Straphanger!
You heard me, I called you a straphanger.
Straphanger is a nickname given to commuters on public transit. It originates from the late 1800s and stems from folks standing on the subway or bus, hanging on to the straps overhead. For you young'ens, those are now metal bars, except for some of the Atlantic Station shuttles, they still have straps.
“No sane man,” said a North-sider yesterday who has been a strap-hanger for years, “expects the street car lines to furnish seats for every passenger during the rush hour morning and evening.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 22 Feb 1896.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
C TRAN Countdown
We're at t-minus 24 hours til the end of C TRAN service and the AJC has run the following article:
C-TRAN reaches end of the line
I have to agree that it seems like Clayton County is trying to rid itself of its poor. Clayton is known for its poor, that's where they flocked to when they couldn't afford to live in the city any longer. And it makes it that much more disparate when you compare it to GRTA's service, which services 7,500 suburbanites who probably have cars a day while CTRAN serves 8,000 of the working poor, 65% of whom don't have access to cars. The articles states that "For [GRTA riders] transit is a matter of choice, not economic survival. Where 60 percent of C-Tran riders said their total household income was less than $25,000 a year, 49 percent of Xpress bus riders reported a household income of $75,000 or more, according to ridership surveys." Why does this matter? Because GRTA is state-subsidized. It falls under GDOT and therefore is the only state funded transit system in Georgia. Disparate impact much?
C-TRAN reaches end of the line
I have to agree that it seems like Clayton County is trying to rid itself of its poor. Clayton is known for its poor, that's where they flocked to when they couldn't afford to live in the city any longer. And it makes it that much more disparate when you compare it to GRTA's service, which services 7,500 suburbanites who probably have cars a day while CTRAN serves 8,000 of the working poor, 65% of whom don't have access to cars. The articles states that "For [GRTA riders] transit is a matter of choice, not economic survival. Where 60 percent of C-Tran riders said their total household income was less than $25,000 a year, 49 percent of Xpress bus riders reported a household income of $75,000 or more, according to ridership surveys." Why does this matter? Because GRTA is state-subsidized. It falls under GDOT and therefore is the only state funded transit system in Georgia. Disparate impact much?
One More Bill
Apparently I left a bill out of my transit rant from yesterday. Another viable option is still SB 39, which would amend Chapter 8 of Title 48 to provide a 1% sales tax to fund transportation projects in special transportation districts. AKA TSPLOSTs.
MARTA Facebook Fan Page
Did you know that MARTA has a Facebook Fan Page? You should find her, and be her fan (yes, MARTA is a girl. My declaration makes it so.)
I have this extreme urge to comment on everything people post on there, like this dude who doesn't understand why MARTA doesn't run 24 hours and why are there problems if MARTA gets revenue from ads "and other things." I feel this compulsion to explain to him that transit isn't paid for at the fare box or with those ads and that no system is self-sufficient and in order for it to go 24 hours it needs funding from the state, like every other major system out there. And that while they try very hard, it just isn't possible.
And I want to post my suspicions that they found that tourist attraction article on Examiner.com after reading my post from this morning.
And I want to find that idiot who asked if MARTA was going to give out letters to riders for being late to work on Ride MARTA day and smack him. Hard. Five times. With a baseball bat.
But I feel like I should refrain myself so people don't think I'm that crazy MARTA girl (yes, we all know I am, but if you're reading this nonsense, then obviously you've accepted it). Also, I feel like if I comment on everything, I loose credibility. And thirdly, it's the very nice people at MARTA's job to respond, not mine. And I'd hate to offend them, because I love them so.
And I *may* just have a really high affinity for MARTA, too.
I have this extreme urge to comment on everything people post on there, like this dude who doesn't understand why MARTA doesn't run 24 hours and why are there problems if MARTA gets revenue from ads "and other things." I feel this compulsion to explain to him that transit isn't paid for at the fare box or with those ads and that no system is self-sufficient and in order for it to go 24 hours it needs funding from the state, like every other major system out there. And that while they try very hard, it just isn't possible.
