@@frzstat that's the point. The Atlanta metropolitan area now spans 39 counties and more than half of the state population. Why does MARTA serve only 3? It should expand more tbh
@@ianhomerpura8937 Georgians aren't voting for it. They look at MARTA's history and listen to it's plans, and vote against MARTA expansion. MARTA needs people on the Board who can grow the system. Maybe smaller busses that run more frequently, to more places?
@@frzstat why do they hate MARTA getting any expansions? It's just puzzling from someone living outside the US why they would hate having transit lines near them
This is hard video comment on, disabilities are complicated even if you are disabled, each person has unique struggles. I appreciate that gave a voice to this young woman, with your platform.
Thanks for watching! Yes Carden has a great page on IG, Tiktok, Twitter posting her experiences with transit, I linked her in the description! Shes great!
Regarding congestion pricing, I'm an urbanist with a disability who grew up in the suburbs around NYC, and I wish other suburbanites weren't so against it! By parking your car at a train station, you're ditching traffic! Congestion pricing doesn't just benefit NYC's buses and the NYC Subway, it benefits the MTA's commuter systems too! Those in the suburbs need to understand that. Through congestion pricing, you are modernizing the MTA in many ways, through signals, modernized stations, new buses, expansion, infrastructure improvements, etc on the subway, buses, SIR, MNR, AND LIRR! Suburbanites like Hamptonites shouldn't complain about it when they have the Montauk Branch and Hampton Jitney as ways to commute! OR they can drive to the Ronkonkoma Branch with plenty of parking! And Staten Islanders have express buses to Manhattan, local, SBS, and limited-stop buses to Bay Ridge, and the Staten Island Railway that goes to a FREE ferry! And speaking as someone who has a disability, not every LIRR, MNR, SIR nor subway station are accessible yet! It took until 2024 for Copiague to get an elevator! Congestion pricing would give people with disabilities some wings, the greater access that they deserve! Politicians claim they care about affordability and low-income residents, but don't think of those of us who either have a disability that prevents us from driving, or simply can't afford one! Low-income people and those with disabilities are EXEMPT from congestion pricing, so I wish these people stopped using us as shields! It's extremely frustrating for Hochul to change her mind about congestion pricing because of...diners "concerned" about customers, while mentioning the Pershing Square Diner, a diner RIGHT NEXT TO GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL?! AND she attempted to get the MTA the funding they needed without congestion pricing...with a payroll tax that would've ACTUALLY affected NYC businesses, which was thankfully rejected by lawmakers. Funding transit is caring about affordability. Hochul would rather cave to NJ drivers, when those ACTUALLY IN POVERTY in NYC's outer boroughs take TRANSIT to get to work or do errands! It's ironic for Hochul to say she cares about climate change when by caving to drivers, you're contributing to pollution and an increasing pedestrian and cyclist death rate. Congestion pricing leads to safer streets, it will lead to Vision Zero. Hoboken achieved Vision Zero, and they haven't had a car-related fatality since 2017! Under Steven Fulop, Jersey City implemented Vision Zero too, and they had zero car crash-related fatalities on city-owned streets in 2022! Jersey City was also the first in NJ to have bikeshare in 2015 with Citi Bike (Hoboken joined in 2021), pedestrianizing, and building a ton of housing around HBLR and PATH stations! And yet, NJ Gov Phil Murphy would rather yell at the MTA and widen a turnpike that hurts Jersey City. Not only did the MTA agree for money to go towards NJ, but also, people can park at NJT stations or bus park and rides and take one of the many buses and trains to NYC! The Lincoln Tunnel even has a BUS LANE during rush-hour! And it's worth mentioning that her pausing it wasn't the first time Hochul caved to drivers, when in 2023, she required suburbs within 15 miles of the city to allow at least 50 housing units per acre within a half-mile from any stations, but many Nassau County officials were against it, including Dem congressman Tom Suozzi. Meanwhile, former Suffolk county executive Steve Bellone, county exec from 2012 to 2023, SUPPORTED congestion pricing! Not only that, but they've redesigned the bus network, built TOD like Patchogue, Wyandanch, and Ronkonkoma, as well as introducing bikeshare, with Patchogue, Huntington, Riverhead, the Hamptons, and Babylon all participating! This is part of his Connect Long Island plan, which also includes increasing access to transit for many people, BRT with enhanced north-south corridors, improving hiking and biking networks, and a life sciences hub at Ronkonkoma that includes a new north airport terminal (with a pedestrian corridor to the station and convention center) as TOD to get rid of a huge lot! AND, he supported a wind farm off the South Fork! This wind farm was completed in March 2024, and it's the first American-built Offshore Wind Substation! He only left because of term limits he himself wanted and passed, he knew when it was the right moment to leave.
