Old Animosity Over MARTA Alive and Well in Gwinnett
Decatur Metro | July 15, 2008 | 12:05 pmThere are a lot of interesting votes out there today.
The Dunwoody one is probably the most well-publicized, but its the non-binding “Let MARTA into Gwinnett?” question that’s garnered the most heated response thus far over at the AJC blogs. As the AJC reports, the last time Gwinnett voted on a one-cent sales tax to allow MARTA into the county back in ’90, it only received 30% support at the polls. They were much more comfortable with letting Fulton and DeKalb foot the bill and then just driving into our counties to take the train.
Based solely on the responses to the AJC posting, it seems that opinions are a bit more mixed this time around. But we still hear well-thought out comments like this…
“We don’t need Marta out in Gwinnett County! It will just bring all the criminals, thugs and rif raf from Atlanta out here—-we have enough of that already and don’t need more. Let them go to the Perimeter Mall or 5 points! Keep marta out of Gwinnett!!!”
“NO, NO and NO. I do not want MARTA anywhere near where I live. I hate the buses, all they do is hold up traffic. I moved to Gwinnett to get away from MARTA. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!!!! And I certainly don’t want another penny of my hard harned money to go to this!!!!!!”
“GOD I HOPE NOT!!!!!!!!!!! Too many criminals from Atlanta will have a basically free way to ply their trades of rape, robbery and murder! Think not? Get on the train at lennox and see what gets on! Obviously these thugs are not shopping at lennox or phipps!”
Obviously these folks haven’t been reading my postings about crime moving to the suburbs (and it has nothing to do with MARTA). I love people that move to the sticks to get away from the ominous threat of “thugs”, and then scream from their fort in the middle of nowhere about all of the crime in places where they never go. Luckily there are more level-headed commenters out there that are keeping these paranoids in check.
Related Posts:
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July 21, 2008 "Keep the Thugs in Gwinnett!" (0)
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September 29, 2010 Merging MARTA Monetary Madness (2)
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September 15, 2010 Is the Atlanta’s Transportation Referendum Already Doomed? (2)
Oh to hell with the whole lot of them. If they don’t want MARTA, that’s fine. Let’s spend the money to make MARTA smarta within in the confines of the downtown Atlanta. Suburbanites need to realize that without a vibrant downtown, they have nothing. When asked “where do you live?” while traveling do they say Atlanta or Alpharetta? They say Atlanta. Hell, I live in Decatur and I say I’m from Atlanta. This city has an identity crisis; it’s not Marietta, Dululth, etc., it’s Atlanta.
I-85N is one of the most ugly, repulsive stips of waste land I have ever seen in my life. If people want to sit in disgusting traffic all day in Gwinnet, I guess it’s thier dream life.
Marta needs to set a pay for parking structure whereby the Gwinnetian license plates pay to park at the Doraville Station and DeKalb drivers do not.
Marta has been letting these people skate for years and they make up more then half the daily parkers.
I always like the idea that criminals are busy taking public transportation. Now THAT’s an efficient way to plan a robbery. “Driver, could you just hold the bus for a few minutes? I’ll be RIGHT back.” Actually, in at least one of the moronically unsuccessful bank robberies we had here (Sandy Springs, maybe?), it seems that the robber was caught while awaiting a bus.
If any of those dolts making those comments actually commute to downtown, then they are even dumber than I realized. I can’t believe people would be against this after all these decades. Putting a MARTA line straight up 85 is such a no-brainer with the nasty traffic and gas prices. I live intown, but have considered moving out to Suwanee for various reasons. I won’t do more than consider it without a rail line to downtown.
I used to volunteer with a fellow who remarked, tongue in cheek, that there wasn’t a single day he rode MARTA that he didn’t see someone with a silver chest or a TV.
I live in Gwinnett and oppose Marta for selfish economics reasons. I believe the primary supporters are commercial developers that want access to low cost workers from downtown. They tout the benefits for the suburban commuters (who would fund it) yet none of my neighbors work downtown. They work in Alpharetta, Cobb or travel extensively. Many also telecommute. I don’t want to help pay the $215 million per mile to build heavy rail. I also expect that figure to grow as well as Marta to continue with higher losses.
Hey Scott, thanks for the comment and viewpoint from outside our little Decatur bubble!
A couple things off the top of my head…I think its a bit of an assumption to think all the low cost workers live downtown. More and more of them are moving to the suburbs because its cheaper. Take a look at the trends of where Section 8 tenets go when the slums are torn down. So if developers are looking, they’re probably a lot closer than you think. Also, up until now I would assert its Gwinnett and Cobb’s fault that all trains head to Five Points. With a little cooperation, we’d have a perimeter loop…or at least a northern east/west line.
And I obviously can’t speak for the commercial developers, but I think that there a lot of people that frequent this site that applaud public transit not because we stand to gain any monetary benefit in the end, but because its a more sustainable practice than I85 traffic.
Low cost workers????? Scott, have you looked at housing prices intown? Even medium cost workers can’t afford to live here anymore. I hate to say it, but looking at county by county demographic trends, y’all seem to be getting the lion’s share of low cost workers moving in these days.
I think that the opposite is true, Scott.
“Low cost workers” who live in Gwinnett need a way to get intown to where their jobs are.
Let’s “talk as men” … Am I the only one seeing the “Elephant in the room?” The opposition to MARTA is class-ism at best, racism at worst.