And I want to post my suspicions that they found that tourist attraction article on Examiner.com after reading my post from this morning.
And I want to find that idiot who asked if MARTA was going to give out letters to riders for being late to work on Ride MARTA day and smack him. Hard. Five times. With a baseball bat.
But I feel like I should refrain myself so people don't think I'm that crazy MARTA girl (yes, we all know I am, but if you're reading this nonsense, then obviously you've accepted it). Also, I feel like if I comment on everything, I loose credibility. And thirdly, it's the very nice people at MARTA's job to respond, not mine. And I'd hate to offend them, because I love them so.
And I *may* just have a really high affinity for MARTA, too.
MARTA Blogs
So the other night the other night the Accidental Commuter and I were talking, as usual, when she said, much to my horror, "Did you know there's another MARTA blog out there?"
"A what?!?!"
Aw heck no! I have cornered the market on MARTA blogs, this can not happen. I even thought I knew of all the MARTA blogs, that group consisting of this blog right here and JV over at That's MARTA! There's also some dumb one that we won't mention, in part because it's dumb, and in part because it hasn't been updated since 2005, therefore making it both dumb and dead. And since JV and I are cool, and, you know, she had a blog way before me, we're cool. I'll let her keep her blog. But what's this other MARTA blog nonsense?
Apparently there's some chick named Sara writing a guide book to Atlanta using MARTA, like how to get around; she also writes on MARTA for the Examiner.com. I have no clue who this chick is, but what she's doing is writing how to get around on MARTA, to get to things like a Braves game or the World of Coke. You can check it out at MARTA Guide.
"A what?!?!"
Aw heck no! I have cornered the market on MARTA blogs, this can not happen. I even thought I knew of all the MARTA blogs, that group consisting of this blog right here and JV over at That's MARTA! There's also some dumb one that we won't mention, in part because it's dumb, and in part because it hasn't been updated since 2005, therefore making it both dumb and dead. And since JV and I are cool, and, you know, she had a blog way before me, we're cool. I'll let her keep her blog. But what's this other MARTA blog nonsense?
Apparently there's some chick named Sara writing a guide book to Atlanta using MARTA, like how to get around; she also writes on MARTA for the Examiner.com. I have no clue who this chick is, but what she's doing is writing how to get around on MARTA, to get to things like a Braves game or the World of Coke. You can check it out at MARTA Guide.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Transit Funding - Again!
Yup, it's time for me to get back up on the transportation funding soapbox. Last Friday was cross-over day, the day when a bill, if it hasn't crossed over from the house to the senate or vise versa, it dies. So, let's take a look at the funding playing field now.
House Bill 1218, Governor Perdue's laughable attempt at a transportation funding solution is a casualty of last week. It relieved MARTA of it's 50/50 restriction on tax dollars from Fulton and Dekalb counties, but it didn't offer much else. After hanging out in the House, a MARTA exclusion had been tacked on, and due to some revisions, GP had even said he was going to veto it in its current form. So that now leaves us with HB 277, HR 206, and, I believe, SB 120 is still out there.
HB 277 - House Bill 277 amends Title 32 of the Official Code of Georgia to create a 2020 Transportation Trust Fund Oversight Committee which will determine what to do with funds that would in part be gained from an additional 1% special transportation use and sales tax.
HR 206 - House Resolution 206 that does, in essence, the same thing with less fanfare, proposing an amendment to the state constitution to create a Transportation Trust Fund to levy a 1% sales and use tax and determine the use of those funds.
Also, Friday gave us HB 1393 which lifts the sales tax cap on Clayton County, allowing voters to pass a 1% sales tax to fund transit, much like Dekalb and Fulton counties do now. This could be a save for C-TRAN, which is desperately needed. A lot of people don't realize what a reduction or total loss of service of transit means. I've had this discussion with a coworker and she says people got along fine without MARTA 30 years ago. Well a lot of things have happened in those 30 years, and they still had buses which offered a level of service. Clayton County will have no service as of Wednesday.
