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Good, so let the rest of the world revolve around our agenda of giant greenhouse emissions and the wars we incite from our petroleum addiction. Totally reasonable. Let all the little island nations be washed away because they barely even count as people.
Both DC and the Bay Area have suburban populations that want rail. Atlanta does not. Therefore, there is greater buy in from area residents of the other two metros. BART had a choice to run some lines 24 hours or expand further into the suburbs, and it was put to vote. Suburban voters wanted more service, not 24 hour service.
And that's really the short of it. They tried to expand transit in Metro Atlanta, but voters said No, No, No (R.I.P., Amy). And I can't blame them. What do I care about light rail if I live in Vinings and work in Marietta?
Nobody rides the bus in Atlanta, except for poor people and criminals...As a former resident of Atlanta in the young professional class, MARTA was useless. It's a disgusting ghetto system that doesn't serve enough yuppies. Bottom line.
I think the only codeword you failed to use was "welfare queen."
Atlanta is much better off without people who view transit with such a racist perspective. One less person is but a drop in the bucket admittedly, but we'll take what we can get.
Only to someone in Atlanta would ghetto exclusively imply "black". Don't even get me started...for the rest of us elsewhere, ghetto simply means ghetto, and I love the new term "welfare queen"...I will start using that from now on to describe those who take advantage of the the welfare system! We certainly have our fair share here in the Bay, and no, they aren't all black though many if not most are very obnoxious! Especially if you're in the affordable housing sector...
PS, I ride the bus to work here in SF like most other people do (and I don't have a car). I wouldn't dream of relying on a bus in Atlanta, though I have ridden it out of sheer curiosity. Bus in Atlanta is a zoo. Bus in SF or NYC = commonly accepted means of transportation by many people, even more desirable actually than the subway in some respects. Different cities, different buildouts, different populations, different mentalities.
I think the only codeword you failed to use was "welfare queen."
Atlanta is much better off without people who view transit with such a racist perspective. One less person is but a drop in the bucket admittedly, but we'll take what we can get.
I was about to say something like this. We know the real reason MARTA struggles to go anywhere.
I was about to say something like this. We know the real reason MARTA struggles to go anywhere.
I rode MARTA to work when I worked in Buckhead. I also had a car at the time. I rode it for political reasons (green, pro-transit, etc). I think Atlanta as a whole has severe racial tension ON BOTH SIDES. I wouldn't place the blame on ineffective transit in Atlanta entirely on "white people" (how would you even know what color I am?...I could be a black, Asian, Hispanic, Islander, or mixed self-proclaimed yuppie)
The fact remains that Atlanta is low density, is segregated by socio-economic (and coincidentally or not coincidentally by color) moreso than most other cities, and MARTA only serves conveniently one socio-economic class. So yes, it is very understandable that the "evil white yuppies" in Atlanta who hold MARTA back would view it as inconvenient, unsafe, and/or dirty.
Like I said earlier, it doesn't even serve Virginia-Highland, which has the largest bar district in the city and is filled with yuppies who are generally left-leaning and pro-transit (relative to geography). Instead, on the exact opposite side of the city (i.e. the downtown/midtown spine) it serves Bankhead, which is commonly rapped about and is one of the most dangerous working class parts of the city. Having a bunch of riders from there and not from VH means that the ridership demographic is skewed too much one way and it's no wonder someone in VH who owns a new Mazda 6 would prefer to drive that than even think about MARTA (which doesn't even serve them).
MARTA needs more balance of serving different socio-economic neighborhoods. Not just downtowns, an airport, and poor residential areas that happen to mostly be black (could be any color out here in the Bay Area since we aren't so hung up on just black and white).
Contrast, DC's metro serves poor areas, business districts, and middle class/upper class areas, as well. So everyone rides and not one group dominates another. You're not going to get professionals to ride a system if they feel like they're the only professional riding the system.
Plus using and having a car in Atlanta is still too cheap, easy and convenient. It's MUCH faster for me to take my car from 14th St in Midtown to 10th St in Midtown to grocery shop than to walk or wait for MARTA. It was MUCH MUCH MUCH faster for me to drive into Buckhead when I worked there than to take MARTA, yet I still took the train.
So rather than get hung up on why racist white people (what about all the rich blacks in Buckhead/Sandy Springs - are they racist for not using MARTA as well?) aren't using, how about identifying the actual problems. And yes, the bus system in Atlanta is *************** PATHETIC. Nobody can deny that.
Like I said earlier, it doesn't even serve Virginia-Highland, which has the largest bar district in the city and is filled with yuppies who are generally left-leaning and pro-transit (relative to geography). Instead, on the exact opposite side of the city (i.e. the downtown/midtown spine) it serves Bankhead, which is commonly rapped about and is one of the most dangerous working class parts of the city. Having a bunch of riders from there and not from VH means that the ridership demographic is skewed too much one way and it's no wonder someone in VH who owns a new Mazda 6 would prefer to drive that than even think about MARTA (which doesn't even serve them).
I don't think this has much to do with why the demographics of MARTA's ridership look the way they do. 45% of the stations are located in majority white neighborhoods. 35% of MARTA rail riders are non-Hispanic White, which is pretty close to their share of the city's population (38.4%).
A big issue is that jobs in the Atlanta region are scattered all over the place. There aren't too many people who can take a one seat transit ride to a job. In order to make most commutes by transit, most people would have to take a series of buses. And the only people who are doing that are poor people with no other options. Another issue is that practically everywhere in Atlanta offers free or minimal cost off-street parking.
In DC, you have a lot more employment concentrated in the inner core, and the only off-street parking that's available is very expensive. Under those conditions, only the most transit averse people will opt to pay for monthly garage parking. For a lot of people, driving into the inner core is simply too cost prohibitive. Thus, you get a more balanced ridership.
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