Comments on: MARTA Most Energy-Efficient Heavy Rail System in Country

By: hoopadoop

hoopadoop — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:42:37 +0000

whoa, since when does Cleveland have a heavy rail system? I
always thought the Rapid was light-rail…

By: Pat

Pat — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 03:43:59 +0000

It seems there is some disbelief in the graph among the posters? I do.

Maybe the crowded trains between terminals of the airport train is somehow worked into the charts math. Or perhaps it’s our use of coal coupled with some estimates about ridership based on capacity.

I really find it hard to believe that Marta uses less electricity per passenger than the NYC system. Whenever I ride the metro it’s got at least double the Marta load even at off times.

I read through the report referenced and it has little in the way of back up, references and details about the calculations. I’d dig a little deeper dm.

By: V

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 16:33:25 +0000

Although, I agree our public transportation could be better. But nothing is more usless than Jacksonville, FL’s people mover. It doesn’t even stop at the stadium and I have never seen anyone ride it.

By: macarolina

macarolina — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 17:24:24 +0000

agree on both the obervation and the reasoning

By: Brianc

Brianc — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 17:11:35 +0000

“and more crazies/disruptives riding the trains”

While I agree with this (and also noticed that the homeless population in SF was better behaved), you can’t really blame that on MARTA; it speaks more to the poor social services in GA.

By: Brianc

Brianc — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 17:06:30 +0000

As I noted, my experience with it was limited (and most of it about ten years ago), but I had problems getting to where I wanted to go and the waits between trains were long. Of course, MARTA has gotten worse in this respect lately because of cuts; I don’t know what if any cuts BART has made. If you say BART is better, I’ll take your word for it.

By: macarolina

macarolina — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:57:46 +0000

BrianC, what do you think MARTA does better than BART? BART and the DC Metro are my other comparisons that I’ve used the most apart from MARTA, and I’d rank them Metro, BART, MARTA, with a big gap between BART and MARTA. I like MARTA, and want to see it suceed, but to me the items that push iMARTA well below BART are area of service, much better cross-line coordination (you can actually switch lines w/in a few minutes of your train arriving, much unlike my experience with MARTA- and we only have 1 cross-over point!), and more crazies/disruptives riding the trains. Plus BART actually manages to coordinate w/ special events so when you get out of an event at the Colessium, there are multiple, extended trains to move the crowds, usually ready and waiting. That has not been my experience on MARTA after concerts, football, festivals, etc.- and those types of events are just the time MARTA could be recruiting new ridership built on positive experience… and I say COULD be cultivating new ridership.

By: Brianc

Brianc — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:27:57 +0000

I agree, Wendy D. Marta is pretty decent all things considered. My experience with other systems is limited to NY and BART, and while NY is an apples to oranges comparison, I’d take MARTA over BART (granted, my usage is less than a dozen trips on BART). People complain about MARTA not going anywhere, but many people made the choice to live in low density exurbs that heavy rail simply doesn’t work for (indeed, more than a few people moved in those areas so as NOT to be near MARTA.)