I ride MARTA almost daily. Frequency is a big issue. If a train is cancelled then you gotta wait another 20 minutes (what happened to me yesterday). Many of the connecting bus lines run every 40 minutes. I've had 2 cancelled on me back to back so I waited almost 2 hours. I would like to see the gold and red lines expanded too. People aren't gonna be likely to take MARTA after spending 20 minutes on the highway just getting to the station.
MARTA's biggest problem post-pandemic is STAFFING. The bad frequencies are because they don't have enough operators to run trains. There used to be 8 minute peak, 15 off-peak and Sundays schedule when I was a rider during my college years in the late 90s and right when Sandy Springs station opened. It's gotten worse over time.
I only ride MARTA when it’s a train-only commute. It is completely unviable for bus commutes because of the frequency and reliability issues you mentioned. 40 minutes, none late at night, frequent cancellations, and rarely on time is unacceptable if you want to get somewhere on time.
I like that at least the north springs station is accessible from 400, critically outside 285, but Doraville is pitifully inaccessible. I used to drive all the way to chamblee or oglethorpe because of how hard it is to get from 85 to Doraville. We desperately need a Norcross station that is accessible to the highway like north springs, or better yet extend the train all the way to gwinnett mall.
Mind you, a 'fairly large train station' moves a LOT of people, usually on a lot of trips they take super regularly. Airports mostly (baring improper use of the mode) handle very long trips that (most) people take far less often, so even if they were doing the absolute best they could do at the job they should actually be doing, the largest airport moving a number of people equivalent to a large-but-not-largest train station is what you'd Expect. Actually, if your busy airport is moving more people than your busy rail stations it's probably a sign that your rail network isn't doing as well as it should be...
bro cant be talking, as the Atlanta Charlotte HSR got funding a few months ago when they found it feasible (watch the Alan Fisher) meanwhile Canadian politicans can't even bring themselves to say HSR so they say hIgH fReQuEnCy rAiL
@@RMTransit …and most of it is transfer traffic. That’s why convincing Delta to get behind HSR in Atlanta is key. Heathrow is the king of O&D. And Singapore is just the coolest airport in the world.
We're getting new trains, re-doing the central station, and talking about new infill stations. That last hurdle of building a new line on the system which we haven't expanded in 24 years is our next major hurdle.
Actually, I think the next major hurdle is actually building the infill stations and beltline rail. We can talk about it all we want but we need it built out already. I also have mixed feelings about the Five Points renovation - it seems like a lot of money to put down for a glass roof and I worry about having no walk-up access to the station for an extended amount of time. As a frequent concert-goer it'll make getting to The Masquerade very inconvenient.
@RMtransit not to be pessimistic, but the infill stations don't currently have a funding source and some locals see the stations as a tool to justify the cancellation of beltline rail.
@@Afitts00 Closing the Five Points station for people who embark/disembark there until 2028 (with the temp opening during the WC) is a terrible misdirection of resources, and going to disrupt a lot of commuters for a largely cosmetic update. It's definitely a dated station, but functionality is good (though improving elevator access may be a better use of the funds than replacing the tile with more tile and a glass roof).
5:00 “It should also think about refurbishing it’s older stations” MARTA is refurbishing Five Points station, the interchange of every line. However, they are closing off street access and buses (meaning transfers only) there for FOUR YEARS as it gets mostly cosmetic renovations. They are only opening for a couple weeks during the World Cup in 2026 and then shutting it back down. This comes after refurbishing the airport station, again mostly cosmetic, shut it down for six weeks rather than just having them single track and taking longer to work on it (and it shouldn’t even take that long in the first place!). How can you have TOD if you can’t even be certain that your station will be open once it’s there?
You can't bake an omelette without breaking some eggs, but that seems excessive. 4 years? And for just cosmetic renovations? Yeah, that shouldn't be allowed.
You'll be pleasantly surprised that MARTA infact has announced plans earlier this year for a large scale TOD development at Indian Creek station and before that Kensington. Let's keep it rolling Marta with the TOD
I use Indian Creek- it’s under construction right now along with major station renovations to the bus bays and platform. East Lake and Candler Park also are getting TOD in their parking lots too
@@starrwulfe Hey a fellow Indian Creek user! I do like the TOD plans it's got and I'm glad they're doing the station updates that will include a walking connection to those apartments north of the station. I just wish the station planning teams would listen to the suggestions I keep leaving to include platform screen doors. Seems like a few times a year someone gets onto the tracks at one station or another on the lines and causes major delays and the doors would prevent almost all of that.
I’m glad they’re finally starting to do that. Since the counties don’t want expansion, build TODs around the current stations so people can take the trains to their destinations. Dunwoody and Sandy Springs stations are perfect examples. You have the Perimeter Mall, office complexes, restaurants, bars, shopping, and residential and those areas are popular.
The fact that MARTA already has heavy rail directly into the airport landside terminal puts it way ahead of most US metro systems. An increase in service frequency would be nice.
Grew up in the Atlanta area. There have been rather ambitious plans to expand MARTA for quite some time now, but pretty much none of them have ever come to fruition, for a variety of reasons. It's pretty depressing.
The only reason MARTA has not experienced expansion is it's the only major transit that gets no state funding. The city, county and DeKalb Co are the only investors in MARTA. Suburban counties do not want transit. So you have the Emerald City in a sea of backwards.....
Imagine if we combined DC's transit oriented development with Toronto's bus system on every post-war metro system. We'd really be cooking it up in some of these cities.
Not going to happen because our politicians and their friend/family patronage recipients are more interested in bulldozing a forest to build a police fortress for the donor class than listening to constituents.
I love how you mentioned the Indian Creek station being a giant parking lot because it’s been announced that it’s going to have the largest TOD project the city’s seen yet. It’s quite ambitious.
Woohoo! My city is getting coverage! And I agree with these critiques but I do want to note a few things that ought to be noted. First, I think it's important to say we're already planning and building more TODs at a lot of stations, mostly along the Blue Line. Indian Creek that you highlighted has been having public meetings for about half a year helping to develop plans to transform that parking lot into a TOD with 1,600 housing units! Other stations like East Lake, Hamilton Holmes, Edgewood/Candler Park, Avondale, and some southern stations like Oakland City are in various stages of building/planning TODs. That part is an easy win in MARTA's control that they're acting on. Second, MARTA is hurt by many of the common problems of transit planning (NIMBYs, bad project management, and a dispersed population/job centers), but also by some more uniquely MARTA factors. For instance, those MARTA extensions you drew, which would be good, cross into counties that are not part of MARTA and that have so far resisted all efforts to join MARTA. But another issue is that MARTA is one of the very few transit agencies in the US (and definitely the largest one) that gets ZERO state level funding. All funding for MARTA is dependent on the agency, the cities/counties that are part of MARTA (just Fulton, DeKalb, and Clayton which make up together a bit over a 1/3rd of the Atlanta metro population), and whatever federal grants the system can get. This really limits funding for expansions or upgrades. Third, some discussion of the current plans beyond Beltline Rail (currently in the middle of a political fight as a small number of NIMBYs in Old Fourth Ward are trying to kill it) would help illustrate the potential and problems the current system faces. For instance, there's a connection in planning phases to go from Lindbergh Station (where the Red and Gold lines meet/diverge) through Emory to Avondale Station on the Blue Line. After initially talking about light rail, planning seems to have settled on BRT but as of the last meeting I went to for this, the problem is currently there's only funding support from Fulton/City of Atlanta not DeKalb county meaning the project is only funded to make it half way only going to Emory. This sucks and is a huge problem with non-centralized funding sources that MARTA has. Fourth, we're doing some station refreshes but with some notable failures. First, no refresh that's been announced or started has included much in the way of operational improvements, mostly being aesthetics with what operational improvements that are included being the exception not the rule. Most frustratingly none include platform screen doors (and I've been trying to get that in these guys heads in every survey and meeting about stations I go to). And some are downright nuts! Five Points Station which is downtown next to GSU, a number of offices (that are still used despite Atlanta's shockingly high office vacancy rate post-COVID), and the quite nice Fairlife-Poplar restaurant area, is having pedestrian access shut down for FOUR YEARS! All to change the old roof from a brutalist-style to a glass canopy. They're not building housing or offices on top. They're not adding platform screen doors despite every six months someone getting on the tracks and causing big delays (a bit morbidly a few years back that included the MARTA CEO of the time committing suicide jumping in front of an approaching train). They're just shutting down everything but train transfers in the central station of the system for YEARS with a brief re-opening during the World Cup. It's a slap in the face to transit users and people who go to or live in downtown. And don't even get me started on how delayed and neglected very necessary bus expansion and updates have been! I love Atlanta and I'm proud to say that MARTA rail is the most used rail system in the US south of DC, but it can be SO much better!
Man, you said everything that needed to be said. It’s sad b/c I see the potential but we just have so many roadblocks with Marta, peoples mindsets about Marta down here, and no state funding, there’s not much hope with them. At least we’re getting new trains though. And I agree, Five Points should’ve been another TOD station but I guess they’re depending on Underground Atlanta to take up for that slack since he hasn’t done much to that place either which also has a lot of potential but don’t me started on that.
@@stevegavigan8124 I have heard of it though it's been a few years. If you made me dictator of Georgia that kind of system would be priority number 1 for Atlanta. But, not being dictator of Georgia, it's too ambitious for practical passage even if by some miracle we got politicians in the state house who didn't hate Atlanta. So to be honest, the first thing we should do is pour money in MARTA's buses rather than the more dubious station rehabs. Service is a lot lower than pre-pandemic still and we've lost several cross-town routes that don't just bring you to the nearest train station. But on top of that, way finding on the buses needs to be much better. In that it needs to exist at all. Buses need internal screens letting people know the 1) bus route number, 2) direction, and 3) upcoming stops. Get the bus fundamentals right and we'd see a lot more train use recovery too.
Atlanta has bold and a comprehensive transit plan that similarly matches what you said with an LRT by Emory and a beltline rail loop that already has its right of way preserved along with more lrt radiating from downtown and midtown to the beltline and all for the reasonable cost of 3 billion. The problem is the lack of political and financial support which has already demoted projects to BRT and with powerful local NIMBYs pushing to get the rail project cancelled all together. If you're curious read about Atlanta's Streetcar master plan and study from the mid 2010s
The beltline rail going to Old Fourth Ward is even already funded, already has the land and right of way, already has the streetcars themselves, and is breaking ground in 2025 and is still on track to open in 2028. The small NIMBY backlash has just sprung up at the last minute and their goal is to drain the already secured funding by asking for additional studies and trying to suggest alternative systems that aren’t studied.
It's so frustrating to see when I know that the streetcar east extension is a good project that should have been done by now if we didn't keep doing studies that give the same answers. Our mayor even mentioned how the old studies for a few years ago were outdated and didn't include autonomous pods so we need another study. If you don't build, it gets more expensive, and when it gets more expensive, it gets more backlash. A vicious cycle we find ourselves in
Atlanta's mayor wants to build "nice and slow people movers" on the belt line, strongly suspect he was bribed by a gadgetbahn manufacturer. Because when hasn't an Atlanta mayor not been on the take haha
@@thepeppypepper Honestly, baring something being catostrophically and Obviously wrong with the project (the sort of thing where a study isn't actually needed to see the problem. Solving it (if it exists) is, of course, another matter), that should be well past the point where such complaints should even be listened to, let alone considered.
@@triplethreatpodcasts anyone seriously suggesting 'pods' in public transport should be Immediately suspended and under investigation with strong likelyhood of removal from their position... because they're either corrupt or incompitent.
