Atlanta & Transit: Once a Leader, Now Lagging

Watch the growth of MARTA compared to 5 peer cities that started building modern rail transit after us (Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland, & Seattle) -- and see how Atlanta is quickly falling behind. This video was created for the CfPT / Sierra Club talk on transit in Atlanta on Sept 10.

Disclaimer regarding the 2009-2020 portion -- generally, the future segments shown are limited to projects that have an identifiable funding source and path to implementation, typically with a specific target opening date set. For instance, the late-'10s Seattle projects are the ones to be funded by the "Sound Transit 2" ballot referendum that passed last summer. Ditto for the FasTracks initiative in Denver.

It's true that Atlanta has many plans for various future lines, but nothing nearly as concrete as the future segments shown for the other cities. The funding source, opening date, and in some cases even the building/operating agency are still big question marks for all of the local expansion proposals.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• atlanta
• transit

[SNEAKYDIK]

Wow every time I see this video I still can't understand how the State and the surrounding counties stop the growth of Marta. After 15 yrs of living in Atlanta I'm now living in Dallas and riding the Dart rail every day. Soon to be 90 miles of rail. Can't wait to it gets to DFW Airport in 2 yrs.

[powdersprings30127]

When you have poor State support and leadership, poor City leadership, and poor MARTA leadership for a couple of decades in a row, how could it possibly have turned out any better than it did? Three wrongs make... a dud. Maybe we should email the White House and ask the Feds to take over??

[Bryant5493]

Yeah, that's very accurate. MARTA is still going to underserve the Metro area for years to come, because the state's going to refuse to give it state funding. At the very least, all of the Metro counties that use it should give their tax dollars to fund it, not just Fulton and DeKalb.

[rydot]

This is a welcome alternative viewpoint to the all-too-simplistic refrain, "Public Transit in Los Angeles sucks".

So.... thanks for posting this! :)