How to Fix Atlanta’s Broken Rail System
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
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On the surface, Atlanta's MARTA rail system looks very much like the DC Metro or the BART, but it's been unable to find the success the other two systems have. Let's take a closer look at the system and see how we can make it better.
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I ride MARTA almost daily. Frequency is a big issue. If a train is cancelled then you gotta wait another 20 minutes (what happened to me yesterday). Many of the connecting bus lines run every 40 minutes. I've had 2 cancelled on me back to back so I waited almost 2 hours. I would like to see the gold and red lines expanded too. People aren't gonna be likely to take MARTA after spending 20 minutes on the highway just getting to the station.
MARTA's biggest problem post-pandemic is STAFFING. The bad frequencies are because they don't have enough operators to run trains. There used to be 8 minute peak, 15 off-peak and Sundays schedule when I was a rider during my college years in the late 90s and right when Sandy Springs station opened. It's gotten worse over time.
I only ride MARTA when it’s a train-only commute. It is completely unviable for bus commutes because of the frequency and reliability issues you mentioned. 40 minutes, none late at night, frequent cancellations, and rarely on time is unacceptable if you want to get somewhere on time.
With service issues like that, you're right; no one is going to park their car and risk a long delay.
train/bus tracking apps are good to alert you of cancellations / realistic arrival times / etc
I like that at least the north springs station is accessible from 400, critically outside 285, but Doraville is pitifully inaccessible. I used to drive all the way to chamblee or oglethorpe because of how hard it is to get from 85 to Doraville. We desperately need a Norcross station that is accessible to the highway like north springs, or better yet extend the train all the way to gwinnett mall.
The system would have been way bigger if the suburban counties wanted in.
Update: This comment blew up too fast
This is the biggest opposition to MARTA expansion along with severe underfunding from the state. NIMBYs in Gwinnett and especially Cobb love to stop rail expansion because "oh no poor people in my suburban bubble" but then complain when they can't take MARTA to a Braves game anymore and moan about overcrowding and underserviced lines when they want to get to a concert or game downtown.
Especially the evil Gwinnett County, which hates public transport because the irrational fear of crime is insane in that county. Worse yet, the dreaded Gwinnett County jail is worse than the 3rd world and lacks any human rights.
@@ItsJayCross319 yeah. Republican nimbys are the literal worst. Flaming hypocrites
@@ItsJayCross319 THIS. And by "poor people", remember the backronym for MARTA from back in the day at least: "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta". It's not just classism going on.
@@waverod9275 100%
ATLANTA’s mayor is thinking about using “SMALL PODS” ON THE BELTLINE!!!
We gotta make people aware that that’s going to be a horrible decision.
Every self-proclaimed revolutionary techno start-up bullsh*t bingo has to have some pods thrown in there just for good measure.
love your vids on the beltline!!
We need a new mayor...bottom line. Remember that all you Atlantans when you vote!
Yeah that video infuriates me to another level. Small pods and slow transit on the beltline would be a policy failure
Ew
I like the very subtle dig at air travel “moves almost as many people as a fairly large train station” 😅
Mind you, a 'fairly large train station' moves a LOT of people, usually on a lot of trips they take super regularly. Airports mostly (baring improper use of the mode) handle very long trips that (most) people take far less often, so even if they were doing the absolute best they could do at the job they should actually be doing, the largest airport moving a number of people equivalent to a large-but-not-largest train station is what you'd Expect.
Actually, if your busy airport is moving more people than your busy rail stations it's probably a sign that your rail network isn't doing as well as it should be...
bro cant be talking, as the Atlanta Charlotte HSR got funding a few months ago when they found it feasible (watch the Alan Fisher)
meanwhile Canadian politicans can't even bring themselves to say HSR so they say hIgH fReQuEnCy rAiL
It's actually pretty impressive, moving about as many people as the Tohoku Shinkansen.
@@laurencefraser Atlanta airport deals in an enormous amount of domestic traffic, not exactly Singapore or Heathrow
@@RMTransit …and most of it is transfer traffic. That’s why convincing Delta to get behind HSR in Atlanta is key.
Heathrow is the king of O&D. And Singapore is just the coolest airport in the world.
We're getting new trains, re-doing the central station, and talking about new infill stations. That last hurdle of building a new line on the system which we haven't expanded in 24 years is our next major hurdle.
Actually, I think the next major hurdle is actually building the infill stations and beltline rail. We can talk about it all we want but we need it built out already.
I also have mixed feelings about the Five Points renovation - it seems like a lot of money to put down for a glass roof and I worry about having no walk-up access to the station for an extended amount of time. As a frequent concert-goer it'll make getting to The Masquerade very inconvenient.
Lots of positive stuff happening, just need to maintain that momentum
@RMtransit not to be pessimistic, but the infill stations don't currently have a funding source and some locals see the stations as a tool to justify the cancellation of beltline rail.
@@Afitts00 Closing the Five Points station for people who embark/disembark there until 2028 (with the temp opening during the WC) is a terrible misdirection of resources, and going to disrupt a lot of commuters for a largely cosmetic update. It's definitely a dated station, but functionality is good (though improving elevator access may be a better use of the funds than replacing the tile with more tile and a glass roof).
@@RMTransit Nonsense.
NIMBYS in Cobb county be like… 👁️👄👁️
Or my aunt In Gwinnett.
Yeah…all the surrounding counties should just be so willing to pay for MARTA. After all, MARTA has done such a great job covering downtown. Who wouldn’t want to pay extra sales tax just so you can get 3 bus routes that no one uses along with endless drawings of things that will never get built.
@@spades9048Precisely. They have added two stations this century in the jurisdictions where they are well established. How long will it be before Cobb, Gwinnett, or Forsyth ever see the 1st foot of track? They’ll be paying a penny sales tax that entire time to subsidize DeKalb, Fulton, and, to a lesser degree, Clayton counties. That’s a hard pass for me as a Forsyth resident.
Transit good
@@DiamondKingStudios
She’s in the minority now. We’re expanding transit over here with or without her; this county is officially 1 million people now.
5:00 “It should also think about refurbishing it’s older stations”
MARTA is refurbishing Five Points station, the interchange of every line. However, they are closing off street access and buses (meaning transfers only) there for FOUR YEARS as it gets mostly cosmetic renovations. They are only opening for a couple weeks during the World Cup in 2026 and then shutting it back down.
This comes after refurbishing the airport station, again mostly cosmetic, shut it down for six weeks rather than just having them single track and taking longer to work on it (and it shouldn’t even take that long in the first place!).
How can you have TOD if you can’t even be certain that your station will be open once it’s there?
You can't bake an omelette without breaking some eggs, but that seems excessive. 4 years? And for just cosmetic renovations? Yeah, that shouldn't be allowed.