This is the biggest opposition to MARTA expansion along with severe underfunding from the state. NIMBYs in Gwinnett and especially Cobb love to stop rail expansion because "oh no poor people in my suburban bubble" but then complain when they can't take MARTA to a Braves game anymore and moan about overcrowding and underserviced lines when they want to get to a concert or game downtown.
@@ItsJayCross319 THIS. And by "poor people", remember the backronym for MARTA from back in the day at least: "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta". It's not just classism going on.
I am British.Prior to watching this video, I knew that Atlanta had the world's busiest airport, but did not even know that it had a metro! (I did of course know about the modern DC and BART systems.) The video is extremely clear (and concise). Even before the map appeared, I was expecting to see something like the map you first showed at 7m 40s. To me, the obvious solution is to build more branches added on to the two existing cross-city lines. That would then lead to much better frequencies through the core sections. Put slightly differently, the Atlanta Metro does indeed need to become more like an S-Bahn.
Native Atlantan here. I think your idea of the I285 BRT is a really good idea. Would have to be a protected right of way to some degree, and even then there'd still be issues, as I don't see a world where ATL drivers respect bus lanes at all. People will use those lanes to get ahead at whatever cost. It's an absolute free for all and people don't respect the rules of the road since COVID.
There won’t be a significant expansion of the existing rail network for decades. If ever. MARTA in the 70s had a hard time signing on the suburban counties. In the 2000s, one of the 70s holdouts joined (Clayton) with the promise of new rail lines. Those lines never came. Now they’re getting an extremely halfway implementation of BRT. MARTA as an org has serious problems and a legit bad reputation when it comes to executing on projects. If rail expansion ever comes to the metro, it will almost certainly be via another agency.
@@RMTransit I’d love to see the change happen! I know I gotta keep my cynicism in check but man, the cards just seem permanently stacked against transit in Atlanta. I’d love to see your thoughts on the gadgetbahn being proposed to replace Beltline rail:/
Glad people are coming here to state that the lack comes from the politics of the state. Marta’s limitations have to be in the same reason sprawl has taken the city. I wish Marta was better especially since the traffic is the worst in the country by a lot. A typical drive can turn from 1.5 hours to 4.5 on an average weekday
An expansion into Gwinnett was proposed a few years ago but residents voted it down. The trains absolutely need to run more often. We went to a concert at the Benz a few weeks ago and took Marta. The trains were still running every 20 minutes even with a major event. The trains were packed. On top of that we have to switch trains from the gold to red line and that’s another 20 minute wait. I really wish they would improve Marta because I despise Atlanta traffic. It just shouldn’t take 2 hours to get from North Springs to the Benz on Marta.
I rode Marta from Peachtree Center to the airport last fall. I was struck by how much it resembled the DC Metro, but without any aesthetic maintenance since it opened (or more likely the ‘96 Olympics).
As someone who lived in seattle and paid for the light rail through taxes, seattle voted no and marta took the federal funding and got built. Really sucks for us
Same thing happened in Charlotte: A light rail system was announced and the residents of the white flight 'burbs fought it tooth and nail. It was finally built, and what they did manage to complete is really nice. There, as here, people would rather pour that money into 10-lane freeways and 10-story parking decks. I gather there was a nice system proposed for Nashville but they voted it down there, too. Excellent summary.
It's kind of a problem all over the Southeast. The culture assumes everyone is self-sufficient, and the government's job is to do the bare minimum and stay out of your business. If you want anything more than that, you have to pay for it yourself... which is not how transit works.
Extending the green line northwest to Marietta along I-75 and branching off southwest beginning around Capital Gateway in the I-20 median to Stonecrest seems like the most obvious expansion plan. Multiple branches off existing line wouldn't really make meaningful improvements; the most important thing noted is that Atlanta can spur more transit related development along existing station. The lack of density is the real issue
I was pleasantly surprised and impressed when I saw Atlanta and Marta for the first time last year, even though it was a bit of a wait. I live in Houston with a joke of mass transit, so Atlanta should be thankful they got this built.
MARTA has been handicapped since it's inception. Atlanta's suburbs (still) do not want to be connected to the city at all. Expansion has been rejected time and time again - and, of course, expanding *today* is ever more expensive. One consequence is that it is useless for commuting. But the time a suburbanite reaches the outermost station, they're already near their destination (and the freeway expansions means they've also just passed the congestion and the rest of the trip is (usually) smooth.
As someone who lives on MARTA where trains pass outside my window- yes, yes, yes, and yes… We need it all. MARTA was visionary and now it’s falling far behind the city it is supposed to serve.
Georgia Tech is serviced by 2 Marta stations. Mid town via a free trolley and North Ave via both the North Ave bridge and tunnel. It is the only FBS football stadium with a rail connections making it a great way to get to campus
9:40 Bankhead (Green Line) was already supposed to go to Vinings and Cobb County 50 years ago. It could continue South-East as well without expensive new infrastructure in Midtown/GA Tech.
I’m in Dallas and ride the DART train regularly. Increased security presence on the train has really helped the overall safety. We have some of the same issues and challenges you describe. After visiting Switzerland I came back pretty depressed on the state of all mass transit in our country.
please look into WHY we don't have the lines in those other counties. 1. we don't get ANY state funding 2. out of the 6 counties in the metro ATL area only 2 of them are funding MARTA, the rest have their own systems that barely interconnect. This isn't as simple as drawing maps.
One thing I think MARTA also suffers from is a lack of interest in the other counties in supporting it. Cobb county doesn’t connect to it and basically forces you on the freeway or the rapid transit.
Reece, you hit the nail on the head to fix Marta: 1. TOD around more stations, 2. Expansion, 3. Infill Stations, 4. Build Beltline Light Rail, 5. Convert the Streetcar to Light Rail & expand it to the Beltline, 6. Build Europe-style Regional Rail only after the above.
he apparently did ZERO research into policy tho. how can you expand when there's ZERO state funding (there's actually a state law banning the funding of pub transit projects) and without the cooperation of 2/3rds the counties here.
@@Megasteel32now that I didn’t know about the laws. If that is the case, then Atlanta is screwed when it comes to any expansion. No wonder Marta is focusing on TODs. They don’t have the money to expand. Clayton County was supposed to get an expansion but something with Norfolk Southern not approving to share their tracks
@@JWill951 even worse, in like 10 or 15 years the tax that funds MARTA is going to get cut in half. and yeah, norfolk southern will share their tracks with public agencies right after hell freezes over.
Marta has great bones: two high throughput cross-town tunnels, a direct connection to the airport, and most of it's high-density already served by the metro. It is ripe for branch line expansions. And yes, the lack of feeder buses at the suburban stations is infuriating. I really like your proposed NW-SE line, which could probably utilize the beltline right-of-way and constructed cut-and-cover
There are feeder bus lines already, just not enough of them because the outer counties don't do it and GRTA doesn't seem to want to run express bus services to MARTA stations other than North Springs.
the biggest hurdle around getting marta to the suburbs is the stigma around it. cobb and gwinnett. atlanta (inside 285) is split between five counties (fulton, dekalb, clayton, cobb, and gwinnett). cobb and gwinett have shot down marta again and again, but they’ve shown to be more amenable to commuter rail. i also think that mixed modality makes sense here. i think miami is a good example to model after. dense downtown gets a high frequency, free line (metromover / atlanta streetcar). the more immediate area gets a metro (metrorail / marta). the greater metro area gets commuter rail (tri-rail in miami’s case). tri-rail runs on 1 hour headways and provides decent service. it also cost a fraction of what it would have cost to build new track or grade separate. atlanta has the tracks in place, going to pretty much every major suburb. they’re just owned by freight companies.
Native Atlantan and transit believer here; I've not lived there for 40 yrs (have been in DC!) but have visited frequently. The dream we all had when MARTA was created fell victim to NIMBYism and racism, and a knee-jerk rejection by most Southerners of "big city stuff like they have up North," even as the city grew into a Top 20 metro area and then a Top 10. I hate to say it, but I think turning Atlanta into a truly dense, walkable, transit-oriented, world-class city is probably a hopeless dream (at least for someone like me, approaching 70; I certainly won't see it). People there gripe about traffic and the cost of their cars but they are flat-out addicted and just can't imagine not having that "freedom." It makes me very sad because there was so much promise in the '60s when MARTA was conceived and it really was the one Southern city that felt like some approximation of a city. BUT YOU DID A GREAT JOB, REESE -- I MUST ADD THAT!
Personally I think regional rail might work for Atlanta and other North American cities for travel to and from nearby cities and towns, not necessarily just suburbs. In Atlanta's case it would be Macon, Athens, Chattanooga (TN) and maybe Savannah (EDIT: might be too far, Augusta would be a better option), among others, while MARTA takes care of the suburbs.
One of my biggest problems with MARTA when I used it was that it needed a lot more track branches. The last time I was over at Georgia Tech, I thought it was weird there wasn't a closer station.
One fact that is important to note is that MARTA just released a master plan for its Indian Creek station doing a lot of transit oriented development in the area. While I am skeptical about whether they will be successful, it is interesting to look at.
Growing up in Marietta and constantly being dragged to the city, I was always very impressed and awestruck at how fast the trains were. Compared to NYC which is a "real" network but reeked of urine.
Crazy coincidence, I just took the train for the first time over this weekend and was writing up my thoughts too. Frequency was ok, but everything just felt so old. The trains in malaysia had a map/display in the train that showed you which stop you are at and which stops are next, and loud and clear announcements saying which stops are coming up.. but the marta trains didn't. I think 1 train had an announcement for each stop, but I could barely hear it. The other trains had no announcements or signs or anything. One train had a red scrolling LED board with the next stop listed... but it was off 90% of the time, and when it DID show the next stop, it showed the WRONG stop, it showed the previous stop we left a minute ago. No doors or gates to block someone from falling onto the tracks either, not even at the central station. It all reminded me of the old rural trains in Malaysia that were outside of the city center.
Amazing points! Just moved to Atlanta from Philadelphia, and comparing the pros and cons of MARTA and SEPTA has been a super interesting adjustment for me.
You'll also be surprised to hear they are refurbishing 5 points and the airport station currently and eventually the midtown stations. Now if that's the best use of 300 million is another question.
Hopefully it is. Although building a ring line around 285 or parts of the beltline would be better for advertising and connecting lines outside of five points imo.
Hey Reece! I think 5 points will look fantastic when it's done and they even got some state funding. The problem is that they are closing the station entrance during the world cup for it and half the cost is to replace the canopy and only about 20 is to improve platform and concourse level. Same with the airport with most of the cost for canopy replacement. Now I won't complain about improvement, but when they say they don't have enough money to build full LRT to Emory is tough to swallow when the difference in cost is about the same they are spending for these purely aesthetic projects
The streetcar now runs every 30 minutes, and you can guess how that impacted the already-low ridership. I can literally walk its length faster than if I had waited for a streetcar. It’s infuriating.
The streetcar connects a bunch of fancy hotels where people who would never take transit stay... I honestly have no idea why it was built or what it was supposed to provide connections to.
NIMBYism in surrounding counties prevents outward expansion. The surrounding counties don't want it. I've heard some voices saying they would be more likely to accept it if it had better coverage but it would take more than the changes mentioned. It would have to get NY like in its coverage - lots of NYC expats live in the surrounding burbs - and even then, I don't know if there would be enough votes to okay the expansion. Noone ever mentions the low population density of the areas in question in these videos which discuss it. One must always consider people per area, not just people. This is what determines the financial viability of a rail system and how much you can spend on it. That system is already more than I would expect for such a sparsely populated area. The same metrics for the other systems mentioned - MWATA and Bart - are higher by far and fuhgeddaboud a comparison NYC. Considering cities with thriving heavy rail, NYC proper - not the NY metro area, just NYC proper - has about 75% of the population of the entire state of GA. Atlanta proper doesn't even have 1 million people; it's about half that for an area that I believe is actually larger than that of NYC proper. Serious sprawl.
