AJC Article comparing TOD development of Marta Station's to DC Metro Station's

[RandyWatson13]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

Meh, I find both articles lacking.

In regard to the part about WMATA and DC, they bandied about the term "Washington DC had few walkable areas in 1976". Excuse me while I give the gas face....

Seriously, DC had few walkable areas? DC by design is one of Americas most walkable cities so I am not sure what they are talking about there. Perhaps they left off the rest of that statement which probably goes "DC had few walkable areas that I would feel safe walking in and/or appeal to my yuppie ideal of walkable".

Secondly, if you just look at the area in which MARTA serves it has been a smashing success despite all the FUD and unfounded fears about it's safety. It's presence revitalized many areas of the city that were downtrodden at the time such as Midtown, Decatur proper, and pretty much all the hip east side neighborhoods (my how short memories are that forget that those places once were on hard times). There also have been tangible large scale TOD around certain MARTA stations like Lindbergh and the area around Sandy Springs station. And lets not forget that MARTA connected dozens of neighborhoods and districts together all over this city.

Are there opportunities to improve? To say yes is an understatement. Is it perfect? No. But act as if MARTA is some how deficient or a failure because counties that neither paid for it or wanted didn't benefit from it's construction is extremely short sighted. I'm tired of the City of Atlanta having to take all the criticism for the failings of municipalities that purposefully did not take part in our progress.

I did think it was kinda odd they stated D.C was not walkable when it was literally a planned city from the jump.