@@barvdwI was disappointed with what they did b/c I didn’t notice much of a difference based off the renderings but they said there’s more to do.
The agency clearly needs to learn to do projects without shutting things down, but that’s all part of a long process of improvement!
You'll be pleasantly surprised that MARTA infact has announced plans earlier this year for a large scale TOD development at Indian Creek station and before that Kensington. Let's keep it rolling Marta with the TOD
I use Indian Creek- it’s under construction right now along with major station renovations to the bus bays and platform.
East Lake and Candler Park also are getting TOD in their parking lots too
@@starrwulfe Hey a fellow Indian Creek user! I do like the TOD plans it's got and I'm glad they're doing the station updates that will include a walking connection to those apartments north of the station. I just wish the station planning teams would listen to the suggestions I keep leaving to include platform screen doors. Seems like a few times a year someone gets onto the tracks at one station or another on the lines and causes major delays and the doors would prevent almost all of that.
I’m glad they’re finally starting to do that. Since the counties don’t want expansion, build TODs around the current stations so people can take the trains to their destinations. Dunwoody and Sandy Springs stations are perfect examples. You have the Perimeter Mall, office complexes, restaurants, bars, shopping, and residential and those areas are popular.
I am very happy to hear that!
@RMtransit if you ever make another video on Atlanta, I'd love to help you with research or footage as an Atlanta native
Grew up in the Atlanta area. There have been rather ambitious plans to expand MARTA for quite some time now, but pretty much none of them have ever come to fruition, for a variety of reasons. It's pretty depressing.
The only reason MARTA has not experienced expansion is it's the only major transit that gets no state funding. The city, county and DeKalb Co are the only investors in MARTA. Suburban counties do not want transit. So you have the Emerald City in a sea of backwards.....
It’s definitely demoralizing, but quite a bit seems to be on the go right now!
It’s not depressing. It’s a miracle.
Crime follows MARTA!
@@beckyumphrey2626 no it doesn't.
Imagine if we combined DC's transit oriented development with Toronto's bus system on every post-war metro system. We'd really be cooking it up in some of these cities.
Absolutely, and DCs system does have the advantage of more capacity and higher top speeds!
NO!
The TOD happening at West Hyattsville is bonkers. It's like they're constructing a brand new city from scratch over there.😮
Not going to happen because our politicians and their friend/family patronage recipients are more interested in bulldozing a forest to build a police fortress for the donor class than listening to constituents.
@@seymoorepoone9512no what?
Atlanta has bold and a comprehensive transit plan that similarly matches what you said with an LRT by Emory and a beltline rail loop that already has its right of way preserved along with more lrt radiating from downtown and midtown to the beltline and all for the reasonable cost of 3 billion. The problem is the lack of political and financial support which has already demoted projects to BRT and with powerful local NIMBYs pushing to get the rail project cancelled all together. If you're curious read about Atlanta's Streetcar master plan and study from the mid 2010s
The beltline rail going to Old Fourth Ward is even already funded, already has the land and right of way, already has the streetcars themselves, and is breaking ground in 2025 and is still on track to open in 2028.
The small NIMBY backlash has just sprung up at the last minute and their goal is to drain the already secured funding by asking for additional studies and trying to suggest alternative systems that aren’t studied.
It's so frustrating to see when I know that the streetcar east extension is a good project that should have been done by now if we didn't keep doing studies that give the same answers. Our mayor even mentioned how the old studies for a few years ago were outdated and didn't include autonomous pods so we need another study. If you don't build, it gets more expensive, and when it gets more expensive, it gets more backlash. A vicious cycle we find ourselves in
Atlanta's mayor wants to build "nice and slow people movers" on the belt line, strongly suspect he was bribed by a gadgetbahn manufacturer. Because when hasn't an Atlanta mayor not been on the take haha
@@thepeppypepper Honestly, baring something being catostrophically and Obviously wrong with the project (the sort of thing where a study isn't actually needed to see the problem. Solving it (if it exists) is, of course, another matter), that should be well past the point where such complaints should even be listened to, let alone considered.
@@triplethreatpodcasts anyone seriously suggesting 'pods' in public transport should be Immediately suspended and under investigation with strong likelyhood of removal from their position... because they're either corrupt or incompitent.
Unfortunately, MARTA doesn't receive funding from GDOT which makes expansion tricky.
Geez, that was even true back when I was attending Tech almost 20 years ago.
It’s that AND those suburban counties by law have to vote to join the system. MARTA can’t force anything.
The fact that MARTA already has heavy rail directly into the airport landside terminal puts it way ahead of most US metro systems. An increase in service frequency would be nice.
Thank You and it's been in place for decades too.
Every time RMTransit uploads, I become 0.1% stronger
That’s . . . Interesting? 😂
The main problem is the conservative Republican state government starves MARTA of funding.
Even liberal states are starving their transit systems of funding. Both BART and DC Metro are on the brink of financial collapse.
@DanteMckimmey in that relates to State funding transit exactly how? Doubt you even support transit. LA gets to have massive expansion of their transit with both varying levels of government helping contribute funding, not seeing that in Atlanta.
TL:DR No State Funding Allowed for MARTA. If County voters want it they get it. Hence why it is only what it is and where it is. The Texas Model to the extreme. Georgia did support a transit system in the metro but it is specifically GA Express which is your typical park and ride express buses.
@@Skeet284 Fact: The ATL (Atlanta Transit Link) was supposed to be that agency that would amalgamate all these disparate entities into one transit agency for northern GA... it hasn't.
@@starrwulfe But hey at least you can use a Breeze Card on all of them. *Sarcasm*
There won’t be a significant expansion of the existing rail network for decades. If ever.
MARTA in the 70s had a hard time signing on the suburban counties. In the 2000s, one of the 70s holdouts joined (Clayton) with the promise of new rail lines. Those lines never came. Now they’re getting an extremely halfway implementation of BRT.
MARTA as an org has serious problems and a legit bad reputation when it comes to executing on projects.
If rail expansion ever comes to the metro, it will almost certainly be via another agency.
Change is possible, it’s happened in many cities!
@@RMTransit I’d love to see the change happen! I know I gotta keep my cynicism in check but man, the cards just seem permanently stacked against transit in Atlanta.
I’d love to see your thoughts on the gadgetbahn being proposed to replace Beltline rail:/
Woohoo! My city is getting coverage! And I agree with these critiques but I do want to note a few things that ought to be noted.
First, I think it's important to say we're already planning and building more TODs at a lot of stations, mostly along the Blue Line. Indian Creek that you highlighted has been having public meetings for about half a year helping to develop plans to transform that parking lot into a TOD with 1,600 housing units! Other stations like East Lake, Hamilton Holmes, Edgewood/Candler Park, Avondale, and some southern stations like Oakland City are in various stages of building/planning TODs. That part is an easy win in MARTA's control that they're acting on.
