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Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
11,334 posts, read 26,089,277 times
Reputation: 3995
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BroadStJudge
I walk to work and I use Zipcar when I need to go to a meeting or visit a client - $9/hr and that includes gas and insurance.
Make sure you research the insurance ramifications before using a Zipcar. Some insurance companies will cover things, some will not, and some will be selective.
I'm actually thinking it might be possible to get rid of my car and only have one car for me and my girlfriend.
Consider:
- We only get 1 spot with our condo, so that's an extra $50/mo or $600/yr for a second car.
- My insurance runs $750 per year (way higher than in the burbs, I might add)
- Depreciation on my car is probably in the neighborhood of $800 year
- Maintenance is probably $300/year
- Repair is probably $500 year since it's an older car
- I won't factor in gas, since we would be driving the shared car more than we drive either of our cars get right now
That yields a marginal cost of an extra $3k or so per year for us to own two cars as opposed to one, which is actually quite shocking.
Maybe this is a bit high--since we'll drive the one car more, that will be more extra cost of maintenance, depreciation, and repair for the one car. But I think driving 2 cars 10k miles is probably a lot more in expected costs than driving 1 car 20k miles for these areas.
The lack of convenience will be an annoyance. Sometimes I work until 10PM and then I'd have to take the train home that late, which would suck. Normally I plan ahead and drive if I know I'm going to have to be at the office past 8 or so.
Be careful on the insurance thing. We downsized to one car a few months ago. The result: we're paying MORE in car insurance for one car than we were paying for two cars.
Make sure you research the insurance ramifications before using a Zipcar. Some insurance companies will cover things, some will not, and some will be selective.
Zipcar has a commercial auto/fleet policy covering up to $300,000 per accident.
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
11,334 posts, read 26,089,277 times
Reputation: 3995
Quote:
Originally Posted by BroadStJudge
Zipcar has a commercial auto/fleet policy covering up to $300,000 per accident.
Sure, that covers liability. I believe their own vehicle is also covered. What about any property or vehicles owned by others that might be involved in an accident? Some coverage is only to local state minimums, and there might also be a deductable involved. I would take pics of the car before I drove it each time to cover myself regarding damages just like I would an apartment.
Hopefully this is all covered in their paperwork. I'm just advocating doing due diligence, not saying Zipcar is a bad idea. I love the idea.
I think people might be thinking to hard about this. The fares are not really all that upsetting. Suburbanites won't ride it all that much unless going to the airport for the same reasons they don't live in town. They just don't fell all that safe. No one wants to really hang on to their PC bag that tightly, for that long.....
As you will see, getting killed on MARTA is declining......2010 had only one.....although, people like to kick the shiite out of each other during 08 and 09 and then a bit less in 2010....my guess? Ridership is down and that's the ONLY reason crime is down....sooooooo, for $2.50, why bother? Afterall, I don't hear/see/can cite people getting killed in their car with the exception of crashes and those, seem to be palatable....afterall, when you consider how many people ride CARS, the number is not really that bad?
But, probably what trumps it all is that the hassle to ride to a parking lot, get out, grab your shiite, head to the train, wait.....wait some more, and then get on said train....enjoy the 8-10 stop/starts enroute to your destination, arrive, schlep up a bunch of stairs, toss out a few bucks to the pan handlers to be left alone, hoof over to your building and arrive utterly exhausted????? One question....why?
While $2.50 is not all that much, well, $2.50 is not all that much now is it? Most equate it to about 3/4 a gallon of gas.....based on 20-25mpg? I think most will "splurge" on the extra amount to take a "non-stop" to their building and skip the "exercise" of the train to get there....couple that with our new slogan "arrive alive", and cars become the 80% obvious choice for most......you get the idea.....sure.....
Until you get rid of the proud carribean feel of the stations and the overall feeling that you are being "sized up" along the way at 80% of the stations, you are never, ever, going to get that ridership up. Heck, change the droning of the Marta Rail Driver to more colorful station names. Change "next stop, Five Points....next stop Five points" to: Next stop, murder's row....next stop, violent assaults....next stop, purse snatch".....change....next stop, West End.....to next stop, Dead End....or Dead Zone....trust me, EVERYONE will get it........ahem....Afterall, if it were that great, we wouldn't be having this discussion as the ridership would be high enough to let MARTA stand on it's own....but, we don't.......do we?
