dammit.

it’s finally here. the consequences of the state legislature’s failure to act to secure additional funding from marta are finally here. i do very much hope this is not the beginning of a death-spiral where decreased service leads to decreased ridership leading to decreased revenue and repeat.

also, i dream of a day when our leaders realize vibrant public transportation is a key component of a truly world class city, and by extension a prosperous georgia, and that is should exist as a public good not a money-making endeavor and fund it appropriately.

sigh, okay /soapbox.

anyway, marta service cuts are scheduled to begin this saturday, tomorrow, including the elmination of a the #23 and #182 bus routes and cuts in frequency to many bus routes and train service. especially hit will be off-peak train service.

you can check here to see what routes are affected and how.

fortunately for me at least, both of my main bus routes have survived intact for now.

in an effort to show support for atlanta’s beleaguere but absolutely vital public transit system, a grassroots movement has organized around the idea of having a “ride marta day” tomorrow.

it’s really easy to participate. you just ride marta. that’s it. nothing more.

seriously, just plan one trip on marta that you might have normally taken in a car. a strong turnout will show out “leaders” that we atlantans care about having a vital public transportation system.

this issue is of course deeply personal to me as someone who rides on marta every day and loves the system, the people that operate it and ride on it. so i am personally asking for you to support ride marta day.

and one other thought – try riding a bus if you never have. i know many people really dislike the idea of riding a bus, but give it a whirl. you might be surprised.

you can find more information on the ride marta day web site including a list of supporting organizations.

also the citizens for progressive transit’s a-train trip planner is a great resource for planning your marta trip tomorrow.

happy riding. if you see me on the #9, the north-south line, or the #140 say hello.

i have a message for georgia house majority leader jerry “disney world” keen:

if you feel like calling majority leader keen and asking him if he might just like to move to orlando, you can find his contact details here.

the ajc reports on the response of yours an my elected leaders on the financial crisis at marta.

for his part the governor just seems torqued that nobody asked for his help, which makes sense seeing as he and his staff are so effective at getting legislation passed (sarcasm intended.) he then said, “It’s always unfortunate when people who depend on MARTA have their service cut, and I hope they (MARTA) can find a way …. to make it through the end of the year.”

translation – sorry, losers without cars. hope someone figures this out, but don’t ask me. not my gig.

thanks sonny. we appreciate your concern.

the lite governor, well he is a little more concerned.

cagle, pressed about marta cutting a day of service apparently said, “that could be hurtful.”

really?

he went on to add, “MARTA is a vital part of what gets done in metro Atlanta, particularly with tourism and the convention business.”

no word on whether the lieutenant governor thinks the 100,000 plus people that ride marta to work every day are a vital part of what gets done in metro atlanta or not.

still no word from the dunce from dallas.

clowns. all of you.

keep up the phone calls.

governor perdue – 404-656-1776
lieutenant governor cagle – 404-656-5030
speaker richardson – 404-don’t-waste-your-breath.

marta is calling today for the governor, the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the house to convene a special session of the legislature to deal with the marta funding issue.

according to the marta release:

MARTA Board of Directors today urged Governor Sonny Perdue, Lt. Governor Casey Cagle and House Speaker Glenn Richardson to call a special session to deal with transportation and MARTA funding issues. During their 2009 General Assembly, state legislators failed to pass critical legislation providing regional or state transportation funding and lifting restrictions on the use of MARTA’s capital reserve funds. The Georgia General Assembly ended last Friday, April 3. During the 2009 legislative session, MARTA petitioned state lawmakers to grant the authority access to $65 million in its capital reserve account to fund a significant gap in its operating budget.

“I can’t emphasize enough how critical it is that MARTA be allowed flexibility to use its reserve account to fund operation of the system. I commit to you that the MARTA Board is looking for all ways to cut expenses and run this system as efficiently and effectively as possible,” said MARTA Board Chairman Michael Walls. “We implore the state to please reconsider this issue so that during this difficult economic time we can keep this essential transportation service running, which acts as a lifeline for so many people.”