Surprisingly i think helsinki had this problem expanding its metro to the suburbs and experts said they only justified hourly buses. But once it was actually built and buses started running frequently it was all good.
Yeah…all the surrounding counties should just be so willing to pay for MARTA. After all, MARTA has done such a great job covering downtown. Who wouldn’t want to pay extra sales tax just so you can get 3 bus routes that no one uses along with endless drawings of things that will never get built.
@@spades9048Precisely. They have added two stations this century in the jurisdictions where they are well established. How long will it be before Cobb, Gwinnett, or Forsyth ever see the 1st foot of track? They’ll be paying a penny sales tax that entire time to subsidize DeKalb, Fulton, and, to a lesser degree, Clayton counties. That’s a hard pass for me as a Forsyth resident.
Hi @RMTransit I am from the Nuremberg Area in Germany and next week sunday there will be an election for extending the tram network from north of Nuremberg out through Erlangen and to Herzogenaurach. This will connect the much bigger city to the headquarters of Siemens, Adidas and Puma as well as the university. I would love to see an analysis like this that could be used to still convince some of the people unsure about it on whether the tram system as it is planned makes sense or not, and if or why it is better or worse than similar service through buses. A few of the common points there are: - Trams are higher capacity and higher tact than current bus routes - Buses require significant amounts of drivers to increase frequency, which is difficult as bus licences are expensive and hard to get - Trams can be piloted with only minor additional training on top of a licence - Trams are psychologically the "better" option, increasing numbers of riders relative to an identical bus service - Trams are a more long term investment that won't suddenly be cut again to reduce cost as would be easy to do for buses The vote is going to be on 09th of June 2024
Ich Liebe Deutschland. US Army Soldat stationed @ 98 General Hospital Rothenberger STR 300 circa 1988 bis Feb 92. Lived in Fuerth (don't know how to do an Umlaut), U bahn 3 blocks away, buses galore, ICE and Deutchesbundesbahn which I took to Amsterdam----awesome.
Great video, especially since I live in Metro Atlanta myself. A complaint I’ve had for many years is how Marta hasn’t been expanded to the county I live. We have our own for some strange reason.
Political foolishness in the 1980s mostly. Originally Marietta, Lawrenceville, Jonesboro and Union City were to be covered per my father’s old 1985 street map.
The one thing MARTA could do that would improve ridership the most is ban cash payments on buses: make Breeze cards required or get something like OMNY. The amount of time spent waiting for people to sift through their bags for pennies (yes, actual pennies) makes the bus lines slow enough that the 30 minute frequencies aren't actually the worst part, and any sane person with a car will never use them. It's a real shame too because most of the buses are actually pretty nice inside.
tunnels threw downtown that can have 30 trains an hour (and only has 5) and a belt line that can have level crossing duel lines on 98% of it without buying any land!!!! Atlanta has the potential to have the best Metro system in America if they just expanded all of their metrolines out.
I used to ride the MARTA a lot from Decatur to the airport. During Covid it was actually peaceful and pleasant. And then the homeless came back, the trains smelled, and at times I felt unsafe. I stopped riding and won’t until security is significantly improved.
Transit influencers don’t like to talk about this because who wants to pick on already vulnerable people but the truth is that I and other men and women simply don’t want to deal with being locked in a steel box with folks screaming on drugs. Even if I won’t be physically hurt the discomfort and possible risks are too high especially for women and children.
The main issue is that security likely won’t be improved because there isn’t anything most train stations can do about it without significant discrimination against the people who need Marta the most. Those issues have to be solved by state and federal policies. They have to actually help homeless people get a home, some food security, and a job, they have to actually implement policies that help people with drug addictions, They have to actually tackle poverty, fix schools, all of these things Marta simply can’t do and the government is unwilling to do despite those 3 things objectively making public transit, and part of the city safer.
@@thesingh3323I ride public transit all the time and I can remember one time I had someone who was a screaming crackhead on the same train as me. Maybe 1 in 1000 trips? Personally, I turn into a screaming crackhead every time trying to drive anywhere on an interstate.
If I had to prioritize transit development in Atlanta I would consider improving the bus network on the Southside and northeast towards Doraville and duluth. Many migrants who live in these areas are forced to live in transit deserts in the burbs with no access to affordable means of transportation .
They have talked about the Clifton Corridor (the Emory line you spoke of) for at least 10 years if not more. I live in one of the neighborhoods impacted, so I know it's a mess. It was supposed to be LRT, then they quickly ignored any input from us and decided to go with BRT. This would run along the CSX ROW for a good part of the way, and maybe that is what is holding it all up, but BRT is a poor solution on a route that will see huge ridership if it ever gets done. Emory has no rail connection and no freeway connection either so traffic can get really bad. A LRT line from Bankhead through Atlantic Station to Piedmont Hospital (a very large hospital) connecting up to Buckhead would be on a wish list. West Midtown in the Howell Mill corridor is also very poorly served and is growing in leaps and bounds replacing former industrial areas with dense residential and light commercial. Beltline LRT would really help this area. With a State government that contributes no money, and a Mayor who is quickly trying to backtrack on all his transit promises, I would be surprised if anything gets built. Oh, and all the people who comment about the infill stations...that announcement was a ploy to distract from the fact that the mayor was trying to kill Beltline rail he promised to support. No one at MARTA knew anything about these stations until the mayor announced them. I doubt they ever get built in the next 20 years.
West Midtown and Emory been needed Marta train stations. And like he said in the video, Georgia Tech should have its own station too along with Piedmont Park.
If a city is already sprawling, should we encourage continued sprawl by extending transit out into it, or should we build more transit and develop more in the inner city to encourage those people in the suburbs to move back into the city?
The problem with Atlanta transit is that downtown Atlanta isn't nearly what it was when MARTA was first built. Once I-285 opened around the city, many downtown businesses moved to be near that highway, creating a situation where the subway doesn't go where people need to be. My dream would be to have a MARTA line that follows I-285 with busses at interchange to serve nearby offices, but I know that's highly unlikely.
You are right but again suburban communities do not want transit by vote. So Poor people will become a Tesla when another area votes to eat Atlanta's pie.
Honestly the only sane idea that has been proposed. A 285 parallel train would actually serve people's needs in terms of commutes. Everybody else just wants a new train to take them to their favorite bar.
Exactly right... a LOT of businesses relocated outside of ATL downtown since MARTA began in the 70s. Look at Decatur, Roswell, Alpharetta, Marietta, Vinings, Smyrna, College Park, Norcross, etc. All those locations are now business powerhouses. Those are the locations that people have to get in their cars and drive to. I think part of the problem is Atlanta/MARTA got behind the 8 ball and could not keep up with ridership demand, causing people to drive.. and you add in homeless/security/trashy areas around MARTA stations, and layer on top the train/transfer delays and your average person in Atlanta has a bad taste in their mouth over MARTA. Sad.. but true. I think most people take MARTA because there isn't a better choice, unfortunately.
As a native Atlantan, what you have said is what the Atlanta Metro needs. However, the metro is made up of several counties who are in the mindset of NIMBY’s. When they announced the belt line back in the early 2000’s it did include light rail but that was deemed too expensive once they started construction even though the belt line was already the path of several old rail lines around the city. Another that has been talked about since the late 80’s is the branch to Emory and the CDC from Lindbergh or arts center. It was briefly explored in the late 90’s to build the “Brain Train”. This would take existing lines from GA Tech to Emory and then commuter to UGA in Athens. (Don’t get me started on Athens - the home of a major State University that has no train service or passenger airport).
Pretty depressing to see how many blocks those highways and interchanges occupy in the core of the city. That same capacity could be serviced by transit and suddenly you've got literal square miles of land available for development.
I live about 3 miles from the doraville station and the one thing stopping me from using Marta more is the bus frequency. My closest bus stop is 3/4 miles away (no issue) but theres only 1 bus every hour. I had to leave my house 2.5 hours early to get to my job in midtown on time because I had to walk to the bus station, catch the bus that runs once an hour, catch the train, get to midtown, and then decide to either walk or wait for another bus to take me up 10th. And when you live in the suburbs after 11pm or midnight there’s no buses to take you back home depending on which line/day of week.
Atlanta deserves a good big station to act as the hub for the Southeast’s passenger rail system, like how it was originally founded. At least I’d then be able to go to Atlanta by train from my city for the first time since 1970. CSG-ATL cannot be entirely served by I-185 and airport shuttles.
I was also impressed by your proposal for what I would call an 'Outer Circle' BRT system. As an aside, I would add that London needs something similar circulating about ten miles from the city centre.
I was not really with you until you said ring line. I honestly believe that if they put a station in the middle of an empty area, that area will become developed, plenty of Queens was farm when the EL was built.
I was wondering whether it would make sense for a potential extra line that loops around the immediate outskirts of the city. I’m from Chicago and a big issue with the L is the radial design that necessitates going through the loop to go in any direction away from the downtown core.
Good news on some of the things you’ve pointed out. 1. They are planning on more infill stations primarily along the Beltline which hopefully will also see some rail of its own. 2. The Indian Creek station plans for TOD just got out forward from MARTA. It looks mostly good. 3. Station rehab is in progress. The airport terminal just got rehabbed (still need the canopy portion to be complete vis a vis the plan). Five Points is next, though there’s controversy around the plan to do it. Many others are also being rehabbed along the east side blue/green lines. The North Ave station is being rehabbed as well.
MARTA rail trounced BART in Q4 2004: BART: 322.9K / 104.5 mi = 3.1 riders/mi MARTA rail: 226.2K / 48 mi = 4.7K riders/mi Not to mention that pre-2004, individual MARTA rail lines ran every 8 minutes vs. every 15 for BART, or that MARTA rail has far more outside-of-downtown TOD than BART.
Growing up in the south bay I didn't even know what BART was until I read about it somewhere. I always stared through the glass windows at SF, wondering what those white sci fi trains were for. I thought they were probably in some weird storage facility of former airtrain sfo rolling stock BART is really just a gadgetbahny techbro innovative parking lot dispersion system but not as idiotic as the ATL mayers plan for belt line pods
I’ve lived south of Atlanta since 1999. When I worked at GaTech I drove in since there’s no station on campus. When I worked at Delta, the closest train station was further than my office. When I worked in midtown, the office was a block from the Arts Center station. So drove between home and College Park and rode MARTA the rest of the way. Loved it. Wish I could have taken the train from Newnan all the way in. When I go to big events downtown I usually drive to College Park and ride the rest of the way. But the train doesn’t go to enough places to make that an option for everything. The biggest problem in making Marta better is the fact that so many people don’t want stations nearby. The Atlanta suburbs are lousy with NIMBY (not in my back yard).
I do get your point about how Atlanta should be focusing in the perimeter and making Marta 's performance really well. I get that as a long-term development and sales pitch so to speak. kind of disagree with you about the regional rail. However, I do agree with you on other things. Like frequency, expanding Marta in the perimeter. I'm not sure about the people mover but I haven't really done enough research to say yes or no on that department. They also need a stick with their goal with expanding the light rail network for the beltline. But the biggest of all the biggest hurdle of all is funding. Marta is pretty much on its own. There is no State funding from Georgia Despite the fact that Atlanta metro area keeps growing in the Metro particularly keeps growing, the biggest growth is in the suburban area. Specifically North suburbs, North East suburbs. * As far as brt I do think it has to be a part of the answer as well, The idea would be for outside of the perimeter would be if we could some how acquire the rail for freight, and expand it modernize it. It would benefit the region, both for Atlanta and the Atlanta Metro region area. Brt would be of course a part of that, especially in places that don't have existing rail like Forsyth. I do get you however, given USA has not nationalized rail its big hurdle. Regional rail is more long term. Hope we keep pushing for things high speed rail. Also, thank you for finally doing a video on Marta, I appreciate your perspective and input.
