It's hard to post...

when the commute is rather uneventful.  Except for those darned escalators, will someone fix that, please?  I hate the stairs, mainly, my leg hates the stairs.  For those of you who don't know me, I broke my leg in a kayaking accident late last summer, in two places.  They gave me a year recovery time-period, and let me tell ya, it's not a fan of stairs.  Especially when I'm hauling around my bag for work/ the Sierra Club and a bag with all my stuff for the shelter.

But MARTA did the right thing is closing down all the escalators that crappy technician worked on.  For those of you who aren't in the know, they were shut down because it came out that an outsourced technician bypassed the safety features on an escalator rather than repair it.  Out of the 149 escalators in MARTA stations, 100 were determined to have possibly been effected and are now out of operation.  Way to go MARTA, now fix them, ASAP please.  It was really entertaining to see how many people crammed onto the elevator at Arts Center yesterday morning, though.  Two said that MARTA has now hired an inspector on staff now, so maybe this won't happen again.  But I hope the company they outsourced to fired that guy!

In other news, I found out a startlingly fact.  One and I were discussing Sam Olens's run for Attorney General.  Olens is currently the Cobb County Commission's Chairman of the Board.  One was talking about how fiscally conservative they've been, especially Olens, and how that's helped out CCT.  For those who don't ride CCT, they just started a new bus route out in West Cobb and have purchased buses from MARTA, ones that MARTA bought but can't afford to operate.  Olens and the Board have put CCT in a state so that they are the most fiscally viable transit system in the state.  Which is amazing, because they sure aren't the smoothest operating one.

Not this isn't to say that MARTA isn't fiscally smart, they just have more expenses (remember, no transit system in the nation is entirely self-sustaining).  Maybe, if I were smart, I'd figure out what the budgets are for MARTA and CCT.  And by smart, I just mean get off my lazy butt and ask.  But I just think it's incredible that CCT is doing so well.  One's not sure how they'll fair without Olens, we'll just have to see.  But it's nice to know that at least one transit system is operating without the constant fear of Draconian cuts, or, in the case of C-TRAN, imminent death.

Speaking of which, Two told me an interesting fact.  Apparently the ARC made an offer to Clayton County to help them save C-TRAN.  This involve some fancy-pants redistribution of sales tax at the airport, but it would have given them the money to keep C-TRAN running.  The Clayton County Commission, however, declined this generous offer to save itself.  The Commission hates buses, for the same reason that MARTA wasn't allowed in Cobb and Gwinnett counties.  Buses are associated with undesirables.

I am not undesirable!