I work in Downtown Atlanta. The Five Points Station closure would have forced me to walk 1 mile from the nearest station to my office. The plan needs to include TOD.
not going lie. Complaining about having to walk 1 mile is pretty silly. Of course there's more problems but just walk the 20 minutes till Five Points is back. Any other city a extra 1 mile isn't a big deal
It's worth mentioning regarding MARTA that MLK Jr criticized initial plans for the system and other commuter-rapid transit hybrids (like the DC Metro and BART) that catered to suburbanites being planned and built around the time in 1968, stating "The rapid-transit system has been laid out for the convenience of the white upper-middle-class suburbanites who commute to their jobs downtown,” wrote the civil rights leader in A Testament of Hope. “The system has virtually no consideration for connecting the poor people with their jobs.” When building, expanding, or improving transit, you have to consider people of all backgrounds using it, like people with disabilities as shown here, not just a group of rich people whether they're suburbanites or people only coming for a tournament. People that need transit the most. And when a state government would rather fund "One more lane, bro" projects rather than funding transit for people who either can't afford or won't/can't drive a car for various reasons, then that hurts a system's ridership even more, and those who live in transit deserts or food deserts. It is up to governments and transit agencies to right these wrongs for marginalized groups, whether it's infill stations or expansions in needed areas, accessibility, etc. And one shouldn't have to fight tooth and nail with local, state or national governments to fight for what's right when it comes to urbanism and transit. Look at Jersey City, where around 50 percent of people get around by transit, whether it's jitneys, NJT buses, light-rail, or PATH. Jersey City is quite a diverse city, from the Arab/Filipino/Indian Journal Square, Latino The Heights, and African-American Greenville. Journal Square Transportation Center is a huge hub for jitneys, NJT buses, and PATH. In Greenville and the West Side, there used to be CNJ stations at the sites of what's now Richard St, Danforth Ave, Garfield Ave, MLK Drive, and West Side Ave stations of the HBLR. But when these CNJ stations closed in the 1940s and 1960s, these neighborhoods lost their train service. A form of train wouldn't return to these neighborhoods until NJ Transit righted this wrong and built the HBLR in 2000, using mostly repurposed right-of-way. To serve The Heights, 9th St/Congress St station opened in Hoboken in 2004 on the former Conrail River Line/NJ Junction Railroad right-of-way, with an elevator going up to Congress St in Jersey City on top of the Palisades. The Heights used to have a trolley system, the North Hudson County Railway, that connected the neighborhood with Hoboken, Weehawken, and Journal Square, but now residents of The Heights have options like the HBLR to Hoboken Terminal, the 87 to Journal Square and Hoboken Terminal, a jitney to Journal Square, and the 84 to Journal Square. And downtown, the HBLR has led to the revitalization of the NJ waterfront. Like the Port Imperial TOD in Weehawken, which upgraded its NY Waterway terminal when the HBLR station opened in 2005 (the ferry terminal opened in 2006). The HBLR now serves places like Bergenline Ave in Union City, Weehawken, downtown JC, Liberty State Park, and even Bayonne. It's worth mentioning Jersey City once had three functioning rail terminals within its borders, Pavonia (Erie Railroad), Exchange Place (Pennsy), and Communipaw Terminal (CNJ), with the latter now a part of Liberty State Park. These former terminals, along with the still operating Hoboken Terminal (which has NJT commuter rail alongside a NJT bus terminal, HBLR and ferries) was why the PATH system was built, to connect these terminals to NYC so people wouldn't have to take a ferry. So with the HBLR being built, complementing the NY Waterway ferries and PATH, it helped revive the multiple-mode transit connectivity that downtown JC once had, and brought a transit renaissance.
Great vid, as a daily MARTA rider and general urbanism enjoyer I love stuff like this. You did a great job of telling this peculiar tale of do-nothing politics that is all too common in Atlanta
Just to add a little bit, the State of Georgia by law mandates that MARTA must spend 50% of all its revenue on capital expenditures and 50% on operations which severely limits how effective the system can be. So while they might be able to buy 10 new buses, they might not have the money to increase frequencies where these buses might run, as well as they might not even need the buses in the first place. This might even be why BRT is more attractive than LRT, but I don't know about that. As for the mayor...he basically holds his finger up to the wind to see which way it's blowing. He was fine with 5 points being closed to local traffic for 4 years...until the protests then magically wasn't...just like he was for Beltline Rail, until he wasn't. If anything, remember that when he comes up for reelection.
So actually the split was repealed by the state assembly in 2015 with More MARTA! This was actually in the video but Carden caught it right before posting so I had to redo the section, i thought the same😭 This past year MARTA did spent about 50/50 capex vs opex but previous years were a bit more unbalanced!
@@nathandaven Funny, I didn't know that either. The problem is still that funding is tied to sales tax which is highly volatile. This leads to cuts in service (2009) when you need the service most (recessions)
I live close to the Indian Creek station and bike there regularly. I find one of the issues with MARTA is that the city has not developed in a way that makes it all easily accessible via rail. I lived south of East Atlanta Village for a couple of years, which doesn't lie close to any stations due to it being south of I-20. Busses are key, but they don't run frequently enough! And with every transfer from bus to rail to bus again, the questions of accessibility become more and more important. It makes the beltline seem less like something that was designed to make the city accessible and more like something the city council did to make the city more "pretty" and marketable to coastal elites who might be looking for something different than the greenery-lacking urban jungles they were moving from.
Other systems are able to revitalize their hub train stations without closing them for 4 years straight. Why can't MARTA? This idea isn't BAD, but it definitely seems like there's some poorly planned elements that aren't taking the station into consideration as a hub for pedestrian activity.
