Access Atlanta > The Newcomer > Archives > 2008 > July > 23 > Entry
Atlanta trip planners: Google Transit vs. A-Train vs. MARTA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Navigating a new city is quite hard enough, but doing it on public transportation can be terrifying: where do I get the bus? Is this the right direction? Is this my stop? Wait, I was supposed to transfer where? And what is this Doraville stop you speak of?!
Newcomer or not, anybody leaving their car and its $100 gas tank at home is getting used to the bike, bus, train and walking way of life. Does that mean you just don’t go anywhere anymore?
I hope not.
Atlanta’s got at least three transit mapping resources available online. I tested them out on Apres Diem, a Midtown after-work destination we’re always trying to visit, but never do because all of my happy hour pals have weird schedules and transportation needs.
Here are my potential routes, and my experiences getting them on A-Train, Google Maps and MARTA’s trip planner with a 5:30 p.m. weekday departure time from downtown Atlanta…
Three miles. How bad can it be, right?
Pros: Produced locally by Citizens for Progressive Transit. Includes bike commuters. Offers maps for walk, bike, walk/transit and bike/transit. Features a shortest route, and a route with the fewest transfers.
Cons: Couldn’t find my starting address, so I had to point it out on a map. No mention of fares.
The Route, using walk/transit: walk to MARTA’s Five Points station, catch the Northbound train to Midtown station, catch the Virginia Highland No. 45 bus NE until Monroe and 8th, then hop off and walk to my destination.
Travel Time: 40 minutes
Pros: Includes easy-to-find maps for driving, taking transit or walking. Clean and familiar, like other Google mapping systems. Easily identified addresses just by Googling the names of businesses.
Cons: No bike routes, no fare information.
The Route, by transit: walk to MARTA’s Five Points station, catch the Northbound train to Midtown station, catch the Virginia Highland No. 45 bus NE until Monroe and Virginia, then hop off and walk to my destination.
Travel Time: 11 minutes by car, 28 minutes by transit, 58 minutes walking.
Pros: MARTA-made, so the ultimate authority on fare info and schedules. It didn’t find my destination, but it does have a searchable list of popular destinations for easy mapping. Mentions a variety of routes, departure times and travel times. The only trip planner that let riders check a box for “accessibility needed.”
Cons: Address finder is incredibly difficult to use. (Don’t include city name, state, ZIP code or punctuation; it seems to confuse the system.) It took several tries for it to identify my starting point and my destination. At one point, it said no routes were available. Less descriptive about the routes offered. No bike information, although you can take your bike on buses and trains!
The Route: walk to MARTA’s Five Points station, catch the Northbound train to North Avenue station, catch the No. 27 Monroe Drive/Cheshire Bridge to Lindbergh Station bus until near my destination on Monroe Drive.
Travel time: 18 minutes
That was one little run-in with these systems. It’d be a stretch to think any of the times are correct. Next step, I guess, is to try the routes. I’d try any of them, and maybe a carpool, too: nobody mentioned how I was supposed to get home.
How do you map out the path to your destinations? What experience do you have with these mapping systems? Share in the comments, and let me know how it went.
Permalink | Comments (19) | Post your comment | Categories: Getting Around
Comments
By Jmarsh
July 23, 2008 9:25 AM | Link to this
Without a 30 day crime blotter overlaid, they’re pretty useless. Although, since I can protect myself on public transit thanks to HB89, I might start riding.
By RK
July 23, 2008 10:02 AM | Link to this
Thanks for the tip. I used to live by the MARTA, but now that I move I need to figure out an alternative public transportation way home, just in case. MARTA’s site is awful — it is even difficult to find a schedule for the trains. And then you have the problem of multiple bus systems…
By deegee
July 23, 2008 10:15 AM | Link to this
MARTA is the worst, third world excuse for a public transportation system. I made the mistake of riding MARTA on Friday night to a Braves game. At 9:30pm I waited 1 hour for a North Springs train while no less than 3 Doraville trains came and went.. Who runs that show? MARTA is a sad, sick joke.
By Pierce Randall
July 23, 2008 10:46 AM | Link to this
MARTA’s trip planner isn’t so hot, as I’ve noticed. It tells you to take buses you don’t need to, and drops better trips. I use A-train, but I agree not being able to code in the address a lot of times is annoying.
Who cares about fare? That’s always the same — $1.75, or a smaller amount if the trip originating on some suburban bus systems here. But, I mean, we don’t have fare zones and even system-to-system transfers are free. Maybe a flat mention of the fare would be nice.
