“MARTA’s Running Just Fine”
December 23, 2009 | 10:59 amJill Chambers arguments against MARTA seem to rely on the assumption that NO ONE is paying attention.
“Every year they say they’re going over a cliff and there’s going to be a crisis, and yet MARTA’s running just fine,” Chambers said. “You can almost cut and paste the press release from the year before.”
I guess she’s forgotten about MARTA’s $25 million federal stimulus bailout this past year. Perhaps we should just let the fed continue to pick-up MARTA’s tab from here on out.
Please.
Can we just drop the guise that there’s an actual debate going on here about how to best manage MARTA and get down to brass tacks? If the MARTA acronym makes your stomach turn and you wish it would just hurry up and die already then let’s have THAT debate.
Why does the AJC continue to quote Chambers without challenging these baseless statements? In an effort to write an “objective” piece they seem to abandon common sense.
h/t: Terminal Station
Jill Chambers crying wolf is, itself, a very bad case of crying wolf. How many more people need to be without access to transit, just so she can satisfy her own ego?
Once again, since MARTA gets zero state funding, and is unique among large public transportation systems in that regard, why is the state and Ms Chambers meddling in its affairs anyway?
You are being very unfair to this article. First, it does mention the federal bailout — it’s hard to miss. Second, Bev SCott gets a few paragraphs to rebut Chambers. This isn’t even close to a one-sided anti-MARTA screed.
DEM, it’s that old argument about journalism that just because you give two sides a chance to comment, it doesn’t mean it’s a thorough and well-vetted article.
I guess that it’s asking too much that when Chambers makes a rather ridiculous comment about MARTA being “fine”, that the AJC challenge her on that statement and at least ask her “what about the $25 million in stimulus?” as opposed to just letting her rant, printing it, and also casually mentioning the fed bailout to readers as a side note. That seems more along the lines of what a blog would do…not a newspaper.
I never said the article was an anti-MARTA screed.