look i get it. if you are going to ride public transportation getting asked for money is a part of life. it’s just part of the deal you make; call it part of the price you pay for not paying for gasonline.
i understand that if you are addicted to crack cocaine you probably can’t hold down a job and you absolutely HAVE to get some money to buy the stuff. and the only way to do that is to ask other people for money. i’m with you. i also get that a train is a great place to do this.
but we’re supposed to have a deal, you and i. you walk the car and ask for money. you get what you can get from who you can and then you move on. it should only take you a stop, maybe two intown where the stops are more frequent to work an entire car.
see here’s the thing; you smell. i am sorry, it’s just how it is. and marta has enough things to detract from the experience that smelling crackhead from five points all the way to dunwoody is not part of the bargain.
so madame crackhead who was on the north-south red line train this morning; please stick to the deal. you get one pass through the car and then you need to move on.
this is perhaps one of the core aspects of my personality. i suspect, though i have never been diagnosed as such, that i am mildly agoraphobic. wal*marts on christmas eve and the georgia aquarium might as well be hell for me.
but what really drives me nuts is having to sit next to someone on a train or plane in tight quarters and having them constantly touching me. not intentionally of course, but just bumping shoulders or legs or something. you have no idea how nuts this drives me. it almost makes me physically ill. this can be a bit of a challenge on public transportation. you will often see me shirking as far to my edge of the seat as possible when someone starts invading my space.
this has suprisingly not been much of an issue until lately. the last few weeks though have just seen an influx of people getting in my space. in fact i am writing this right now on the northbound train doing my best to edge to the side of my seat as someone has decided to sit next to me and start closing in on my space.
i suspect that if i stopped showering, maybe this would help. probably not get me a promotion at work tho’
if you ride marta a lot, you are bound to run into some crazy people. it’s just gonna happen. it won’t happen as often as you think but eventually it will. this morning was one of those times. i got on the train at lindbergh (more on that in a second) and as the train was pulling away the yelling started.
it wasn’t the ‘jesus saves’ style of yelling eihter. it was pissed off crackhead yelling. i am not sure what tripped it off but an old homeless woman became incensed at another passenger and began yelling some of the most obscene profanity possible at her. now the girl who was the target of this didn’t see fit to de-escalate and instead started prodding the old addict along, telling her to “go get under a bridge and sleep there,” and singing “what would you do for a klondike bar?” while repeatedly calling her a crackhead, which she most obviously was, but didn’t really care to have it rubbed in her face.
my favorite line of the exchange, girl asked the old lady what she would do for a rock, and the old lady screamed, “i wouldn’t f*&k you for one, you skanky ho.” seriously. i cannot make this stuff up.
i was, however, trying to read, so i got off at buckhead and switced cars.
now about that drive to lindbergh. see, i would have liked tremendously to keep my car completely off of the road today. unfortunately, since nobody will give poor marta any money, i am kind of stuck. i need to go to the georgia chapter office of the leukemia and lymphoma society tonight after work for a meeting and it’s in northwest atlanta nowhere near a marta station. i could try to bus it, but there is only one bus, it leaves from midtown and takes forever to actually make it north of paces ferry road. then there is the return trip. i would be looking at a 10 pm or later arrival home and lots of waiting around in the cold.
i am dedicated, but not that dedicated.
a cobb train line, or some more extensive buses would do it, but when you are broke like marta you consolidate where the peope are going.
oh well. guess you commuters on 75N will have to deal with one more car this evening as i make my way from lindbergh to the lls office. you might think of that next time you cast a vote that may affect transportation funding.
i know this seems like an innocuous statement for most people, but for me it is rather extraordinary. i can actually count on one hand the amount of times i have pointed my car toward alpharetta monday-friday and drove to work. even more extraordinary, i am going to have to do it again tomorrow, which will mark the first time in more than two years that i have drive to the office on back to back days.
granted the commute was not bad this morning. the morning commute never really was, and combine it with a holiday weekend and i basically flew up here in the span of maybe 30 minutes.
but it sucked. i was bored and i arrived at my office realized i hadn’t read any of the morning papers or blogs i read, hadn’t mentally prepared myself for the day, hadn’t managed to find my rhythm. i take all these little things about commuting on the trains and buses for granted.
what a ride it has been. and nothing like a drive up 400 to make me realize how much i appreciate NOT having to drive 99.8% of the time.
so here is the truth: i like commuting in the cold. i don’t know why, but there is something so urban about taking public transportation in the cold weather. wearing a scarf, standing at a bus stop, staring at the other riders as you walk past them in the train station exchanging that look of ‘knowing’ that you are doing something most people scoff at, there is just something so intrinsically city about that.
of course remembering the marta cold rules is critical to surviving the winter. the number 9 was absolutely scorching hot when i boarded it. speaking of the number 9, i have riders in my complex now. two brothers who are taking marta to school somewhere. i certainly intend to investigate further to see if i can get the scoop. the 140 i am on right now is also jacked up hot. the t.e.a.c.h. kids didn’t get their own bus so we have both a super crowded vehicle and the driver has jacked the heat up. always pays to remember the marta cold rules.
plus, i will take it any day over sweating in a muggy five points station in the middle of august. NOTHING is worse than that.
