New Atlanta Station

Greg Moore wrote:The thing that gets me, is I could see Atlanta being somewhat of a crossroads of the South for passenger traffic if they did some work.
But they won't.

I agree. If Atlanta was a passenger rail hub for the SE, then a great train station with many platforms would be needed. But Atlanta isn't a passenger rail hub, and only one platform sized like an old country depot is needed. With so little business with the twice a day Crescent, it's difficult to spend a small fortune building and maintaining even a small city station.
What Atlanta needs to build is commuter rail lines reaching distant suburbs radiating from a central intermodal transit hub which Amtrak could also use. But that's not in the works either, all three of the proposed commuter rail lines for Atlanta terminate at three different Metro stations. Who knows when they will ever get built?
Therefore, I suppose a nice, small suburban train depot should be all that Atlanta should do now. At least until commuter trains require a central intermodal station....

How has no one brought this up yet? There's already plans in place for a downtown station (Atlanta Multimodal Passenger Terminal).

http://www.dot.state.ga.us/informationc ... n-Memo.pdf
http://www.dot.state.ga.us/aboutGeorgia ... b/MMPT.pdf

In my opinion, it would be short-sighted to build it anywhere except in the gulch and the site of the former Union Station would be perfect. The only disadvantage would be Amtrak through trains would have to do some reversing to access it.

trainmaster611 wrote:How has no one brought this up yet? There's already plans in place for a downtown station (Atlanta Multimodal Passenger Terminal).

http://www.dot.state.ga.us/informationc ... n-Memo.pdf
http://www.dot.state.ga.us/aboutGeorgia ... b/MMPT.pdf

In my opinion, it would be short-sighted to build it anywhere except in the gulch and the site of the former Union Station would be perfect. The only disadvantage would be Amtrak through trains would have to do some reversing to access it.

Interesting that the word "Amtrak" does not appear in either the powerpoint or the memorandum.

Station Aficionado wrote:

trainmaster611 wrote:How has no one brought this up yet? There's already plans in place for a downtown station (Atlanta Multimodal Passenger Terminal).

http://www.dot.state.ga.us/informationc ... n-Memo.pdf
http://www.dot.state.ga.us/aboutGeorgia ... b/MMPT.pdf

In my opinion, it would be short-sighted to build it anywhere except in the gulch and the site of the former Union Station would be perfect. The only disadvantage would be Amtrak through trains would have to do some reversing to access it.

Interesting that the word "Amtrak" does not appear in either the powerpoint or the memorandum.

Huh, I didn't realize it wasn't mentioned in the document. But it is mentioned in the technical memorandum for the MMPT project and Amtrak does mention it in their 'Great American Stations' website on Atlanta.

http://dot.ga.gov/informationcenter/p3/ ... mplete.pdf
http://www.greatamericanstations.com/Stations/ATL

The "Gulch" downtown between the Five Points and Dome-GWCC MARTA stations is the ideal location for an eventual massive hub station serving all the high speed, intercity, and commuter lines that are planned to eventually be built in Atlanta (50 years from now perhaps.) This plan is called the MMPT, the "Multi Modal Passenger Terminal."

However, there is something important to note: The one train that currently serves Atlanta doesn't pass through there. With the Decatur Belt being passed to the Beltline, to bring the Crescent (as we know it today) through the MMPT would be impossible. To do so would require rerouting the train through Montgomery instead of Birmingham.

In my opinion, Lenox is the ideal location for the new station. Lenox is basically the downtown of northern suburban Atlanta. It is 10 miles away from the future downtown station at the gulch, whereas the 17th street site at Atlantic Station is just 3 miles away (which is too closely spaced for intercity terminals.) Throw in the fact that Lenox has direct MARTA service and you have a winner.

I think you're overstating the importance of Amtrak service. After all, the Crescent only serves a couple hundred people per day. To move a major multimodal transit center from the heart of the city to the suburbs just so it's more convenient for Amtrak is unreasonable. Unless you mean a station exclusively for Amtrak. If that's the case, I would argue that have such an interconnected station as the MMPT will behoove Amtrak enough that the 2.5 mile detour and wye maneuver might be worth it. You would have to do cost-benefit analyses and what not to determine whether it's worth the detour for a single daily train. But once Amtrak gets beyond that single daily train (especially if they start running corridor service), the benefit of moving to MMPT is going to go up exponentially as Amtrak needs to expand their ridership and connection options. You just can't have a modern passenger rail service with your main train station out in the suburbs.

I think the gulch MMPT would be optimum as well. I would trade out Brookwood for Lenox in any case (after all, Boston has BOS and BBY). I was not aware the Dekalb/Decatur belt was no longer an option.

