>>1604478No, it's a buzzword that means the same thing as demand, but sounds a bit sinister.
>Build highway>Highway becomes popular>This is entirely surprising and unexpected>>1604480>It's fun/sad to think about where Atlanta would be today if Marta construction hadn't stalled and was instead constantly expandedPeople pin the blame on outlying counties, but that is only part of the reason. Very little expansion has happened inside the Marta tax district--the last new stations opened two decades ago. There are stub tunnels for the connection already built just past Arts Center, before you exit the tunnel. Same story out on the east line Dekalb County, where no new construction has happened since the Olympics, the proposed busway was never built either. I get the impression the agency and the governments Marta serves don't prioritize its expansion, either.
For example, if the northwest line had been built even to just Northside Drive, it would make selling an extension, even a piecemeal one, possible. But as it stands now such a project is stillborn. And the debacle of the streetcar to nowhere has, imo, made transit a politically toxic issue in the metro area. I don't think it will be very long lived, but it seems to suggest that a bad transit project can set future transit expansion back to some degree.
>Instead we have $10 billion express lane projects.It's not as if that money could have been used for transit, it's nearly all paid for with bonds that will be paid off with tolls.
