The Great Atlanta Streetcar is in the news again. For those of you who don’t live in Atlanta, the Great Atlanta Streetcar is a 2.7 mile loop than runs from Centennial Olympic Park to the King Center and back. The actual distance from the King Center to Centennial Olympic Park is about a mile so it can be walked in about 20 minutes. There are times, due to staffing problems, that the time between cars is over 20 minutes. For the first year in operation the fare was free. Then they raised it to a dollar and ridership dropped by over 48%.
The streetcar originally was supposed to cost $70 million, but as with all gummint projects, it went over budget and ballooned to $98 million. Not only did it go over budget, but there were construction delays. Look at my shocked face.
The streetcar is supposed to be a model project and will eventually link up with other streetcars around Atlanta, especially in the Beltline a 22 mile area of parks, apartments, and businesses circling Atlanta.
What these “visionary” retro idiots don’t realize is that there was a reason streetcars went the way of the dodo. No one rode them anymore and no one is riding the Great Atlanta Streetcar now that they have to pay for it. I predicted when they opened it that within five years they will tear up the tracks and repave the streets since they will lose more money than MARTA.
And that’s another problem. Both the city of Atlanta and MARTA jointly run the Great Atlanta Streetcar. There is a recipe for failure right there.
I mentioned earlier that there were staffing problems, notably, not enough drivers. Last Memorial Day many drivers called in sick (to get a three day weekend) and on the day when they most needed the drivers and ridership would definitely be up, there were only enough drivers to run a streetcar every 30 or more minutes. Jay Bookman, prolly the most liberal dude on the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation, on Twitter, called Rush Limbaugh a racist for correctly pointing out that all of the thugs in the Baylor football team’s sexual assault scandal were black, so I guess I’m a racist for pointing out that all of the drivers who called in sick last Memorial Day were black. (Factual journalism is no longer allowed in this country.) Both MARTA and the Great Atlanta Streetcar are jobs programs for blacks.
Racist! Racist! Racist! Racist! Racist! Racist! Racist! Racist! Racist! Racist! Racist! Racist! Racist!
Anyway, the Georgia Department of Transportation gave the city until June 14 to submit plans to fix over 60 problems with the Great Atlanta Streetcar or it will be shut down immediately. Among the problems were the staffing problems I mentioned above, poor maintenance, and a failure to properly investigate accidents.
The Great Atlanta Streetcar was a mistake. It was a costly step back in time and a $98 million boondoggle. I still stick with my prediction that in five years the tracks will be pulled up, the cars will be sold off or junked, and the streets repaved. I wonder how much that will cost?
Hey Denny;
The Streetcar was a jobs program for the inner city blacks, kinda like the TSA (Long lines anyone). administration is. As far as Atlanta is anyway. In other cities there is more white people mixed in it but here in Atlanta it is all dark faces. It wouldn’t be soo bad if you didn’t get the resultant entitlement *Gimme Dats* attitude along with it. I know…All hail diversity like Obama administration plan to move the section 8 program out to the lily white enclaves….I am sure politics ain’t behind it…..If a state or district that was borderline swings blue…I am sure that is pure happenstance and the same places where they move all the inner city dwellers out to the suburbs, then they can move in all the immigrants…..Pure happenstance also I am sure…
Kansas City just opened their light rail about a month ago. A little of 2 miles of track at a cost of $110 million. What a waste. No private company would invest money in this manner. Had their first accident already. Will benefit nobody but the unions and political cronies. Sad. Your tax dollars at work. Now they want to rebuild the airport for another billion. More bonds and more debt. Just what we need. The one we have is fine. I’m voting against it like I did the light rail and the Sprint Center. The light rail always reminds me of the Simpson’s episode on “Monorail”.
KHS71
As Denny notes, this outcome was entirely predictable. Government is a brainless plague upon the people.
They could have spent that $98 million to hire a few hundred low-skilled people to pull or pedal rickshaws. That would have been a real jobs program, funded for many years, and for the people that most needed it, and not just for a few drivers and foreign manufacturers. I mean, it’s just a tourist attraction, not a real public transit project. If you’re going to waste money, at least waste it in a better way.
$98 million buys a bunch of buses and pays the drivers for quite a few years. And the buses are not limited to a 2 mile loop.
I found out recently that the Boise city council is still wanting a streetcar here. It was voted down by huge margins before years before, and will be again. But the liberal wet dream is to have streetcars and light rail. They are delusional thinking people will pay to ride something that does not get them where they need to go. Idiots all.
Least you are fortunate that your rail is where there are some people. California is building theirs out in the middle of the desert so when it fails no one will notice.
Is it going to run from the Tijuana border crossing to LA so the undocumented immigrants do not get sunstroke trudging thru the Desert?
I hope they plan a loop of it thru Camp Pendleton to that the Marines can sharpen their rifle marksmen skills.
No. Eventually it is supposed to link up LA and San Francisco with high speed rail but they are gonna build the first link from Fresno to Bakersfield, from nowhere to nowhere, and then add the connecting links to LA and San Francisco later. The state is going broke but Governor Moonbeam is throwing money at this along with the money he is getting from the feds.
“Last Memorial Day many drivers called in sick (to get a three day weekend)”
Boy, these guys must be real rocket surgeons. Called in sick to get a paid day off, now it appears that as of June 14th they’ll be without jobs. Betcha that the day it’s shut down, the union for these guys’ll have ’em out there strikin’ ’cause there’s no work for ’em to do but they still want to get paid.
Denny ..I am wondering what your closet Urban planner has to say about this fiasco…Probably thinks they did not spend enough money, that is the usual democrat response!
Boondoggle?
Well, the first 4 letters are appropriate!
A wag said that politicians have a desire named streetcar.