Jeff Smith wrote:I think the gulch MMPT would be optimum as well. I would trade out Brookwood for Lenox in any case (after all, Boston has BOS and BBY). I was not aware the Dekalb/Decatur belt was no longer an option.

Oh yeah, the entire Beltline is being redeveloped into a corridor of urban renewal -- parks, dense housing, commercial development, light rail, the whole shebang.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeltLine

I'm a huge advocate for urban renewal projects but in this case, it looks like it's going to restrict passenger train movements. But then again, using the beltline to get from Five Points back to the Birmingham line seemed like a rather roundabout way to go. I have to wonder if wyeing in the gulch would have been at least time comparative.

While Jeff is right that Lenox would be a step up from Brookwood, I think it would ultimately be a step in the wrong direction. While I agree there's no reason a city can't have two stations (as in Jeff's Boston example), I would bet there's only going to be one station in Atlanta for years to come. For the reasons laid out by trainmaster611, I think a "gulch" station is the superior choice, even is the Crescent has to do a bit of maneuvering.

There are plenty of other examples of other metro areas with two Amtrak stations in close proximity, including at least four right here in the southeast US:

• Washington, DC: Union Station and Alexandria are 8 miles apart.
• Richmond, VA: Staples Mill Road and Main Street are 8 miles apart.
• Raleigh, NC: Raleigh and Cary are 8 miles apart.
• Orlando, FL: Orlando and Winter Park are 6 miles apart.

I'm sure there are more.

In each case, the secondary station is in an affluent suburban area of the same metro region.

This is basically the exact same situation that would exist in Atlanta if it had two stations, one at Lenox and one (the "MMPT") at the downtown gulch.
Downtown and Lenox are 8 miles apart. Lenox is an affluent suburban area of the Atlanta metro region. If this pattern works so well in so many other places, why not Atlanta, too?

With 112,000 people riding Amtrak from Atlanta last year in spite of the fact that it's only served by two trains daily, clearly there are enough people riding the trains here to justify a secondary station, particularly if plans for commuter and high speed rail lines ever come to fruition.

I think another reason that two stations (Lenox and MMPT/Gulch) would work here as well would be the horrendous traffic. The only public passenger airport (not general aviation) is below downtown. Moving the one passenger station from mid-town/Buckhead to downtown would hurt the northern suburbs (although there is a stop in Gainseville, GA as well, which is fairly far outside the city). Downtown, you are getting those who are coming for conventions, etc.; at Lenox, you'd get the leisure travelers. You also double down on parking possibilities.

The MMPT is getting the go ahead. No mention of Amtrak in the article, though:

http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news ... p&page=all

The MMPT is envisioned as the connecting point for bus and passenger rail service that would radiate from downtown Atlanta in all directions of the metro region, relieving traffic congestion by giving commuters an alternative to their cars.

Jeff Smith wrote:I think another reason that two stations (Lenox and MMPT/Gulch) would work here as well would be the horrendous traffic. The only public passenger airport (not general aviation) is below downtown. Moving the one passenger station from mid-town/Buckhead to downtown would hurt the northern suburbs (although there is a stop in Gainseville, GA as well, which is fairly far outside the city). Downtown, you are getting those who are coming for conventions, etc.; at Lenox, you'd get the leisure travelers. You also double down on parking possibilities.

If you establish a MARTA connection, I think you'd only be helping rather than hurting the northern suburbs. As it stands now, you have to transfer from the Arts Center station to the 110 bus which drops you off across the street (but picks you up on the same side heading for Arts Center) which isn't real popular or well known even though there is an announcement on the trains on approaching Arts Center. Plus, the MMPT would not just connect to the Red/Gold (north-south) line as it does now, the MMPT would have a walking connection to the Five Points hub which also connects the Blue/Green line (east/west). What I think would really help the Crescent is to have a suburban station, but in the other direction, between Atlanta and Birmingham, perhaps Villa Rica.

Jeff Smith wrote:The MMPT is getting the go ahead. No mention of Amtrak in the article, though:

http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news ... p&page=all

The MMPT is envisioned as the connecting point for bus and passenger rail service that would radiate from downtown Atlanta in all directions of the metro region, relieving traffic congestion by giving commuters an alternative to their cars.

That's great news! It doesn't mention Amtrak specifically so we don't know whether or not Amtrak would be coming. I heard a couple years ago that Amtrak was raising objections to moving to the proposed MMPT because of the wye maneuver they would have to perform. Don't know what the status is of those objections now or whether Amtrak is willing to forfeit them.

http://tracktwentynine.blogspot.com/200 ... ta_21.html

To be honest, the current Amtrak station is too far away from anything! So they would greatly benefit from the proposed station. But yeah, I think there will need to be a bit of rerouting done. I think there's also talk of a stop by Hartsfield...