I am a born and bred Atlantan and know that folks in Cobb and Gwinnett 20-30 years ago called MARTA “Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta” when they rejected it. Many (notice: not “most” nor “all”) that do not want efficient public transportation in their community simply object to the “public” that would make up the majority of the patrons. The reason the vote changed in Gwinnett dramatically is because Gwinnett is more “brown” and more working class dominated than it was back then; plain and simple. Word-out!
P.S. Thanks to the host for the great post and civic forum!
Does anyone know where you can find Crime Stats for areas before and after Marta stations are installed?
I think its cool that MARTA runs through Decatur. Imagine that we have a direct link to the busiest airport in the world! I can walk out of my house, stroll over to the station, get dropped off inside the airport terminal, and fly to a significant number of cities all around the entire planet. Personally, I think that is amazing! I think it benefits all of us as citizens of the lovely little city of Decatur and as global citizens.
Tim– No doubt. Went to a meeting at the Ronald Reagan building in DC recently. Walked a couple blocks to the MARTA, rode to Hartsfield, flew to National Airport, hopped on the METRO (Marta’s more successful, big sister), and was early for the meeting. Came back the same way later that day. No cars involved, and stress-free travel (excepting the gun battles at Hartsfield). You can step out your front door and walk almost anywhere in the world in a matter of hours — amazing, I agree.
I think that would be a difficult and irrelative comparison since:
a) With a few exceptions, most MARTA station were built more than 20 years ago
b) One would have to normalize any comparisons to the overall change over that time
c) The whole methodology of collecting and reporting crimes has changed over the years
d) Stats are generally not broken down by such small areas as the vicinity of a MARTA station
As was pointed out in Jay Bookman’s column in this morning’s AJC, criminals do not ride MARTA to get to and from crimes. Only crimes against persons in the vicinity of a station could even vaguely be connected to MARTA.
I agree with Steve – I don’t think there’s any empirical data available in a before/after scenario because there’s no way to isolate the data from the complexity of changing neighborhoods and Atlanta metro development. That being said, my own experience and common sense tell me that there is an impact in terms of petty crimes.
I lived off by Candler Park and rode my bike to GSU in the 80’s as an adult student (yes, i’m old) and definitely was extra alert when near the station. I live near the Brookhaven Station and Chamblee stations now and the business owners are definitely wary of the foot traffic in and out of the stations.
Here comes the common sense part – public transportation is by definition a solution for higher density populations; higher density populations means more of all kinds – the good, the bad, the ugly. So, yes, I think MARTA stations seem to come with an impact on public safety. I guess the fine point I am making (or not!) is that by the time a MARTA station is coming to your area, you are already “urbanizing,” and experiencing anxiety over crime. It will appear as cause and effect when the station is built when actually they are both effects. “Urbanization” is the real underlying dynamic that instills fear of MARTA in our reasonable, suburban friends.
Actually there is a pretty thorough, if inconclusive, study = “Rail transit and neighborhood crime: The case of Atlanta, Georgia” by Keith R. Ihlanfeldt
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5421/is_200310/ai_n21338024/pg_9?tag=artBody;col1 It is from 2003 but still a good read.
BTW – Kim’s assertion of “class-ism” is embarrassingly accurate.
Great in depth article Scott!
For those without the time to read all 16 pages…here’s the ultimate (if inconclusive) conclusion of the author…
“The results show that rail stations have a statistically significant effect on neighborhood crime and that the effect varies with three characteristics of the neighborhood: median income level, density of poverty, and average distance to poor people living outside the neighborhood. The mix of characteristics found within central city neighborhoods has resulted in transit increasing crime there, whereas in the suburbs transit has reduced crime in white neighborhoods and has had no effect on crime in black neighborhoods. The results suggest that the fears expressed by suburban residents over station-induced neighborhood crime are unfounded and that extensions of rail transit into the suburbs will not cause further decentralization of population and employment. However, to maximize transit-oriented development around central city stations, greater police surveillance within transit neighborhoods may be necessary.”
Sounds like, if anything, downtown ATL should be more worried about crime than Gwinnett citizens. I can see it now…”Keep the thugs in Gwinnett!”
decaturite, that is too funny!
Many of my working class and/or “non-white” friends have been observing for 2-3 years the dynamic of housing costs driving the lower classes out of Atlanta proper. An irreversible trend it seems to me.
I lived in Paris for a year and the Metro is the ultimate mixing pot with homeless, working class, middle class, and corporate executives all rubbing shoulders. In NYC, same. But in both cases there is an intense rail system _within_ the city centre with suburban arteries feeding it. Atlanta still barely has arteries much less the intensity of in-town rail.
As a native Atlantan at the ripe middle age of 45, I can tell you that Atlanta is definitely having an identify crisis. It wasn’t so long ago that this was a fairly small city. Not only is it becoming a megapolis, the forces we are discussing have also de-centralized Atlanta. All you have to do is look cases like where the “Atlanta” Opera performs – Smyrna; want to watch hockey? How about the Gwinnett Gladiators? Baseball? Gwinnett has that too. Love big marquee performers in live, outdoor concerts? Alpharetta.
So this may be the one dynamic that actually supports the resistance to MARTA – many of my friends in Cobb or Gwinnett do not commute to Atlanta for work or for entertainment like they did 10-20 years ago. Why should they? They have all of their needs met out there – even a chili steak from the Varsity on the way to the game.
I’m not sure what any of this means but it does give me pause when I think about the future of Atlanta metro and how all these municipalities will (or won’t) work together. It is almost as if Atlanta has been loosing economy of scale just when we need it the most.