Getting There from Here

I hadn't heard of the MARTA Army until September, when they sat their recruiting station up across Boulevard from where I was working at Atlanta Streets Alive, back in September.  I was working at the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition table in front of Blueprint Church and between the Love to Ride group, that was loaning out bikes, and the new Atlanta bike share project, that had examples of some of the bikes that might be available in Atlanta next year.

Across the street were a couple of guys with a table and a tent and a sign that said MARTA Army.  I was working by myself at the ABC tent for quite a while so it wasn't until mid-afternoon that I was able to walk over and talk to them.  The two guys at the table told me that the MARTA Army was working to improve the rider experience on MARTA and their first project is an adopt-a-bus-stop project.  I didn't know that I wanted necessarily to adopt a bus stop, but I did sign up for their mailing list.

Later, I checked out their website ("Hey there, Metro Atlanta LET'S BUILD A WORLD CLASS TRANSIT SYSTEM")  Here's their vision:

The Atlanta region has been diagnosed with a bad case of urban sprawl and traffic congestion by urban planners and transportation experts. Out city needs better public transportation to become more accessible, equitable, and competitive. The Atlanta region's fragmented governmental institutions still lack the support to build the transit system we need. The initiative for world class transit system must come from citizens. Together, we can show that the Atlanta Region is ready for a world class transit system.

This sounded pretty good to me, so I made a small contribution and showed up for bootcamp at Across the Street in the Old Fourth Ward in mid-October.  I think I was the oldest person there (Georgia Tech graduate students seemed to be the major demographic group), but I signed up to get a schedule for the bus stop nearest me.  I didn't stick around long enough to pick it up -- printing and laminating the signs was taking a long time -- but an Emory graduate student offered to drop it by my house later, and I took her up on that offer.

The bus stop closest to my house, at Wessyngton and North Highland, is a stop at which I'd never actually caught a bus, although I did get off there at least once during that week that I was a MARTA commuter, earlier this fall.  But Hannah dropped the sign off at the house, and later Tom and I put it up.  I didn't do it quite right -- the plastic ties were just a bit too tight -- but now the schedule is posted, and riders who don't have a phone or who don't want to use up their data (an issue I heard at bootcamp) can at least know when the bus is supposed to come.  More importantly, maybe, non-riders will take a look and think, you know, maybe I could take the bus.

When Atlanta Streets Alive came to Peachtree Street in late October, I had expected to be out of town, so I didn't volunteer to work.  Then the trip got cancelled and I thought maybe Tom would join me, so I still didn't volunteer.  But he didn't want to or couldn't (I don't remember the details) and ABC really needed help that day so I ended up saying I'd work and ended up assigned to a tent near the Midtown MARTA station.  I didn't have any idea where I could park -- and I am not brave enough to ride my bike there, even on a Sunday -- so I checked the schedules and One Bus Away and got there and back on the bus, from my very own bus stop.

I'm still a big supporter of bike infrastructure in Atlanta, and think it is part of the picture for what Atlanta needs, but what our city needs more than anything is a real transit system, so there is a real alternative to driving for most of us much of the time.  Younger people are driving less; maybe when they are older they'll move to the suburbs but somehow I don't think so.  Atlanta needs transit, and it needs citizens who will advocate for it and who will use it, now, to get to the places they can get to on it.

Last night we went to the symphony. The surface parking lot where we used to park is closed now so we had to park in the deck on 15th Street.  There's a MARTA station, right there, but no easy way to get there from here.  We paid $10 to park.  That's MARTA fares for two people, round trip.

So when you see a schedule on a bus stopm like this one at Highland and Amsterdam, check it out.  Maybe you can get somewhere you need to go, at least sometimes.  Maybe you too will join the army.  And there are a couple of bus stops on the other side of Highland that still need schedules.