(full press release here)

please help with this. please.

take 30 seconds and call the governor at 404-656-1776 and ask him to convene a special session of the legislature.

then take 30 seconds and call the lieutenant governor at 404-656-5030.

by the way, i just did this. the governor’s office told me to call my legislator, so i am not expecting a ton of leadership from him on this.

at casey cagle’s office they did discuss the issue with me and get my contact information. then again casey wants to be governor so he has some incentive.

please flood our elected leaders. let them know that you want to see some leadership on this.

dear georgia republican party,

f you.

i am about the last guy you could have afforded to piss off. well maybe not exactly, but i am an rnc donor, volunteered for mccain, voted for sonny and casey a few years ago.

i believe in limited government and lower taxes. i believe charity is best left to private sector. i believe that government ought to stick to functions where there is a societal need and the market isn’t capable of providing a competing service. in short, i am your voter.

let’s go back to that last piece though. one of the places where it has been proven, over and over again, that government is needed is municipal mass transit. a strong mass transit system relies on government funding and is necessary to a good urban quality of life. and yet, despite this , the jokers in the georgia republican party that run this state decided to say fu to public transport.

so as a marta commuter, i say fu right back.

the funny thing is marta wasn’t even asking for new money. all they were asking for was to be able to use all of the money that is collected through sales tax in fulton and dekalb for operations. read that, not a state sales tax, a sales tax in two counties.

for those of you who don’t know about this, marta is forced by it’s absurd enabling law to put aside 50 percent of it’s sales tax regulation into a captial fund. no other transit system has to do this. just marta. why you ask? simple, the legislators at the time wanted to keep marta poor so it couldn’t offer free rides. that’s it. no other reason.

and despite all that, you couldn’t find a way to release this money so marta can keep operating. i ride marta every day. how many members of the martoc, including it’s inept chairwoman, jill chambers, can say the same? i ride it and more than 100,000 other people depend on it to get to work. and you are letting it starve.

why? i really don’t know. i don’t understand the legislative chicanery that led to this, but i know that there should have been a way to get it done. and you failed.

there is no telling what marta is going to have to do now. close bathrooms, eliminate weekend service, cut back bus routes? who knows. you could had prevented it, and you didn’t.

so screw you.

in my opinion you have no proven that you are completely incompetent to run this state. i will continue to vote for republicans at the national level, but next time i see a georgia office i am voting for the libertarian.

hope you got a few votes out of butts county out of this, because you lost one in fulton.

sincerely,

james hervey

things are bad at marta right now. really bad.

the ajc is reporting that marta’s budget shortfall is growing every day as the economic crisis worsens. no before you go all crazy on marta, you have to know that marta gets the bulk of it’s funding from a sales tax in fulton and dekalb. if people don’t buy, marta doesn’t get money.

some of the measures being considered are drastic to say the least. eliminating weekend service, cutting bus routes, raising fares.

i also know that most of you don’t ride marta and you probably could care less, but consider this, if marta eliminates my bus route, i might just be back on the streets with you trying to get to work, as will all these other people on the bus with me right now (yup, i am writing this from the bus.) some of them may not be able to even commute to their jobs.

if you live in atlanta, a strong public transportation system helps you big time, whether you ride or not.

and don’t start to bitch about how marta’s problems are of their own making. for the crap funding they get, they do a pretty damn awesome job. you can get anywhere in fulton or dekalb, safely with (most of the time) a smile. marta has done a lot to clean up it’s act too. our own ben did a good job of making this case here.

the state can help. they can give marta money, or at least ease the restriction that forces marta to tie so much money up in a captial reserve. either would help.

jill chambers, who most of you have never heard or, heads the marta oversight board. please contact her and tell her that marta is good for all georgians and the state NEEDS to step in.

you can find her info here.

i started riding marta one year ago last week. it was a combination of frustration with sitting in my car, the rising price of gas and just a plain old desire to have some time back in my life that put me on the train for the first time. by the time those first few weeks were over, i was hooked. i haven’t driven my car to my office in alpharetta in more than one year, that is how much i love my ride to and from work on the bus and train every day.

this is what i wrote here on the atlanta metblog of that decision a year ago:

and then last friday hit. my commute from my workplace off of old milton parkway in alpharetta back home to north ormewood took more than two hours to complete. i was frustrated, upset and stressed. i seriously could feel my blood pressure increasing with each time i tapped the breaks.
as i watched each marta train cross over me on 400 zipping into town i asked myself, can it really be that bad?