Second, MARTA is hurt by many of the common problems of transit planning (NIMBYs, bad project management, and a dispersed population/job centers), but also by some more uniquely MARTA factors. For instance, those MARTA extensions you drew, which would be good, cross into counties that are not part of MARTA and that have so far resisted all efforts to join MARTA. But another issue is that MARTA is one of the very few transit agencies in the US (and definitely the largest one) that gets ZERO state level funding. All funding for MARTA is dependent on the agency, the cities/counties that are part of MARTA (just Fulton, DeKalb, and Clayton which make up together a bit over a 1/3rd of the Atlanta metro population), and whatever federal grants the system can get. This really limits funding for expansions or upgrades.
Third, some discussion of the current plans beyond Beltline Rail (currently in the middle of a political fight as a small number of NIMBYs in Old Fourth Ward are trying to kill it) would help illustrate the potential and problems the current system faces. For instance, there's a connection in planning phases to go from Lindbergh Station (where the Red and Gold lines meet/diverge) through Emory to Avondale Station on the Blue Line. After initially talking about light rail, planning seems to have settled on BRT but as of the last meeting I went to for this, the problem is currently there's only funding support from Fulton/City of Atlanta not DeKalb county meaning the project is only funded to make it half way only going to Emory. This sucks and is a huge problem with non-centralized funding sources that MARTA has.
Fourth, we're doing some station refreshes but with some notable failures. First, no refresh that's been announced or started has included much in the way of operational improvements, mostly being aesthetics with what operational improvements that are included being the exception not the rule. Most frustratingly none include platform screen doors (and I've been trying to get that in these guys heads in every survey and meeting about stations I go to). And some are downright nuts! Five Points Station which is downtown next to GSU, a number of offices (that are still used despite Atlanta's shockingly high office vacancy rate post-COVID), and the quite nice Fairlife-Poplar restaurant area, is having pedestrian access shut down for FOUR YEARS! All to change the old roof from a brutalist-style to a glass canopy. They're not building housing or offices on top. They're not adding platform screen doors despite every six months someone getting on the tracks and causing big delays (a bit morbidly a few years back that included the MARTA CEO of the time committing suicide jumping in front of an approaching train). They're just shutting down everything but train transfers in the central station of the system for YEARS with a brief re-opening during the World Cup. It's a slap in the face to transit users and people who go to or live in downtown. And don't even get me started on how delayed and neglected very necessary bus expansion and updates have been!
I love Atlanta and I'm proud to say that MARTA rail is the most used rail system in the US south of DC, but it can be SO much better!
Man, you said everything that needed to be said. It’s sad b/c I see the potential but we just have so many roadblocks with Marta, peoples mindsets about Marta down here, and no state funding, there’s not much hope with them. At least we’re getting new trains though. And I agree, Five Points should’ve been another TOD station but I guess they’re depending on Underground Atlanta to take up for that slack since he hasn’t done much to that place either which also has a lot of potential but don’t me started on that.
All problems for sure, but all completely solvable
Are you familiar with Caleb Stubbs' regional rail proposal (ATL Trains), and, if so, what do you think about it?
@@stevegavigan8124 I have heard of it though it's been a few years. If you made me dictator of Georgia that kind of system would be priority number 1 for Atlanta. But, not being dictator of Georgia, it's too ambitious for practical passage even if by some miracle we got politicians in the state house who didn't hate Atlanta.
So to be honest, the first thing we should do is pour money in MARTA's buses rather than the more dubious station rehabs. Service is a lot lower than pre-pandemic still and we've lost several cross-town routes that don't just bring you to the nearest train station. But on top of that, way finding on the buses needs to be much better. In that it needs to exist at all. Buses need internal screens letting people know the 1) bus route number, 2) direction, and 3) upcoming stops. Get the bus fundamentals right and we'd see a lot more train use recovery too.
As an Atlanta resident I’ve been saying this for years 😂
I love how you mentioned the Indian Creek station being a giant parking lot because it’s been announced that it’s going to have the largest TOD project the city’s seen yet. It’s quite ambitious.
I’ve heard! So exciting and seems like an obvious site!
it's pretty much already built u can lesse an apt rn too bad the cheapest starts at $2100 I really wanted to live there
No rail extensions and the 15th go-nowhere "study" of BRT extension to Stonecrest. It's a real estate development scheme and nothing more.
that just means more expensive shoebox apartments.
please look into WHY we don't have the lines in those other counties. 1. we don't get ANY state funding 2. out of the 6 counties in the metro ATL area only 2 of them are funding MARTA, the rest have their own systems that barely interconnect. This isn't as simple as drawing maps.
I'm sorry, but this was terrible. Most of what you've proposed is crazily unrealistic, and the fact that you missed TOD projects under development at several rail stations shows that it was poorly researched, too. Now I'm wondering if your thoughts about cities I'm not familiar with are as off-base as they are about Atlanta.
One highly relevant fact: A few years ago, there was a ballot proposal to bring MARTA to Gwinnett County, which is where I live. The cost extending MARTA rail four miles and building one station at 85 and Jimmy Carter Boulevard was a cool $1 billion. I actually voted for it as a pro-transit gesture, but... we simply can't afford to blow that kind of money on one suburban metro station.
...I still have no idea how something that short could be 1 billion... Seems like it could've gone at least to Gwinnett Place for that amount. But yeah, I voted for it too.
I agree. Makes me wonder how many gaps there are in his other city breakdowns.
@@TheNobleFiveI think the Canadian ones are bit more accurate cause actually being there, Vegas one is easy seeing that it is substandard
@@starrwulfeI think it's because they wanted to make it a heavy rail. This is why I disagree with him on regional rail. Regional rail would be more affordable. Because you would be using existing tracks, yes you would have to modernize some and some you're going to have to track. (Especially those who are now single-tracked) I like Caleb Stubb's idea the best so far for ATL trains for the metro.
The problem is well. It's privately owned. Yet, the Metro of Atlanta has one of the most extensive rails in this region. It's just tied up to freight. The idea would be if we could get these rights to have passenger rail on these lines then we would improve the rel which would also improve freight as well. That would be absolutely amazing, because I love the downtowns of the Metro. They're so beautiful. The only ones that would be excluded would be Forsyth. But for that you could do a BRT. It's very frustrating to have a town with rail going through it.
I also think regional rail would be great for in-tourism. It's not just about commuting which I didn't like that comparison. They're two different things.
The state of Georgia is a very beautiful state and I think it would benefit from more in-tourism rail.
Glad people are coming here to state that the lack comes from the politics of the state. Marta’s limitations have to be in the same reason sprawl has taken the city. I wish Marta was better especially since the traffic is the worst in the country by a lot. A typical drive can turn from 1.5 hours to 4.5 on an average weekday
I think we're just barely beat out for that award by Los Angeles.