So what?
Well, in a survey published by www.11alive.com, most C-TRAN riders will loose their jobs. See, a few years back, Atlanta razed all the projects in the name of progress and sent those people to Clayton County. Therefore, Clayton County is full of working poor. The working poor are those on minimum wage, and fall below the poverty line of $11,201 a year. These are people who have jobs, but can't afford cars. These are the people I work with at my shelter. So out of the 500 riders surveyed, 75% said they may loose their jobs and 52% may have to quit school. These are people who are trying to make their lives better, but are being forced to continue the cycle of poverty because of funding. People who went to school when they were laid-off. 61% use C-TRAN to get to work, 12% own a car. 54% of those riders are between the ages of 16 and 34 and 23% of them make less than $10,000 a year. 41% have some form of college education and 91% said they'd support an additional 1% sales tax devoted to transit. 92% are black.
Remember, though, that MARTA can't go into Clayton County because of it's charter, they actually were a vendor to the county for C-TRAN. How could they afford to operate in another county, anyways?
And just so we're clear, because I had to have this conversation this weekend with someone who I thought would know, transit is not paid for at the fare box. Period. It's not that MARTA is mismanaged or that enough people aren't riding, no transit system is self-sustaining, not MTA in New York or WMATA in DC, that's why they're all funded by the state, o, well, except for MARTA.
There are additional transit funding sources that are readily available out there. Things like TSPLOSTs, but those won't help soon enough, and the removal of the 50/50 stipulation is, while necessary, no longer enough to fix the problem. There's also the 1% sales tax on motor fuel which currently goes to the General Fund. I know, they need that money too, but it can help. As it stands, however, these moneys are only available for roads and bridges, and this would need to be changed so that all transportation purposes qualify.
And while I don't have the full scoop on this, apparently Dr. Beverly Scott, CEO of MARTA, also has proposed to sell MARTA property, like the rail yard, to the state, giving MARTA an instant source of cash. This could also make the state a share holder and giving it some of the control it seems desperate to have. I think it's actually a good plan.
So that's where we're at, best I can figure.
House Bill 1218, Governor Perdue's laughable attempt at a transportation funding solution is a casualty of last week. It relieved MARTA of it's 50/50 restriction on tax dollars from Fulton and Dekalb counties, but it didn't offer much else. After hanging out in the House, a MARTA exclusion had been tacked on, and due to some revisions, GP had even said he was going to veto it in its current form. So that now leaves us with HB 277, HR 206, and, I believe, SB 120 is still out there.
HB 277 - House Bill 277 amends Title 32 of the Official Code of Georgia to create a 2020 Transportation Trust Fund Oversight Committee which will determine what to do with funds that would in part be gained from an additional 1% special transportation use and sales tax.
HR 206 - House Resolution 206 that does, in essence, the same thing with less fanfare, proposing an amendment to the state constitution to create a Transportation Trust Fund to levy a 1% sales and use tax and determine the use of those funds.
Also, Friday gave us HB 1393 which lifts the sales tax cap on Clayton County, allowing voters to pass a 1% sales tax to fund transit, much like Dekalb and Fulton counties do now. This could be a save for C-TRAN, which is desperately needed. A lot of people don't realize what a reduction or total loss of service of transit means. I've had this discussion with a coworker and she says people got along fine without MARTA 30 years ago. Well a lot of things have happened in those 30 years, and they still had buses which offered a level of service. Clayton County will have no service as of Wednesday.
So what?
Well, in a survey published by www.11alive.com, most C-TRAN riders will loose their jobs. See, a few years back, Atlanta razed all the projects in the name of progress and sent those people to Clayton County. Therefore, Clayton County is full of working poor. The working poor are those on minimum wage, and fall below the poverty line of $11,201 a year. These are people who have jobs, but can't afford cars. These are the people I work with at my shelter. So out of the 500 riders surveyed, 75% said they may loose their jobs and 52% may have to quit school. These are people who are trying to make their lives better, but are being forced to continue the cycle of poverty because of funding. People who went to school when they were laid-off. 61% use C-TRAN to get to work, 12% own a car. 54% of those riders are between the ages of 16 and 34 and 23% of them make less than $10,000 a year. 41% have some form of college education and 91% said they'd support an additional 1% sales tax devoted to transit. 92% are black.
