Urban Livability Moment
Last weekend I was in Atlanta. I took MARTA, the City's public transit system, riding both a train and a bus from the airport. While the train is smooth and high quality, overall the system is highly flawed. There are only two train lines, they kind of go nowhere (except the airport, obviously), and you have to go all the way to the center of the city to transfer lines. This setup is largely due to xenophobia -- certain neighborhoods want to keep the "riffraff" out, and they refuse to let the train lines extend into their areas (as if the lack of transit is going to prevent any "riffraff" from going wherever it wants).
On the train, there was an ad from a company that helps people buy cars -- not necessarily the best business move unless you are trying to make sure your riders stop using your service. On the bus, there were TVs with the sound on. An HGTV show (not exactly something geared at MARTA's core ridership) was interspersed with tons of TV ads. I really felt that this was taking advantage of those who ride the system-- if I pay $1.75 to ride on your transit network, then I should not have to be subjected to ads. It's like going to the movies and then having ads before the previews. If I wanted ads, I would stay home and watch TV, not ride the bus.
Anyways, I digress. My point is that Atlanta is a huge, sprawling city that appears like a series of low density suburbs interspersed with a few business districts. It has poor public transit, and tons of traffic, two criteria that I thought would rule a city out from being cool. Yet, Atlanta has a ton of personality, and is actually a place I like hanging out. There are cool things like a food coop (with an emphasis on local foods, as described by recent Weiss speaker, Michelle Schroeder), great dance clubs, and delicious restaurants. Yet, everyone has to drive to go to these places. The best restaurants are in the middle of strip malls! This goes against my planning principles: apparently urban design, sustainability and sense of place are not essential to being a place -- at least not in the short term. This urban livability moment has caught me off guard, and I continue to struggle to understand the great southern metropolis that is Atlanta.
posted by Michael at
6:57 PM
1 Comments:
Hmmm... navigating transportation and getting around is a tricky thing in a city, especially in a city that largely consists of sprawling suburbs. While cities/suburbs would certainly benefit from improved public transit, there also has to be community buy-in from those who do not necessarily "have" to take advangate of its presence. Recently in Chicago at a conference, I was amazed at the number of people who would not take the busses running right in front of the hotel up to the "Magnificant Mile," or who would not make the 5 block trek to the train to adventure into some of Chicago's more interesting neighborhoods. Some of the more "daring" took a train from either Midway or O'Hare, but I sensed that was also a minory group amoung these conferencers.
I feel quite comfortable navigating any sort of train system in the city, whether in St. Louis, Chicago, NYC, DC, Atlanta, London ... but have always been a little leery of the busses. There's something much more immediate about riding a bus than taking a train; I'm not sure if it's the potential of "not passing" as a local (when the bus driver can tell that you're confused), or what ... but I have always been intimidated. When faced with the option of walking 11blocks and switching trains and walking another 6 blocks (with luggage) to get to the hotel or walking 3 blocks to the bus (which would drop me off at the front of the hotel), however, I took a deep breath and opted for the bus.
My initial hesitancy abated, I quickly became adept at reading the bus maps, finding route numbers, and finding the metrocard reader inside the doors. : ) The delightful surprise of the Chicago busses was the drivers -- the drivers of the busses (regardless of how busy the streets or the busses were) were a great resource for getting to where I needed to be. Instead of forging ahead alone (as I'm want to do in the city), I quickly learned that asking a question about the route or the street could prevent many blocks of walking and/or frustration in my blister-making dress shoes.
Refusing to "cab it" up the street, I convinced a few friends to take the bus -- this particular bus ride turned into quite the adventure when the bus driver (and we) were all lost along a new route dictated by Michigan Avenue's temporary closure for Chicago's "lighting" of the Mile. Paying attention to the city on the street level has given me much more confidence in navigating the train system, as well -- I convinced those same women to take a train home later in the evening and was able to guide a last-minute hop-off when some folks on our train got a little more rowdy than our conferenced-out brains felt like listening to. We walked a couple of extra blocks in the cold almost-wintery air of a pretty Chicago night, newly empowered to navigate the streets after a week of bus-bound touring and conversations.
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