Thank you so much for making this video! What a great interview. It really feels like the airport is a microcosm of the city's real priorities: putting visitors over residents. The main domestic terminal has been under construction for a while now and they'd NEVER let the terminal elevators be 100% inoperable for FOUR YEARS? That's absurd! They had that airport shuttle for a couple weeks before the station was back up and running. Five Points is the most important station on the network and everyone who uses it should be considered during a renovation. It's basic human decency and respect. But how can we expect folks who don't even ride MARTA to show that towards the folks that do... They show more respect to sports fans stopping by for the weekend than they do to their own community
Renovating the station is not expansion! The whole point of More Marta was to expand the system. Instead, they want to just renovate stations. I understand that for safety reasons, the canopy at Five Points needs to be replaced, but there is no reason to renovate stations over expanding the system.
I can't believe they would close the only transfer station for four years! The station definitely needs an update, but you've got to do it via partial closures
Yeah! And also youd really need to fix another issue before going through with something like this, and that being orbital alternatives like the Beltline, so that people have other options for going across the city to different corridors!
As someone who lives in Gwinnett to get to downtown in no traffic it takes about 30 minutes or so but when it is the work day it can easily take one and a half hours with no crashes or anything in the morning just congestion everywhere on i85 south that just does not seem to be addressed, then there is northbound in the afternoon sense trucks have to take i285 to bypass Atlanta they have to merge onto i85 northbound in a very short distance on top of the normal traffic in the afternoon. What would fix this? Oh I don’t know how about a train that goes into the city… oh wait right “that will cause the poor to come into our rich county” -Gwinnett county transit officials
Brutalism is maybe a decade away from being appreciated the way Googie and midcentury modern is now. Keep the station as it is but repair the damage and plant any originally-envisioned greenery.
Passing by the Northwest Line stub tunnels and the tunnels for the Tucker-North DeKalb Line always makes me a little sad inside. A transit system that could have been…
There should definitely be more public awareness/activism done for Marta. People should be hanging banners from highway bridges advocating against poll roads, for a restructuring of how Marta is handled, nothings going to be done until more people are aware of these things and can do something about it. I don’t want to be the one organizing these things which may be a bit hypocritical, but would love to sign up to help in someway in my free time
Apparently, 5 Points will be remodeled. The problem with MARTA rail service from the outset was its radial pattern. In the very early 1970's people still commented to downtown Atlanta. Not the case anymore. Only Fulton and DeKalb voted for and implemented the one cent MARTA tax from the beginning. DUE TO RACISM, let's get that out of the way, Cobb and Gwinnett counties did not want MARTA rail invading their white suburbs and bringing in the wrong sort of people. 50 years, the region is gridlocked. Go to the parking lot of the Doraville MARTA station and see what counties are on the licenses plates parked there. Gwinnett. MARTA receives little or no financial help from the state or has not historically. MARTA also needs MAJOR help as the system has deteriorated over the decades. Public transport in the United States for the most part is always underfunded since the POOR PEOPLE ride it. There are many other reasons why we can't have nice things in the United States. The bloated military budget hogs of the majority of the funds. When I lived in Atlanta, would only take MARTA from Brookhaven to the airport. That generally was wonderful especially crossing over I-85 just before entering/exiting the tunnel and seeing all the people sitting in their cars. Here in Las Vegas many years later, we have no real public transportation some bus service but I drive a Porsche and other decent cars. We are also a tiny metro area compared to Atlanta, just over two million with Atlanta metro region at six million. They need to run MARTA rail all the way to Alpharetta and beyond just short of the border with Forsyth County. As for Cobb and Gwinnett, F-EM as they in the past voted against MARTA on several occasions over the decades.
I still just don't understand why we need to re-engineer the station, as opposed to just repairing it. We definitely need some simple things like benches in the station, but that isn't a multi-million dollar change. But I also don't understand why we CONTINUE to destroy the actually nice brutalist architecture in this city. Colony Square has changed the classic design to "gentrification brown". They are doing the thing with the central public library. I get that 5 Points needs repairs, but unless you are going to make it a true multi-modal station, shutting everything down without significantly changing the service level is insanity. I want More MARTA funds to do Beltline LRT, North Avenue [L|B]RT. Keeping 5 Points from, you know, falling down, is important, but if you aren't going to fundamentally change it, I don't care.
I feel we, the public transit community, are very small and don't have enough power since most people don't care to truly change things for the better 😢
I wish MARTA would expand the Red Line north bound. Many traveling on 400 would appreciate public transportation to the city. This would also decrease traffic in and out of the city during rush hour. We don't need more lanes on the highway if we have a train stop near by or dedicated bus lane.
@@onetwothreeabc they should also build 1 mile per year south of the airport. It would make even more progress if the state would wake up and start coughing up some funding towards expansion...
Atlanta is so car dependent when it doesnt have to be. In fact, most american cities have the real estate to build sensible public transit and/or rail. they're just too stupid and short sighted
Surprisingly, there are some pockets of the city that aren't too bad to get around without a car. I used to live in one of those pockets. I could walk to almost all the services I needed within half a mile and also was half a mile from a train station. It wasn't always convenient, but it was quite doable. I agree though, the city and metro puts cars first.