Remember, though, that MARTA can't go into Clayton County because of it's charter, they actually were a vendor to the county for C-TRAN. How could they afford to operate in another county, anyways?
And just so we're clear, because I had to have this conversation this weekend with someone who I thought would know, transit is not paid for at the fare box. Period. It's not that MARTA is mismanaged or that enough people aren't riding, no transit system is self-sustaining, not MTA in New York or WMATA in DC, that's why they're all funded by the state, o, well, except for MARTA.
There are additional transit funding sources that are readily available out there. Things like TSPLOSTs, but those won't help soon enough, and the removal of the 50/50 stipulation is, while necessary, no longer enough to fix the problem. There's also the 1% sales tax on motor fuel which currently goes to the General Fund. I know, they need that money too, but it can help. As it stands, however, these moneys are only available for roads and bridges, and this would need to be changed so that all transportation purposes qualify.
And while I don't have the full scoop on this, apparently Dr. Beverly Scott, CEO of MARTA, also has proposed to sell MARTA property, like the rail yard, to the state, giving MARTA an instant source of cash. This could also make the state a share holder and giving it some of the control it seems desperate to have. I think it's actually a good plan.
So that's where we're at, best I can figure.
Best GDOT sign ever
So One and I were driving home from the movies last night and saw the most awesome GDOT sign. I couldn't get a picture of it, I just wasn't prepared and I'm pretty sure he wasn't going to like stopping in the middle of 75 south in the Grady curve to let me get my camera out. I'm going to keep an eye and a camera out for it, but in the meantime, here's by best attempt at transcription, 12 hours after the fact. Have y'all seen this?
Census Form Due April 1
Help Georgia get its share of Transportation Funding
Census Form Due April 1
Help Georgia get its share of Transportation Funding
Friday, March 26, 2010
MARTA loves TMiATL
I've been on my deathbed for a week, sorry for not posting. (Thanks AC for keeping up some!) I had the most wicked flu/ bronchitis I've ever had, I'd say it was worse than the time I had pneumonia (but that was like 15 years ago, so I'm not really a good judge), and I totally blame MARTA for this brush with death. Apparently MARTA has been passing around a particularly nasty virus and I caught it. We're not going into how, just know that I know people who know people and those people like trains. And they have a really fun nickname.
But the death flu isn't the only thing that MARTA has given me recently. Apparently he-who-shall-not-be-named-carrier-of-diseases has passed around this here blog a time or two to MARTA. And it caught on. And some folks in Marketing really liked it. And they invited me to come to Headquarters to hang out. And they gave me cool things that my own personal grim reaper is a little disgruntled over, like an awesome photo of an old bus and tokens. What can I say? MARTA likes me more. :)
But the MARTA folks were so nice and really excited about meeting little ole me; I felt like a celebrity. I'm not going to lie, though, it still cracks me up that the post they remember the most is The Boob Tap. I'm really excited to have met everyone, but they also made me a deal I couldn't refuse. They're looking to revamp their stock photos now that they have fancy new buses, bus shelters, and that ride-store wrap down at the airport. The kicker? They want me to bring my transit loving buddies and we get to be the star subjects of said photo shoot! I've drafted the Accidental Commuter and That's MARTA! but MARTA said something about diversity and three hot white girls in the 20 to 30 something range probably doesn't qualify. So we're gathering our diverse yet MARTA knowledgeable friends to join us for a photo shoot. I'm opening this to you, dear readers, but you should own a Breeze and ride MARTA more often than when I have a pub crawl. ;) MARTA wants people who know how to use the system. So if you're interested, and particularly if you're not a young, hot, white girl, leave a comment and we'll talk about making you a MARTA star.
