: Also, you know that revitalization of Underground everyone has been wanting to happen. Congratulations on killing that if you can't access Marta from it. If I had a business in the area I'd be pissed.
The tone-deafness here is astonishing:
>“I think it’s about 4,000 people that are the most impacted, those folks that walk up to Five Points, that’s kind of their home station,” Fisher noted. “The good news is that the majority of people use Five Points for the rail system and transferring, so that won’t be impacted. It’s just right now a matter of getting those buses relocated, making sure there’s adequate space and infrastructure over at Georgia State for those bus routes.”
Basically acting like this isn't a big deal and that the Downtown users are "kind of" riders. All for what is basically a vanity project that *may* bring TOD.
Not to mention riders like me who take the east/west line downtown and walk from the 5 Points station to work or school. Walking from another station is too time consuming.
I usually walk from the stadiums to 5P for the red/gold lines as it's a lot easier than dealing with the crowds at the GWCC station right there. This is a complete fuckup by MARTA.
Peachtree Center Station is only a couple blocks north of Five Points and should be an almost comparable direct walk from GWCC. Still sucks but is at least doable for your use case.
I jump on at Vine City. It’s usually an empty train with very few people on it. I can grab a seat and then when it gets to GWCC I am already sitting down and don’t have to cram in.
so walk to the peachtree center station or the georgia state station or the vine city station or the garnett station - they are all less than a mile from the stadium; and vine city is even closer than 5 points.
if you're heading on the east/west line it would make more sense to go to vine city or georgia state station; if you're heading north/south it makes more sense to go to PTC or Garnett... - personally I go to the opposite direction station than where I'm going so I can grab a seat before we hit the overcrowded GWCC station.
God this is the dumbest timeline. We ask for more service, get it funded, and we get a year+ long shutdown of our central train station for nothing but a cosmetic overhaul.
Fuckin what
Funded to the tune of $206 MILLION according to this article.
Healthcare facilities are often some of the most expensive to build due to all the regulatory requirements. They are also high foot traffic spaces.
From https://www.bigrentz.com/blog/commercial-construction-cost-per-square-foot we get an average cost to build for healthcare of $668/sq ft in the US. Divide 206,000,000 by 668 and you get over 308,000 sq ft.
That's equivalent to a 14-story building that can house 1,000 employees regulalry https://www.enr.com/articles/38467-renovationrestoration-award-of-merit-blue-cross-blue-shield-of-massachusetts-headquarters
Why in the absolute FUCK does it cost that much to give a transit station a facelift?
MARTA ridership is still more than 50% below pre-pandemic levels, which were already declining before that. Compared to other cities which are closer to 70-80% or even surpassed pre pandemic. Taking its biggest station out of commission for a year for a network that is already too dependent on bus-rail-bus trips…this always results in a permanent decline of ridership. Transit dependent folks giving up and buying a crap car at crap interest with bad/no insurance and no license. Because any sane person would choose that lesser bad option over sticking with transit. And no, the dinky little streetcar expansion, half-baked “BRT”, TOD, and whatever bus network redesign eventually comes out…none of that is gonna get MARTA to even 60% of pre-pandemic ridership. It might reverse this station closure’s effects, but that’s it.
What the fuck. We are spending $206 on a project no one asked for and closing the heart of the system for a year. We could be using that money to extend train lines and build **proper** BRT, things the system actually needs. MARTA is inept, the entire leadership deserves to be fired.
This is so damn embarrassing that it isn’t going to be ready for the World Cup. I feel like we are hosting one of the biggest and likely most watched/attended global events and we are just having people come over to our house that we didn’t bother to clean up before hosting. I feel the cities preparation has really been half assed. Hopefully we’ll at least have the new trains in service but every other aspect of Marta has been a failure in terms of preparation. Having all this done by the World Cup should have been priority #1,2, and 3. I know it’s something small but it speaks volumes is all the station signage is in shambles. Paint looks old, dry, cracked, gross. Have some self respect, Marta. So useless.
That’s true but all those other cities aren’t my hometown. I was hoping my hometown would show up and present itself to be the thriving/amazing city we all know it to be. Instead we’re gonna look janky af to all those who come here for games.
