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Atlanta is doesn't have decent public transport? Someone better tell MARTA

IOW, your ass is talking shit, son.

MARTA receives 55% of its revenue from fares. (http://www.itsmarta.com/uploadedfiles/About_MARTA/Reports/AR-FY12-Full12-31FINAL.pdf, see second-to-last page)

21% of revenue comes from sales taxes; 15% comes from the US Federal government, and the rest comes from advertising, leasing or interest income, or debt. (MARTA receives no funding from the state of Georgia)

One problem specific to MARTA is the fact that many riders live outside the MARTA sales tax region (Fulton and Dekalb counties) and thus any money put "back into the economy" would not necessarily benefit the transit system. Riders from the broader region (Cobb, Clatyon, Gwinnett counties) pay nothing into the MARTA system except fares.

Chris Urmson presented some data at this keynote, but AFAIK nothing has been published yet. Basically they showed that they stop and start more smoothly and spend less time in near-accident situations then even their professional drivers. They've logged over 300k vehicle miles with zero Google caused accidents, meanwhile MARTA has a target accident rate of 2.85 accidents per 100k miles, and wasn't able to achieve that in most of the previous 12 months!

and unfortunately driving is a luxury

Not when you live in places like Atlanta, where the mass transit system is so fucked, you can't get where you need to go on time and for most of the metro area, you can't even get mass transit. Let's lay it out for you like this.

Atlanta has 1 large mass transit system called Marta. Marta operates above and underground rail systems. Here is the map. That nice grey oval surrounding the system is I285 aka the perimeter. Now, you would think that this system would cover the areas. It doesn't.

• To the north, Cobb county denied MARTA the ability to transport people into/out of the county and Cobb introduced CCT, a bus system that runs from a few places in Cobb, most very inconvenient, to only 2 places on the MARTA line. CCT runs only Monday through saturday and stops at 10pm ish. Does not operate on Sunday.
• To the east, you have Dekalb and Gwinette counties. Dekalb has a hell of alot of MARTA traffic, While Gwinette, the largest county in the metro area, did the exact same thing that Cobb county did, except for 2 things: Fewer buses, and MORE inconvenient bussing areas.
• To the south, you have Clayton and Henry counties. Guess what, they did the EXACT same as Gwinette and Cobb.

Where I live, only a few miles outside of the perimeter, there is no public transportation. None. To even use the system, I have to drive from my house to inside the perimeter, park at a station and then ride to 5-Points which is the hub station. Then catch whatever train I need to that will take me as close as I can get to my destination, then catch a bus or hoof it to where I need to go. This sounds all well and good, except that for me to get from the closest train station to me is roughly a 20 min drive, then between waiting on the train to show up, ride to 5 points, swap trains and ride north, it can take upwards of 2+ hours.

When I lived in south Fulton, in order to be at work at 7am, I had to catch a 4:45am bus, take an hour ride to the station, then 40 odd mins to get to downtown. VS a 15-20 min drive 30, if there was traffic.

So saying it's a luxury for a place like NYC where I have lived in the past, sure. No car needed in most places, and cabs are everywhere. But in other places, you are completely fucked without a car.

Screw uninsured motorists, IMO. If you can't afford compulsory insurance, you can't afford to drive, period. Take the bus.

While I agree, that's easier said than done in some places. Take a look at the Gwinnett County, GA bus system. (Sorry, I looked for an overall map showing all routes at once but couldn't find one.) Now, imagine you live in Snellville. What bus would you take, pray tell?

And keep in mind that this is not a rural area. It's a suburb of Atlanta with a fairly large overall population, very heavy traffic, and a high concentration of the sort of people (particularly illegal immigrants) who don't have car insurance.

(As an aside, the reason this situation is such a clusterfuck is that the white middle-class residents of Gwinnett have consistently voted against joining MARTA ever since the 70s, in a futile attempt to keep the black people out.)

...high rates of obesity (soul food), diabetes (sweet tea), and heart disease....

Having just moved from there, to the Bay Area, Ca....
Yes, Ga is unhealthy. Alot of the blame can also be put on the government of the state, which continues to push for more and wider highways (as if 16 lanes isnt enough), continue to allow and support the majority of power plants running on fossil fuels, mainly coal and including 3 of the dirtiest in the US, with two in the top 3 of that list. This, combined with naturally high humidity, ultra high pollen counts and high temperatures makes the air quality suck, putting Atlanta in 4th for most challenging place to live with asthma and consistently in the Top Ten smoggiest cities. This keeps people inside. Going anywhere basically means driving there as sprawl and the resulting proliferation of more roads without increased mass transit or even bike lanes(again, gvmt sponsored), reckless drivers in large vehicles thanks to (previously, and relatively) cheap gas and the whole "southern/redneck" bit that leans towards F250s with 12"lift on mud tires, and the horrid air make it difficult to impossible to walk or bike anywhere (outside of Down/Mid Town Atl) for fear of your life. So people tend to sit on their fat asses in their offices all day and eat at one of about 20 McDonads or Waffle Houses in the 2mi radius of their home (after driving there of course)... not that I miss having a 24h eatery nearby (I miss my WaHo and Marietta Diner!). Add to all that that NASCAR is a "Sport" in Ga, and as such, "exercising" consists of sitting in bleachers (or on the sofa), smoking, drinking budweiser and eating chilli cheese dogs while watching cars go in circles.

Alot of this could be fixed by improving mass-transit, curbing Sprawl (which is what really caused the drought) and improving Atlanta's Bikability. Generally getting people out of their cars and walking or biking places. MARTA's subway line only goes to about 3 useful places: the airport, downtown, and perimeter mall, while a majority of people live in Cobb County, which rejected having anything to do with a Marta rail line (think: "It will bring in the colored people to steal our TV's!").