But the death flu isn't the only thing that MARTA has given me recently. Apparently he-who-shall-not-be-named-carrier-of-diseases has passed around this here blog a time or two to MARTA. And it caught on. And some folks in Marketing really liked it. And they invited me to come to Headquarters to hang out. And they gave me cool things that my own personal grim reaper is a little disgruntled over, like an awesome photo of an old bus and tokens. What can I say? MARTA likes me more. :)
But the MARTA folks were so nice and really excited about meeting little ole me; I felt like a celebrity. I'm not going to lie, though, it still cracks me up that the post they remember the most is The Boob Tap. I'm really excited to have met everyone, but they also made me a deal I couldn't refuse. They're looking to revamp their stock photos now that they have fancy new buses, bus shelters, and that ride-store wrap down at the airport. The kicker? They want me to bring my transit loving buddies and we get to be the star subjects of said photo shoot! I've drafted the Accidental Commuter and That's MARTA! but MARTA said something about diversity and three hot white girls in the 20 to 30 something range probably doesn't qualify. So we're gathering our diverse yet MARTA knowledgeable friends to join us for a photo shoot. I'm opening this to you, dear readers, but you should own a Breeze and ride MARTA more often than when I have a pub crawl. ;) MARTA wants people who know how to use the system. So if you're interested, and particularly if you're not a young, hot, white girl, leave a comment and we'll talk about making you a MARTA star.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Bad Spelling Scavenger Hunt
I have an idea. I just posted something on our Facebook fan page (be a joiner!) about really wanting someone to take a picture of the sign that reads "Georgian Terrance Hotel" at the North Avenue MARTA station. I can't do math, I was born without a sense of direction and I don't do technology very well. But I can spell and that sign cracks me up. How many people do you think saw that thing before they hung it up at the station? You know those stupid emails that get passed around that say something about you can recnogzie tihs wrod bacuese it has all of the same letters as the intended word and because the first and last letters are in the correct place your brain automatically decodes it? The premise is that we don't actually pay attention to every letter of the words that we read everyday. That's a load of crap. If it were true then we wouldn't be able to recognize misspellings. We process every letter of every word that we read, we just do it at such an incredibly fast rate (milliseconds) that we don't know we're doing it. Anyway, I would love for someone to get that picture and post it on here (can they do that CCT Girl? This world of blogging and camera phones and the interwebs is still so strange and confusing to me). I would try to do it myself since I have my new kick-ass phone that can take pictures and do my taxes and fold my laundry but that would involve getting off of the train at North Avenue, making sure that I am on the correct side of the tracks (which I can promise you would totally not happen), taking said picture, and figuring out how to transfer it from my phone to my Mac to this blog. The probability of me being able to handle just one or two out of these four steps is highly unlikely, much less being able to carry them ALL out successfully. There are probably actually more than four steps but I just didn't count them up right.
I know that the subject line of this includes the term "scavenger hunt" like there is a prize or something. This should be intrinsically rewarding. Or we could promise to really like you. Personally, I already like you for reading our blog and for taking an interest in saving the world through public transportation. So in my book, you're already a winner. I just need you to take a picture for me.
I know that the subject line of this includes the term "scavenger hunt" like there is a prize or something. This should be intrinsically rewarding. Or we could promise to really like you. Personally, I already like you for reading our blog and for taking an interest in saving the world through public transportation. So in my book, you're already a winner. I just need you to take a picture for me.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Your Weekly Transit Photo Blog!
To begin this week's transit photos, let me introduce you to The Preacher.
The Preacher may be one of MARTA's most notorious crazies because he is a rush hour commuter crazy. This fella doesn't hide in the obscure hours, oh no, he's on the train during prime time to tell you all about how no one can judge you but God and that God will take care of you and give you jobs you don't deserve if you trust in Him. The Preacher is always dressed colorfully and talks non-stop. If all else fails, he is consistent!
* I know MARTA's not really pro-population control. I am, and this sign makes me laugh. Particularly after riding the Number Two after a drink or two.
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