If you have to subsidize it forever it's a failure.....forever....no matter how well intended all the Tina Fay wannabe's want it to be so.......believe it or not, I love the train. I love the comfort. Beats a 80% empty bus groaning it's mostly empty carcus around town, ten fold.....What I don't like is the almost extrordinary effort involved with actually getting to it, the limited amount of places it covers, the endless backtracking to buildings you want/need to go because of the lack of reach and you can see why it's just not what it could be. To wish for is ignorant no matter how well intentioned.
For those that can walk to a station, ride it to their destination, do so. It's best for all. For the other 80%-90% of the population, it serves as an alternative to the airport when needed. A fun ride for the kids when you are really bored, an exciting ride late at night.....
Bottom line? It's cheap. Bottom line? So what. It doesn't have the reach, the safety, the operational efficiency to be much more than a well intended failure. For those that can use it? Great. For the rest? It's just too damned inconvenient. Either add heavy rail lines to it to make it actually go somewhere besides apartment complexes or, live with it the way it is and raise the rates to a point that are truly more in line with the expense. Raise it to $5 for all I care...the same people will ride it as it serves them well and cost-effectively......Even at $5 I would take it to the airport because it goes right into the airport, it's greatest selling feature to date.....now THAT is convenient, weatherproof and efficient.
$5, 5 cents, wouldn't matter for most as it's too hard to get to, too little reach to be efficient with time......and that, is all there is to it.....
I think people might be thinking to hard about this. The fares are not really all that upsetting. Suburbanites won't ride it all that much unless going to the airport for the same reasons they don't live in town. They just don't fell all that safe. No one wants to really hang on to their PC bag that tightly, for that long.....
As you will see, getting killed on MARTA is declining......2010 had only one.....although, people like to kick the shiite out of each other during 08 and 09 and then a bit less in 2010....my guess? Ridership is down and that's the ONLY reason crime is down....sooooooo, for $2.50, why bother? Afterall, I don't hear/see/can cite people getting killed in their car with the exception of crashes and those, seem to be palatable....afterall, when you consider how many people ride CARS, the number is not really that bad?
But, probably what trumps it all is that the hassle to ride to a parking lot, get out, grab your shiite, head to the train, wait.....wait some more, and then get on said train....enjoy the 8-10 stop/starts enroute to your destination, arrive, schlep up a bunch of stairs, toss out a few bucks to the pan handlers to be left alone, hoof over to your building and arrive utterly exhausted????? One question....why?
While $2.50 is not all that much, well, $2.50 is not all that much now is it? Most equate it to about 3/4 a gallon of gas.....based on 20-25mpg? I think most will "splurge" on the extra amount to take a "non-stop" to their building and skip the "exercise" of the train to get there....couple that with our new slogan "arrive alive", and cars become the 80% obvious choice for most......you get the idea.....sure.....
Until you get rid of the proud carribean feel of the stations and the overall feeling that you are being "sized up" along the way at 80% of the stations, you are never, ever, going to get that ridership up. Heck, change the droning of the Marta Rail Driver to more colorful station names. Change "next stop, Five Points....next stop Five points" to: Next stop, murder's row....next stop, violent assaults....next stop, purse snatch".....change....next stop, West End.....to next stop, Dead End....or Dead Zone....trust me, EVERYONE will get it........ahem....Afterall, if it were that great, we wouldn't be having this discussion as the ridership would be high enough to let MARTA stand on it's own....but, we don't.......do we?
If you have to subsidize it forever it's a failure.....forever....no matter how well intended all the Tina Fay wannabe's want it to be so.......believe it or not, I love the train. I love the comfort. Beats a 80% empty bus groaning it's mostly empty carcus around town, ten fold.....What I don't like is the almost extrordinary effort involved with actually getting to it, the limited amount of places it covers, the endless backtracking to buildings you want/need to go because of the lack of reach and you can see why it's just not what it could be. To wish for is ignorant no matter how well intentioned.
For those that can walk to a station, ride it to their destination, do so. It's best for all. For the other 80%-90% of the population, it serves as an alternative to the airport when needed. A fun ride for the kids when you are really bored, an exciting ride late at night.....