I could tell you didn't do research for this topic because surrounding counties voted to block marta expansion. This is the southern us city where car is king and transit is dirty. To get car loving transit hating people to chose public transportation is Premium priced fast clean express type service to weed out the undesirables from coming to their neighborhood. A better video topic is Austin Transit Future.
or maybe even Miami? Interesting if they’ll expand Metrorail after some new expansions of commuter and intercity rail recently.
@@TheRandCrews Miami voted to expand Metrorail 15 plus years but all they did is the airport extension. Miami, Atlanta, Baltimore Metros have no future because the ridership sucks. Those cities go BRT Plans number 1 on the list. The same cites that have a driver shortage.
MARTA has been handicapped since it's inception. Atlanta's suburbs (still) do not want to be connected to the city at all. Expansion has been rejected time and time again - and, of course, expanding *today* is ever more expensive.
One consequence is that it is useless for commuting. But the time a suburbanite reaches the outermost station, they're already near their destination (and the freeway expansions means they've also just passed the congestion and the rest of the trip is (usually) smooth.
No one wanted the extra 1% tax that would go to the pit known as Atlanta is why.
NIMBYism in surrounding counties prevents outward expansion. The surrounding counties don't want it. I've heard some voices saying they would be more likely to accept it if it had better coverage but it would take more than the changes mentioned. It would have to get NY like in its coverage - lots of NYC expats live in the surrounding burbs - and even then, I don't know if there would be enough votes to okay the expansion.
Noone ever mentions the low population density of the areas in question in these videos which discuss it. One must always consider people per area, not just people. This is what determines the financial viability of a rail system and how much you can spend on it. That system is already more than I would expect for such a sparsely populated area. The same metrics for the other systems mentioned - MWATA and Bart - are higher by far and fuhgeddaboud a comparison NYC.
Considering cities with thriving heavy rail, NYC proper - not the NY metro area, just NYC proper - has about 75% of the population of the entire state of GA. Atlanta proper doesn't even have 1 million people; it's about half that for an area that I believe is actually larger than that of NYC proper. Serious sprawl.
Surprisingly i think helsinki had this problem expanding its metro to the suburbs and experts said they only justified hourly buses. But once it was actually built and buses started running frequently it was all good.
As someone who lived in seattle and paid for the light rail through taxes, seattle voted no and marta took the federal funding and got built. Really sucks for us
It does, Seattle would have made better use of a Marta style system, good for Atlanta though!
I am British.Prior to watching this video, I knew that Atlanta had the world's busiest airport, but did not even know that it had a metro! (I did of course know about the modern DC and BART systems.) The video is extremely clear (and concise). Even before the map appeared, I was expecting to see something like the map you first showed at 7m 40s. To me, the obvious solution is to build more branches added on to the two existing cross-city lines. That would then lead to much better frequencies through the core sections. Put slightly differently, the Atlanta Metro does indeed need to become more like an S-Bahn.
I rode Marta from Peachtree Center to the airport last fall. I was struck by how much it resembled the DC Metro, but without any aesthetic maintenance since it opened (or more likely the ‘96 Olympics).
Extending the green line northwest to Marietta along I-75 and branching off southwest beginning around Capital Gateway in the I-20 median to Stonecrest seems like the most obvious expansion plan. Multiple branches off existing line wouldn't really make meaningful improvements; the most important thing noted is that Atlanta can spur more transit related development along existing station. The lack of density is the real issue
The streetcar now runs every 30 minutes, and you can guess how that impacted the already-low ridership. I can literally walk its length faster than if I had waited for a streetcar. It’s infuriating.
The streetcar connects a bunch of fancy hotels where people who would never take transit stay... I honestly have no idea why it was built or what it was supposed to provide connections to.
I'm sorry.... I'm not saying that you're not wrong but like many other urbanists... You don't apparently see the main reasons why MARTA hasn't expanded as much as WMATA or BART: NIMBYs, politics and in the case of Atlanta: blatant racism. MARTA does need to expand... But the government will have to change or be faced with the truth before hand... Freeway expansion is not the solution. As for the park and rides... Atlanta can kill two birds with one stone and turn them into more housing developments with high density and low parking footprint.
heh, yeah. I remember visiting and folks being concerned that I willingly got on MARTA. I don't live there so I don't know if the reputation is deserved but is sure seemed pervasive.
MARTA is also critically underfunded for the same reason. That's why a lot of the More MARTA dollars disappeared into basic operation and fleet maintenance, not expansion. We need robust state and federal funding if we even want a hope of expanding heavy rail.
An expansion into Gwinnett was proposed a few years ago but residents voted it down. The trains absolutely need to run more often. We went to a concert at the Benz a few weeks ago and took Marta. The trains were still running every 20 minutes even with a major event. The trains were packed. On top of that we have to switch trains from the gold to red line and that’s another 20 minute wait. I really wish they would improve Marta because I despise Atlanta traffic. It just shouldn’t take 2 hours to get from North Springs to the Benz on Marta.
Personally I think regional rail might work for Atlanta and other North American cities for travel to and from nearby cities and towns, not necessarily just suburbs. In Atlanta's case it would be Macon, Athens, Chattanooga (TN) and maybe Savannah (EDIT: might be too far, Augusta would be a better option), among others, while MARTA takes care of the suburbs.
Columbus, please! We’ve been waiting here fifty-four years, and if someone can reacquire the abandoned ROW it’d be so great.
Re 8:33: Surely a electrified BeltLine would be more reliable and cost effective than a BRT. Strange not to mention the plans in detail in your video.
One thing I think MARTA also suffers from is a lack of interest in the other counties in supporting it. Cobb county doesn’t connect to it and basically forces you on the freeway or the rapid transit.
20 min frequencies in a city that size is unacceptable especially when O-train for all its faults runs every 10 and Ion runs every 15
still abysmal compared to the 4-6 minutes for Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. But honestly, US metros don’t run that frequently anyways
It does Weekdays and every 7 to 8 minutes in peak times.
tunnels threw downtown that can have 30 trains an hour (and only has 5) and a belt line that can have level crossing duel lines on 98% of it without buying any land!!!! Atlanta has the potential to have the best Metro system in America if they just expanded all of their metrolines out.
I’m so glad you’re covering MARTA its the train system near me and it has a lot of flaws but I hope to see it improve
This sounds like a reasonable fix. If only the MBTA in Boston could be fixed reasonably 😭
Ive lived in boston and atlanta, boston is wayyy better
Marta kinda gets away with being kinda subpar for me because even at its worst, it’s not as bad as driving in traffic and can get you anywhere in Atlanta that you’d want to get to.
Native Atlantan here. I think your idea of the I285 BRT is a really good idea. Would have to be a protected right of way to some degree, and even then there'd still be issues, as I don't see a world where ATL drivers respect bus lanes at all. People will use those lanes to get ahead at whatever cost. It's an absolute free for all and people don't respect the rules of the road since COVID.
