San Diegans feelings on MTS (San Diego, National City: transfer, neighborhoods, college)

[society619]

I'm orginally from San Diego currently in Atlanta for college. During my time here I have been pretty surprised by the feelings towards public transportation or lack there of in Georgia. Alot of people look down on the current system in Atlanta with the mindset that MARTA(Atlanta's Public Transportation System) would deliver criminals to their neighborhoods and devalues the neighrborhoods. I think is a ridiculous view to have for a major city with limit accessibility and major traffic issues to have. I've been to major cities like NYC and Chicago where public transportation works fine for the people and doesn't cause major problems. Now I haven't used MTS since 2005 but the last time I was there I found it to be a very useful and friendly system. I am aware of recent cuts but I wanted to get San Diegan's view of MTS and if they believe it is a useful system for them?

San Diego
San Diego Metropolitan Transit System

Atlanta
MARTA - Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority

[BacktoBlue]

I think the trolley system is great!

The bus system sucks.

The trolleys are comfortable, the people are pretty cool for the most part. They are almost always on time. They are adding another line to the Trolley system to go from Old Town to UCSD.

The bus system on the other hand STINKS. They are slow. It takes an hour for the bus to go from Old Town to UTC, when in a car it would only take 10 minutes at the most. The bus sytem is a joke.

[shmoov_groovzsd]

Since you are in Atlanta already, you can probably already see what a mess that place is turning into from an infrastructure standpoint. Their freeways are horrific and they never marketed a mass transit system as a convenience rather than just the alternative if you have no car.

Here in SD, we are fortunate to have enough accessibility throughout town with our light rail system. The trolley reaches all different landscapes and demographics. From a distance standpoint, its a great deal. FOr example, for $5 for a day pass you can go from Downtown to Santee to the border.

The bus system on the other hand I cant speak for. I know it goes to a lot of places but travel time seems to take a while with connections etc.

On weekends I use the trolley almost exclusively for traveling around town....especially during the busy holiday season at shopping centers where parking can be troublesome.

[BacktoBlue]

Originally Posted by shmoov_groovzsd

Here in SD, we are fortunate to have enough accessibility throughout town with our light rail system. The trolley reaches all different landscapes and demographics. From a distance standpoint, its a great deal. FOr example, for $5 for a day pass you can go from Downtown to Santee to the border.

The bus system on the other hand I cant speak for. I know it goes to a lot of places but travel time seems to take a while with connections etc.

On weekends I use the trolley almost exclusively for traveling around town....especially during the busy holiday season at shopping centers where parking can be troublesome.

I completely agree with this 100%

[T. Damon]

Typical of most cities I think the bus system in the urban core here is generally fine and, mostly limiting, slow and ineffectual once you get out of that core. Some express busses try to make up for the otherwise slow and haphazard service in the suburbs. But thats just the nature of public transportation, unless it is served by a fairly dense population it is not going to have the level of frequency and investment that most folks want.

For me, I can walk to a bus stop in less than three minutes from my house, and clean and new busses on my line (the #2) are going up and down every 10 minutes during peak hours, taking me either downtown or uptown in 15 minutes or so. Love it when I'm going to a ball game or doing a pub/ restaurant crawl with the neighbors, drink to my heart's content and no parking issues. Even though we have two cars I take the bus at least once a week somewhere, its plenty convenient for us- Trolly a little less so but we took it to an Aztec game the other night and that just made the night even more fun. Go Aztecs- 11-0!

I think I'm a rare bird though- hardly any of my friends would even consider taking the bus or Trolly, especially if they have a car. Very déclassé for most Southern Californians.

[society619]

Originally Posted by Footballfreak

I think the trolley system is great!

The bus system sucks.

The trolleys are comfortable, the people are pretty cool for the most part. They are almost always on time. They are adding another line to the Trolley system to go from Old Town to UCSD.

The bus system on the other hand STINKS. They are slow. It takes an hour for the bus to go from Old Town to UTC, when in a car it would only take 10 minutes at the most. The bus sytem is a joke.

I understand some people's gripe about the bus system for MTS but here in Atlanta the bus system is even worse. The Buses along with the Trains only operates in two counties which a city the size of Atlanta is very underwhelming. Imagine MTS only running from National City to Otay Mesa in terms of size.

[BacktoBlue]

Originally Posted by society619

I understand some people's gripe about the bus system for MTS but here in Atlanta the bus system is even worse. The Buses along with the Trains only operates in two counties which a city the size of Atlanta is very underwhelming. Imagine MTS only running from National City to Otay Mesa in terms of size.

That is a small area served indeed. I have never been to Atlanta so I can not really comment about their transportation. you do however bring up a good point. Often times people like to say that Southern California has awful public transportation because it's car centric, but they fail to think about cities like Charleston and Atlanta who have even worse systems then we do.

MTS tries hard to cover every inch of the county, but there isn't much that can be done when the budget is cut.

As far as what T Damon says, I like driving way more than taking public transportation. I know how to avoid traffic and I can go on my time, not someone elses. Plus with a car I don't have to sit next to stinky weirdos.

[Traal]

Originally Posted by Footballfreak

It takes an hour for the bus to go from Old Town to UTC, when in a car it would only take 10 minutes at the most.

To UCSD, it's only 20 minutes via bus route 150. But this route doesn't run on the weekends.

[Gentoo]

Having used 4 different public transportation systems, IMO MTS is the worse. There are large parts of the city that are barely covered and some not really at all. Anyone who lives in the area of Mission Goerge Rd and Jackson Dr. knows what I'm talking about. The nearest bus stop is a mile up the hill on Navajo. The trolley does not serve areas north of Mission Valley. Those areas are served by widely scattered bus lines only. It's often a good walk to get to the nearest bus stop. I also dislike the fact that they got rid of transfers. If you don't have a monthly pass, then you must get a 5 dollar day pass.

I think it will slowly get better as they increase the trolley lines and trolley service area.

[RunMichelle]

Living abroad in Warsaw, I absolutely love their PT... whether it be tram, metro or bus you can get anywhere and pretty quick, even with a foot of snow on the ground. The buses here "own" the road and the drivers respect them in the sense that they get out of their way and let them cut traffic etc, which often has to be done to make turns etc.

I am looking into the express from Poway to DT and when I figure in $100 a month for roundtrip transportation, I don't care WHO I am sitting next too. My vehicle would cost a lot more to fill and then there is the time. I can surf the net, make my grocery lists, or hell sit there and zone out.

I use to stick my nose up to PT. I grew up using it as a teenager and since then have always associated it with poor, carless people. But the fact is, it's practical and cheaper, and environmentally green (for the most part).

It is San Diego, and people are going to look down on me for it. I'm perfectly okay with that. If I wandered around worrying what everyone thought of what I did, I'd be miserable and reclusive. People are going to judge regardless.