Bottom line? It's cheap. Bottom line? So what. It doesn't have the reach, the safety, the operational efficiency to be much more than a well intended failure. For those that can use it? Great. For the rest? It's just too damned inconvenient. Either add heavy rail lines to it to make it actually go somewhere besides apartment complexes or, live with it the way it is and raise the rates to a point that are truly more in line with the expense. Raise it to $5 for all I care...the same people will ride it as it serves them well and cost-effectively......Even at $5 I would take it to the airport because it goes right into the airport, it's greatest selling feature to date.....now THAT is convenient, weatherproof and efficient.
$5, 5 cents, wouldn't matter for most as it's too hard to get to, too little reach to be efficient with time......and that, is all there is to it.....
Or to avoid intown traffic and parking fees. If you have been keeping up there is an attempt to expand with 1 cent tax and aparently the people in most of the burbs want it to expand where they live.
1. Looking at the crime stats, only about half the MARTA crimes per year occurred on trains. Quite a few of them occurred on parking lots, and a few occurred on buses. Furthermore, a lot more people die on our roadways than on trains. And don't forget that transit rail wrecks are statistically rare--Fulton County typically has about 50,000 wrecks per year, and DeKalb usually has a little over 30,000. I haven't heard of 80,000 people per year getting involved in MARTA train wrecks...
Ridership is down and that's the ONLY reason crime is down.
Not according to the link that you provided. The crime rate per 1,000 riders fell about 7% from 2009 to 2010--from 3.09% to 2.86%. Since 2007, the crime rate has fallen one half of a percentage point, or by roughly 15%.
Quote:
Until you get rid of the proud carribean feel of the stations and the overall feeling that you are being "sized up" along the way at 80% of the stations, you are never, ever, going to get that ridership up. Heck, change the droning of the Marta Rail Driver to more colorful station names. Change "next stop, Five Points....next stop Five points" to: Next stop, murder's row....next stop, violent assaults....next stop, purse snatch".....change....next stop, West End.....to next stop, Dead End....or Dead Zone....trust me, EVERYONE will get it........ahem....Afterall, if it were that great, we wouldn't be having this discussion as the ridership would be high enough to let MARTA stand on it's own....but, we don't.......do we?
In other words, you don't care the crime is in fact lower and it's more the perception of being around certain types of people that bothers you. Usually that's the sort of thing people don't proclaim so proudly, but whatever floats your boat...
Quote:
If you have to subsidize it forever it's a failure.....forever....no matter how well intended all the Tina Fay wannabe's want it to be
Basically everything the government does is subsidized, including roads and airports. Not sure why MARTA is held to a higher level of scrutiny.
Caleb is right that there is a perception of crime that deters some people from MARTA. However, the statistics don't show that the system is particularly unsafe.
Since much of the problem is perception, it seems to me MARTA could do a lot more to address that.
Honestly, though, I think the biggest issue for MARTA is accessibility. It is a hassle to drive to the station, park, schlep it through the station, wait for a train and then repeat the process at the other end.
I mentioned this in an earlier post but it so hard to get people to give up the convenience and independence of their cars. We once put one of our offices in a building directly on top of a MARTA station and offered all employees free MARTA passes. A few people used them occasionally but 98% of time folks still drove to work.
Sure, being stuck in traffic is a drag, but assuming you have a comfy car with good AC and a rocking stereo and a cell phone it's not that big a deal. For one thing, you can usually travel almost portal to portal. Parking is generally free or pretty cheap, and you can come and go on your own schedule. You can easily run errands and haul stuff around and most of the time you can avoid exposure to the elements.
It's just tough for public transit to compete with that in a city like Atlanta. There are some places where it works but frankly not that many.
Caleb is also not taking into account environment or health. Public transit is one of the best ways to limit air pollution and carbon emissions. You know all those ozone action days we have in Atlanta? That's as a direct result of all of the cars on the road. This leads to severe impacts on our health. There was a very interesting study where they looked at the impact of reduced car traffic during the olympics here in Atlanta, and showed it resulted in a significant measurable decrease in admissions to the ER for asthma and respiratory-related illnesses.
Caleb also mentioned "schlepping up a bunch of stairs." It turns out transit is a great way to get a little extra exercise. Obesity is out of control in this country, and our lazy car-culture is partly to blame.
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