How did all of that turn out? MARTA and Google are definitely, obviously wrong on your search. There’s no way you could catch any 45 bus before the one that leaves a 6:00 (which you should handily catch), since the one before it leaves at 5:30 from Midtown station. You probably can’t catch the 5:34 27 out of North Avenue, and the 6:04 bus will put you at 10th & Virginia at about the same time the 45 from Midtown would. Maybe MARTA’s counting on their own 5:34 trip being late? But, in any case, all of those trips should take about 40 minutes. Which doesn’t beat a car trip, but then you’re going to a location inside a strip mall shopping center.
Deegee, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Everyone in every city complains about their transit system; MARTA’s not particularly robust, but try taking the bus in Detroit, or riding the train in Charlotte or Houston. Whine whine whine that’s all I ever hear from people in this city about transit, and you wonder why it costs so much to keep driving your SUV.
By MARTA Evangelist
July 23, 2008 11:01 AM | Link to this
Jmarsh,
As a daily transit rider I’m happy to hear that the new gun law will now make Marta an acceptable option for you. Even though it is now legal to carry a firearm with a valid permit, I’d like you to keep in mind that there are still rules governing their use:
You may not pull a gun on someone because their music is playing too loud
If you wish for the bus to stop, it is not permissible to fire your gun into the air. Please pull the cord like everyone else.
If someone that looks, acts, or talks differently than you boards the train, it is illegal to shoot them.
I’m not sure of any other reason you would need a gun on Marta, but if having one will get you out of your car then welcome aboard!
By deegee
July 23, 2008 11:16 AM | Link to this
Hey, Pierce, I don’t have an SUV. Just because Houston and Charlotte are bad doesn’t mean that we public transit riders in Atlanta shouldn’t demand better from MARTA. Who in the hell allows three trains to run in succession to Doraville with no trains running to North Springs? To make matters worse, after the second Doraville train passed through Lindbergh, an announcement was made on the platform indicating that the next train would be bound for North Springs. When the next train got there 15 minutes later it was bound for Doraville. Can’t they make a simple announcement to the frustrated riders on the platform and properly set their expectations?
By Mike
July 23, 2008 11:17 AM | Link to this
Degree:
If you were catching that train at five points, you were lucky to catch a north springs train there at all, considering after 9pm north springs trains only run as far south as Lindbergh…
By jan
July 23, 2008 11:30 AM | Link to this
I tried that A-train; thought it sounded great. I gave up after 5-6 tries as it couldn’t find either my address or Stone Mountain.
By deegee
July 23, 2008 11:45 AM | Link to this
Yes, Mike. I caught a Doraville train at Five Points and rode to Lindbergh. Forty minutes later a North Springs train arrived at a very crowded Lindbergh platform.
By atlin83
July 23, 2008 12:00 PM | Link to this
deegee - if you say, look at any MARTA rail map posted in every station on platforms and mezzanines, look at the train schedules posted at every station, or pick up a rail timetable (located in schedule racks at the stations), or look at MARTA’s website, or look at the plethora of signs posted at each MARTA North/South line station, you would have seen that, like Mike said:
North Springs trains only run to Lindbergh after 9:00 PM. to get there, you have to take a Northbound Doraville train and transfer at Lindbergh.
I’m not saying MARTA can’t do better about telling people this, but I’m saying that you overlooked a significant number of readily available ways to find out this information. so before you bag on MARTA for being “a sick, sad joke” for not sending you a North Springs train that isn’t even on the schedule (you lucked out and caught the last one out of the airport, probably), why don’t you try looking at the schedule? or the map? or the timetable? or the signs? or the website?
after all, MARTA can post the information, but it’s of no use to you unless you bother to look at it. MARTA can’t force people to pay attention. or use common sense.
By thomas
July 23, 2008 12:07 PM | Link to this
Forget about MARTA.
Listen people, MARTA is a hollow shell of what is could have been. It goes almost nowhere and it takes forever to do it.
It’s a shame really. All I ever heard people talk about is their experience going to a Braves games while taking MARTA. Who cares. You are part of the reason that MARTA is the way it is.
If it weren’t for racial bigotry, we would have a real transit system in the metro area. Sadly, bigots want to have separation. Effective transit connects people and places. You can’t do that when you have a part of your population who wants isolate themselves from the rest of the world.
By now we should have rapid rail up 85 to Gwinnett Place Mall, up to Cumberland Mall, down to Forest Park and Morrow and possibly even to South Fulton. We definitely should have had MARTA going to Fulton Industrial and Six Flags.
Do you know that MARTA hasn’t opened a new rail station since 2000? Before that, MARTA was opening a new station every 2-4 years. Now it’s going nowhere.
By jgumbrecht_0508aa
July 23, 2008 12:12 PM | Link to this
Hey Pierce, do you have much luck with specific times and schedules on MARTA? I don’t use the bus often, but when I have, I find the schedules seem to be more of a rough estimate than a distinct times. Maybe I’ve just been unlucky.
