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Comment by creaghpatr | Hacker News Reader

>It has plenty of housing, low cost of living, major airports, universities, a large population, and a decent rapid transit that could be expanded given a catalyst like Amazon.

I live in Atlanta and all of these things are true except that last one. MARTA has neither the coverage or the competence to qualify as 'decent'. Even if they plopped the HQ right on top of Five Points (as is being proposed), most employees are still gonna drive, and encounter that world-class ATL rush hour traffic.

That said, Atlanta is still definitely in play, and our department of economic development (which I used to work for) is one of the most effective in the country. They brought Hollywood to Atlanta already, Amazon shouldn't be that much harder. Culturally, I expect it would encounter a mixed reception.

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MARTA has neither the coverage or the competence to qualify as 'decent'.

Compared to New York, Chicago, DC, Boston, or SF sure. Assuming Amazon isn't going to expand to a more expensive city, the only competing subway system is in Philadelphia. MARTA is unpopular, but cleaning it up and buying new trains is cheap compared to digging new tunnels through an existing city. No one points out that the Gulch site is currently a wasteland because we all know that if Amazon shows up, it won't be.

The gulch is next to Phillips Arena and MB Arena- imagine the traffic during a weekday ATLUTD game and a hawks/concert. It's alot of wasted vertical space for now, but useful for temporary gatherings; we used it as a basecamp for a film shoot a couple weeks ago. I suppose they could rip out and replace Vine City with Amazon-friendly housing, but that would cause some issues.

If Amazon moved to the Gulch, employees would probably live in O4W, Decatur, Midtown, or Buckhead, and take MARTA in.

Imagine if Amazon built something in the southwestern part of the city, that desert Sylvan Hills, or Lakewood Heights. Amazon would gentrify south Atlanta faster than a parking ticket on Edgewood.

MARTA coverage is only a problem if you don't choose your work place or housing with it in mind.

500k people ride MARTA every week day. As long as Amazon builds their HQ close to a station plenty of the workers will have the option to live close to one, or drive to a park and ride as opposed to dealing with the traffic.

I have a home in Atlanta, and so I share in your pain about Marta. There's a lot of societal resistance to Marta, for various reasons I won't get into because I sense you know them already. With a major player like Amazon, the city (and counties for that matter) could afford to ignore the people and plow ahead with expansion. Imagine a giant, beautiful parking deck, a-la-Lindberg up in Cobb County somewhere.

Park and rides are extremely expensive, and provide little capacity. At $20k to $50k per parking spot, filling trains that move 20k people per hour becomes a very expensive proposition!

Much more likely is transit oriented development, where the 5 to 6 blocks on either side of each station is built up to let people live a short walk from transit.

I disagree. I found your statistic buried in a report but it isolates that statistic to "metro Atlanta" which is, indeed, significantly higher.[0] Building a transit station with garage parking outside the perimeter, particularly up 75 towards Kennesaw, would cost less.[1] About the same up into Douglas County, and some of the more blighted, lower income communities outside the perimeter. [2] Additionally, I don't think you're fully accounting for AMAZON. Let's say for talking purposes Amazon chose Cobb County as the place for its new HQ. If Amazon placed a requirement on the State that there be a transit station for the HQ, I think it would be very hard for the state to say no for that. Look at the boondoggle, sorry, the elevated highway, they just built down 75. Nobody really asked for that, or saw that it was really a necessity, preferring instead for Marta, but the State plowed ahead none the less. My original point is that suburban Atlanta offers an excellent opportunity for Amazon already, but the state will come along, they will build the infrastructure, and they will appease Amazon's needs.

[0]. https://www.itsmarta.com/uploadedFiles/More/Transit_Oriented... [1]. http://www.myajc.com/news/local/braves-land-purchase-may-sol... [2]. http://www.celebratedouglascounty.com/view/global/viewdownlo...

Huh? Unless your in the middle of nowhere, the prices I quoted are the going rate for building park & ride spots all over the West Coast, from Seattle to Portland to San Diego, you literally cannot build parking cheaper than that. The land costs what it costs, then you have to pay someone to improve said land, either paving it, building a parking structure, (which is how you end up with $50k parking spots) and then maintain said facilities for the next decade.

Also, no way Atlanta is getting Amazon to build out there. The car culture is stronger than Austin, and the cops in ATL make Texas and Seattle cops (which are under federal consent decree for brutality and racial bias) look downright nice.

Never, ever ever let a cop catch you with any substance of any kind down there either, or you'll catch a felony quicker than you can blink. I can fill both hands counting former Atlanta residents who moved to Seattle after getting felonies for minor amounts of marijuana, those prosecutors down there are crazy.

FWIW when I lived in midtown and worked in Dunwoody I had excellent MARTA usage. It took my daily commute to a very predictable 45 minutes door-to-door.

Now that my walk to marta is 20 minutes and on east-west line I am using it less, but would if I worked downtown. <shrug>

see you on reddit/r/Atlanta :)

I thought MARTA was shit until I went somewhere other than NY / Chicago / SF. Denver's light rail blows

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