Plus they are building express lanes currently so I don't see much room for any transit ROW
Meanwhile, the evil tyrant Kevin Leonpacher violently arrests people for "jaywalking."
The main issue blocking MARTA expansion is political. There are 11 counties in the Atlanta Regional Council, but only three in the MARTA district. Each of those counties is afraid of giving up power to an outside agency, and the three MARTA counties, Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton, are majority-minority, so there are implicit and explicit racial issues, too. Those issues reared their ugly head when Gwinnett County had a referendum to join the MARTA district. It failed because people were concerned that it might cause property values to decline. Still, a better integrated feeder bus system would work great as an interim solution. There is some of that already, so there is hope.
I think the main reason the Gwinnett expansion failed because it was quite underwhelming and didn’t come close to meeting the county’s needs.
It also failed because MARTA had recently demonstrated a total failure when it similarly expanded to Clayton County.
People write off what’s holding MARTA back as racism. It’s a factor, but it’s certainly not the whole story.
@rykilg this is the main reason Gwinnett changed their plan to focus on expanding Ride Gwinnett and creating a cross county BRT network to feed into Doraville and Indian Creek.
I don’t recall seeing any iteration of the Gwinnett plan that would appeal to a voter who was a “choice rider”. And that’s most people who vote in that highly suburban county.
Bus routes aren’t going to get these folks out of their car. They need a fast train that skips all the traffic.
Also, the failure in Clayton can’t be understated. Without a massive change in MARTA leadership, no county will be joining the system for decades to come.
The irony is, transit expansion always improves property values near new transit lines, the old "crime train" racist trope is just that a racist trope. But on these councils you still have a lot of people who were around during Jim Crow and are still butthurt about the end of it.
@@rykilg Good points. The idea that "MARTA still gets voted down because Gwinnett County is full of white racists" is out-of-date. Almost 70% of the current Gwinnett population is POC, along with 80% of the county commission. Fulton County has a larger white population (by both number and percentage) than Gwinnett!
The proposals that were voted down a few years ago had nebulous promises about expanded bus service and one -- ONE! -- new rail station. A rail station that would be completed in (maybe) a decade and would be only five miles from the current Gold Line terminus in Doraville. I know a lot of people in Gwinnett who would have supported the referendum if there had been MORE, not less, rail on the table.
If I had to prioritize transit development in Atlanta I would consider improving the bus network on the Southside and northeast towards Doraville and duluth. Many migrants who live in these areas are forced to live in transit deserts in the burbs with no access to affordable means of transportation .
I used to ride the MARTA a lot from Decatur to the airport. During Covid it was actually peaceful and pleasant. And then the homeless came back, the trains smelled, and at times I felt unsafe. I stopped riding and won’t until security is significantly improved.
Exactly 💯
Transit influencers don’t like to talk about this because who wants to pick on already vulnerable people but the truth is that I and other men and women simply don’t want to deal with being locked in a steel box with folks screaming on drugs. Even if I won’t be physically hurt the discomfort and possible risks are too high especially for women and children.
Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta
The main issue is that security likely won’t be improved because there isn’t anything most train stations can do about it without significant discrimination against the people who need Marta the most.
Those issues have to be solved by state and federal policies. They have to actually help homeless people get a home, some food security, and a job, they have to actually implement policies that help people with drug addictions, They have to actually tackle poverty, fix schools, all of these things Marta simply can’t do and the government is unwilling to do despite those 3 things objectively making public transit, and part of the city safer.
@@thesingh3323I ride public transit all the time and I can remember one time I had someone who was a screaming crackhead on the same train as me. Maybe 1 in 1000 trips? Personally, I turn into a screaming crackhead every time trying to drive anywhere on an interstate.
Developers and capital investors own Atlanta. I don't know why people think there is suddenly going to be a push that makes Atlanta turn into NYC. Cost of living is going up because of this hype and it is unrelative to wages and opportunities and wages. People will not ditch their cars in Atlanta to use the beltline and the streetcar and MARTA. They own e-bikes (that are more likely to run you over than a car) AND cars. Urbanists in Atlanta (most of which seemingly have only recently moved to the area) have been used as useful idiots to promote projects that are just portfolio-stuffing for developers and investors. No transportation efforts are addressing actual variables that should be i.e. commutes to work. When you look at the proposals, the endgoal is to get to bars and restaurants. That is not sustainable long-term for a city's growth. People have been trying to get bus routes fixed for YEARS and are ignored, meanwhile yuppies move into the city and demand a streetcar to take them from the Food Hall to the bar. It's kind of disgusting.
When people can't afford to live in the proposed "15 minute city" it is no longer a city. It's a theme park for the rich.
How is a bike more likely to run you over than a car?
Atlanta rail system is a total joke. We literally only have two directions. Atlanta has been victim of car centric civil engineering
They totally nerfed the Clifton corridor that was supposed to be a highly used line.
I've lived in ATL since 1987. And I can tell you how much ATL's metropolitan suburbs that surround the actual city of Atlanta, have weakened MARTA on top of ONLY 3 municipalities paying for it (City Of Atlanta, Fulton County, and Dekalb County). The Suburbs NEVER wanted mass transit, outside of I-285. What the suburban counties did was form their own separate bus transit that funnels suburbanites into the city, and have MARTA take care of the rest. It's a COMPLETE mess. And with the formation of newly incorporated suburbs propping up, yearly, there also no existing real estate to create the lines. Budding big cities PLEASE take note from a divided ATL, on how NOT to develop mass transit. Suburban flight out of ATL are the culprits behind this transit divide
Native Atlantan and transit believer here; I've not lived there for 40 yrs (have been in DC!) but have visited frequently. The dream we all had when MARTA was created fell victim to NIMBYism and racism, and a knee-jerk rejection by most Southerners of "big city stuff like they have up North," even as the city grew into a Top 20 metro area and then a Top 10. I hate to say it, but I think turning Atlanta into a truly dense, walkable, transit-oriented, world-class city is probably a hopeless dream (at least for someone like me, approaching 70; I certainly won't see it). People there gripe about traffic and the cost of their cars but they are flat-out addicted and just can't imagine not having that "freedom." It makes me very sad because there was so much promise in the '60s when MARTA was conceived and it really was the one Southern city that felt like some approximation of a city. BUT YOU DID A GREAT JOB, REESE -- I MUST ADD THAT!
BINGO someone not afraid to speak facts!!
You'll also be surprised to hear they are refurbishing 5 points and the airport station currently and eventually the midtown stations. Now if that's the best use of 300 million is another question.
Will they actually be nice? If so probably!
Hopefully it is. Although building a ring line around 285 or parts of the beltline would be better for advertising and connecting lines outside of five points imo.
