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When I say BART vs MARTA, I'm being loose. I also mean the associated transits in the region as well.
How do you think these two stack up? I've only lived in the Bay Area for a week, and I've taken the bus all the way from Contra Costa county, down to where I work in Santa Clara (Silicon Valley). So with my short time here, I've got the chance to become pretty aquainted with BART. I used MARTA for years as well.
MARTA (and all associated transit authorities):
Pros:
Really good public trains. Very clean, very fast. Trains have a LED message which tells you what stop you're at. Very user and beginner friendly.
There is less confusion with heavy rail, not a lot of transfer points beyond Lindberg (going NorthEast) and 5 Points.
Fairly cheap with multiregional passes, which are good for other transits like Cobb Community Transit, and Gwinett Transit.
Big and spacious buses for the most part
Really clean Marta stations. Very unique designs. My favorite are Dunwoody Station, Sandy Springs, Five Points, and Peachtree Center (my favorite).
Cons:
Busses are rarely on schedule
Trains are rarely on schedule
Escalators at stations are mainly broke, which can be a problem because many stations go many many feet underground and have really steep stair ways.
While there is often a prompt that tells you about estimate arrival, it often doesn't work in many stations
No way of tracking progress or location of busses (based on last time I was living in ATL, back in early 2012).
Drivers have no problems speeding past you, which is odd considering that buses are so rarely on time.
Buses do not go out to some of the more distant suburbs, or have very limited service to them. Discover Mills and the Western Suburbs have almost no Marta service.
Some of the associated transit authorities have really bad bus schedules.
Breeze "syncing issues" happen when you load it online. It won't register until you tap it at a station, which is kind of dumb.
No real plans on expanding lines, but metro Atlanta is expanding.
Dropped transit system to Clayton county, which comprised a lot of people who relied on Marta.
State owned transit system. Any type of expansion efforts are voted down, since the whole state has to vote for it. Since other cities in the State won't use Marta, they are the majority, and are generally against expanding the line.
BART:
Pros
Pretty advanced, buses are generally always on time, as well as the trains.
Many associated transits in different counties have ways of tracking buses and trains online, and have real time arrivals which are very accurate.
Trains are pretty fast
For the most part, the trains and buses are everywhere in the Bay except maybe North Bay (but this area is less populated in general)
A lot of light once you are in certain countries, making it even easier to get around.
Some transits have wifi onboard (like VTA's light rail).
Rail seems to be constantly expanding
Prompts tell you when next train will arrive, and will even inform you of delay
Cons:
Dirty and dusty looking trains (I was actually quite shocked).
No prompt to tell you what station you're at. If you're new like me) you have to constantly look at map and out of the window to see where you're located.
Ragedy PA system on trains, you can rarely hear the conductor.
Noisy trains, rattles and shake like no one's business
No real way to transfer between different county transits.
As far as I can tell there is no multi regional passes, making riding Bart expensive.
Bay Area transit can be expensive. While I did go a long long way, it cost me $12 each way, and again transfers are hard to come by on BART.
No display in front of train of the destination. While the prompt tells you, it's not very intuitive.
Definitely not user friendly. I was able to figure out BART, mainly due to 2 weeks of planning, and I have a lot of experiene using transit in various cities.
Weird people (which you'll find riding public transit) but police are almost nowhere to be found.
LOL. SF to be such a world class city has one of the worst transportation systems of the top 20 cities in the world. Even cities like Philly and Boston are better.
And it's not even a debate? Maybe not the metro area coverage, but MARTA definiately has better trains and more extensive service within the city. BART has what? 7 stops in the city? MARTA has nearly 20 stops in the city alone. In the same central 49 square miles, Atlanta still has double the stops SF has.
LOL. SF to be such a world class city has one of the worst transportation systems of the top 20 cities in the world. Even cities like Philly and Boston are better.
lol. You act as if those cities don't have a great mass transit.
Quote:
And it's not even a debate? Maybe not the metro area coverage, but MARTA definiately has better trains and more extensive service within the city. BART has what? 7 stops in the city? MARTA has nearly 20 stops in the city alone. In the same central 49 square miles, Atlanta still has double the stops SF has.
We're not comparing NYC subway to MARTA LOL.
You can't use that as an excuse. There is no denying that BART has a more extensive rail system and has a much higher ridership than MARTA. Overall BART is just simply better imo.
I don't consider Philly and Boston great mass transit rail systems, especially to the cities in Asia(Tokyo and Seoul for example), NYC, Chicago, Paris, London, etc.
LOL. SF to be such a world class city has one of the worst transportation systems of the top 20 cities in the world. Even cities like Philly and Boston are better.
One of the worst from the top 20 isn't really an insult. That's like saying someone is one of the dumbest geniuses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ant131531
And it's not even a debate? Maybe not the metro area coverage, but MARTA definiately has better trains and more extensive service within the city. BART has what? 7 stops in the city? MARTA has nearly 20 stops in the city alone. In the same central 49 square miles, Atlanta still has double the stops SF has.
MARTA may be more extensive in city borders than BART, but then you also have MUNI and Caltrain and cable cars (depending where you catch them and at what time of day they can still be useful to more than your casual tourist). I would rather not own a car in SF than in Atl.
Regardless of is there is a poll or not. BART is better than MARTA...But that isnt saying much.
Not sure what your post meant.
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