And as for trains, I often find they run more frequently than the posted schedule.
Thoughts?
By Corey
July 23, 2008 12:31 PM | Link to this
Ditto Phil Gramm, we have become a nation of whiners.
By Jmarsh
July 23, 2008 1:21 PM | Link to this
Thanks, MARTA Evangelist, I’ll be on the lookout. Us folks who have passed FBI and GBI background checks, and can jump through the hoops posed by probate courts, have obviously expressed an inability to understand and follow the law.
As opposed to some mayors, who just make stuff up when they feel like it.
On topic, I don’t know what the problem is with northbound trains. The previous posters are right; the schedules generally mean nothing. I absolutely loved sitting at Peachtree Center waiting on a train to Doraville for well over twice the posted amount of time at night before getting a cab.
Oh well, it looks like it’s time to descend into the usual MARTA “y’all just racist SUV driving ignoramuses that hate people not like you, damn republicans” tirades.
By Pierce Randall
July 23, 2008 1:48 PM | Link to this
Jamie, MARTA claims to have a 70-something % on-time performance rating. (There’s some perception they pad these statistics a little by having a lax interpretation of “on time”.)
I’ve had different experiences with different routes. The 45, off of which I used to live, would be on time enough to use it without noticing a problem, usually. I guess it was consistently around 5 minutes late, but that never mattered to me. Some routes are consistently 15 minutes or more late, like the #2, and they’re very hard to use. When I first moved here, after MARTA’s crippling 2002 budget cuts, I tried to catch the from Fernbank, and I waited for a few cycles of when the bus was supposed to be there. But that, in my experience, has been rare.
The worst thing that happens — what happened to me when I waited for the 2 — is when they drop trips for some reason. I mean, just like cars break down sometimes, buses do, or they get so caught up in bad traffic that they have to drop a trip on the schedule to catch up. But, again, I ride MARTA every day, and that has happened to me about once every two months — usually going home after rush hour — over the past three years.
Deegee, “Demand better” is a fine thing. But that’s backing off a lot from calling MARTA “the worst, third world excuse for a public transportation system.” I don’t appreciate you calling me and everyone else who rides the train and bus every day because we don’t own a car “third world.” You might not have a good time because you take a superior attitude in there with you. And if a lot of other US cities are worse than us, and a lot of US cities are better than us, that pretty much puts Atlanta’s transit system in the middle among cities in a first world country. That’s all I’m saying.
Jmarsh, I call them like I see them. I’ve lived in Georgia my entire life, and have met plenty of racist, SUV driving idiots.
By ND
July 23, 2008 2:04 PM | Link to this
Maybe, just maybe, MARTA is unreliable and doesn’t go anywhere because the rednecks in the Capitol building refuse to allocate state funding towards it, unlike every other major transit system in America?
By Christopher
July 23, 2008 2:50 PM | Link to this
I find it interesting that the majority of the comments here aren’t about the article! The story’s about the 3 transit planners, not about MARTA and whether it’s good or bad.
I’ve used all 3 of the trip planners, and they each have their pros and cons. MARTA’s gives you more results, but is a pain input your origin/destination information. You can type in your origin exactly how they have it listed in the drop-down list and it still won’t find it.
GoogleMaps does ok, but their “next bus” and “next train” information is horribly inaccurate.
A-Train works not just with MARTA, but will all transit providers in the area (i.e. GCT, CCT, Ctran, etc), and will plan a route across multiple providers, though I alwayshave to select my origin and destination from the map unless I’m entering a specific station number (i.e. NE9 for Chamblee Station).
From all 3 systems, I would like to see a local map showing all the bus routes on a specific day.
By Another Native
July 23, 2008 3:09 PM | Link to this
Sorry thomas , but you’re not informed on the construction decisions made when they built the rail lines.
“If it weren’t for racial bigotry, we would have a real transit system in the metro area. Sadly, bigots want to have separation. Effective transit connects people and places. You can’t do that when you have a part of your population who wants isolate themselves from the rest of the world.”
The rail lines connected the major housing projects to downtown Atlanta. Now that they’re almost all gone and the rest being converted into mixed income housing its evident it was an exercise in vote buying on a major scale, not an attempt to provide an effective urban transportation system.
By jgumbrecht_0508aa
July 23, 2008 3:47 PM | Link to this
Good ideas, Christopher. Do you rely on one trip planner more than the others? I feel like I’m leaning toward Google’s, just because it’s less work up front. If I’m feeling more patient — you know, the few times a year when that happens — A-Train seems to be the way to go, for me.