That amount of money could be better spent elsewhere within MARTA. Also, I like the fortress bunker like look of 5 Points, and so too did a lot of other folks when they designed it. If someone wants an open airy MARTA Station, build it somewhere else. Then, 20 years from now folks can start complaining about how "open and airy" it is. Atlanta needs to build up the areas around current MARTA stations with pleasant open airy pedestrian-bke roadways and village like shops. The people there will be non-car people who love transit, especially rail. So then the ridership will increase by being in areas where their riders are. Putting Stations in the middle of giant parking lots with nothing but heavy traffic all around just makes people want to stay in their cars in the first place. Last things, watch out for special committees and their bad ideas that are going to cripple MARTA and a healthy Atlanta social community
You need to show this to Athens georgia, groups tried tuening the ex southern railroad into a passenger system but uga and the city kept shutting it down. Now UGA bought the ROW and will likely tear it out for some trail
Kinda crazy that people in those suburbs are the ones who complain the most about traffic and gas prices, but they never seem to make the logical leap that there may be a better option than driving
Both Cobb and Gwinnett are voting in a similar sales tax mechanism to fund their own systems this November. If you're in those counties, give it some research and vote! Its not perfect but it would still be transformative for MARTA connections. Regardless the region would we vastly different if cobb and gwinnet had joined back in the day..
Imagine getting through all the design and funding, ready to construct and users of the project protest because it’ll cause delays for a couple years. This happens all the time with roads and we just accept it
Its different though because roads you can just drive a different route. This is argubably the most important node in Atlanta's entire transportation system (except the airport maybe but most oft hose are just layovers?)
In order to have mass support for public transportation we need a zero tolerance on crime policy. The problem is everyone who supports public transit doesn't support having a large police presence and doesn't support harsh sentences for criminals.
Transit activists have really lousy messaging and that's part of thr problem. I particularly see this problem in TH-cam. Channels like not just bikes are a gold mine of quotes to literally show up at any city hall meeting and scare the living crap out of everyone who already had a disposition to believing a blanket car ban is coming.
@@thetimelapseguy8 no, they're advocates. you don't need to be a politician. And if all you do is say build something without how to pay for it or how to go about making a change to pay for it, you're basically not raising a point, you're making a platitude. A platitude gets nothing done. That's why they fail and end up moving to the Netherlands where people before them did the hard work they now benefit from. But because they are clueless as to how to enact change all they do is point to change they were not part of or have a clue about how to enact.
@walawala-fo7ds NJB (who you are clearly referencing) didn't fail. He is simply a human who doesn't want to live in a terrible environment or be a hypocrite and drive everywhere. Even if you think his message is divisive, the Dutch were calling cars child-killers and protesting against cars. so he is literally doing the same as the Dutch 50 years ago.
@@thetimelapseguy8 He's admitted he failed. he's never made any excuses. He even said America is beyond redemption and told everyone to quit trying. he deleted his tweets but they are still screen shot and circulated.
Nathan Davenport, I’m interested in your content and learned from your video - but I have a big ask. A really big ask. Please listen to yourself. Listen carefully to your voice, and cadence in this video. I find you hard to understand. (Alas, I also hear zero Georgia. But that’s another matter.) when you hear other speakers on video you admire, ask yourself how the speaker sounds. What’s her cadence? How long does he hold his vowel sounds? Is her voice extremely clipped and rushed? Does that make it easier to follow? Is the voice pleasant to listen to and easy to understand. Again, please listen to yourself here several times. How could the voice be easier to listen to?
You want MARTA have better engagement with the riders? Then make them more dependent on the riders. Increase the fare. Make the fare income the most of their income rather than dependent on the City or State government.
![กี่หมื่นฟ้า | Your Sky Series EP.1 [2/4]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qJbQs_nhjD4/mqdefault.jpg)
another great video from my favorite questionable youtube channel guy
very questionable.. sus even..
It's absurd that the state doesn't contribute anything to MARTA when metro Atlanta is more than half the state.
White suburbanites don't want to pay fir a system mostly used by minorities who live and work in urban areas.
MARTA is only Fulton, Dekalb and now Clayton counties. 3 out of 159 counties in Georgia.
@@frzstat that's the point. The Atlanta metropolitan area now spans 39 counties and more than half of the state population. Why does MARTA serve only 3? It should expand more tbh
@@ianhomerpura8937 Georgians aren't voting for it. They look at MARTA's history and listen to it's plans, and vote against MARTA expansion. MARTA needs people on the Board who can grow the system. Maybe smaller busses that run more frequently, to more places?
@@frzstat why do they hate MARTA getting any expansions? It's just puzzling from someone living outside the US why they would hate having transit lines near them
This is hard video comment on, disabilities are complicated even if you are disabled, each person has unique struggles. I appreciate that gave a voice to this young woman, with your platform.
Thanks for watching! Yes Carden has a great page on IG, Tiktok, Twitter posting her experiences with transit, I linked her in the description! Shes great!
Regarding congestion pricing, I'm an urbanist with a disability who grew up in the suburbs around NYC, and I wish other suburbanites weren't so against it! By parking your car at a train station, you're ditching traffic! Congestion pricing doesn't just benefit NYC's buses and the NYC Subway, it benefits the MTA's commuter systems too! Those in the suburbs need to understand that. Through congestion pricing, you are modernizing the MTA in many ways, through signals, modernized stations, new buses, expansion, infrastructure improvements, etc on the subway, buses, SIR, MNR, AND LIRR! Suburbanites like Hamptonites shouldn't complain about it when they have the Montauk Branch and Hampton Jitney as ways to commute! OR they can drive to the Ronkonkoma Branch with plenty of parking! And Staten Islanders have express buses to Manhattan, local, SBS, and limited-stop buses to Bay Ridge, and the Staten Island Railway that goes to a FREE ferry! And speaking as someone who has a disability, not every LIRR, MNR, SIR nor subway station are accessible yet! It took until 2024 for Copiague to get an elevator! Congestion pricing would give people with disabilities some wings, the greater access that they deserve! Politicians claim they care about affordability and low-income residents, but don't think of those of us who either have a disability that prevents us from driving, or simply can't afford one! Low-income people and those with disabilities are EXEMPT from congestion pricing, so I wish these people stopped using us as shields! It's extremely frustrating for Hochul to change her mind about congestion pricing because of...diners "concerned" about customers, while mentioning the Pershing Square Diner, a diner RIGHT NEXT TO GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL?! AND she attempted to get the MTA the funding they needed without congestion pricing...with a payroll tax that would've ACTUALLY affected NYC businesses, which was thankfully rejected by lawmakers. Funding transit is caring about affordability. Hochul would rather cave to NJ drivers, when those ACTUALLY IN POVERTY in NYC's outer boroughs take TRANSIT to get to work or do errands!