I lived in Atlanta for a while, and took MARTA. It's not too bad, just with a lot of politics-related handicaps. Two stations to marvel at: Peachtree Center, which is the one you showed with exposed rock, and Civic Center, which is built over an interstate and is simultaneously underground and elevated.
The other missing part of the conversation about lower transit ridership in recent decades is that downtowns have lost their retail districts and classic department stores, and office employment has greatly suburbanized to office parks especially in the sunbelt and rustbelt.
That part but that’s all going to change once Centinnial Yards and South Downtown projects are complete b/c those will bring more retail, entertainment and residential which downtown desperately needs in order for it to thrive
I can still see Atlanta benefiting from commuter rail. There are ppl who commute all the way from Tennessee into ATL every day for work. However, I do see a benefit to expand the Marta network.
Seeing MARTA talked about this way is a can of fresh air. I grew up in one of the suburban counties that people would travel from to work in ATL, and I only heard disparaging comments about MARTA, including the nickname given to it by racists.
The main problem is that MARTA was never really designed to get you around the metro Atlanta area. It was designed to get you into Atlanta and out of it. MARTA doesn't really take you anywhere. Also that many counties outside of Fulton don't want it in their areas. Fixing MARTA would require re-thinking it's current methodology and address how to get around the area. Now, Georgia has the GRTA which takes Marta, then adds additional bus lines. Gwinnett and Cobb both have their bus systems that interface with MARTA, but that becomes an issue with Atlanta's #1 problem.. automotive traffic. Many can get to where they want to go faster by driving, and because of that..they don't take Marta. If it wasn't for the airport connection, a lot less people would use it.
I actually just got back from visiting some of my cousins in Atlanta. I think MARTA is supposed to be a bit more commuter-rail like metro system, like BART. This would explain why there is no commuter rail system. However, I think this makes it so there is no excuse to extending MARTA further out into the suburbs and creating new lines. Also, it would benefit if the streetcar got extended and turned into a proper LRT for increased connectivity in central areas of the city.
@@beckyumphrey2626 Becky always ignores the crime in her backyard but thinks that criminals are going to spend time going by train instead of just driving,
Finally, a video on MARTA, a transit system that never was. First things, the beltline needs MARTA heavy rail not whatever their mayor is proposing, they should run trains 4 times more frequently than 20 min headways (BART could really do with that too), and they should return trains to running top speed (looking at you DC Metro. Both currently run about 60mph right now)
I don't really see how heavy rial on the beltline is feasible unless you dig under or build a viaduct. Either way it would never happen. They can't even get support for light rail :/
They already have support for light rail along the beltline. Funding is secured for the first segment, the right of way is already owned, final studies are wrapping up, and construction starts next year.
@@brycejones5381that's because you obviously have never been to San Francisco or New Orleans where transit runs on greenspace as it's always been planned to run. You new people who have not done your homework on what's been planned and invested in are the biggest problem.
@@thepeppypepper Unf it's not a foregone conclusion. The mayor recently said that they're considering "wheeled alternatives" including "autonomous pods." Several of the largest developers along the beltline are vocally against it (even tho it would benefit them, of course) and seem to have the mayor's ear.
Expand MARTA please! Give us a loop around 285, expand stops up 75, 400, 85, and throughout South Atlanta, and develop more infrastructure to get people from stops to their end destinations! Sadly, the city has opted for express toll lanes on 285 instead :/
The main issue blocking MARTA expansion is political. There are 11 counties in the Atlanta Regional Council, but only three in the MARTA district. Each of those counties is afraid of giving up power to an outside agency, and the three MARTA counties, Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton, are majority-minority, so there are implicit and explicit racial issues, too. Those issues reared their ugly head when Gwinnett County had a referendum to join the MARTA district. It failed because people were concerned that it might cause property values to decline. Still, a better integrated feeder bus system would work great as an interim solution. There is some of that already, so there is hope.
I think the main reason the Gwinnett expansion failed because it was quite underwhelming and didn’t come close to meeting the county’s needs. It also failed because MARTA had recently demonstrated a total failure when it similarly expanded to Clayton County. People write off what’s holding MARTA back as racism. It’s a factor, but it’s certainly not the whole story.
@rykilg this is the main reason Gwinnett changed their plan to focus on expanding Ride Gwinnett and creating a cross county BRT network to feed into Doraville and Indian Creek.
I don’t recall seeing any iteration of the Gwinnett plan that would appeal to a voter who was a “choice rider”. And that’s most people who vote in that highly suburban county. Bus routes aren’t going to get these folks out of their car. They need a fast train that skips all the traffic. Also, the failure in Clayton can’t be understated. Without a massive change in MARTA leadership, no county will be joining the system for decades to come.
The irony is, transit expansion always improves property values near new transit lines, the old "crime train" racist trope is just that a racist trope. But on these councils you still have a lot of people who were around during Jim Crow and are still butthurt about the end of it.
@@rykilg Good points. The idea that "MARTA still gets voted down because Gwinnett County is full of white racists" is out-of-date. Almost 70% of the current Gwinnett population is POC, along with 80% of the county commission. Fulton County has a larger white population (by both number and percentage) than Gwinnett! The proposals that were voted down a few years ago had nebulous promises about expanded bus service and one -- ONE! -- new rail station. A rail station that would be completed in (maybe) a decade and would be only five miles from the current Gold Line terminus in Doraville. I know a lot of people in Gwinnett who would have supported the referendum if there had been MORE, not less, rail on the table.
I may have missed it, but you should have mentioned the need to build a rail to the Battery/Truist Park. One of your lines showed that, but it's worth mentioning that that is a very important missing stop.
It's also funny that the Atlanta suburbs are turbo-NIMBY about MARTA expansion while here on the Colorado front range we're like "GIBS US ZE TRAINZ" they can't get the front range regional rail built fast enough, funding wasn't around in the 2010s to get the RTD line to Boulder built when US36 was rebuilt in 2016.
You are comparing apples to kumquats. CO does not have the crime problem that Atlanta (murder capital of the US) has. If people do not feel safe, they will not use public transit. Atlanta's "public transit problem" is really a "public safety problem". Kick out the bleeding heart liberal democrats and then talk about Marta expansion.
Did you miss the Streetcar expansion plans along the Beltline, Reece? Granted, I believe it would be ideal for this to happen through the existing mode of rapid transit rather than streetcar/tram, it’s still a significant expansion plan that would be interesting to hear your take.
Atlanta's density is nothing like a Northeast City or Chicago. Surprising you would compare to NYC, although you do go on to correct this when talking about land use near stations.
Man when I tell you Iv been waiting for this video! I rode Marta recently when I flew in and spent a few days in Atlanta. Everything you said is very true but to me the thing Marta needs to work on first is cleanliness and safety. I can’t tell you how many drunk homeless people I’d see at like, 1pm. It’s vile, and I felt unsafe the whole time. But honestly that can be said for all of Atlanta not just Marta.
@@starventure Slight exaggeration, and it's been a few years. But lack of visible staffing presence, begging, general aesthetic are all factors. I later met a friend of a friend who grew up ATL. He said he used to cry everytime he went on MARTA. TBF I also found getting the L from O'Haire pretty terrible. Most old mass transit in the US is pretty unfriendly looking.
@@metamodernbarbell Yes, but the older tube lines in London are decrepit looking too, but no one calls it terrifying. There must be something special about ATL and CHI compared to London that makes the difference.
@DanteMckimmey in that relates to State funding transit exactly how? Doubt you even support transit. LA gets to have massive expansion of their transit with both varying levels of government helping contribute funding, not seeing that in Atlanta.
TL:DR No State Funding Allowed for MARTA. If County voters want it they get it. Hence why it is only what it is and where it is. The Texas Model to the extreme. Georgia did support a transit system in the metro but it is specifically GA Express which is your typical park and ride express buses.
@@Skeet284 Fact: The ATL (Atlanta Transit Link) was supposed to be that agency that would amalgamate all these disparate entities into one transit agency for northern GA... it hasn't.
I ride MARTA almost daily. Frequency is a big issue. If a train is cancelled then you gotta wait another 20 minutes (what happened to me yesterday). Many of the connecting bus lines run every 40 minutes. I've had 2 cancelled on me back to back so I waited almost 2 hours. I would like to see the gold and red lines expanded too. People aren't gonna be likely to take MARTA after spending 20 minutes on the highway just getting to the station.
MARTA's biggest problem post-pandemic is STAFFING. The bad frequencies are because they don't have enough operators to run trains. There used to be 8 minute peak, 15 off-peak and Sundays schedule when I was a rider during my college years in the late 90s and right when Sandy Springs station opened. It's gotten worse over time.
I only ride MARTA when it’s a train-only commute. It is completely unviable for bus commutes because of the frequency and reliability issues you mentioned. 40 minutes, none late at night, frequent cancellations, and rarely on time is unacceptable if you want to get somewhere on time.
With service issues like that, you're right; no one is going to park their car and risk a long delay.
train/bus tracking apps are good to alert you of cancellations / realistic arrival times / etc
I like that at least the north springs station is accessible from 400, critically outside 285, but Doraville is pitifully inaccessible. I used to drive all the way to chamblee or oglethorpe because of how hard it is to get from 85 to Doraville. We desperately need a Norcross station that is accessible to the highway like north springs, or better yet extend the train all the way to gwinnett mall.
I like the very subtle dig at air travel “moves almost as many people as a fairly large train station” 😅
Mind you, a 'fairly large train station' moves a LOT of people, usually on a lot of trips they take super regularly. Airports mostly (baring improper use of the mode) handle very long trips that (most) people take far less often, so even if they were doing the absolute best they could do at the job they should actually be doing, the largest airport moving a number of people equivalent to a large-but-not-largest train station is what you'd Expect.
Actually, if your busy airport is moving more people than your busy rail stations it's probably a sign that your rail network isn't doing as well as it should be...
bro cant be talking, as the Atlanta Charlotte HSR got funding a few months ago when they found it feasible (watch the Alan Fisher)
meanwhile Canadian politicans can't even bring themselves to say HSR so they say hIgH fReQuEnCy rAiL
It's actually pretty impressive, moving about as many people as the Tohoku Shinkansen.
@@laurencefraser Atlanta airport deals in an enormous amount of domestic traffic, not exactly Singapore or Heathrow
@@RMTransit …and most of it is transfer traffic. That’s why convincing Delta to get behind HSR in Atlanta is key.
Heathrow is the king of O&D. And Singapore is just the coolest airport in the world.
ATLANTA’s mayor is thinking about using “SMALL PODS” ON THE BELTLINE!!!
We gotta make people aware that that’s going to be a horrible decision.
Every self-proclaimed revolutionary techno start-up bullsh*t bingo has to have some pods thrown in there just for good measure.
love your vids on the beltline!!
We need a new mayor...bottom line. Remember that all you Atlantans when you vote!
Yeah that video infuriates me to another level. Small pods and slow transit on the beltline would be a policy failure
Ew
We're getting new trains, re-doing the central station, and talking about new infill stations. That last hurdle of building a new line on the system which we haven't expanded in 24 years is our next major hurdle.
Actually, I think the next major hurdle is actually building the infill stations and beltline rail. We can talk about it all we want but we need it built out already.
I also have mixed feelings about the Five Points renovation - it seems like a lot of money to put down for a glass roof and I worry about having no walk-up access to the station for an extended amount of time. As a frequent concert-goer it'll make getting to The Masquerade very inconvenient.