i start every morning out on the #9 bus which i ride from in front of my house ever morning to the five points station. i get on the northbound train and ride it all the way to the end of the line at north springs. from there i get on another bus, the #140, which takes me all the way up to old milton parkway and my office. all told the trip takes me about 90 minutes each way. it’s a good 45 minutes longer in the morning and about a push in the evening, adding 45 minutes to my commute. and i wouldn’t give it up for the world.

i have learned a lot in the year i have been riding marta. first and foremost i have learned that for the most part all of the reasons people give for not riding marta – it doesn’t go anywhere, it isn’t safe, it’s not reliable are just myths. i have learned that if you are willing to ride a bus, you can get almost anywhere in fulton or dekalb on marta. marta is as reliable as driving; you can look back on my posts about marta over at my personal blog and it’s incredible how few of them have to do with problems or delays. sure they happen, but about as frequently as construction or an accident or a braves game would delay my commute.

so i have learned those things; that most of the issues people come up with for not riding marta are basically myths, but i have learned a lot more about myself too. i have for the last year on an almost daily basis been in the overwhelming minority on my commute. i can’t begin to stress how much this has changed my thinking and perspective on issues related to race and our society . i tried to capture it once in a post on my personal blog, but i don’t think i am a good enough writer to nail it:

it is with some level of dissatisfaction with myself that i must admit that i was very uncomfortable for a long period of time. some of it was basic fear. we have all heard the arguments for rational stereotyping – black men commit the majority of violent crime, ergo we are right to have our pulse quicken when we see them. yes i know it is a tad bit more complex but just stick with me, i am paraphrasing to try to get this out. some of it was just being uncomfortable being different. some of it was, i am convinced, fear that those on the trains and buses didn’t want me there – this was there space, and who was i to invade it.
i consider myself an enlightened guy, so it is with pain that i admit this. it is with pain that i admit that sometimes my heart can quicken a bit when i come out of the tunnel onto alabama street to catch my bus.

i have also been able to observe and participate in the human drama in a way that i just didn’t disconnected from the people around me in my car. the most enjoyable thing about marta for me is the overwhelming sense of community i feel, sharing a bus or a train with all these other people. it can’t be replicated. this sense of community and my feelings about race as they have been channeled through my experience on marta have even become the backdrop for a novel i am writing.

during the gas shortage, i learned how nice it is to not need gas. i can get anywhere in the city on marta with a little planning and during the gas shortage i got to laugh at my friends who were waiting in line for more than an hour trying to fill up their tanks. i fill my tank up once a month and during the gas shortage i stretched that even more.

oh and the time i find. i work on marta, i read, i meditate, i write. heck i am even writing this post as i sit in the front of the #140 riding up north point parkway.

i guess the most important thing i have learned though, is that it’s important to be open. for years i was closed to the idea of taking marta because i didn’t want to ride a bus. if the train had gone to my office i might have done it years ago. finally driven by the insanity of sitting in my car for hours on end, i took the plunge and i have never looked back.

if you have considered marta but dumped the idea because of one of those little myths or one bad experience, give us another chance. we’re out here riding every day. we’d love to see you. i have a feeling next november, i at least, will be writing my two year retrospective.

the center for neighborhood technology has released a new series of maps to showcase transportation and affordability in various cities.

the atlanta maps are interesting with lots of detail, but i think the most interesting ones are the transit ones. the map above is a zoom in on the area around my house showcasing how many transit lines are within walking distance. i am lucky to live in an area where i can walk to multiple bus routes, but what shocked even me, was how many wide swaths of the city have only one transit route within walking distance. and i am not talking about suburbia (alpharetta, duluth, etc.) i am talking about buckhead, vinings, druid hills, parts of east atlanta etc.

you can play around with the atlanta map here

i suppose this is probably another reason why so few people go the marta route. when there is only one bus route it takes an insane amount of planning to make your destination on-time and makes spur-of-the-moment trips difficult. it can be done, but it definitely is hard.

a call to you gwinettians though – you can begin to help improve this by voting yes to the transit option in your upcoming primary.

h/t to ben at the excellent blog terminal station for the find.

Random Atlanta has the details on the unintentionally ironic Marta bus ad.

[Via Rusty]