Hey Reece! I think 5 points will look fantastic when it's done and they even got some state funding. The problem is that they are closing the station entrance during the world cup for it and half the cost is to replace the canopy and only about 20 is to improve platform and concourse level. Same with the airport with most of the cost for canopy replacement. Now I won't complain about improvement, but when they say they don't have enough money to build full LRT to Emory is tough to swallow when the difference in cost is about the same they are spending for these purely aesthetic projects
@@RMTransit I think we forgot how to do things cheaply so thats why it costs this much to refurbish. Very North America
But isn't Five Points going to be closed for years to do the refurbishment?
Suburban racism in the 1970s-2000s limited the system. Fortunately, today's generation is more demanding of Rapid Transit expansion and higher frequencies
The only constant is change
Bingo!!
It was more like urban racism that people were escaping from. I was here and a kid. We stayed, and experienced overwhelming anti-white racism in the public schools and elsewhere. If I could go back and change things there is no way I would have stayed in the city. I thought it would get better, it has only gotten worse.
This is incredibly poorly researched
I was very disappointed. Banks Rail has a much better breakdown of transit in Atlanta.
Nah this was decent
How so?
Growing up in Marietta and constantly being dragged to the city, I was always very impressed and awestruck at how fast the trains were. Compared to NYC which is a "real" network but reeked of urine.
Pretty depressing to see how many blocks those highways and interchanges occupy in the core of the city. That same capacity could be serviced by transit and suddenly you've got literal square miles of land available for development.
RMTransit MARTA video let's goooooooo! *cue Atlanta mentioned meme*
MARTA is about to close their largest station to pedestrian access -- while continuing to service it for transfers -- for *three years.* The system's leaders are totally incompetent.
Another problem is quite a bit of anti-social behavior on the system, which is ignored by police.
Marta has great bones: two high throughput cross-town tunnels, a direct connection to the airport, and most of it's high-density already served by the metro. It is ripe for branch line expansions.
And yes, the lack of feeder buses at the suburban stations is infuriating.
I really like your proposed NW-SE line, which could probably utilize the beltline right-of-way and constructed cut-and-cover
There are feeder bus lines already, just not enough of them because the outer counties don't do it and GRTA doesn't seem to want to run express bus services to MARTA stations other than North Springs.
I was not really with you until you said ring line. I honestly believe that if they put a station in the middle of an empty area, that area will become developed, plenty of Queens was farm when the EL was built.
Might be a controversial opinion but I don't think we need new trains or to renovate the stations. The number one priority should be expansion.
We def need new train sets. But I dont disagree about holding off on renovations in lieu of expansion
Seeing MARTA talked about this way is a can of fresh air. I grew up in one of the suburban counties that people would travel from to work in ATL, and I only heard disparaging comments about MARTA, including the nickname given to it by racists.
The main problem is that MARTA was never really designed to get you around the metro Atlanta area. It was designed to get you into Atlanta and out of it. MARTA doesn't really take you anywhere. Also that many counties outside of Fulton don't want it in their areas. Fixing MARTA would require re-thinking it's current methodology and address how to get around the area. Now, Georgia has the GRTA which takes Marta, then adds additional bus lines. Gwinnett and Cobb both have their bus systems that interface with MARTA, but that becomes an issue with Atlanta's #1 problem.. automotive traffic. Many can get to where they want to go faster by driving, and because of that..they don't take Marta. If it wasn't for the airport connection, a lot less people would use it.
Marta and Miami are both incomplete. That's the biggest problem.
Same with Tren Urbano in San Juan
They have talked about the Clifton Corridor (the Emory line you spoke of) for at least 10 years if not more. I live in one of the neighborhoods impacted, so I know it's a mess. It was supposed to be LRT, then they quickly ignored any input from us and decided to go with BRT. This would run along the CSX ROW for a good part of the way, and maybe that is what is holding it all up, but BRT is a poor solution on a route that will see huge ridership if it ever gets done. Emory has no rail connection and no freeway connection either so traffic can get really bad. A LRT line from Bankhead through Atlantic Station to Piedmont Hospital (a very large hospital) connecting up to Buckhead would be on a wish list. West Midtown in the Howell Mill corridor is also very poorly served and is growing in leaps and bounds replacing former industrial areas with dense residential and light commercial. Beltline LRT would really help this area. With a State government that contributes no money, and a Mayor who is quickly trying to backtrack on all his transit promises, I would be surprised if anything gets built. Oh, and all the people who comment about the infill stations...that announcement was a ploy to distract from the fact that the mayor was trying to kill Beltline rail he promised to support. No one at MARTA knew anything about these stations until the mayor announced them. I doubt they ever get built in the next 20 years.
West Midtown and Emory been needed Marta train stations. And like he said in the video, Georgia Tech should have its own station too along with Piedmont Park.
Rease as someone who used to live in ATL, Marta rail will never expand until the racism and NIMBYism has died down. I lived by lindberg and buckhead stations and those stations had absolutely no affect on the crime in my area. Sure homeless would disembark from time to time, but nevertheless they had no impact whatsoever. Tell the racists and nimby's that in Gwenette county for the gold line extension and they'd say otherwise. Inner city marta could be expanded too as well as a red line north and south extension, a blue line east and west extension, and a green line north extention. Until marta get their head in the game and OUT of BRT's ass cracks, ATL is dommed to remain traffic logged like dallas and houston.
Georgia Tech is serviced by 2 Marta stations. Mid town via a free trolley and North Ave via both the North Ave bridge and tunnel. It is the only FBS football stadium with a rail connections making it a great way to get to campus
The one thing MARTA could do that would improve ridership the most is ban cash payments on buses: make Breeze cards required or get something like OMNY. The amount of time spent waiting for people to sift through their bags for pennies (yes, actual pennies) makes the bus lines slow enough that the 30 minute frequencies aren't actually the worst part, and any sane person with a car will never use them. It's a real shame too because most of the buses are actually pretty nice inside.
Crazy coincidence, I just took the train for the first time over this weekend and was writing up my thoughts too.
Frequency was ok, but everything just felt so old.
The trains in malaysia had a map/display in the train that showed you which stop you are at and which stops are next, and loud and clear announcements saying which stops are coming up.. but the marta trains didn't. I think 1 train had an announcement for each stop, but I could barely hear it. The other trains had no announcements or signs or anything. One train had a red scrolling LED board with the next stop listed... but it was off 90% of the time, and when it DID show the next stop, it showed the WRONG stop, it showed the previous stop we left a minute ago.
No doors or gates to block someone from falling onto the tracks either, not even at the central station. It all reminded me of the old rural trains in Malaysia that were outside of the city center.
One of my biggest problems with MARTA when I used it was that it needed a lot more track branches. The last time I was over at Georgia Tech, I thought it was weird there wasn't a closer station.