Lots of positive stuff happening, just need to maintain that momentum
@RMtransit not to be pessimistic, but the infill stations don't currently have a funding source and some locals see the stations as a tool to justify the cancellation of beltline rail.
@@Afitts00 Closing the Five Points station for people who embark/disembark there until 2028 (with the temp opening during the WC) is a terrible misdirection of resources, and going to disrupt a lot of commuters for a largely cosmetic update. It's definitely a dated station, but functionality is good (though improving elevator access may be a better use of the funds than replacing the tile with more tile and a glass roof).
@@RMTransit Nonsense.
5:00 “It should also think about refurbishing it’s older stations”
MARTA is refurbishing Five Points station, the interchange of every line. However, they are closing off street access and buses (meaning transfers only) there for FOUR YEARS as it gets mostly cosmetic renovations. They are only opening for a couple weeks during the World Cup in 2026 and then shutting it back down.
This comes after refurbishing the airport station, again mostly cosmetic, shut it down for six weeks rather than just having them single track and taking longer to work on it (and it shouldn’t even take that long in the first place!).
How can you have TOD if you can’t even be certain that your station will be open once it’s there?
You can't bake an omelette without breaking some eggs, but that seems excessive. 4 years? And for just cosmetic renovations? Yeah, that shouldn't be allowed.
@@barvdwI was disappointed with what they did b/c I didn’t notice much of a difference based off the renderings but they said there’s more to do.
The agency clearly needs to learn to do projects without shutting things down, but that’s all part of a long process of improvement!
You'll be pleasantly surprised that MARTA infact has announced plans earlier this year for a large scale TOD development at Indian Creek station and before that Kensington. Let's keep it rolling Marta with the TOD
I use Indian Creek- it’s under construction right now along with major station renovations to the bus bays and platform.
East Lake and Candler Park also are getting TOD in their parking lots too
@@starrwulfe Hey a fellow Indian Creek user! I do like the TOD plans it's got and I'm glad they're doing the station updates that will include a walking connection to those apartments north of the station. I just wish the station planning teams would listen to the suggestions I keep leaving to include platform screen doors. Seems like a few times a year someone gets onto the tracks at one station or another on the lines and causes major delays and the doors would prevent almost all of that.
I’m glad they’re finally starting to do that. Since the counties don’t want expansion, build TODs around the current stations so people can take the trains to their destinations. Dunwoody and Sandy Springs stations are perfect examples. You have the Perimeter Mall, office complexes, restaurants, bars, shopping, and residential and those areas are popular.
I am very happy to hear that!
@RMtransit if you ever make another video on Atlanta, I'd love to help you with research or footage as an Atlanta native
The fact that MARTA already has heavy rail directly into the airport landside terminal puts it way ahead of most US metro systems. An increase in service frequency would be nice.
Thank You and it's been in place for decades too.
Grew up in the Atlanta area. There have been rather ambitious plans to expand MARTA for quite some time now, but pretty much none of them have ever come to fruition, for a variety of reasons. It's pretty depressing.
The only reason MARTA has not experienced expansion is it's the only major transit that gets no state funding. The city, county and DeKalb Co are the only investors in MARTA. Suburban counties do not want transit. So you have the Emerald City in a sea of backwards.....
It’s definitely demoralizing, but quite a bit seems to be on the go right now!
It’s not depressing. It’s a miracle.
Crime follows MARTA!
@@beckyumphrey2626 no it doesn't.
Imagine if we combined DC's transit oriented development with Toronto's bus system on every post-war metro system. We'd really be cooking it up in some of these cities.
Absolutely, and DCs system does have the advantage of more capacity and higher top speeds!
NO!
The TOD happening at West Hyattsville is bonkers. It's like they're constructing a brand new city from scratch over there.😮
Not going to happen because our politicians and their friend/family patronage recipients are more interested in bulldozing a forest to build a police fortress for the donor class than listening to constituents.
@@seymoorepoone9512no what?
I love how you mentioned the Indian Creek station being a giant parking lot because it’s been announced that it’s going to have the largest TOD project the city’s seen yet. It’s quite ambitious.
I’ve heard! So exciting and seems like an obvious site!
it's pretty much already built u can lesse an apt rn too bad the cheapest starts at $2100 I really wanted to live there
No rail extensions and the 15th go-nowhere "study" of BRT extension to Stonecrest. It's a real estate development scheme and nothing more.
that just means more expensive shoebox apartments.
Woohoo! My city is getting coverage! And I agree with these critiques but I do want to note a few things that ought to be noted.
First, I think it's important to say we're already planning and building more TODs at a lot of stations, mostly along the Blue Line. Indian Creek that you highlighted has been having public meetings for about half a year helping to develop plans to transform that parking lot into a TOD with 1,600 housing units! Other stations like East Lake, Hamilton Holmes, Edgewood/Candler Park, Avondale, and some southern stations like Oakland City are in various stages of building/planning TODs. That part is an easy win in MARTA's control that they're acting on.
Second, MARTA is hurt by many of the common problems of transit planning (NIMBYs, bad project management, and a dispersed population/job centers), but also by some more uniquely MARTA factors. For instance, those MARTA extensions you drew, which would be good, cross into counties that are not part of MARTA and that have so far resisted all efforts to join MARTA. But another issue is that MARTA is one of the very few transit agencies in the US (and definitely the largest one) that gets ZERO state level funding. All funding for MARTA is dependent on the agency, the cities/counties that are part of MARTA (just Fulton, DeKalb, and Clayton which make up together a bit over a 1/3rd of the Atlanta metro population), and whatever federal grants the system can get. This really limits funding for expansions or upgrades.
Third, some discussion of the current plans beyond Beltline Rail (currently in the middle of a political fight as a small number of NIMBYs in Old Fourth Ward are trying to kill it) would help illustrate the potential and problems the current system faces. For instance, there's a connection in planning phases to go from Lindbergh Station (where the Red and Gold lines meet/diverge) through Emory to Avondale Station on the Blue Line. After initially talking about light rail, planning seems to have settled on BRT but as of the last meeting I went to for this, the problem is currently there's only funding support from Fulton/City of Atlanta not DeKalb county meaning the project is only funded to make it half way only going to Emory. This sucks and is a huge problem with non-centralized funding sources that MARTA has.
Fourth, we're doing some station refreshes but with some notable failures. First, no refresh that's been announced or started has included much in the way of operational improvements, mostly being aesthetics with what operational improvements that are included being the exception not the rule. Most frustratingly none include platform screen doors (and I've been trying to get that in these guys heads in every survey and meeting about stations I go to). And some are downright nuts! Five Points Station which is downtown next to GSU, a number of offices (that are still used despite Atlanta's shockingly high office vacancy rate post-COVID), and the quite nice Fairlife-Poplar restaurant area, is having pedestrian access shut down for FOUR YEARS! All to change the old roof from a brutalist-style to a glass canopy. They're not building housing or offices on top. They're not adding platform screen doors despite every six months someone getting on the tracks and causing big delays (a bit morbidly a few years back that included the MARTA CEO of the time committing suicide jumping in front of an approaching train). They're just shutting down everything but train transfers in the central station of the system for YEARS with a brief re-opening during the World Cup. It's a slap in the face to transit users and people who go to or live in downtown. And don't even get me started on how delayed and neglected very necessary bus expansion and updates have been!
I love Atlanta and I'm proud to say that MARTA rail is the most used rail system in the US south of DC, but it can be SO much better!
Man, you said everything that needed to be said. It’s sad b/c I see the potential but we just have so many roadblocks with Marta, peoples mindsets about Marta down here, and no state funding, there’s not much hope with them. At least we’re getting new trains though. And I agree, Five Points should’ve been another TOD station but I guess they’re depending on Underground Atlanta to take up for that slack since he hasn’t done much to that place either which also has a lot of potential but don’t me started on that.
All problems for sure, but all completely solvable
Are you familiar with Caleb Stubbs' regional rail proposal (ATL Trains), and, if so, what do you think about it?
@@stevegavigan8124 I have heard of it though it's been a few years. If you made me dictator of Georgia that kind of system would be priority number 1 for Atlanta. But, not being dictator of Georgia, it's too ambitious for practical passage even if by some miracle we got politicians in the state house who didn't hate Atlanta.
So to be honest, the first thing we should do is pour money in MARTA's buses rather than the more dubious station rehabs. Service is a lot lower than pre-pandemic still and we've lost several cross-town routes that don't just bring you to the nearest train station. But on top of that, way finding on the buses needs to be much better. In that it needs to exist at all. Buses need internal screens letting people know the 1) bus route number, 2) direction, and 3) upcoming stops. Get the bus fundamentals right and we'd see a lot more train use recovery too.
Every time RMTransit uploads, I become 0.1% stronger
That’s . . . Interesting? 😂
Atlanta has bold and a comprehensive transit plan that similarly matches what you said with an LRT by Emory and a beltline rail loop that already has its right of way preserved along with more lrt radiating from downtown and midtown to the beltline and all for the reasonable cost of 3 billion. The problem is the lack of political and financial support which has already demoted projects to BRT and with powerful local NIMBYs pushing to get the rail project cancelled all together. If you're curious read about Atlanta's Streetcar master plan and study from the mid 2010s
The beltline rail going to Old Fourth Ward is even already funded, already has the land and right of way, already has the streetcars themselves, and is breaking ground in 2025 and is still on track to open in 2028.
The small NIMBY backlash has just sprung up at the last minute and their goal is to drain the already secured funding by asking for additional studies and trying to suggest alternative systems that aren’t studied.
It's so frustrating to see when I know that the streetcar east extension is a good project that should have been done by now if we didn't keep doing studies that give the same answers. Our mayor even mentioned how the old studies for a few years ago were outdated and didn't include autonomous pods so we need another study. If you don't build, it gets more expensive, and when it gets more expensive, it gets more backlash. A vicious cycle we find ourselves in
Atlanta's mayor wants to build "nice and slow people movers" on the belt line, strongly suspect he was bribed by a gadgetbahn manufacturer. Because when hasn't an Atlanta mayor not been on the take haha
@@thepeppypepper Honestly, baring something being catostrophically and Obviously wrong with the project (the sort of thing where a study isn't actually needed to see the problem. Solving it (if it exists) is, of course, another matter), that should be well past the point where such complaints should even be listened to, let alone considered.
@@triplethreatpodcasts anyone seriously suggesting 'pods' in public transport should be Immediately suspended and under investigation with strong likelyhood of removal from their position... because they're either corrupt or incompitent.
The system would have been way bigger if the suburban counties wanted in.
Update: This comment blew up too fast
This is the biggest opposition to MARTA expansion along with severe underfunding from the state. NIMBYs in Gwinnett and especially Cobb love to stop rail expansion because "oh no poor people in my suburban bubble" but then complain when they can't take MARTA to a Braves game anymore and moan about overcrowding and underserviced lines when they want to get to a concert or game downtown.
@@ItsJayCross319 yeah. Republican nimbys are the literal worst. Flaming hypocrites
@@ItsJayCross319 THIS. And by "poor people", remember the backronym for MARTA from back in the day at least: "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta". It's not just classism going on.
@@waverod9275 100%
Yup, "white flight" in full effect, Atlanta is one of the biggest examples of it.
I am British.Prior to watching this video, I knew that Atlanta had the world's busiest airport, but did not even know that it had a metro! (I did of course know about the modern DC and BART systems.) The video is extremely clear (and concise). Even before the map appeared, I was expecting to see something like the map you first showed at 7m 40s. To me, the obvious solution is to build more branches added on to the two existing cross-city lines. That would then lead to much better frequencies through the core sections. Put slightly differently, the Atlanta Metro does indeed need to become more like an S-Bahn.