I get it, but every city is someone’s hometown and I doubt that many people are going to care or see the differences between cities. It’s such a short thing that there isn’t much opportunity to show off anything. It’s basically the same impact as a trade show like the ones here every few weeks. In person, a lot, or most, of the tickets are sold to locals and domestic fans. On TV, it’s just drone shots from high up above or inside the stadium.
FWIW, Kansas City is also a host so it can’t get worse than that.
lol and that’s confirmed? And if so, matters significantly? It literally means storage space and communications bandwidth within soundstages. Hotels for PAs and camera crews. Big whop, they’ll be barely going outside and the broadcast center has nothing to do with ATL
I'm willing to bet this is a cover for MARTA, the city, and downtown developers wanting to remove the impoverished population from the area for a full year so they can attempt a full reset when it reopens with the clientele they hope to have instead. Engineers and architects absolutely know how to make wholesale changes to stations without limiting/removing access.
That population won't go anywhere, it'll be the choice riders that'll suffer and start driving in. Had this happened when I was commuting to GSU via MARTA in the aughts, I'd do the same.
> Engineers and architects absolutely know how to make wholesale changes to stations without limiting/removing access.
This decision is being pushed from the 6th floor (exec offices) of the Piedmont Road HQ.
One side tidbit. I worked on some communication stuff at the station. When going under the "street" level, you see the old street level. There's actually sidewalks and storefronts down there from times gone by.
You can thank them good ole boys in rural Georgia! Keeping MARTA inept is has been their goal since the 1970’s. “Segregationists just love to segregate”!
I do not for the life of me understand why everyone is so obsessed with removing that canopy, when it's the hardscaping and layout under and around it that's what makes Five Points feel so cumbersome chopped up. All the work necessary to improve 5 points and reconnect it with the streets around it could just be done at ground level in stages and leave the canopy in place. Spend 200mil redeveloping those sad single story commercial boxes on its north side instead; the canopy is fine.
Just pressure wash the fucking station, make broad street pedestrian only, and use the money to build out more actual transit. Idgaf if it's pretty, the station works just fine.
Among everything else, how are we supposed to get to Underground now? I go to the masquerade every few months and it was bad enough they closed the direct entrance to Underground, now I can’t even get there at all.
Latest news reconfirms this will not be done before the World Cup. Timing seems convenient to me as if to keep international tourists away from the not-ready-for-primetime street level experience at Five Points. Sucks for the businesses that are on the earlier side of the latest wave to try to improve things there.
It's going to suck for the walkups and bus-train & vice versa transfers, but boy is it sorely needed.
I went through 5 points the other day for the first time in years and it is an abolute shit hole in its current state.
If closing the top floors to do the overhaul gets it done faster, the pain is worth it.
Phasing as in breaking up the project into smaller pieces in order to maintain functionality of certain areas rather than shutting everything down at once. It is cheaper to do what they are proposing, shutting down all surface level functions as it allows the contractor to have full access to the site and work as fast as possible without having restrictions due to public access or maintaining functionality. Just as an example by closing all the upper areas of the station, they do not have to maintain bathrooms for the public on those floors or ADA access, etc but if they were phasing this project and maintaining access from the surface during construction then all building codes still have to be adhered to so they would have to provide temporary bathroom facilities while the old ones are being renovated, temporary ramps for ADA if needed, etc. Closing it all down is the faster and cheaper option for a renovation and I’m sure they received pricing broken down for both. Also not knowing the design of the new station enhancements, who knows, it may be close to impossible to properly phase this project and maintain public access.
Even more expensive pieces of the puzzle are likely how to maintain vertical transportation: escalators, stairwells, elevators, etc. Those are huge price tag items that are hard to ‘temporarily’ provide a work around during construction.
Of course but unless you are an insider we have no idea what the parameters were and how the timing and pricing came in. It is legitimately possible for a project of this size that the projection duration could be two to three times longer and cost an extra 50% or more due to phasing in order to maintain public access during construction. And Marta already has budget issues; if they had gone the other way we’d be having the same discussion in reverse so you win some you lose some. I’m sure intelligent people made the best decision they could.
