Atlanta was founded at a junction of rail-lines, I say bring them back and for heaven sake, put up maps of the neighborhood where the MARTA stops. Like hey, how does it help anyone to see a map of the entire MARTA system when one gets off the train in a new neighborhood?

So its the criminals you are trying to thort? They can't read, don't look at maps and are very unlikely to come into any neighborhood by MARTA. Make it easier for users and triple the number of parking spaces at the stops.

Unfortunately, I have found the only people walking in Atlanta are too poor to use the MARTA system, let's trun it around. And yes, every construction site should provide safe temporary sidewalks. Best, from New Haven, CT, a walkable city.

I guess no one told him that building a new transit system takes many years of planning, financing, buying up property, construction, etc. Its great that he's finally warmed up to the idea, but all that time wasted could have been spent getting this thing off the ground.

I was shocked at the general lack of any thought to cyclists or pedestrians whatsoever. Some nuggets:

I had a public transit bus driver tell me I was riding on the wrong side of the road, I was supposed to be facing traffic. (After passed me inches to spare right before cutting in front of me to get into the bus stop cutout)

At the Cumberland Mall the installed a signalled crosswalk so people could cross from that same bus stop to the mall- on the mall side there was a wall of bushes.

Lots of places sidewalks would just end.

Upscale apartment complex set the sprinklers to comletely drench the sidewalk (impassible to pass unless you want to get drenched) to 9am. I told them it was a bad time. The response, "we have to get it done before water restrictions at 10". So I asked if they could maybe set them for 3am. "I'll see". (I didn't get a chance to find out if they did, I usually walked to work at

Bellsouth dug a giant pit in the dirt shoulder passing as a sidewalk on Cumberland pkwy, and left it there for 6 months. Forced all pedestrians into the 50mph traffic. I called, and they said it was hard to schedule the digging contractor and the fiber install contractor. I threatened to fill it back in, and they threatened to sue me if I did. I probably should have 'fallen' in and sued them.

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/am2Route/Horizontal_Route_Page&c=am2Route&cid=1081256321858&ssid=10979
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_%28Amtrak%29

The Bay Area has a pretty similar system, for the most part.

Still preferable to most airports or Interstates, for my money.

I'm trying to get my parents to take the Crescent (assuming the name comes from "Crescent City") up from NC, but I'm not counting on it.

And it just occurred to me that I've lived my entire life within 35 miles of that train line. Weird.

Amtrak and their folksy names. I know it goes up from there; I have been trying to convince my parents to take "the crescent" for the past few years, but they still think of riding any train as a bold adventure likely to involve sleeping in stations and fighting off gypsies. Subjecting oneself to airport security, airplane seats, and airline "weather" delays, on the other hand, is a perfectly comfortable, predictable, and most importantly normal way to travel.

What's always struck me about that train line is that it doesn't follow I-85, but I guess that's because it predates the interstate. Just found it on google maps and in my remotely biased opinion it would be a great place to start Georgia commuter rail. (Never mind that freight companies are probably using it as a very long warehouse.)

Good points all, Former Atlantan. I myself am impressed with these developments -- particularly in light of past mistakes.

Not the best attitude for building public transportation infrastructure, actually! But it's better than dismissal, as long as it doesn't lead to some optimistically planned project that fails and disproves (so to speak) the concept of public transit for another generation of Georgians.

There is, astonishingly, active railroad track from Atlanta to Gainesville that carries one Amtrak train each way daily; I'm not sure of its route but it must pass through a some tasty nuggets of suburbia (there is not much else between those places). If there is a way to make use of it at least in rush hours they could get some commuter rail running quickly without tempting boondoggledom. At the same time, Atlanta's Marta system goes rather long distances for a "subway" (in keeping with the sprawled city); thought should be put into how best to integrate. Slow and steady, Sonny.

You've got to be careful where you move to, however, due to some of the same issues.

My latest thought is for all the young people, working people and entreprenuerial companies to form a union. After Ohio and Michigan go bankrupt, the union would negotiate directly with the local feudal lords in those states and the cities of Detroit and Cleveland, Wayne and Cuyahoga counties.

The deal is they'll move there only if constitutional provisions are in place assuring that only 5% of their tax dollars, fees and fares would to go to past debts, pensions and retiree health care, with the rest going to actual public services, benefits and the infrastructure and other common amenities improved (rather than degraded). Might give my kids a place to move to someday. But they'd have to wait until after the bankruptcy. Those places might get there before Albany actually finishes us off.

We in NYC have nothing to be smug about. We haven't completed a new subway route since the 1930s. Robert Moses turned huge swaths of New York into a pedestrian-hostile environment. The defeat of congestion pricing opened a gaping wound in the MTA capital plan. We can't even equip our buses with cameras without the say-so of some jerk from Rochester.

Someday, living a walkable life in a transit-rich environment may mean moving out of New York. If Larry is right about even half of the things he says, this city will be a dysfunctional backwater in a few more decades.

Yeah, transportation policy in Georgia has sucked for a long time, but are we really that much better? Bus cameras and congestion pricing both got shot down. The transit we do have is facing a mountain of debt, while transit leaders are giving themselves raises and hanging on to frivolous perks. We have a great transit system because the leaders 100 years ago built a great system, and the leaders 30 years ago decided it was worth saving. The current leaders and most in between have mainly rested on their laurels and maintained the status quo.

Atlanta is pioneering new techniques to get transit projects funded. Take a look at the Beltline, which is funded through tax-increment financing to build a transit line, a greenway, and a ring of park around the downtown area.
http://www.beltline.org

Given when those systems were built, that puts them at 1808!