We can't talk about transit projects in the US without factoring in classist and racial politics, which probably play bigger roles in Atlanta than in any other US city.
If a city is already sprawling, should we encourage continued sprawl by extending transit out into it, or should we build more transit and develop more in the inner city to encourage those people in the suburbs to move back into the city?
Atlanta's density is nothing like a Northeast City or Chicago. Surprising you would compare to NYC, although you do go on to correct this when talking about land use near stations.
MARTA rail trounced BART in Q4 2004:
BART: 322.9K / 104.5 mi = 3.1 riders/mi
MARTA rail: 226.2K / 48 mi = 4.7K riders/mi
Not to mention that pre-2004, individual MARTA rail lines ran every 8 minutes vs. every 15 for BART, or that MARTA rail has far more outside-of-downtown TOD than BART.
Growing up in the south bay I didn't even know what BART was until I read about it somewhere. I always stared through the glass windows at SF, wondering what those white sci fi trains were for. I thought they were probably in some weird storage facility of former airtrain sfo rolling stock
BART is really just a gadgetbahny techbro innovative parking lot dispersion system but not as idiotic as the ATL mayers plan for belt line pods
9:40 Bankhead (Green Line) was already supposed to go to Vinings and Cobb County 50 years ago. It could continue South-East as well without expensive new infrastructure in Midtown/GA Tech.
I do get your point about how Atlanta should be focusing in the perimeter and making Marta 's performance really well. I get that as a long-term development and sales pitch so to speak.
kind of disagree with you about the regional rail. However, I do agree with you on other things. Like frequency, expanding Marta in the perimeter. I'm not sure about the people mover but I haven't really done enough research to say yes or no on that department.
They also need a stick with their goal with expanding the light rail network for the beltline.
But the biggest of all the biggest hurdle of all is funding. Marta is pretty much on its own. There is no State funding from Georgia
Despite the fact that Atlanta metro area keeps growing in the Metro particularly keeps growing, the biggest growth is in the suburban area. Specifically North suburbs, North East suburbs.
* As far as brt I do think it has to be a part of the answer as well, The idea would be for outside of the perimeter would be if we could some how acquire the rail for freight, and expand it modernize it. It would benefit the region, both for Atlanta and the Atlanta Metro region area. Brt would be of course a part of that, especially in places that don't have existing rail like Forsyth. I do get you however, given USA has not nationalized rail its big hurdle. Regional rail is more long term. Hope we keep pushing for things high speed rail.
Also, thank you for finally doing a video on Marta, I appreciate your perspective and input.
Reading the comments I perceive the biggest problem is bad ol' racism. I know the joke name for MARTA and knew it since my college days. 😡
Reece, you hit the nail on the head to fix Marta: 1. TOD around more stations, 2. Expansion, 3. Infill Stations, 4. Build Beltline Light Rail, 5. Convert the Streetcar to Light Rail & expand it to the Beltline, 6. Build Europe-style Regional Rail only after the above.
...7. Get a new transit friendly Mayor
he apparently did ZERO research into policy tho. how can you expand when there's ZERO state funding (there's actually a state law banning the funding of pub transit projects) and without the cooperation of 2/3rds the counties here.
8. Create lines which connect northeast to southwest and northwest to southeast respectively
9. Remove laws that ban governmental funding
@@Megasteel32now that I didn’t know about the laws. If that is the case, then Atlanta is screwed when it comes to any expansion. No wonder Marta is focusing on TODs. They don’t have the money to expand. Clayton County was supposed to get an expansion but something with Norfolk Southern not approving to share their tracks
@@JWill951 even worse, in like 10 or 15 years the tax that funds MARTA is going to get cut in half. and yeah, norfolk southern will share their tracks with public agencies right after hell freezes over.
If only the federal funding for the metro system stayed for Seattle’s, because I think that city could’ve managed the metro system much better than Atlanta. It could’ve made Seattle much more comparable to Vancouver.
Atlanta should build the Multi Modal Passenger Terminal at Five Points and have a regional rail system for the city and surrounding counties
Atlanta deserves a good big station to act as the hub for the Southeast’s passenger rail system, like how it was originally founded.
At least I’d then be able to go to Atlanta by train from my city for the first time since 1970.
CSG-ATL cannot be entirely served by I-185 and airport shuttles.
I am from Atlanta and 2.5 years ago I moved to a city with no passenger rail infrastructure whatsoever. I didn’t use MARTA a whole lot but I really miss it now. I’ve always had good experiences (well, except for the one time that a guy sat next to me and started ✊🏻 🍆)
But I hated the lack of frequency. So much sitting around and waiting.
My parents, unfortunately, were the type who were afraid of people afraid of the trains coming into the suburbs so they, along with their neighbors, always voted any proposals for expansion down.
I was pleasantly surprised and impressed when I saw Atlanta and Marta for the first time last year, even though it was a bit of a wait. I live in Houston with a joke of mass transit, so Atlanta should be thankful they got this built.
One fact that is important to note is that MARTA just released a master plan for its Indian Creek station doing a lot of transit oriented development in the area. While I am skeptical about whether they will be successful, it is interesting to look at.
As someone who lives on MARTA where trains pass outside my window- yes, yes, yes, and yes… We need it all. MARTA was visionary and now it’s falling far behind the city it is supposed to serve.
As a born and raised Atlantan (Grady Baby) what it bars down to is we have a generational urban/rural clash. Families I know, that were brought up in the inner cities of the core Atlanta population in the 50s and 60s (East Point, Hapeville, College Park,) moved out to the more rural areas and counties to avoid various hazards. Leaving many families similar to mine in the city limits. During the 70s, 80s, 90s and on, the city grew economically, population wise, and In influence. This developed a resentment amongst the certain communities. I hear it from both sides. Honestly I feel as if there has to be a dying off of generational and mindset in order for MARTA to get any progress. I have seen this region demographics change rapidly throughout this years. And they bring a whole other perspective and mindset. I love this region as many as others do. But, just because I live in the suburbs, doesn’t mean that I won’t support MARTA or shouldn’t support it. I think it comes down to CONTROL. Who will control MARTA? Will they control themselves, or will the state of Georgia control them?
How is a peoplemover from Arts Center to Atlantic Station better than the bus shuttle that is currently there? I don't know if I see the gains there.
Expand MARTA please! Give us a loop around 285, expand stops up 75, 400, 85, and throughout South Atlanta, and develop more infrastructure to get people from stops to their end destinations!
Sadly, the city has opted for express toll lanes on 285 instead :/
Same thing happened in Charlotte: A light rail system was announced and the residents of the white flight 'burbs fought it tooth and nail. It was finally built, and what they did manage to complete is really nice. There, as here, people would rather pour that money into 10-lane freeways and 10-story parking decks.
I gather there was a nice system proposed for Nashville but they voted it down there, too.