Native Atlantan here. I think your idea of the I285 BRT is a really good idea. Would have to be a protected right of way to some degree, and even then there'd still be issues, as I don't see a world where ATL drivers respect bus lanes at all. People will use those lanes to get ahead at whatever cost. It's an absolute free for all and people don't respect the rules of the road since COVID.
Plus they are building express lanes currently so I don't see much room for any transit ROW
An I285 BRT would be amazing and should happen. Such a great idea
The people mover idea is also dope / not something I’ve seen before
As an Atlanta resident I’ve been saying this for years 😂
There won’t be a significant expansion of the existing rail network for decades. If ever.
MARTA in the 70s had a hard time signing on the suburban counties. In the 2000s, one of the 70s holdouts joined (Clayton) with the promise of new rail lines. Those lines never came. Now they’re getting an extremely halfway implementation of BRT.
MARTA as an org has serious problems and a legit bad reputation when it comes to executing on projects.
If rail expansion ever comes to the metro, it will almost certainly be via another agency.
Change is possible, it’s happened in many cities!
@@RMTransit I’d love to see the change happen! I know I gotta keep my cynicism in check but man, the cards just seem permanently stacked against transit in Atlanta.
I’d love to see your thoughts on the gadgetbahn being proposed to replace Beltline rail:/
Unfortunately, MARTA doesn't receive funding from GDOT which makes expansion tricky.
Geez, that was even true back when I was attending Tech almost 20 years ago.
It’s that AND those suburban counties by law have to vote to join the system. MARTA can’t force anything.
Glad people are coming here to state that the lack comes from the politics of the state. Marta’s limitations have to be in the same reason sprawl has taken the city. I wish Marta was better especially since the traffic is the worst in the country by a lot. A typical drive can turn from 1.5 hours to 4.5 on an average weekday
I think we're just barely beat out for that award by Los Angeles.
An expansion into Gwinnett was proposed a few years ago but residents voted it down. The trains absolutely need to run more often. We went to a concert at the Benz a few weeks ago and took Marta. The trains were still running every 20 minutes even with a major event. The trains were packed. On top of that we have to switch trains from the gold to red line and that’s another 20 minute wait. I really wish they would improve Marta because I despise Atlanta traffic. It just shouldn’t take 2 hours to get from North Springs to the Benz on Marta.
I rode Marta from Peachtree Center to the airport last fall. I was struck by how much it resembled the DC Metro, but without any aesthetic maintenance since it opened (or more likely the ‘96 Olympics).
As someone who lived in seattle and paid for the light rail through taxes, seattle voted no and marta took the federal funding and got built. Really sucks for us
It does, Seattle would have made better use of a Marta style system, good for Atlanta though!
Same thing happened in Charlotte: A light rail system was announced and the residents of the white flight 'burbs fought it tooth and nail. It was finally built, and what they did manage to complete is really nice. There, as here, people would rather pour that money into 10-lane freeways and 10-story parking decks.
I gather there was a nice system proposed for Nashville but they voted it down there, too.
Excellent summary.
It's kind of a problem all over the Southeast. The culture assumes everyone is self-sufficient, and the government's job is to do the bare minimum and stay out of your business. If you want anything more than that, you have to pay for it yourself... which is not how transit works.
Extending the green line northwest to Marietta along I-75 and branching off southwest beginning around Capital Gateway in the I-20 median to Stonecrest seems like the most obvious expansion plan. Multiple branches off existing line wouldn't really make meaningful improvements; the most important thing noted is that Atlanta can spur more transit related development along existing station. The lack of density is the real issue
I was pleasantly surprised and impressed when I saw Atlanta and Marta for the first time last year, even though it was a bit of a wait. I live in Houston with a joke of mass transit, so Atlanta should be thankful they got this built.
MARTA has been handicapped since it's inception. Atlanta's suburbs (still) do not want to be connected to the city at all. Expansion has been rejected time and time again - and, of course, expanding *today* is ever more expensive.
One consequence is that it is useless for commuting. But the time a suburbanite reaches the outermost station, they're already near their destination (and the freeway expansions means they've also just passed the congestion and the rest of the trip is (usually) smooth.
No one wanted the extra 1% tax that would go to the pit known as Atlanta is why.
As someone who lives on MARTA where trains pass outside my window- yes, yes, yes, and yes… We need it all. MARTA was visionary and now it’s falling far behind the city it is supposed to serve.
I’m so glad you’re covering MARTA its the train system near me and it has a lot of flaws but I hope to see it improve
Georgia Tech is serviced by 2 Marta stations. Mid town via a free trolley and North Ave via both the North Ave bridge and tunnel. It is the only FBS football stadium with a rail connections making it a great way to get to campus
9:40 Bankhead (Green Line) was already supposed to go to Vinings and Cobb County 50 years ago. It could continue South-East as well without expensive new infrastructure in Midtown/GA Tech.
I’m in Dallas and ride the DART train regularly. Increased security presence on the train has really helped the overall safety. We have some of the same issues and challenges you describe. After visiting Switzerland I came back pretty depressed on the state of all mass transit in our country.
Yeah Switzerland was an eye opener in terms of transit and it’s potential
please look into WHY we don't have the lines in those other counties. 1. we don't get ANY state funding 2. out of the 6 counties in the metro ATL area only 2 of them are funding MARTA, the rest have their own systems that barely interconnect. This isn't as simple as drawing maps.
One thing I think MARTA also suffers from is a lack of interest in the other counties in supporting it. Cobb county doesn’t connect to it and basically forces you on the freeway or the rapid transit.
Reece, you hit the nail on the head to fix Marta: 1. TOD around more stations, 2. Expansion, 3. Infill Stations, 4. Build Beltline Light Rail, 5. Convert the Streetcar to Light Rail & expand it to the Beltline, 6. Build Europe-style Regional Rail only after the above.
...7. Get a new transit friendly Mayor
he apparently did ZERO research into policy tho. how can you expand when there's ZERO state funding (there's actually a state law banning the funding of pub transit projects) and without the cooperation of 2/3rds the counties here.
8. Create lines which connect northeast to southwest and northwest to southeast respectively
9. Remove laws that ban governmental funding
@@Megasteel32now that I didn’t know about the laws. If that is the case, then Atlanta is screwed when it comes to any expansion. No wonder Marta is focusing on TODs. They don’t have the money to expand. Clayton County was supposed to get an expansion but something with Norfolk Southern not approving to share their tracks
@@JWill951 even worse, in like 10 or 15 years the tax that funds MARTA is going to get cut in half. and yeah, norfolk southern will share their tracks with public agencies right after hell freezes over.
Marta has great bones: two high throughput cross-town tunnels, a direct connection to the airport, and most of it's high-density already served by the metro. It is ripe for branch line expansions.
And yes, the lack of feeder buses at the suburban stations is infuriating.
I really like your proposed NW-SE line, which could probably utilize the beltline right-of-way and constructed cut-and-cover
There are feeder bus lines already, just not enough of them because the outer counties don't do it and GRTA doesn't seem to want to run express bus services to MARTA stations other than North Springs.
the biggest hurdle around getting marta to the suburbs is the stigma around it. cobb and gwinnett. atlanta (inside 285) is split between five counties (fulton, dekalb, clayton, cobb, and gwinnett). cobb and gwinett have shot down marta again and again, but they’ve shown to be more amenable to commuter rail.
i also think that mixed modality makes sense here. i think miami is a good example to model after. dense downtown gets a high frequency, free line (metromover / atlanta streetcar). the more immediate area gets a metro (metrorail / marta). the greater metro area gets commuter rail (tri-rail in miami’s case). tri-rail runs on 1 hour headways and provides decent service. it also cost a fraction of what it would have cost to build new track or grade separate. atlanta has the tracks in place, going to pretty much every major suburb. they’re just owned by freight companies.
Native Atlantan and transit believer here; I've not lived there for 40 yrs (have been in DC!) but have visited frequently. The dream we all had when MARTA was created fell victim to NIMBYism and racism, and a knee-jerk rejection by most Southerners of "big city stuff like they have up North," even as the city grew into a Top 20 metro area and then a Top 10. I hate to say it, but I think turning Atlanta into a truly dense, walkable, transit-oriented, world-class city is probably a hopeless dream (at least for someone like me, approaching 70; I certainly won't see it). People there gripe about traffic and the cost of their cars but they are flat-out addicted and just can't imagine not having that "freedom." It makes me very sad because there was so much promise in the '60s when MARTA was conceived and it really was the one Southern city that felt like some approximation of a city. BUT YOU DID A GREAT JOB, REESE -- I MUST ADD THAT!
BINGO someone not afraid to speak facts!!
Personally I think regional rail might work for Atlanta and other North American cities for travel to and from nearby cities and towns, not necessarily just suburbs. In Atlanta's case it would be Macon, Athens, Chattanooga (TN) and maybe Savannah (EDIT: might be too far, Augusta would be a better option), among others, while MARTA takes care of the suburbs.
Columbus, please! We’ve been waiting here fifty-four years, and if someone can reacquire the abandoned ROW it’d be so great.
One of my biggest problems with MARTA when I used it was that it needed a lot more track branches. The last time I was over at Georgia Tech, I thought it was weird there wasn't a closer station.
One fact that is important to note is that MARTA just released a master plan for its Indian Creek station doing a lot of transit oriented development in the area. While I am skeptical about whether they will be successful, it is interesting to look at.
Growing up in Marietta and constantly being dragged to the city, I was always very impressed and awestruck at how fast the trains were. Compared to NYC which is a "real" network but reeked of urine.
Crazy coincidence, I just took the train for the first time over this weekend and was writing up my thoughts too.
Frequency was ok, but everything just felt so old.
The trains in malaysia had a map/display in the train that showed you which stop you are at and which stops are next, and loud and clear announcements saying which stops are coming up.. but the marta trains didn't. I think 1 train had an announcement for each stop, but I could barely hear it. The other trains had no announcements or signs or anything. One train had a red scrolling LED board with the next stop listed... but it was off 90% of the time, and when it DID show the next stop, it showed the WRONG stop, it showed the previous stop we left a minute ago.
No doors or gates to block someone from falling onto the tracks either, not even at the central station. It all reminded me of the old rural trains in Malaysia that were outside of the city center.
Amazing points! Just moved to Atlanta from Philadelphia, and comparing the pros and cons of MARTA and SEPTA has been a super interesting adjustment for me.
You'll also be surprised to hear they are refurbishing 5 points and the airport station currently and eventually the midtown stations. Now if that's the best use of 300 million is another question.
Will they actually be nice? If so probably!
Hopefully it is. Although building a ring line around 285 or parts of the beltline would be better for advertising and connecting lines outside of five points imo.
Hey Reece! I think 5 points will look fantastic when it's done and they even got some state funding. The problem is that they are closing the station entrance during the world cup for it and half the cost is to replace the canopy and only about 20 is to improve platform and concourse level. Same with the airport with most of the cost for canopy replacement. Now I won't complain about improvement, but when they say they don't have enough money to build full LRT to Emory is tough to swallow when the difference in cost is about the same they are spending for these purely aesthetic projects
@@RMTransit I think we forgot how to do things cheaply so thats why it costs this much to refurbish. Very North America
But isn't Five Points going to be closed for years to do the refurbishment?
The streetcar now runs every 30 minutes, and you can guess how that impacted the already-low ridership. I can literally walk its length faster than if I had waited for a streetcar. It’s infuriating.
The streetcar connects a bunch of fancy hotels where people who would never take transit stay... I honestly have no idea why it was built or what it was supposed to provide connections to.
NIMBYism in surrounding counties prevents outward expansion. The surrounding counties don't want it. I've heard some voices saying they would be more likely to accept it if it had better coverage but it would take more than the changes mentioned. It would have to get NY like in its coverage - lots of NYC expats live in the surrounding burbs - and even then, I don't know if there would be enough votes to okay the expansion.