Ga is way behind in most rankings of things as well: the Gov'ner has repeatedly struck down attempts to allow Sunday sales of any alcoholic beverage (outside of a restaurant), the most recent time saying it would teach "better time management," thus keeping Georgia one of 3 states still having such arcane blue laws. The state is kept in the past though laws like this, as well as the control the churches have over it and its citizens, which al

How about sensing when buses aren't meeting their route schedule requirements and using this data to improve the public transit system? A somewhat "direct" application to be sure, but one that's sorely in needed in places like metro Atlanta that depend on MARTA for mass transit. I can't even begin to estimate how many times buses have either been substantially late, not shown up at all, or passed right by a stop with waiting passengers. It actually prompted me to buy a car years ago.

Atlanta has a rail and subway system, Marta, but it doesn't really blanket the city all that well. I have a friend who lives down there and it's a 20 minute drive to work, even in the thick traffic, and 45 minute train ride with two transfers.

I live in one of the Atlanta suburbs, and have had occasion to take MARTA trains from time to time. I'm not impressed in the slightest. One of the running jokes about the MARTA trains is that they go from where nobody lives to where nobody works.

Even if it were possible for me to take a MARTA train to work, I doubt I would, for personal and political reasons.

you usually don't have time to do anything useful in the short time it takes to get where you're going.

Would something like this suffice? http://www.itsmarta.com/

So, the states want to get together and make on-line consumers cough up taxes for out-of-state mail order (online) purchaes.

When do the counties and municipalities get in on the act? Growing up in Atlanta, not an election cycle went by without a local option sales tax initiative. Those are special additional sales taxes that are used to prop up some poorly-managed thing like MARTA that costs more than ridership will pay for.

Nobody outside the MARTA service area pays that sales tax.

Are these internet retailers going to have to keep track of the local options as well as the state taxes? If not, is there any compelling reason why not that would not also be a compelling reason NOT to track the state sales taxes?

Okay, I was being unfair. Some local option sales taxes are used to pay for needed and worthwhile endveours. I just grew up in Atlanta and became more than a little cynical when they'd increase the MARTA sales tax AND the fares in the same year.

Judge Rules That Inaccessible Website Violates ADA October 15, 2002

A federal judge ruled that the Atlanta mass transit agency violated the ADA by constructing a website that was inaccessible for people with visual disabilities. This is one of the first cases to decide that the ADA requires online access for people with disabilities.

This decision came as part of a court order in a class action lawsuit filed by Atlanta-area people with disabilities against the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA). The plaintiffs in this case complained about numerous problems they experienced with accessibility in MARTA, including difficulties in obtaining schedule and route information in an accessible format. This information is available on the MARTA website, but people with disabilities had to rely on cumbersome Braille schedules or through MARTA's telephone service.

MARTA staff testified that the MARTA website (http://www.itsmarta.com/) is not yet accessible for people with visual impairments. Since June 2002, MARTA has been working to improve the accessibility of its Internet site, but people who use screen readers to access the site still cannot get complete access to schedule and route information.

Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr. stated in his order that "MARTA can do a better job of making information available in accessible formats." The judge stated that although MARTA did provide information to people with visual impairments over the telephone, this service was not equivalent to that provided over the Internet to non-disabled passengers. Although MARTA is attempting to correct accessibility issues on its Internet site, Judge Thrash found that "MARTA must deliver on its promises". "Until these deficiencies are corrected," the judge stated, "MARTA is violating the ADA."

The judge ordered MARTA and the plaintiffs to work together to fashion a court order to remedy the violations of the ADA, including the accessibility of the MARTA website, but did not order MARTA to make any specific changes to its website. The court's order can be found in Adobe PDF at http://www.gand.uscourts.gov/documents/1001cv3255T WTinj.pdf.

The following summary was prepared by the Southeast DBTAC and has not been reviewed by any enforcement agency. The Southeast is authorized by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) to provide information, materials, and technical assistance to individuals and entities that are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) under grant number H133D010207. However, you should be aware that NIDRR is not responsible for enforcement of the ADA The information, materials, and/or technical assistance are intended solely as informal guidance, and are neither a determination of your legal rights or responsibilities under the act, nor binding on any agency with enforcement responsibility under the ADA.

Here in Atlanta our mass transit system MARTA is mostly used by the poor community (at $1.75/ride it's prolly a little better than a car). The problem is, except for some people heading downtown during the morning and back out in the evening, that's all that rides it. Nobody rides MARTA just to get around town, everybody drives.

Atlanta traffic just plain sucks, I'd ride MARTA if I wasn't scared for my life every time I go on there. But it's true, I'd rather wait in traffic for 45 minutes, pay insurance, gas, road tolls, maintanence, etc... than ride MARTA. IMHO, this is a falure of the system. And, IMHO, this is where it needs to work. Right now, it's not the poor community that we need to get to ride mass transit, it's the people who can afford a car and actually have a choice in the matter.

(of course, I could go on for hours about how we need more rail lines and stuff, but you can look at the map and see that for yourself :))

Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. They do busses too, you know (Grew up in Atlanta suburbs: East Point, Fairburn). Also, they have on-demand handicapped transportation, and other services.

Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. They do busses too, you know (Grew up in Atlanta suburbs: East Point, Fairburn). Also, they have on-demand handicapped transportation, and other services.

Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. They do busses too, you know (Grew up in Atlanta suburbs: East Point, Fairburn). Also, they have on-demand handicapped transportation, and other services.

Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. They do busses too, you know (Grew up in Atlanta suburbs: East Point, Fairburn). Also, they have on-demand handicapped transportation, and other services.