Excellent summary.
It's kind of a problem all over the Southeast. The culture assumes everyone is self-sufficient, and the government's job is to do the bare minimum and stay out of your business. If you want anything more than that, you have to pay for it yourself... which is not how transit works.
It's also funny that the Atlanta suburbs are turbo-NIMBY about MARTA expansion while here on the Colorado front range we're like "GIBS US ZE TRAINZ" they can't get the front range regional rail built fast enough, funding wasn't around in the 2010s to get the RTD line to Boulder built when US36 was rebuilt in 2016.
You are comparing apples to kumquats. CO does not have the crime problem that Atlanta (murder capital of the US) has. If people do not feel safe, they will not use public transit. Atlanta's "public transit problem" is really a "public safety problem". Kick out the bleeding heart liberal democrats and then talk about Marta expansion.
I can still see Atlanta benefiting from commuter rail. There are ppl who commute all the way from Tennessee into ATL every day for work. However, I do see a benefit to expand the Marta network.
As a native Atlantan, what you have said is what the Atlanta Metro needs. However, the metro is made up of several counties who are in the mindset of NIMBY’s. When they announced the belt line back in the early 2000’s it did include light rail but that was deemed too expensive once they started construction even though the belt line was already the path of several old rail lines around the city. Another that has been talked about since the late 80’s is the branch to Emory and the CDC from Lindbergh or arts center. It was briefly explored in the late 90’s to build the “Brain Train”. This would take existing lines from GA Tech to Emory and then commuter to UGA in Athens. (Don’t get me started on Athens - the home of a major State University that has no train service or passenger airport).
They don’t want poor people having access to the suburbs
@@adrianredding7789 the suburbs are full of poor people.
You left out the elephant in the room. Atlanta demographics
How to fix it? Get a time machine, go back to 1978 or so, and send all the people from Cobb and Gwinnett who voted against MARTA then to keep out "those people" to re-education camps.
Short of that, it's gonna be a tough sell.
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The problem with Atlanta transit is that downtown Atlanta isn't nearly what it was when MARTA was first built. Once I-285 opened around the city, many downtown businesses moved to be near that highway, creating a situation where the subway doesn't go where people need to be. My dream would be to have a MARTA line that follows I-285 with busses at interchange to serve nearby offices, but I know that's highly unlikely.
You are right but again suburban communities do not want transit by vote. So Poor people will become a Tesla when another area votes to eat Atlanta's pie.
Honestly the only sane idea that has been proposed. A 285 parallel train would actually serve people's needs in terms of commutes. Everybody else just wants a new train to take them to their favorite bar.
Exactly right... a LOT of businesses relocated outside of ATL downtown since MARTA began in the 70s. Look at Decatur, Roswell, Alpharetta, Marietta, Vinings, Smyrna, College Park, Norcross, etc. All those locations are now business powerhouses. Those are the locations that people have to get in their cars and drive to. I think part of the problem is Atlanta/MARTA got behind the 8 ball and could not keep up with ridership demand, causing people to drive.. and you add in homeless/security/trashy areas around MARTA stations, and layer on top the train/transfer delays and your average person in Atlanta has a bad taste in their mouth over MARTA. Sad.. but true. I think most people take MARTA because there isn't a better choice, unfortunately.
No. That’s not the problem with Atlanta 🤣
Same Rhetoric from guess who?
Others have already said about Marta not getting state funding, which has always been the issue. As others have said race issues have kept Marta from expanding to the suburbs. Which is why Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton have their own transit systems. Because of the funding and suburban NIMBYs, it's not going to expand outside of Fulton/Dekalb counties. Going further East & West won't add a lot of ridership; because the population lives in the northern suburbs. Another issue is how late the trains run. if your flight comes in after 11, chances are you're not going to be able to catch the last train from the world's busiest airport.
It's the age old, circular problem. Not enough riders to justify the expansion, but the expansion doesn't go where the riders live. Even when the Olympics were here, it didn't kickstart a Marta expansion. It's easy to make videos on theories to make whatever the topic is, better when you don't live there. I tend to watch ones about Atlanta, since I was born here and live here. The infill stations are a start. Expanding to the suburbs is basically a pipe dream. There needs to be more branches inside the city, especially in the growing neighborhoods, like between West End and Bolton. Maybe a connection from Armour Yard to Decatur. Decaut/Avondale to the airport. Those kind of connections to get the people who work in those areas or fly frequently, possibly faster options. I think if these infill stations get built and ridership; goes up, then there's a possibility to get more funding and make logical expansions.
If Atlanta stopped building 12 lane freeways they'd probably have lots of money for amazing transit as well.
And traffic would be insanely worse. I am not opposed to transit but I am very opposed to stagnating our highways. Our highway network is far too small as it for a metro our size. Compare it to Dallas and they have freeways across far more parts of the Metroplex. They also have done better job expanding their transit. And this all in the last 30 years. Atlanta’s highways and transit look almost the same over that same time, maybe some new interfaces and HOV lanes but that’s about it. Yet, our DOT is far better managed than MARTA and until that changes support for transit in Atlanta will remain lower than it could be.
@@FoCoBuzz More highways and more lanes just equals more traffic. It's called induced demand. The reason you have bad traffic is because the transit system isn't good enough.
@@jdillon8360 Right. Because if we don't build more capacity, people will just stop moving here, commuting to work, using highways, etc. A better transit system would not hurt, but they have done less to the transit system than our highways in a quarter century. We need both. Too many people think highways or transit only and ignore that a comprehensive transportation infrastructure cane make use of both. A transit system is not going to go everywhere, especially not in the coming decades as far behind as we are.
The metro area is growing and when a system is growing, a refusal to add capacity leads to massive bottlenecks in a system, highways included. I came across GA 20 this weekend which they have talked of using as a substitute for the killed Outer Loop for decades. It appears they are finally starting to widen parts of it. But if we had just built the Outer Loop/Northern Arc two decades ago, we would have capacity that could very predictably redirected some traffic from going all the way into I-285 and the mass congestion down there. Atlanta used to have a great highway system but we are woefully behind, even if they have done a good job keeping most of what we have as fairly modern.
Transit in many car centric US cities has the green text bubble problem. In Atlanta, there's a stereotype that only poor people ride transit - just like how only poor people use android phones - thus the green text bubble. Atlanta will never have high transit ridership because of this
Miami has a metro . Unless we are referring to underground/ subway so much terminology it gets confusing.
An underground/subway is just a metro that runs mostly underground, but they're still metros
You should do a collab with Nathan Davenport about this. You’re not really understanding the why of all of it. It’s insane NIMBY people and awful laws. You should do a redux about marta with some people who could explain this.
FINALLY!! A marta video!!!
Fix crime on transit.
Fix crime on transit.
Fix crime on transit.
Fix crime on transit.
Fix crime on transit.