Noone ever mentions the low population density of the areas in question in these videos which discuss it. One must always consider people per area, not just people. This is what determines the financial viability of a rail system and how much you can spend on it. That system is already more than I would expect for such a sparsely populated area. The same metrics for the other systems mentioned - MWATA and Bart - are higher by far and fuhgeddaboud a comparison NYC.
Considering cities with thriving heavy rail, NYC proper - not the NY metro area, just NYC proper - has about 75% of the population of the entire state of GA. Atlanta proper doesn't even have 1 million people; it's about half that for an area that I believe is actually larger than that of NYC proper. Serious sprawl.
Surprisingly i think helsinki had this problem expanding its metro to the suburbs and experts said they only justified hourly buses. But once it was actually built and buses started running frequently it was all good.
RMTransit MARTA video let's goooooooo! *cue Atlanta mentioned meme*
NIMBYS in Cobb county be like… 👁️👄👁️
Or my aunt In Gwinnett.
Yeah…all the surrounding counties should just be so willing to pay for MARTA. After all, MARTA has done such a great job covering downtown. Who wouldn’t want to pay extra sales tax just so you can get 3 bus routes that no one uses along with endless drawings of things that will never get built.
@@spades9048Precisely. They have added two stations this century in the jurisdictions where they are well established. How long will it be before Cobb, Gwinnett, or Forsyth ever see the 1st foot of track? They’ll be paying a penny sales tax that entire time to subsidize DeKalb, Fulton, and, to a lesser degree, Clayton counties. That’s a hard pass for me as a Forsyth resident.
Transit good
@@DiamondKingStudios
She’s in the minority now. We’re expanding transit over here with or without her; this county is officially 1 million people now.
Hi @RMTransit
I am from the Nuremberg Area in Germany and next week sunday there will be an election for extending the tram network from north of Nuremberg out through Erlangen and to Herzogenaurach. This will connect the much bigger city to the headquarters of Siemens, Adidas and Puma as well as the university. I would love to see an analysis like this that could be used to still convince some of the people unsure about it on whether the tram system as it is planned makes sense or not, and if or why it is better or worse than similar service through buses.
A few of the common points there are:
- Trams are higher capacity and higher tact than current bus routes
- Buses require significant amounts of drivers to increase frequency, which is difficult as bus licences are expensive and hard to get
- Trams can be piloted with only minor additional training on top of a licence
- Trams are psychologically the "better" option, increasing numbers of riders relative to an identical bus service
- Trams are a more long term investment that won't suddenly be cut again to reduce cost as would be easy to do for buses
The vote is going to be on 09th of June 2024
Ich Liebe Deutschland. US Army Soldat stationed @ 98 General Hospital Rothenberger STR 300 circa 1988 bis Feb 92. Lived in Fuerth (don't know how to do an Umlaut), U bahn 3 blocks away, buses galore, ICE and Deutchesbundesbahn which I took to Amsterdam----awesome.
Great video, especially since I live in Metro Atlanta myself. A complaint I’ve had for many years is how Marta hasn’t been expanded to the county I live. We have our own for some strange reason.
Political foolishness in the 1980s mostly. Originally Marietta, Lawrenceville, Jonesboro and Union City were to be covered per my father’s old 1985 street map.
The one thing MARTA could do that would improve ridership the most is ban cash payments on buses: make Breeze cards required or get something like OMNY. The amount of time spent waiting for people to sift through their bags for pennies (yes, actual pennies) makes the bus lines slow enough that the 30 minute frequencies aren't actually the worst part, and any sane person with a car will never use them. It's a real shame too because most of the buses are actually pretty nice inside.
tunnels threw downtown that can have 30 trains an hour (and only has 5) and a belt line that can have level crossing duel lines on 98% of it without buying any land!!!! Atlanta has the potential to have the best Metro system in America if they just expanded all of their metrolines out.
I used to ride the MARTA a lot from Decatur to the airport. During Covid it was actually peaceful and pleasant. And then the homeless came back, the trains smelled, and at times I felt unsafe. I stopped riding and won’t until security is significantly improved.
Exactly 💯
Transit influencers don’t like to talk about this because who wants to pick on already vulnerable people but the truth is that I and other men and women simply don’t want to deal with being locked in a steel box with folks screaming on drugs. Even if I won’t be physically hurt the discomfort and possible risks are too high especially for women and children.
Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta
The main issue is that security likely won’t be improved because there isn’t anything most train stations can do about it without significant discrimination against the people who need Marta the most.
Those issues have to be solved by state and federal policies. They have to actually help homeless people get a home, some food security, and a job, they have to actually implement policies that help people with drug addictions, They have to actually tackle poverty, fix schools, all of these things Marta simply can’t do and the government is unwilling to do despite those 3 things objectively making public transit, and part of the city safer.
@@thesingh3323I ride public transit all the time and I can remember one time I had someone who was a screaming crackhead on the same train as me. Maybe 1 in 1000 trips? Personally, I turn into a screaming crackhead every time trying to drive anywhere on an interstate.
Re 8:33: Surely a electrified BeltLine would be more reliable and cost effective than a BRT. Strange not to mention the plans in detail in your video.
If I had to prioritize transit development in Atlanta I would consider improving the bus network on the Southside and northeast towards Doraville and duluth. Many migrants who live in these areas are forced to live in transit deserts in the burbs with no access to affordable means of transportation .
This sounds like a reasonable fix. If only the MBTA in Boston could be fixed reasonably 😭
Ive lived in boston and atlanta, boston is wayyy better
How is a peoplemover from Arts Center to Atlantic Station better than the bus shuttle that is currently there? I don't know if I see the gains there.
They have talked about the Clifton Corridor (the Emory line you spoke of) for at least 10 years if not more. I live in one of the neighborhoods impacted, so I know it's a mess. It was supposed to be LRT, then they quickly ignored any input from us and decided to go with BRT. This would run along the CSX ROW for a good part of the way, and maybe that is what is holding it all up, but BRT is a poor solution on a route that will see huge ridership if it ever gets done. Emory has no rail connection and no freeway connection either so traffic can get really bad. A LRT line from Bankhead through Atlantic Station to Piedmont Hospital (a very large hospital) connecting up to Buckhead would be on a wish list. West Midtown in the Howell Mill corridor is also very poorly served and is growing in leaps and bounds replacing former industrial areas with dense residential and light commercial. Beltline LRT would really help this area. With a State government that contributes no money, and a Mayor who is quickly trying to backtrack on all his transit promises, I would be surprised if anything gets built. Oh, and all the people who comment about the infill stations...that announcement was a ploy to distract from the fact that the mayor was trying to kill Beltline rail he promised to support. No one at MARTA knew anything about these stations until the mayor announced them. I doubt they ever get built in the next 20 years.
West Midtown and Emory been needed Marta train stations. And like he said in the video, Georgia Tech should have its own station too along with Piedmont Park.
You should make a video on the future of Cleveland’s RTA and your opinions of the consolidation of their rolling stock to one design for all lines
If a city is already sprawling, should we encourage continued sprawl by extending transit out into it, or should we build more transit and develop more in the inner city to encourage those people in the suburbs to move back into the city?
MARTA is looking at TOD at the Indian Creek creek station and the North Springs station. Also of stations are getting rehabbed right now too.
The problem with Atlanta transit is that downtown Atlanta isn't nearly what it was when MARTA was first built. Once I-285 opened around the city, many downtown businesses moved to be near that highway, creating a situation where the subway doesn't go where people need to be. My dream would be to have a MARTA line that follows I-285 with busses at interchange to serve nearby offices, but I know that's highly unlikely.
You are right but again suburban communities do not want transit by vote. So Poor people will become a Tesla when another area votes to eat Atlanta's pie.
Honestly the only sane idea that has been proposed. A 285 parallel train would actually serve people's needs in terms of commutes. Everybody else just wants a new train to take them to their favorite bar.
Exactly right... a LOT of businesses relocated outside of ATL downtown since MARTA began in the 70s. Look at Decatur, Roswell, Alpharetta, Marietta, Vinings, Smyrna, College Park, Norcross, etc. All those locations are now business powerhouses. Those are the locations that people have to get in their cars and drive to. I think part of the problem is Atlanta/MARTA got behind the 8 ball and could not keep up with ridership demand, causing people to drive.. and you add in homeless/security/trashy areas around MARTA stations, and layer on top the train/transfer delays and your average person in Atlanta has a bad taste in their mouth over MARTA. Sad.. but true. I think most people take MARTA because there isn't a better choice, unfortunately.
No. That’s not the problem with Atlanta 🤣
Same Rhetoric from guess who?
As a native Atlantan, what you have said is what the Atlanta Metro needs. However, the metro is made up of several counties who are in the mindset of NIMBY’s. When they announced the belt line back in the early 2000’s it did include light rail but that was deemed too expensive once they started construction even though the belt line was already the path of several old rail lines around the city. Another that has been talked about since the late 80’s is the branch to Emory and the CDC from Lindbergh or arts center. It was briefly explored in the late 90’s to build the “Brain Train”. This would take existing lines from GA Tech to Emory and then commuter to UGA in Athens. (Don’t get me started on Athens - the home of a major State University that has no train service or passenger airport).
Pretty depressing to see how many blocks those highways and interchanges occupy in the core of the city. That same capacity could be serviced by transit and suddenly you've got literal square miles of land available for development.
I live about 3 miles from the doraville station and the one thing stopping me from using Marta more is the bus frequency. My closest bus stop is 3/4 miles away (no issue) but theres only 1 bus every hour. I had to leave my house 2.5 hours early to get to my job in midtown on time because I had to walk to the bus station, catch the bus that runs once an hour, catch the train, get to midtown, and then decide to either walk or wait for another bus to take me up 10th.
And when you live in the suburbs after 11pm or midnight there’s no buses to take you back home depending on which line/day of week.
Atlanta should build the Multi Modal Passenger Terminal at Five Points and have a regional rail system for the city and surrounding counties
Atlanta deserves a good big station to act as the hub for the Southeast’s passenger rail system, like how it was originally founded.
At least I’d then be able to go to Atlanta by train from my city for the first time since 1970.
CSG-ATL cannot be entirely served by I-185 and airport shuttles.
I was also impressed by your proposal for what I would call an 'Outer Circle' BRT system. As an aside, I would add that London needs something similar circulating about ten miles from the city centre.
Great work! I love to see channels that try to provide answers to actual problems.
Living here for last 8 years and still am dumbfounded why the metro service is so lackluster.
Great to see you covering this. Howdy from the 404 / atl!
I was not really with you until you said ring line. I honestly believe that if they put a station in the middle of an empty area, that area will become developed, plenty of Queens was farm when the EL was built.
20 min frequencies in a city that size is unacceptable especially when O-train for all its faults runs every 10 and Ion runs every 15
still abysmal compared to the 4-6 minutes for Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. But honestly, US metros don’t run that frequently anyways
It does Weekdays and every 7 to 8 minutes in peak times.
I was wondering whether it would make sense for a potential extra line that loops around the immediate outskirts of the city. I’m from Chicago and a big issue with the L is the radial design that necessitates going through the loop to go in any direction away from the downtown core.
They totally nerfed the Clifton corridor that was supposed to be a highly used line.
Good news on some of the things you’ve pointed out.
1. They are planning on more infill stations primarily along the Beltline which hopefully will also see some rail of its own.
2. The Indian Creek station plans for TOD just got out forward from MARTA. It looks mostly good.
3. Station rehab is in progress. The airport terminal just got rehabbed (still need the canopy portion to be complete vis a vis the plan). Five Points is next, though there’s controversy around the plan to do it. Many others are also being rehabbed along the east side blue/green lines. The North Ave station is being rehabbed as well.
