My Atlanta Snowpocalypse commute on mass transit
We’ve all seen the pictures over the past week – Atlanta’s roads being compared to a Walking Dead scene. We’ve all heard the stories – people sitting in their car for spans up to 20+ hours. I even read an article from the “MARTA mayor” Sam Massell yesterday, in which he himself sat in his car for over an hour in Buckhead trying to get downtown. Yes, January 28th in Atlanta will go down in history as the “worst traffic jam in American history” and we deserve all the negative attention we are getting. Not because we should have planned better and gotten more snow plows. Not because the roads should have been pre-salted. Not because the mayor/governor/any official should have told people to stay home or issue a state-of-emergency warning. And not because Atlantans don’t know how to drive in icy conditions. But because the people of Atlanta have brought this transportation disaster upon themselves.
At around 1:30 on that Tuesday afternoon, I left the Turner campus on foot and headed toward the midtown MARTA station. I was the only one walking on the sidewalk along 10th street but surprised to see tons of people waiting on the platform once I got downstairs in the station. There were so many people waiting I had to walk to the end of the platform to try and get on the last car. The train ran late – but comparatively I was making excellent time. Once it came, I almost didn’t make it on. There were an unhealthy amount of people door to door standing on the train. I pushed my way in all the while not making eye contact.
I heard a big guy grumbling as if to say – “I take this train every day and now I gotta deal with you freeloaders”. Excuse me sir, but I am not a freeloader. I take MARTA every day to work and mostly on the weekends if there is construction on the highways downtown. As we pummel along at speeds of 60 mph – I take way too much pleasure passing the bumper to bumper traffic below. I ask myself how people don’t see our train moving and take the hint. You know – try it one day?
Right now- I park on the 3rd level of the garage everyday at Doraville. The outside lots are always full by the time I arrive around 7:30 am. Would all that new profit coming in help to expand the system and make it faster? We all know MARTA doesn’t receive money from our state and yet we blame the agency for everything. I think MARTA is doing a damn good job with not a lotta financial help and especially with the citizens “voting” against it all the time.
“MARTA’s rail service was moving [Tuesday]. Not as fast and not on the same schedule as normal, but it was moving. It was a beacon of light. If you could get to the rail station, you could get from one end of Atlanta to the other. That was very beneficial to a lot of people.” Massell told Atlanta magazine in an interview.
The people that got home that day within 45 minutes – took MARTA. I couldn’t take decent pictures out the window because I was shoved in a corner being squished by a woman with her surprisingly calm baby. Actually, the longest part of my trip was getting home from the station in a car after my boyfriend picked me up.
Haven’t we had enough? When will Atlanta learn? When will people understand that supporting our rail system means a better life for everyone in the city? Just because you selfishly drive every day and don’t know the first thing about MARTA doesn’t mean you have to vote against our mass transit system. If we don’t figure something out soon we will hit a wall. A giant and fairly new infrastructure that will be all for nothing because of a city full of ignorant and self-involved mentality.
