Introduction

Hi, there. 😄

One of our favorite quotes of all time is "no single raindrop thinks it's responsible for the flood." That is, your small actions may seem to be of little consequence, but everyone's small actions add up to be a big problem. That leads to a corollary: "you're not in traffic; you are traffic."

We live well outside the city, and, after countless stressful trips to and from the Atlanta airport in that horrible traffic, we were fed up with the struggle. The final straw was a trip a few summers ago. We wanted to eat at a particular airport restaurant before a flight, so we arrived 4 hours before our flight was supposed to take off. It took us an hour to find parking, it was 45 minutes in line to the shuttle, and bag check took an hour. We wound up walking up to the gate right as boarding started and having skipped that meal we wanted.

After that absolute debacle, we decided to give MARTA a shot by just going to the airport. No flight. We just went to see how it worked to see if it was a viable options for us. Smooth as silk on a busy Saturday! So much better than driving. Like, not even close. A stress measurement of 2/10 versus 9/10 on the road. It was great!

So great, in fact, that we started going to the city for all sorts of things. The Aquarium, Atlanta United matches, Zoo Atlanta, DragonCon, good food we can't get at home, museums, parades, parks, concerts...all manner of stuff. All within reach now that we're comfortable riding and don't have to fight traffic and find parking.

There are plenty of resources that tell you about MARTA, but we had to really work to find answers to our questions. For example, when you look up how to pay for a train ride, it talks about passes and fares and trips, but it doesn't give a quick answer. You have to actually go to a train station, use the ticket machine, and use the gates to understand how it all works. These are simple, entry-level things, but, if you've never ridden transit, you have no way of knowing.

This is why we started this site. We've gone through the processes of riding transit and are comfortable with everything. We wanted to share our experiences, fill in some knowledge gaps, and let everyone know that MARTA is not only useful but can be a fun time as well!

If you have any questions on any transit topic, feel free to email us at info@anxiousmarta.com. We'll try and help you as best we can.

Let's get more cars off the Atlanta streets!