MARTA and public transportation (Atlanta, Clayton: residential, land, transit)

[ANDS!]

As someone has already said you can not compare the BART system to MARTA. BART is meant to shuffle people over more discrete locations. MUNI on the other hand blows MARTA completely and utterly out of the water, both in terms of service and value to the customer. No question. No BART doesn't go to North SF (or MUNI sub/lightrail system), but the buses do, and most people know bus service in SF is hard to beat.

[JoeTarheel]

Originally Posted by ANDS!

As someone has already said you can not compare the BART system to MARTA. BART is meant to shuffle people over more discrete locations. MUNI on the other hand blows MARTA completely and utterly out of the water, both in terms of service and value to the customer. No question. No BART doesn't go to North SF (or MUNI sub/lightrail system), but the buses do, and most people know bus service in SF is hard to beat.

So why compare them then? MARTA does pretty well for Atlanta in my opinion...of course it can be improved/extended, but so can any transit system. Let's be glad for what we have, which better than 95% of the transit systems in the U.S.

[ANDS!]

Originally Posted by JoeTarheel

So why compare them then?

Other than the last page being dedicated to comparing ATL to SF. . .no reason.

[Ant131531]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Building more highways and lanes is not a solution to congestion.

In fact, it simply encourages more and more auto use. Alert me when they actually build some heavy rail.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by JoeTarheel

So why compare them then? MARTA does pretty well for Atlanta in my opinion...of course it can be improved/extended, but so can any transit system. Let's be glad for what we have, which better than 95% of the transit systems in the U.S.

This is so true. DART, Denver RTA, Portland MAX, even METROrail in Houston can't be compared to the speed and capacity of MARTA.

[bfarley30]

I was just reading through the power point for MARTA's Operating Budget.

http://www.itsmarta.com/FY14-Operations-Capital-Budget-draft-1.ppt.

They talk about restoring services but I was looking at the system map and overall I think MARTA's coverage is pretty good. IMO, MARTA should focus on increasing frequencies for buses and trains versus adding more routes. I know there are some areas that could be "infilled" with bus service or additional services added but overall I don't see too many areas.

http://www.itsmarta.com/viewer1.aspx

Do you guys agree/disagree? What would you'll suggest?

[bfarley30]

Here's an article that even states MARTA is set up well to provide service to all areas, not just downtown.

What Really Matters for Increasing Transit Ridership - Eric Jaffe - The Atlantic Cities

In a word, Broward County de-centralized its transit system. Instead of clinging to the belief that all jobs were downtown, it accepted that people need to access jobs in all kinds of places throughout a metro area. We've seen this before: Tallahassee recently reached this conclusion, as Emily Badger points out; Atlanta's transit system also demonstrates the effectiveness of a multi-destination approach, as Thompson and colleagues have found. But since this realization remains the exception and not the norm, it bears repeating.

This article goes in more detail:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/com...c-transit/979/

[tonygeorgia]

Marta stays open later and is cheaper than BART

[UrbanConquistador]

I think you have two types of marta reviewers or possibly three. For the purpose of the below, consider the inner core of Atlanta where there are two rail lines running at the same time for both north/south and east/west.

1. People that ride Marta during business hours to and from work.

2. People that only ride Marta on the weekends.

3. That special group of people that do both, regularly.

People that are in option 1 will see a world class transit agency with high frequency. I rarely wait more than a minute to catch a train going to or from work. The trains are also packed.

People in option two however, will view Marta as being a much slower and unreliable system. Trains are not running at peak hours, you have single tracking, etc.

I believe Marta's weekend service will start to reflect it's more reliable and frequent weekday service as the core starts to grow with residents. All the new apartment developments and jobs moving intown will only help this.

[westau]

Originally Posted by bfarley30

I was just reading through the power point for MARTA's Operating Budget.

http://www.itsmarta.com/FY14-Operations-Capital-Budget-draft-1.ppt.

They talk about restoring services but I was looking at the system map and overall I think MARTA's coverage is pretty good. IMO, MARTA should focus on increasing frequencies for buses and trains versus adding more routes. I know there are some areas that could be "infilled" with bus service or additional services added but overall I don't see too many areas.

http://www.itsmarta.com/viewer1.aspx

Do you guys agree/disagree? What would you'll suggest?

For metro Atlanta Marta's coverage overall is pretty terrible. For Fulton and Dekalb counties it is adequate but nothing more. There are points in both counties that are a 30 minute drive away from a Marta station. North Fulton is pretty dramatically underserved by Marta specifically relative to the amount of people living there.