as i have written about riding marta in the winter has its own set of challenges. most notable too if you ride buses and have to spend any period of time waiting outside for a bus. i have dubbed this set of circumstances and the appropriate reactions to them “marta cold rules.” it took me me trail and error through my first winter to really figure it out.
here is the rub. it’s cold at the bus stop. ears, face, hands, they get cold. the easiest solution is to just bundle up for the cold. there is a problem with that though. the colder it gets the more the buses are going to feel like jamaica in june.
the thing is the bus drivers have to sit right by the door opening in and out of the cold all day. so they jack the heat up as high as it will possible go. so there is no way to wear some massive parka on the bus. that results in sweating out about a gallon of fluid sitting in the scorching heat with a ski jacket on. trying to manage moving around carrying one of those jackets isn’t easy either.
so i have settled on the hoodie. it’s perfect. i can wear it at the bus stop for some warmth, cover my head with it if it’s super cold and still wear okay on the bus. or if it is really scorching take it off and stuff it in the backpack.
if it gets really cold i add gloves, a taboggan cap and a scarf – again all easily stuffed in the back pack. in fact i am sitting on the #140 right now which is warm, although not as warm as it was on the #9 i picked up this morning and i have a hat stuffed in my bag right now.
“the cold rules,” just another quirk learned after two years of riding the rails and the buses. my psa to you should you decide to give our marta system a try.
well, per my resolution, i managed to get up and catch the #9 that runs by my house around 6:25 am this morning. i partially accomplished this by letting my car get so low on gas that i couldn’t make it to the train station this morning without stopping at the bp. this had the effect of forcing me to get up early anyway, so once up i might as well have made it to the bus.
the truth is i much prefer to ride the bus in the morning. driving in the morning, even the short hop to the inman park train station sucks. i would much prefer to just sit, drink coffee and be whisked away to the five points train station.
thus, i am renewing the commitment. back on the #9 in the morning and all week. seriously, who needs to drive anyway. the whole point of this marta thing is to spend as little time in the vehicle as possible. i seem to have forgotten about that recently.
and no fighting moreland ave traffic on the way home either. thank god for that.
it passed almost without me even noticing it, but this week marked two years since the monumental decision to ditch my car on my commute and start taking marta.
i wish i could calculate the money i have saved. there is no doubt it runs several thousand dollars deep. i do know that on the marta i have read classic novels i never wold have including the brothers karamzov, jane eyre and bleak house just to name a few. i have also written two nanowrimo novels, almost completely on the marta.
i haven’t been posting about the marta as much lately. truth is, i haven’t been posting about much of anything lately, something i am trying to get better about doing again. but i must say that part of it is also that things that used to seem unusual or extraordinary to me on the buses and trains now just seem commonplace and not so worthy of note.
one item i do have to call myself out on is that over the last few month i have been really, really bad about not getting up in time to catch the morning #9 bus, opting to drive to inman park in the morning and get on the train there. i am putting a line in the sand for monday though. i am getting up and getting on the bus.
we have a new driver on the #140 headed home in the evening, on the run that goes past my office around 16:15. she hates the route, btw, although that tidbit isn’t important to the post, having complained pretty loud to us on her second or third day that traffic along the #140 route was insane. and i can’t say that i disagree. the light at old milton parkway and north point parkway could be one of the most absurd locations in the city.
she also told the t.e.a.c.h. kids that if they weren’t at a stop she was “going to leave them on the side of the road.” not a bad start.
well anyway, yesterday afternoon on the way home from work, she keyed her microphone and told the assembled passengers that she wanted to ask them a question. i figured someone had done something to tick her off, but actually she just wanted to know if we wanted her to come by the stops on time or late.
silly question.
she then proceeded to explain that she ran on-time, that’s how she did her route, but the driver before her liked to leave from his staging area at windward parkway 10 minutes late (very true, i’ve waited on that dude before) and she was messing him up be leaving on time. i’m still not sure i catch the logic in all of that, but apparently her straw poll of the bus was designed to bolster her argument for the on-time theory of route running.
call me convinced.
also, speaking of clean commuting, the folks over at the clean air campaign passed this fun little video along. apparently a carpool wrote it one day and sent it in and the clean air campaign helped turn it into a video. it’s very clever so enjoy….
as soon as i hopped on the 140 this afternoon i should have known. i recognized the driver but couldn’t quite place why. i haven’t ridden on the really early 140 in a bit, but know as i sit here getting thrown fore and aft with every stop that has a person standing at it and at every traffic light, i remember now; it’s mr. whiplash.
mr. whiplash loves the break. dearly. he loves it so much that he must stomp on it at least three or four times prior to completely stopping the bus. and there is no smooth breaking either for mr. whiplash, when i say stomp i mean it.
i don’t know if he is the regular driver on this run now, but if he is i feel for all of these people that ride this one every day. there are lots of chiropractor appointments and neck adjustments in their futures.
and that’s mr. whiplash, just another fun character on your marta.
look i get it. if you are going to ride public transportation getting asked for money is a part of life. it’s just part of the deal you make; call it part of the price you pay for not paying for gasonline.
Posted in atlanta, marta | 
No Comments » | April 23rd, 2010