It's ironic for Hochul to say she cares about climate change when by caving to drivers, you're contributing to pollution and an increasing pedestrian and cyclist death rate. Congestion pricing leads to safer streets, it will lead to Vision Zero. Hoboken achieved Vision Zero, and they haven't had a car-related fatality since 2017! Under Steven Fulop, Jersey City implemented Vision Zero too, and they had zero car crash-related fatalities on city-owned streets in 2022! Jersey City was also the first in NJ to have bikeshare in 2015 with Citi Bike (Hoboken joined in 2021), pedestrianizing, and building a ton of housing around HBLR and PATH stations! And yet, NJ Gov Phil Murphy would rather yell at the MTA and widen a turnpike that hurts Jersey City. Not only did the MTA agree for money to go towards NJ, but also, people can park at NJT stations or bus park and rides and take one of the many buses and trains to NYC! The Lincoln Tunnel even has a BUS LANE during rush-hour! And it's worth mentioning that her pausing it wasn't the first time Hochul caved to drivers, when in 2023, she required suburbs within 15 miles of the city to allow at least 50 housing units per acre within a half-mile from any stations, but many Nassau County officials were against it, including Dem congressman Tom Suozzi. Meanwhile, former Suffolk county executive Steve Bellone, county exec from 2012 to 2023, SUPPORTED congestion pricing! Not only that, but they've redesigned the bus network, built TOD like Patchogue, Wyandanch, and Ronkonkoma, as well as introducing bikeshare, with Patchogue, Huntington, Riverhead, the Hamptons, and Babylon all participating! This is part of his Connect Long Island plan, which also includes increasing access to transit for many people, BRT with enhanced north-south corridors, improving hiking and biking networks, and a life sciences hub at Ronkonkoma that includes a new north airport terminal (with a pedestrian corridor to the station and convention center) as TOD to get rid of a huge lot! AND, he supported a wind farm off the South Fork! This wind farm was completed in March 2024, and it's the first American-built Offshore Wind Substation! He only left because of term limits he himself wanted and passed, he knew when it was the right moment to leave.
City folk evade public transit fares, and suburbanites evade congestion pricing.
There's a symmetry to it.
Its just a tax.
I work in Downtown Atlanta. The Five Points Station closure would have forced me to walk 1 mile from the nearest station to my office. The plan needs to include TOD.
Agreed!
not going lie. Complaining about having to walk 1 mile is pretty silly. Of course there's more problems but just walk the 20 minutes till Five Points is back. Any other city a extra 1 mile isn't a big deal
they just approved a TOD for the underground 35 story building
@@josh-ed7je Walking 1 mile is a big problem for a lot of body positive people.
@@josh-ed7jewhat it means is most ppl are gonna j drive to work
It's worth mentioning regarding MARTA that MLK Jr criticized initial plans for the system and other commuter-rapid transit hybrids (like the DC Metro and BART) that catered to suburbanites being planned and built around the time in 1968, stating "The rapid-transit system has been laid out for the convenience of the white upper-middle-class suburbanites who commute to their jobs downtown,” wrote the civil rights leader in A Testament of Hope. “The system has virtually no consideration for connecting the poor people with their jobs.” When building, expanding, or improving transit, you have to consider people of all backgrounds using it, like people with disabilities as shown here, not just a group of rich people whether they're suburbanites or people only coming for a tournament. People that need transit the most. And when a state government would rather fund "One more lane, bro" projects rather than funding transit for people who either can't afford or won't/can't drive a car for various reasons, then that hurts a system's ridership even more, and those who live in transit deserts or food deserts. It is up to governments and transit agencies to right these wrongs for marginalized groups, whether it's infill stations or expansions in needed areas, accessibility, etc. And one shouldn't have to fight tooth and nail with local, state or national governments to fight for what's right when it comes to urbanism and transit.