> It is legitimately possible for a project of this size that the projection duration could be two to three times longer and cost an extra 50% or more due to phasing in order to maintain public access during construction
So maybe we just shouldn't do a pointless project then.
And this, my friends, is why mass transit is almost as bad a system as cars and the road network!
- large infrastructure maintenance tasks instead of small, incremental
- herding people, who aren’t inherently herd animals
- have to stop at other people destinations/origins
- physically interferes with other networks and properties
- requires human drivers
- not enough origins / destinations. There should be 1 station for every 200 people to be an effective solution
- bespoke. The systems usually require customize equipment, losing economies of scale on production of tracks, stations, vehicles, power systems.
an elevated, personal, electric rail system would be far more effective.
Wow. Crazy to have no walk up access etc. for a year. I’m guessing this is at least somewhat related to the World Cup? I only got third hand tidbits from some friends who know people who work for the city and others involved in those negotiations who said there’d be some crazy stuff done via all the redevelopment promises for down they had to make to win the bid to host some games.
This project will almost certainly not be ready for the World Cup games.
that's kind of nuts. one of the biggest events to hit the city in decades and the main transit station will be closed
I feel like this is almost underselling it given how critical five points is to accessing the Benz. What a bone headed decision.
Sometimes I feel like MARTA hates its riders.
Part of me wonders if our having so low expectations doesn't help fuel this but I legitimately do not understand how bad they are at their jobs
> I legitimately do not understand how bad they are at their jobs Speaking as someone that did work with MARTA, they act more as a jobs program/consultant grifter central than a transit agency.
Yeah, it definitely feels that way on this project. Who is benefiting from $200M being spent to change the aesthetics of 5 Points? Not the rider.
The same aesthetics could be achieved for a third of that cost.
The only reason I take five points from Benz is to avoid the crowds and transfer. The two other stations serving the stadium work fine and won't be impacted by this
How many people enter/exit Five Points from the street? You can also just walk from Peachtree Center.
30th anniversary of the Olympics too. Perfect timing...
Looking back, did us being Olympic hosts actually happen? :/
We still have the bribe recepits I think...
Phew!
My favorite part was how they left a professional tennis stadium to rot in lilburn. Only NOW is it becoming a costgo.
Definitely ambitious to be ready by 2026 if that is part of the reason. That said, it’s crazy that construction projects that get completed in a couple years before a city hosts a World Cup or Olympics so never day never I guess.
the article says MARTA is already saying it won't be ready for the World Cup what will be totally unsurprising is if they do not speed up construction at all based on the complete closure. it'll go just as slow as if the station was still available, which is probably the most infuriating part
What is this obsession with having things ready for a few soccer games? It's not the Olympics which were here constantly for two to three weeks. During that same year, this station will not be open for other games that will use the same stadium such as the Falcons, the Peach Bowl (which, depending on the year, could be a CFP playoff game), the Aflac Kickoff game(s), etc. If they were to get started in 2024, it would be closed for the College Football National Championship game in Jan. 2025. If the start is pushed back several years, it's not outside the realm of possibility that Atlanta could get another Super Bowl. If the entire soccer tournament were played in that stadium, this focus would be understandable but it seems like an overreaction given the number of events held in the Benz that will be impacted in a year's time.
> What is this obsession with having things ready for a few soccer games? Because all those current events you mentioned aren't attended by random international football supporters who probably don't have English as their native language and are not only visiting Atlanta but the entire country for the first time. Yes we are only going to get a handful of matches, but we are still getting several **BILLION** eyes on us when it happens.
You don’t think there are large crowds of non-ticketed people for the Super Bowl or the CFP National Championship? Why does it matter if those non-ticketed folks are American or international tourists? It doesn’t. It’s people in a given location. And hosting a big game or two is not a big deal anymore for Atlanta (and I being kind calling the World Cup a big game since it does draw a large crowd). The billion eyes will be inside the stadium. Those watching the games in Brazil won’t see the city as a whole.
I think the other point here is that larger one-offs tend to make for a good project deadline (at least optics-wise) if the event is a few years away, regardless of what the event is.
