About Blogging

Yesterday a friend who lives in DC asked me why I'm blogging, am I trying to be some sort of www.WTFMetro.com?  (Which, by the way, is a hilarious website that makes me appreciate MARTA that much more.)  And I have to say, No.  I started Transit Misadventures in part to make fun of myself as I try to navigate transit, since I moved to Atlanta from a place where transit involves tractors.  Well, we have school buses.  Don't get me wrong, I've lived in China and England, so I wasn't foreign to the idea by any means, but making a point to ride a bus full time wasn't anything I had done before.  Buses scare me.  There are a bijillion routes and schedules and who knows where you're supposed to get on and off because there aren't always those fancy shelters that are a dead give-away.  But I got involved with the Sierra Club, which led to me adopting into my life two very awesome transit boys, one of whom is car-free.  And, frankly, I hate cars and driving in the city and had considered if I could go car-free before meeting One and Two and didn't think I could do it.  So one week I tried it.  Car-free for a week.  And you know what?  Despite the two hour commute and missing the bus a couple of times and learning the hard way that CCT doesn't run on Sundays, I loved it.  Then Two, who is car-free but constantly gives me props for being so hardcore with my multiple hour, multi-modal commute, encouraged me to start a blog.  And hey, why not?

I never started this whole deal to talk about MARTA being a disaster.  In fact, I have to give it props for operating as well as it does.  MARTA is the ninth largest transit system in the nation and the largest to not get any state funding.  At one point, MARTA was admired as being a pioneer in the field and Reagan came to Atlanta to see it, but then the state let it fall behind.  You hear a lot of reasons for that, like the counties (*ahem* Cobb, Gwinnett) surrounding Atlanta thought that it would bring the "undesirables" up to the suburbs.  So only two counties, Fulton and Dekalb, signed on.  Then former Gov. Lester Maddox tied it down with this 50/50 funding stipulation because he didn't want it to be a free-ride for the poor folk. 

30 years later, MARTA is a battle ground.  To bring this into perspective, the next largest transit system in the nation to not receive state funding is CCT (I believe it's the 54th largest transit system, but don't hold me to that); so Georgia sucks on a couple of levels.  Without some major intervention, MARTA is facing Draconian (PS, I don't understand it, but this is the buzz word to describe the dire nature of the situation) service cuts of up to 25-30% next year.  If you don't think transit is important, imagine if there were 25% more cars on the road.  And before you sign it off to be a Metro thing, CCT and GRTA didn't come about because there wasn't a need, and 18 counties didn't vote to let the ARC help out MARTA last year because they had no use for that $25 million.

So, as much as it's a blog to poke fun at myself, the Accidental Commuter, and CCT, it's also a transit advocacy thing to.  For the next few months, expect my adventures to be peppered with ways to get involved and updates on the Gold Dome.