Look at Jersey City, where around 50 percent of people get around by transit, whether it's jitneys, NJT buses, light-rail, or PATH. Jersey City is quite a diverse city, from the Arab/Filipino/Indian Journal Square, Latino The Heights, and African-American Greenville. Journal Square Transportation Center is a huge hub for jitneys, NJT buses, and PATH. In Greenville and the West Side, there used to be CNJ stations at the sites of what's now Richard St, Danforth Ave, Garfield Ave, MLK Drive, and West Side Ave stations of the HBLR. But when these CNJ stations closed in the 1940s and 1960s, these neighborhoods lost their train service. A form of train wouldn't return to these neighborhoods until NJ Transit righted this wrong and built the HBLR in 2000, using mostly repurposed right-of-way. To serve The Heights, 9th St/Congress St station opened in Hoboken in 2004 on the former Conrail River Line/NJ Junction Railroad right-of-way, with an elevator going up to Congress St in Jersey City on top of the Palisades. The Heights used to have a trolley system, the North Hudson County Railway, that connected the neighborhood with Hoboken, Weehawken, and Journal Square, but now residents of The Heights have options like the HBLR to Hoboken Terminal, the 87 to Journal Square and Hoboken Terminal, a jitney to Journal Square, and the 84 to Journal Square. And downtown, the HBLR has led to the revitalization of the NJ waterfront. Like the Port Imperial TOD in Weehawken, which upgraded its NY Waterway terminal when the HBLR station opened in 2005 (the ferry terminal opened in 2006). The HBLR now serves places like Bergenline Ave in Union City, Weehawken, downtown JC, Liberty State Park, and even Bayonne. It's worth mentioning Jersey City once had three functioning rail terminals within its borders, Pavonia (Erie Railroad), Exchange Place (Pennsy), and Communipaw Terminal (CNJ), with the latter now a part of Liberty State Park. These former terminals, along with the still operating Hoboken Terminal (which has NJT commuter rail alongside a NJT bus terminal, HBLR and ferries) was why the PATH system was built, to connect these terminals to NYC so people wouldn't have to take a ferry. So with the HBLR being built, complementing the NY Waterway ferries and PATH, it helped revive the multiple-mode transit connectivity that downtown JC once had, and brought a transit renaissance.
“Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta” that was the stigma back then with Cobb and Gwinnett not joining. Amazing video bro💯
That term is probably still used today. Moved away two decades ago.
Great vid, as a daily MARTA rider and general urbanism enjoyer I love stuff like this. You did a great job of telling this peculiar tale of do-nothing politics that is all too common in Atlanta
Thanks so much!!
I’d say make the train run every 5 minutes instead of the renovation project.
Keep making more videos like this, Nathan! You're the voice we need!
Just to add a little bit, the State of Georgia by law mandates that MARTA must spend 50% of all its revenue on capital expenditures and 50% on operations which severely limits how effective the system can be. So while they might be able to buy 10 new buses, they might not have the money to increase frequencies where these buses might run, as well as they might not even need the buses in the first place. This might even be why BRT is more attractive than LRT, but I don't know about that. As for the mayor...he basically holds his finger up to the wind to see which way it's blowing. He was fine with 5 points being closed to local traffic for 4 years...until the protests then magically wasn't...just like he was for Beltline Rail, until he wasn't. If anything, remember that when he comes up for reelection.
So actually the split was repealed by the state assembly in 2015 with More MARTA! This was actually in the video but Carden caught it right before posting so I had to redo the section, i thought the same😭 This past year MARTA did spent about 50/50 capex vs opex but previous years were a bit more unbalanced!
@@nathandaven Funny, I didn't know that either. The problem is still that funding is tied to sales tax which is highly volatile. This leads to cuts in service (2009) when you need the service most (recessions)
Yeah, I'm ready for a new mayor.
I still remember his iconic quote that the Beltline will be “a nice, slow people mover”
@@Hahlen Makes me angry every time I hear it. He is such a disappointment
Loved the emphasis on accessibility. It’s usually an afterthought when it comes to these types of things. Another great video.
Absolutely! Thanks for watching!
I live close to the Indian Creek station and bike there regularly. I find one of the issues with MARTA is that the city has not developed in a way that makes it all easily accessible via rail. I lived south of East Atlanta Village for a couple of years, which doesn't lie close to any stations due to it being south of I-20. Busses are key, but they don't run frequently enough! And with every transfer from bus to rail to bus again, the questions of accessibility become more and more important. It makes the beltline seem less like something that was designed to make the city accessible and more like something the city council did to make the city more "pretty" and marketable to coastal elites who might be looking for something different than the greenery-lacking urban jungles they were moving from.
Babe wake up Nathan dropped another video
😳
One of your best videos to date!
🥲 thank you!!!
Other systems are able to revitalize their hub train stations without closing them for 4 years straight. Why can't MARTA? This idea isn't BAD, but it definitely seems like there's some poorly planned elements that aren't taking the station into consideration as a hub for pedestrian activity.
Thanks for watching!! also, that username is awesome..
@@nathandaven thanks man! def subbed
Thank you so much for making this video! What a great interview. It really feels like the airport is a microcosm of the city's real priorities: putting visitors over residents. The main domestic terminal has been under construction for a while now and they'd NEVER let the terminal elevators be 100% inoperable for FOUR YEARS? That's absurd! They had that airport shuttle for a couple weeks before the station was back up and running. Five Points is the most important station on the network and everyone who uses it should be considered during a renovation. It's basic human decency and respect. But how can we expect folks who don't even ride MARTA to show that towards the folks that do... They show more respect to sports fans stopping by for the weekend than they do to their own community
So true, thanks for watching :)
Renovating the station is not expansion! The whole point of More Marta was to expand the system. Instead, they want to just renovate stations. I understand that for safety reasons, the canopy at Five Points needs to be replaced, but there is no reason to renovate stations over expanding the system.
I agree! Why don’t they start laying rail somewhere every year? If they laid 1 mile/year since 2015, we should have 10 more miles now!