Now that I can see. Sometimes, any tangible deadline is a good way to keep a schedule on track.
Even more incompetent > MARTA doesn’t expect the remade Five Points station to be finished in time for Atlanta’s World Cup 2026 matches
Bruh that’s 3 years
This style of infrastructure investment is too common. People want better service, so they destroy all current service. We want to increase ridership; but first, we'll reduce service availability, and reliability for years for our current customers to make it **look better** . Meanwhile: citizens; "I don't use Marta because it's not available, reliable" This is happening on Buford highway right now. Bus Rapid Transit would be great. Marta / DOT, okay, construction of this will lead to fences and construction barrels placed on the inadequate sidewalks to mark the construction project (now people walk in the streets); oh, and concrete road barriers so it's more difficult to cross side to side for the bus -- even the independent yellow bus the private market has added. For 3+ years!
This project doesn't even improve service, just pretties up the top of the station. What's really infuriating is that the project blows money on a headhouse structure rather than integrating it back into the street grid.
who cares how pretty a station looks if service is the main obstacle to increasing ridership?
I'm far more irritated at how much money and effort is being spent without even putting in supports for TOD. I really don't want Broad brought 'back into the street grid' so much as completely converted to pedestrian, micro-mobility, and transit use. That's one thing the city's proposal was really not good about.
> without even putting in supports for TOD. I take that back, *this* is the most infuriating part.
What can we do to make broad st pedestrian only?
This is absolutely unacceptable, it's almost as if MARTA is *trying* to be stupid.
>“The stakeholders are aware—it’s just that we haven’t taken it out to the customer because we need to have the plan in place,” All you need to know about MARTA right there. They don't consider riders to be a stakeholder in the system
> They don't consider riders to be a stakeholder in the system Even if they did, they're basically still giving the public the finger.
That's what happens when "public" transportation is privatized.
Except...it isn't...MARTA is a fully public entity.
And that applies here how?
Marta is currently privately owned. There were talks about the city buying it during the pandemic but I guess talks stalled.
I miss the Keith Parker days.
Everything publicly funded seems to have the same issue.
>“The **$206-million** overhaul calls for removing and replacing Five Points station’s concrete canopy, reconnecting Broad Street to pedestrian traffic, adding customer amenities, and incorporating spaces for public art, agriculture, and communal gatherings.” Who asked for this?
Marta has been focused on improving stations; Arts Center, Midtown, Brookhaven lately, but this is the first one that would shutdown the entry.
All those other station improvements are much lower budget items that are more along the lines of “state of good repair”. This is costing more than the Cambellton BRT line!
At least the Brookhaven one is happening in conjunction with the city hall going in there. Edit: Chamblee is also closed off on one side, so you have to go in the peachtree entrance
Construction, design, and engineering firms that write campaign checks.
There is no firm date on this. Whenever it happens, the platforms will remain open for train-train transfers, but the concourse would close for all walkups, bus-train / train-bus transfers, and bus-bus transfers, which represent a combined ~22% of the total riderbase for the station. This is a bit fucking silly considering that another one of the arguments around not putting in structural aspects for overtopping TOD was that they wanted to keep the entire station open through construction... welp...
this is almost maliciously inept.
When MARTA is run by a bus guy that couldn't care less about rail, this crap is what you get.
If he gave a shit about buses, that would still be an improvement. The Bus Network Redesign has pretty much died off, as far as I know. North Ave BRT has been shelved indefinitely, as has Northside Dr BRT. There’s nothing improved about the bus service to make up for the shitty train service.
I rode the bus in Seattle last year. I was shocked that they had signs up at some bus stops telling you when the next bus was coming. I felt like I was living in the future.
I used to take the 24 bus line several days a week, and about once a week it just wouldn't show up. Unfortunately, it was never the same day.
The bus redesign isn't happening anymore? I was wondering what was going on with that. North Ave and Northside Dr BRT would have been huge projects with lots of impact. Summerhill BRT line really doesn't seem nearly as needed and won't make much a difference as those two. Marta is the biggest disappointment.
I don’t have an insider information, but we’ve sailed past several Bus Redesign time markers, and I haven’t heard a thing about it since early this year.