MARTA rail trounced BART in Q4 2004:
BART: 322.9K / 104.5 mi = 3.1 riders/mi
MARTA rail: 226.2K / 48 mi = 4.7K riders/mi
Not to mention that pre-2004, individual MARTA rail lines ran every 8 minutes vs. every 15 for BART, or that MARTA rail has far more outside-of-downtown TOD than BART.
Growing up in the south bay I didn't even know what BART was until I read about it somewhere. I always stared through the glass windows at SF, wondering what those white sci fi trains were for. I thought they were probably in some weird storage facility of former airtrain sfo rolling stock
BART is really just a gadgetbahny techbro innovative parking lot dispersion system but not as idiotic as the ATL mayers plan for belt line pods
I’ve lived south of Atlanta since 1999. When I worked at GaTech I drove in since there’s no station on campus. When I worked at Delta, the closest train station was further than my office. When I worked in midtown, the office was a block from the Arts Center station. So drove between home and College Park and rode MARTA the rest of the way. Loved it. Wish I could have taken the train from Newnan all the way in. When I go to big events downtown I usually drive to College Park and ride the rest of the way. But the train doesn’t go to enough places to make that an option for everything.
The biggest problem in making Marta better is the fact that so many people don’t want stations nearby. The Atlanta suburbs are lousy with NIMBY (not in my back yard).
I do get your point about how Atlanta should be focusing in the perimeter and making Marta 's performance really well. I get that as a long-term development and sales pitch so to speak.
kind of disagree with you about the regional rail. However, I do agree with you on other things. Like frequency, expanding Marta in the perimeter. I'm not sure about the people mover but I haven't really done enough research to say yes or no on that department.
They also need a stick with their goal with expanding the light rail network for the beltline.
But the biggest of all the biggest hurdle of all is funding. Marta is pretty much on its own. There is no State funding from Georgia
Despite the fact that Atlanta metro area keeps growing in the Metro particularly keeps growing, the biggest growth is in the suburban area. Specifically North suburbs, North East suburbs.
* As far as brt I do think it has to be a part of the answer as well, The idea would be for outside of the perimeter would be if we could some how acquire the rail for freight, and expand it modernize it. It would benefit the region, both for Atlanta and the Atlanta Metro region area. Brt would be of course a part of that, especially in places that don't have existing rail like Forsyth. I do get you however, given USA has not nationalized rail its big hurdle. Regional rail is more long term. Hope we keep pushing for things high speed rail.
Also, thank you for finally doing a video on Marta, I appreciate your perspective and input.
I lived in Atlanta for a while, and took MARTA. It's not too bad, just with a lot of politics-related handicaps. Two stations to marvel at: Peachtree Center, which is the one you showed with exposed rock, and Civic Center, which is built over an interstate and is simultaneously underground and elevated.
The other missing part of the conversation about lower transit ridership in recent decades is that downtowns have lost their retail districts and classic department stores, and office employment has greatly suburbanized to office parks especially in the sunbelt and rustbelt.
That part but that’s all going to change once Centinnial Yards and South Downtown projects are complete b/c those will bring more retail, entertainment and residential which downtown desperately needs in order for it to thrive
There has not been lower ridership in recent decades it's been since Covid like many systems.
Hey Reese could you do a video on New Jersey transit Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, please
I can still see Atlanta benefiting from commuter rail. There are ppl who commute all the way from Tennessee into ATL every day for work. However, I do see a benefit to expand the Marta network.
Seeing MARTA talked about this way is a can of fresh air. I grew up in one of the suburban counties that people would travel from to work in ATL, and I only heard disparaging comments about MARTA, including the nickname given to it by racists.
The main problem is that MARTA was never really designed to get you around the metro Atlanta area. It was designed to get you into Atlanta and out of it. MARTA doesn't really take you anywhere. Also that many counties outside of Fulton don't want it in their areas. Fixing MARTA would require re-thinking it's current methodology and address how to get around the area. Now, Georgia has the GRTA which takes Marta, then adds additional bus lines. Gwinnett and Cobb both have their bus systems that interface with MARTA, but that becomes an issue with Atlanta's #1 problem.. automotive traffic. Many can get to where they want to go faster by driving, and because of that..they don't take Marta. If it wasn't for the airport connection, a lot less people would use it.
Well orchestrated, factually based, and I really like the new intro! Nice work, Reese!
I actually just got back from visiting some of my cousins in Atlanta. I think MARTA is supposed to be a bit more commuter-rail like metro system, like BART. This would explain why there is no commuter rail system. However, I think this makes it so there is no excuse to extending MARTA further out into the suburbs and creating new lines. Also, it would benefit if the streetcar got extended and turned into a proper LRT for increased connectivity in central areas of the city.
I live in the Atlanta suburbs. WE DO NOT WANT MARTA HERE! It brings crime.
@@beckyumphrey2626 Becky always ignores the crime in her backyard but thinks that criminals are going to spend time going by train instead of just driving,
Ooh, you mentioned my home city! I must acknowledge that now. It's the rules.
Finally, a video on MARTA, a transit system that never was. First things, the beltline needs MARTA heavy rail not whatever their mayor is proposing, they should run trains 4 times more frequently than 20 min headways (BART could really do with that too), and they should return trains to running top speed (looking at you DC Metro. Both currently run about 60mph right now)
wish seattle got a system not its light rail subway gadgetbahn
I don't really see how heavy rial on the beltline is feasible unless you dig under or build a viaduct. Either way it would never happen. They can't even get support for light rail :/
They already have support for light rail along the beltline.
Funding is secured for the first segment, the right of way is already owned, final studies are wrapping up, and construction starts next year.
@@brycejones5381that's because you obviously have never been to San Francisco or New Orleans where transit runs on greenspace as it's always been planned to run. You new people who have not done your homework on what's been planned and invested in are the biggest problem.
@@thepeppypepper Unf it's not a foregone conclusion. The mayor recently said that they're considering "wheeled alternatives" including "autonomous pods." Several of the largest developers along the beltline are vocally against it (even tho it would benefit them, of course) and seem to have the mayor's ear.
Great Video! MARTA seems to be WMATA, but without all the love or care, however I’m glad to hear that they are improving in some ways.
FINALLY!! A marta video!!!
Expand MARTA please! Give us a loop around 285, expand stops up 75, 400, 85, and throughout South Atlanta, and develop more infrastructure to get people from stops to their end destinations!
Sadly, the city has opted for express toll lanes on 285 instead :/
The main issue blocking MARTA expansion is political. There are 11 counties in the Atlanta Regional Council, but only three in the MARTA district. Each of those counties is afraid of giving up power to an outside agency, and the three MARTA counties, Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton, are majority-minority, so there are implicit and explicit racial issues, too. Those issues reared their ugly head when Gwinnett County had a referendum to join the MARTA district. It failed because people were concerned that it might cause property values to decline. Still, a better integrated feeder bus system would work great as an interim solution. There is some of that already, so there is hope.
I think the main reason the Gwinnett expansion failed because it was quite underwhelming and didn’t come close to meeting the county’s needs.
It also failed because MARTA had recently demonstrated a total failure when it similarly expanded to Clayton County.
People write off what’s holding MARTA back as racism. It’s a factor, but it’s certainly not the whole story.
@rykilg this is the main reason Gwinnett changed their plan to focus on expanding Ride Gwinnett and creating a cross county BRT network to feed into Doraville and Indian Creek.
I don’t recall seeing any iteration of the Gwinnett plan that would appeal to a voter who was a “choice rider”. And that’s most people who vote in that highly suburban county.
Bus routes aren’t going to get these folks out of their car. They need a fast train that skips all the traffic.
Also, the failure in Clayton can’t be understated. Without a massive change in MARTA leadership, no county will be joining the system for decades to come.
The irony is, transit expansion always improves property values near new transit lines, the old "crime train" racist trope is just that a racist trope. But on these councils you still have a lot of people who were around during Jim Crow and are still butthurt about the end of it.
@@rykilg Good points. The idea that "MARTA still gets voted down because Gwinnett County is full of white racists" is out-of-date. Almost 70% of the current Gwinnett population is POC, along with 80% of the county commission. Fulton County has a larger white population (by both number and percentage) than Gwinnett!
The proposals that were voted down a few years ago had nebulous promises about expanded bus service and one -- ONE! -- new rail station. A rail station that would be completed in (maybe) a decade and would be only five miles from the current Gold Line terminus in Doraville. I know a lot of people in Gwinnett who would have supported the referendum if there had been MORE, not less, rail on the table.
I may have missed it, but you should have mentioned the need to build a rail to the Battery/Truist Park. One of your lines showed that, but it's worth mentioning that that is a very important missing stop.
It's also funny that the Atlanta suburbs are turbo-NIMBY about MARTA expansion while here on the Colorado front range we're like "GIBS US ZE TRAINZ" they can't get the front range regional rail built fast enough, funding wasn't around in the 2010s to get the RTD line to Boulder built when US36 was rebuilt in 2016.
You are comparing apples to kumquats. CO does not have the crime problem that Atlanta (murder capital of the US) has. If people do not feel safe, they will not use public transit. Atlanta's "public transit problem" is really a "public safety problem". Kick out the bleeding heart liberal democrats and then talk about Marta expansion.
Did you miss the Streetcar expansion plans along the Beltline, Reece? Granted, I believe it would be ideal for this to happen through the existing mode of rapid transit rather than streetcar/tram, it’s still a significant expansion plan that would be interesting to hear your take.
Atlanta's density is nothing like a Northeast City or Chicago. Surprising you would compare to NYC, although you do go on to correct this when talking about land use near stations.
Man when I tell you Iv been waiting for this video!
I rode Marta recently when I flew in and spent a few days in Atlanta. Everything you said is very true but to me the thing Marta needs to work on first is cleanliness and safety. I can’t tell you how many drunk homeless people I’d see at like, 1pm. It’s vile, and I felt unsafe the whole time. But honestly that can be said for all of Atlanta not just Marta.
As a Brit who visited, the Aquarium is indeed awesome and MARTA was kinda terriying.
Why was the MARTA terrifying to you?
@@starventure Slight exaggeration, and it's been a few years. But lack of visible staffing presence, begging, general aesthetic are all factors.
I later met a friend of a friend who grew up ATL. He said he used to cry everytime he went on MARTA.
TBF I also found getting the L from O'Haire pretty terrible. Most old mass transit in the US is pretty unfriendly looking.
@@metamodernbarbell Yes, but the older tube lines in London are decrepit looking too, but no one calls it terrifying. There must be something special about ATL and CHI compared to London that makes the difference.
@@starventure They're much cuter. Plus middle class ppl use them so if/when there are problems then attention is brought to bear.
@@metamodernbarbell What do you mean by middle class? Can you elaborate?
The main problem is the conservative Republican state government starves MARTA of funding.
Even liberal states are starving their transit systems of funding. Both BART and DC Metro are on the brink of financial collapse.
@DanteMckimmey in that relates to State funding transit exactly how? Doubt you even support transit. LA gets to have massive expansion of their transit with both varying levels of government helping contribute funding, not seeing that in Atlanta.
TL:DR No State Funding Allowed for MARTA. If County voters want it they get it. Hence why it is only what it is and where it is. The Texas Model to the extreme. Georgia did support a transit system in the metro but it is specifically GA Express which is your typical park and ride express buses.
@@Skeet284 Fact: The ATL (Atlanta Transit Link) was supposed to be that agency that would amalgamate all these disparate entities into one transit agency for northern GA... it hasn't.
@@starrwulfe But hey at least you can use a Breeze Card on all of them. *Sarcasm*