Yippee the video has arrived!
thanks for watching!!
Whatever happened to light rail along the beltline? Thought they got funding for that.
It’s one of the only projects still on tier 1, Eastside Streetcar Extension, i think its estimated 2028. You know, unless the Nimbys kill it😁
Thanks for another great video, Nathan!
thanks for watching!!!
I can't believe they would close the only transfer station for four years! The station definitely needs an update, but you've got to do it via partial closures
Yeah! And also youd really need to fix another issue before going through with something like this, and that being orbital alternatives like the Beltline, so that people have other options for going across the city to different corridors!
Excellent presentation.👊🏾👴🏾✌🏾
thank you!!!
Great video. I just found your channel and am subscribed. Transit supporter watching from Los Angeles!
As someone who lives in Gwinnett to get to downtown in no traffic it takes about 30 minutes or so but when it is the work day it can easily take one and a half hours with no crashes or anything in the morning just congestion everywhere on i85 south that just does not seem to be addressed, then there is northbound in the afternoon sense trucks have to take i285 to bypass Atlanta they have to merge onto i85 northbound in a very short distance on top of the normal traffic in the afternoon. What would fix this? Oh I don’t know how about a train that goes into the city… oh wait right “that will cause the poor to come into our rich county” -Gwinnett county transit officials
Blame Gwinett voters who declined MARTA on numerous occasions at the ballot box.
Please vote for the SPLOST to expand Gwinnett County Transit. If Gwinnett won't join MARTA, they can at least do more for themselves.
Yet there is plenty of money for something most residents don't want - Cop City.
Brutalism is maybe a decade away from being appreciated the way Googie and midcentury modern is now. Keep the station as it is but repair the damage and plant any originally-envisioned greenery.
Yeah no
Love your videos, feels like it keeps me more in touch with my city 💕
Thank ya!!
Oh MARTA. The finest mental health institution in the state of Georgia.
Passing by the Northwest Line stub tunnels and the tunnels for the Tucker-North DeKalb Line always makes me a little sad inside. A transit system that could have been…
And may yet be someday...
There should definitely be more public awareness/activism done for Marta. People should be hanging banners from highway bridges advocating against poll roads, for a restructuring of how Marta is handled, nothings going to be done until more people are aware of these things and can do something about it. I don’t want to be the one organizing these things which may be a bit hypocritical, but would love to sign up to help in someway in my free time
Why can't they close half the station and let passengers be active on the other side?
Another incredible video, Nathan! 👏🏼
Apparently, 5 Points will be remodeled. The problem with MARTA rail service from the outset was its radial pattern. In the very early 1970's people still commented to downtown Atlanta. Not the case anymore. Only Fulton and DeKalb voted for and implemented the one cent MARTA tax from the beginning. DUE TO RACISM, let's get that out of the way, Cobb and Gwinnett counties did not want MARTA rail invading their white suburbs and bringing in the wrong sort of people. 50 years, the region is gridlocked. Go to the parking lot of the Doraville MARTA station and see what counties are on the licenses plates parked there. Gwinnett. MARTA receives little or no financial help from the state or has not historically. MARTA also needs MAJOR help as the system has deteriorated over the decades. Public transport in the United States for the most part is always underfunded since the POOR PEOPLE ride it. There are many other reasons why we can't have nice things in the United States. The bloated military budget hogs of the majority of the funds. When I lived in Atlanta, would only take MARTA from Brookhaven to the airport. That generally was wonderful especially crossing over I-85 just before entering/exiting the tunnel and seeing all the people sitting in their cars. Here in Las Vegas many years later, we have no real public transportation some bus service but I drive a Porsche and other decent cars. We are also a tiny metro area compared to Atlanta, just over two million with Atlanta metro region at six million. They need to run MARTA rail all the way to Alpharetta and beyond just short of the border with Forsyth County. As for Cobb and Gwinnett, F-EM as they in the past voted against MARTA on several occasions over the decades.
Amazing work
I still just don't understand why we need to re-engineer the station, as opposed to just repairing it. We definitely need some simple things like benches in the station, but that isn't a multi-million dollar change. But I also don't understand why we CONTINUE to destroy the actually nice brutalist architecture in this city. Colony Square has changed the classic design to "gentrification brown". They are doing the thing with the central public library. I get that 5 Points needs repairs, but unless you are going to make it a true multi-modal station, shutting everything down without significantly changing the service level is insanity.
I want More MARTA funds to do Beltline LRT, North Avenue [L|B]RT. Keeping 5 Points from, you know, falling down, is important, but if you aren't going to fundamentally change it, I don't care.
I feel we, the public transit community, are very small and don't have enough power since most people don't care to truly change things for the better 😢
Not in New York
Great coverage
Great video as usual!
I wish MARTA would expand the Red Line north bound. Many traveling on 400 would appreciate public transportation to the city. This would also decrease traffic in and out of the city during rush hour. We don't need more lanes on the highway if we have a train stop near by or dedicated bus lane.
And southbound into Clayton County, and revive the Hapeville branch to reach the far end of the county...
If MARTA properly used their money, they should build 1 mile per year north of N. Spring. That will be a big progress in 20 years.
@@onetwothreeabc they should also build 1 mile per year south of the airport. It would make even more progress if the state would wake up and start coughing up some funding towards expansion...