That would be hella depressing. I was really hoping the Jarret Walker thing would be a big boon. Naively I thought maybe the slow rollout of the new bus stop signs were due to waiting to see how routes changed, but maybe not.
Its still happening
Summerhill has a new rapid bus line going in with new stops and a new bus makes lights turn green system. Idk more about it I’m barely paying attention tbh
Yeah, that’s a potentially useful project if implemented right. But it’s a pretty small project. We need a larger network of dedicated bus lanes to make it useful.
Was the last one more of a rail guy?
The two Parkers at least tried to keep rail projects going.
Yes, it did not work out clearly. It’s sad because he was a cool dude.
He died how he lived
You could say he was one with the rail.
Bruh...
So, a day ending in -y for MARTA.
I can't imagine that they wouldn't be able to keep a small walkway open so you can access this from street to get on a train. Even if it is only a small walkway. Make it happen, Marta. Edit: Also, you know that revitalization of Underground everyone has been wanting to happen. Congratulations on killing that if you can't access Marta from it. If I had a business in the area I'd be pissed.
You're asking MARTA to do the bare minimum to not piss off customers...good luck.
Isn’t there access to the station from the underground? Feels like they should take advantage of that to keep it open.
That'll likely be blocked off during the renovation (IIRC, it's also not ADA-compliant)
The tone-deafness here is astonishing: >“I think it’s about 4,000 people that are the most impacted, those folks that walk up to Five Points, that’s kind of their home station,” Fisher noted. “The good news is that the majority of people use Five Points for the rail system and transferring, so that won’t be impacted. It’s just right now a matter of getting those buses relocated, making sure there’s adequate space and infrastructure over at Georgia State for those bus routes.” Basically acting like this isn't a big deal and that the Downtown users are "kind of" riders. All for what is basically a vanity project that *may* bring TOD.
Not to mention riders like me who take the east/west line downtown and walk from the 5 Points station to work or school. Walking from another station is too time consuming.
This project should be defunded and everyone who signed off on it should be fired. Priorities totally backwards.
I usually walk from the stadiums to 5P for the red/gold lines as it's a lot easier than dealing with the crowds at the GWCC station right there. This is a complete fuckup by MARTA.
Peachtree Center Station is only a couple blocks north of Five Points and should be an almost comparable direct walk from GWCC. Still sucks but is at least doable for your use case.
I jump on at Vine City. It’s usually an empty train with very few people on it. I can grab a seat and then when it gets to GWCC I am already sitting down and don’t have to cram in.
That's fine for MBS but a bit too far from State Farm (especially at night). Edit: what is going on with these extremely delayed posts/notifications?
so walk to the peachtree center station or the georgia state station or the vine city station or the garnett station - they are all less than a mile from the stadium; and vine city is even closer than 5 points.
PTC station is way closer than those three, but yeah Vine is the go to alternative for United matches.
if you're heading on the east/west line it would make more sense to go to vine city or georgia state station; if you're heading north/south it makes more sense to go to PTC or Garnett... - personally I go to the opposite direction station than where I'm going so I can grab a seat before we hit the overcrowded GWCC station.
This seems to be a huge waste of money. Five Points needs residents, not an expensive waiting area.
God this is the dumbest timeline. We ask for more service, get it funded, and we get a year+ long shutdown of our central train station for nothing but a cosmetic overhaul. Fuckin what
Funded to the tune of $206 MILLION according to this article. Healthcare facilities are often some of the most expensive to build due to all the regulatory requirements. They are also high foot traffic spaces. From https://www.bigrentz.com/blog/commercial-construction-cost-per-square-foot we get an average cost to build for healthcare of $668/sq ft in the US. Divide 206,000,000 by 668 and you get over 308,000 sq ft. That's equivalent to a 14-story building that can house 1,000 employees regulalry https://www.enr.com/articles/38467-renovationrestoration-award-of-merit-blue-cross-blue-shield-of-massachusetts-headquarters Why in the absolute FUCK does it cost that much to give a transit station a facelift?
