As someone who grew up in rural Georgia, people always told us that MARTA was dangerous and unreliable. During that same time, those same people would complain about traffic jams, road construction, and that one toll booth on GA-400. That didn’t make much sense to us.
A million years later, we moved closer to the city and started to ride MARTA to see what it was like. At first, it was to see if we could get to the airport without having to drive through all that traffic. That answer, of course, was yes! Then we started using it to visit the downtown attractions like the Aquarium, which was super easy. We started branching out to see what we could see. Little Five Points. Zoo Atlanta. Some out-of-the-way sushi restaurants. The Amtrak station. All safe and easy on MARTA! We now go to the city two or three times a month to see cool stuff we can’t see at home – from the World of Coca-cola to the 57th Fighter Squadron Restaurant.
MARTA (and any transit system for that matter) is confusing if you’ve never used it. There’s not a sign at every train station that shows you how to use the system, which is why we’ve started this site. The goal is to explain basic transit use and how to use MARTA without stressing out about it. We’ll have posts explaining those concepts as well as videos walking you through the processes. And some pics along the way.
Do we know everything about MARTA? No. Do we know enough that we’re comfortable traveling by train and bus? Absolutely! Do we get things wrong? Well, yes. We are human, you know. Do we try to get it right? Indeed, we do!
We do hope all this will help ease your mind when thinking about using MARTA. The ultimate goal here is to try and get traffic off the streets and into the station parking lots where it should be!