@@jayo1212 As long as MARTA can build some rail in any direction with a rate of 1 mile per year, I support the state to put some money on it.
every video is better than the last :D 💜
very wise!
great video
First off it's The south. Secondly Done video over!
Screw modernization and whatever, brutalist architecture is cool and the station should be preserved, or at least only lightly modified as necessary.
Atlanta is so car dependent when it doesnt have to be. In fact, most american cities have the real estate to build sensible public transit and/or rail. they're just too stupid and short sighted
Surprisingly, there are some pockets of the city that aren't too bad to get around without a car. I used to live in one of those pockets. I could walk to almost all the services I needed within half a mile and also was half a mile from a train station. It wasn't always convenient, but it was quite doable.
I agree though, the city and metro puts cars first.
fantastic video!
Most BART stations need to be modernized asap as well.
I had a layover in Atlanta the day they had the protest. I was sitting there watching having a cigarette 😆
🔥💯💪🏾
appreciate ya!!
That amount of money could be better spent elsewhere within MARTA. Also, I like the fortress bunker like look of 5 Points, and so too did a lot of other folks when they designed it. If someone wants an open airy MARTA Station, build it somewhere else. Then, 20 years from now folks can start complaining about how "open and airy" it is. Atlanta needs to build up the areas around current MARTA stations with pleasant open airy pedestrian-bke roadways and village like shops. The people there will be non-car people who love transit, especially rail. So then the ridership will increase by being in areas where their riders are. Putting Stations in the middle of giant parking lots with nothing but heavy traffic all around just makes people want to stay in their cars in the first place. Last things, watch out for special committees and their bad ideas that are going to cripple MARTA and a healthy Atlanta social community
You need to show this to Athens georgia, groups tried tuening the ex southern railroad into a passenger system but uga and the city kept shutting it down.
Now UGA bought the ROW and will likely tear it out for some trail
Why don’t UGA build the rail?
I Wonder How we can convince COBB and Gwinnett county to join Marta
Kinda crazy that people in those suburbs are the ones who complain the most about traffic and gas prices, but they never seem to make the logical leap that there may be a better option than driving
Both Cobb and Gwinnett are voting in a similar sales tax mechanism to fund their own systems this November. If you're in those counties, give it some research and vote! Its not perfect but it would still be transformative for MARTA connections.
Regardless the region would we vastly different if cobb and gwinnet had joined back in the day..
another nate dog banger… needless to say, I love Marta transit
Imagine getting through all the design and funding, ready to construct and users of the project protest because it’ll cause delays for a couple years. This happens all the time with roads and we just accept it
Its different though because roads you can just drive a different route. This is argubably the most important node in Atlanta's entire transportation system (except the airport maybe but most oft hose are just layovers?)
In order to have mass support for public transportation we need a zero tolerance on crime policy. The problem is everyone who supports public transit doesn't support having a large police presence and doesn't support harsh sentences for criminals.
You would think that in the deep south with their plantation mentality would enforce the laws and MARTA has a fairly large police force.
Guys we have been on 3rd war on public transportation.
Leave the concrete alone!!
Transit activists have really lousy messaging and that's part of thr problem. I particularly see this problem in TH-cam. Channels like not just bikes are a gold mine of quotes to literally show up at any city hall meeting and scare the living crap out of everyone who already had a disposition to believing a blanket car ban is coming.
They're youtubers, not politicians. They shouldn't be quoted in any professional setting. They do raise mostly correct points though.
@@thetimelapseguy8 no, they're advocates. you don't need to be a politician. And if all you do is say build something without how to pay for it or how to go about making a change to pay for it, you're basically not raising a point, you're making a platitude. A platitude gets nothing done. That's why they fail and end up moving to the Netherlands where people before them did the hard work they now benefit from. But because they are clueless as to how to enact change all they do is point to change they were not part of or have a clue about how to enact.
@walawala-fo7ds NJB (who you are clearly referencing) didn't fail. He is simply a human who doesn't want to live in a terrible environment or be a hypocrite and drive everywhere. Even if you think his message is divisive, the Dutch were calling cars child-killers and protesting against cars. so he is literally doing the same as the Dutch 50 years ago.
@@thetimelapseguy8 He's admitted he failed. he's never made any excuses. He even said America is beyond redemption and told everyone to quit trying. he deleted his tweets but they are still screen shot and circulated.
i thought you rode a nimbus 2000
brutalism, man
I’m just going to drive how bout that?
Southern corruption
Nathan Davenport, I’m interested in your content and learned from your video - but I have a big ask. A really big ask. Please listen to yourself. Listen carefully to your voice, and cadence in this video. I find you hard to understand. (Alas, I also hear zero Georgia. But that’s another matter.) when you hear other speakers on video you admire, ask yourself how the speaker sounds. What’s her cadence? How long does he hold his vowel sounds? Is her voice extremely clipped and rushed? Does that make it easier to follow? Is the voice pleasant to listen to and easy to understand.
Again, please listen to yourself here several times. How could the voice be easier to listen to?
You want MARTA have better engagement with the riders? Then make them more dependent on the riders. Increase the fare. Make the fare income the most of their income rather than dependent on the City or State government.
Yall need to realize most people wanna ride a car. Thats why it doesnt get backlash. Cope.
The issue is that MARTA’s board does not use MARTA. They should have this woman in the video on the board of MARTA.
Source: trust me bro
You need to realize more and more people are pushing for public transit to be improved and expanded.