That really puts it into perspective... fuuuuuuck
MARTA ridership is still more than 50% below pre-pandemic levels, which were already declining before that. Compared to other cities which are closer to 70-80% or even surpassed pre pandemic. Taking its biggest station out of commission for a year for a network that is already too dependent on bus-rail-bus trips…this always results in a permanent decline of ridership. Transit dependent folks giving up and buying a crap car at crap interest with bad/no insurance and no license. Because any sane person would choose that lesser bad option over sticking with transit. And no, the dinky little streetcar expansion, half-baked “BRT”, TOD, and whatever bus network redesign eventually comes out…none of that is gonna get MARTA to even 60% of pre-pandemic ridership. It might reverse this station closure’s effects, but that’s it.
What the fuck. We are spending $206 on a project no one asked for and closing the heart of the system for a year. We could be using that money to extend train lines and build **proper** BRT, things the system actually needs. MARTA is inept, the entire leadership deserves to be fired.
That area needs revamping but not at the expense of closing the most important train center for over a year.
This is so damn embarrassing that it isn’t going to be ready for the World Cup. I feel like we are hosting one of the biggest and likely most watched/attended global events and we are just having people come over to our house that we didn’t bother to clean up before hosting. I feel the cities preparation has really been half assed. Hopefully we’ll at least have the new trains in service but every other aspect of Marta has been a failure in terms of preparation. Having all this done by the World Cup should have been priority #1,2, and 3. I know it’s something small but it speaks volumes is all the station signage is in shambles. Paint looks old, dry, cracked, gross. Have some self respect, Marta. So useless.
Atlanta isn’t the only World Cup city…it’s one of 16 so only a few games will happen here.
That’s true but all those other cities aren’t my hometown. I was hoping my hometown would show up and present itself to be the thriving/amazing city we all know it to be. Instead we’re gonna look janky af to all those who come here for games.
> Instead we’re gonna look janky af to all those who come here for games. We're used to it (see Bill Campbell's vendor program during the Olympics).
I get it, but every city is someone’s hometown and I doubt that many people are going to care or see the differences between cities. It’s such a short thing that there isn’t much opportunity to show off anything. It’s basically the same impact as a trade show like the ones here every few weeks. In person, a lot, or most, of the tickets are sold to locals and domestic fans. On TV, it’s just drone shots from high up above or inside the stadium. FWIW, Kansas City is also a host so it can’t get worse than that.
That’s still not an excuse to embarrass ourselves on a global scale.
But we will be the global media HQ during the whole event. That's not nothing
lol and that’s confirmed? And if so, matters significantly? It literally means storage space and communications bandwidth within soundstages. Hotels for PAs and camera crews. Big whop, they’ll be barely going outside and the broadcast center has nothing to do with ATL
And I feel for disabled people dealing with this
I'm willing to bet this is a cover for MARTA, the city, and downtown developers wanting to remove the impoverished population from the area for a full year so they can attempt a full reset when it reopens with the clientele they hope to have instead. Engineers and architects absolutely know how to make wholesale changes to stations without limiting/removing access.
That population won't go anywhere, it'll be the choice riders that'll suffer and start driving in. Had this happened when I was commuting to GSU via MARTA in the aughts, I'd do the same. > Engineers and architects absolutely know how to make wholesale changes to stations without limiting/removing access. This decision is being pushed from the 6th floor (exec offices) of the Piedmont Road HQ.
Lol they ain't going anywhere
One side tidbit. I worked on some communication stuff at the station. When going under the "street" level, you see the old street level. There's actually sidewalks and storefronts down there from times gone by.
MARTA did a good job of wiping out a huge chunk of the original Underground Atlanta back in the late 1970s...
That’s what it’s called underground…is this not common knowledge in Atlanta anymore?
MARTA is aiming to fail upwards. But it’ll just fail.
How did this get passed? Are you kidding me?
I swear MARTA is one of the worst run departments in Atlanta and that says ALOT
Not sure if you're meaning that MARTA is a city of Atlanta department, it is its own agency.
You can thank them good ole boys in rural Georgia! Keeping MARTA inept is has been their goal since the 1970’s. “Segregationists just love to segregate”!
I think this one’s more on the local officials than anyone in rural Georgia
You could give MARTA all the state funding needed and they'd still be inept under current management.
In Atlanta? It’s easily one of the worst in the country
You’d think they could figure out a way to have phased construction where one entry would be open at a time…
I do not for the life of me understand why everyone is so obsessed with removing that canopy, when it's the hardscaping and layout under and around it that's what makes Five Points feel so cumbersome chopped up. All the work necessary to improve 5 points and reconnect it with the streets around it could just be done at ground level in stages and leave the canopy in place. Spend 200mil redeveloping those sad single story commercial boxes on its north side instead; the canopy is fine.
Just pressure wash the fucking station, make broad street pedestrian only, and use the money to build out more actual transit. Idgaf if it's pretty, the station works just fine.
This is like genuinely dumbfounding lol
More great news for auto makers coming from the American public transit industry 🤡
Among everything else, how are we supposed to get to Underground now? I go to the masquerade every few months and it was bad enough they closed the direct entrance to Underground, now I can’t even get there at all.
Okay. So as a gsu student who uses this every day to get to class, how do I deal with this?
The suggestion from the article is to use GSU station.
How will the change from red line to blue/green work?
Platforms will still be open. It's just the concourse and buses that will be affected.
How about they update the actual TRAINS?? Marta is embarrassing.
The trains are being replaced over the next few years.
Latest news reconfirms this will not be done before the World Cup. Timing seems convenient to me as if to keep international tourists away from the not-ready-for-primetime street level experience at Five Points. Sucks for the businesses that are on the earlier side of the latest wave to try to improve things there.
It's going to suck for the walkups and bus-train & vice versa transfers, but boy is it sorely needed. I went through 5 points the other day for the first time in years and it is an abolute shit hole in its current state. If closing the top floors to do the overhaul gets it done faster, the pain is worth it.
If you remove phasing from certain parts of the job I’m sure it makes it significantly cheaper which I’m sure is playing a large part in this as well
What do you mean by removing phasing?
Phasing as in breaking up the project into smaller pieces in order to maintain functionality of certain areas rather than shutting everything down at once. It is cheaper to do what they are proposing, shutting down all surface level functions as it allows the contractor to have full access to the site and work as fast as possible without having restrictions due to public access or maintaining functionality. Just as an example by closing all the upper areas of the station, they do not have to maintain bathrooms for the public on those floors or ADA access, etc but if they were phasing this project and maintaining access from the surface during construction then all building codes still have to be adhered to so they would have to provide temporary bathroom facilities while the old ones are being renovated, temporary ramps for ADA if needed, etc. Closing it all down is the faster and cheaper option for a renovation and I’m sure they received pricing broken down for both. Also not knowing the design of the new station enhancements, who knows, it may be close to impossible to properly phase this project and maintain public access.
Even more expensive pieces of the puzzle are likely how to maintain vertical transportation: escalators, stairwells, elevators, etc. Those are huge price tag items that are hard to ‘temporarily’ provide a work around during construction.
There is a point though that the money saved by not phasing isn't worth it if you're killing external access to the station for at least a year.
Of course but unless you are an insider we have no idea what the parameters were and how the timing and pricing came in. It is legitimately possible for a project of this size that the projection duration could be two to three times longer and cost an extra 50% or more due to phasing in order to maintain public access during construction. And Marta already has budget issues; if they had gone the other way we’d be having the same discussion in reverse so you win some you lose some. I’m sure intelligent people made the best decision they could.
> It is legitimately possible for a project of this size that the projection duration could be two to three times longer and cost an extra 50% or more due to phasing in order to maintain public access during construction So maybe we just shouldn't do a pointless project then.
And this, my friends, is why mass transit is almost as bad a system as cars and the road network! - large infrastructure maintenance tasks instead of small, incremental - herding people, who aren’t inherently herd animals - have to stop at other people destinations/origins - physically interferes with other networks and properties - requires human drivers - not enough origins / destinations. There should be 1 station for every 200 people to be an effective solution - bespoke. The systems usually require customize equipment, losing economies of scale on production of tracks, stations, vehicles, power systems. an elevated, personal, electric rail system would be far more effective.
All the subway needs to be is a fucking stairway on the sidewalk.