Home > Opinion > Commutants! > Archives > 2005 > November > 07
Monday, November 7, 2005
On the road again, and again, and again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The CCT Express from downtown Atlanta back to Marietta is almost worth it. The one-way fare is $3. I got the 101 bus at Five Points right on time, around 5:50 p.m., and we were on I-75 northbound by 6:15 p.m. (Strange, the bus enters the highway on the far right lane and has to cut across four lanes to get to the HOV lane.)
Traffic on 75 is light. We arrive at the Marietta Transfer Center at 6:35 p.m. — almost exactly on schedule. My son, who must have been feeling guilty for driving past me this morning while I was waiting for the CCT bus on the way in, calls on the cell just as the bus is pulling into the transfer center. He picks me up there and we are home by about 6:50, about 70 minutes after I left the office on the commute home. (Had I stayed with CCT the rest of the way home, and walked the last 1.6 miles to my house, that would have added at least another 40 minutes or so.)
Bottom line for the day: $4.25 in fares; 3 hours and 30 minutes in commuting time (counting walking, waiting, buses and trains.) It’s 20 miles from my door to the newspaper, which happens to be about the same number of miles per gallon I get on my small SUV. I can drive it in about 35 minutes one way. At $2.50 cents a gallon that amounts to about $5 a day in gas costs for just the commute. (Not counting when I carpool.) You do the math: $4.15 for a 3.5-hour round-trip commute using public transit, or $5 for a 70-minute round-trip in the car.
Not even close. A better alternative is working closer to home. We’ll look into that later in the week.
(Posted Monday night after Monday’s commute.)
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Mike King
Maybe I should just walk (from Marietta)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One hour into my 20-mile morning commute and I was still less than four miles from home, waiting on the No. 10 CCT bus at the Marietta transfer station. I figured it would take at least a couple of hours walking and taking my public transit options from west Marietta to the downtown newspaper office at Five Points. It took 2 hours and 20 minutes. (I’ve made the same trip by car for the past 18 years in an average of 35 minutes, usually riding with a fellow AJC mployee.)
Thank God for my iPod. About the best thing I can say for this morning’s experience was that it only cost $1.25, the standard Cobb Community Transit fare.
The trip involved walking to a bus stop about 1.7 miles from where I live (actually a neighbor picked me up halfway there), catching the No. 15 CCT bus to the Marietta transfer station and then taking the No. 10 local bus from there, down U.S. 41, stopping at the Cumberland Mall transfer station, getting back on 41, getting on I-75 into Midtown and then catching a MARTA train from the Arts Center station to take me to Five Points. The longest wait was 20 minutes for the first CCT bus and 15 minutes for the MARTA train. Otherwise the ride was uneventful, but way too long to be a realistic commuting alternative.
I’m going to try a CCT Express bus from downtown back to Marietta this evening. The CCT Web site says the trip usually takes only 35 minutes and will drop me off at the Marietta transfer station. If this morning’s commute is typical, I’ll only be an hour away from home when I get there.
(Posted Monday night after Monday’s commute.)
Permalink | | Categories: Mike King
Beats paying for gasoline
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Unlike my colleagues in the editorial department, I don’t find getting to work (or back home) much of a hassle.
It typically goes like this: After a 12- to 15-minute drive from my home to the park’n’ride lot at Ga. 20 and I-985 in Buford, I board the Gwinnett Transit 101 bus for downtown at 7:45 (sometimes earlier, sometimes later — they start at 5:45 and run every 15 minutes through 8 o’clock).
For the next 45 minutes to an hour, I chat with a seatmate, read, work a crossword or nap. I get off on West Peachtree and walk down Broad to Marietta, then a couple of more blocks to the office. I get in before 9.
The trip costs me a little bit more than a gallon of premium. It’s the only way to go.
(Posted Monday night after Monday’s commute.)
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Larry Wilkerson
Lost on the way to work: sleep
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This getting-to-work-some-other-way-than-usual is enough to make a grown man cry. I got up an hour early and arrived at work five minutes later than usual. It’s like a three-step process: Get to the park-and-ride. Take Cobb County Transit (All of 10 other passengers were aboard; I could have packed that many people into the back of my pickup and taken the quick route to work down I-75.) Switch to Marta. In the good old days I just had to get behind the wheel and crank the key. I can’t wait for the trip home.
Commutin’ with Wooten: No NPR, please
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A kind-hearted liberal, a co-worker who ordinarily drives solo. gave me a lift today. Her schedule puts her here later, meaning that I missed the morning editorial board meeting. “Is that serious?” she asked. “If I don’t go, I don’t know what liberals are thinking,” says I. “You can just ask me,” she reassured.
She’s not current, though. Because I was carpooling with her, she couldn’t get her morning briefing. When alone, she listens to NPR, national pinko radio. Of course, I couldn’t listen to Laura Ingraham. We didn’t listen to anything. That wasn’t the worst part. She smokes; a cigarette enroute to work is a ritual. But didn’t because of me. She talks on the cell phone, too. But didn’t because of me. Plans her day in the quiet of the car. But didn’t. We talked. She’ll be real jumpy today.
Cars are cocoons. The quiet between noisy places where people make demands on you. I’ll give it up, I suspect, when my ignition keys are pried from my cold, dead hands.
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Jim Wooten
mike luckovich takes train
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
i took MARTA today because my editor said i had to.
i think MARTA stands for Miss Auto Ride To Ajc.
i live in sandy springs, so my wife dropped me off at the perimeter marta station. it’s about seven miles from our house, so it’s not like a lot of gas is being saved by driving to the station versus driving in to work.
i had planned on reading the paper on the way in, but this guy a few seats in front of me, began talking nonstop to some poor lady about his medications, collection agencies that are after him and his approach to getting chicks, that it became very amusing watching this woman forced to nod and pay attention as he babbled the entire ride.
the train took only a couple minutes to arrive after i’d gotten there and only about 20 minutes to drop me at the five points station. if i lived closer to the perimeter station, it would make a lot of sense for me to take marta.
MARTA is dead to me, Part Deux
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is public art at East Point.
I am edified and entertained.
Usual drill at College Park. (No college, no parking.) On to East Point. This time all three token machines keep puking up my five. The ten in my pocket was for lunch; now my ten is five tokens and five quarters.
Two inbound trains arrive and depart while I’m futzing with the machines. (I know, I know: Get a TransCard.) I see the taillights of the second as I walk down the steps. So I have a minute to view and appreciate the station decoration (above), which nobody ever seems to do.
More cell phone chatter from my fellow riders as I climb aboard. Thanks for sharing your lives with me. We go to Fort McPherson; I wonder what it will be called when they close the fort and how much it will cost taxpayers to redo the signs. Up the line toward town: Have you noticed that West End is east of East Point?
Total trip time: One hour 15 minutes, compared with the usual 45. Is MARTA worth an extra half-hour?
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Richard Halicks
A hair-straightening experience
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Cranky about my walk to work this morning. This takes way more organizational skills than I can muster.
I made a trip to my office (by car) last night to haul in all my stuff — 1.5 liter bottle of water, gym bag, pkg for UPS, dress shoes, etc — and I still forgot my ID badge this morning. And how am I going to get to the gym, anyway? Walk? How am I going to get home in the dark?
By the way, with the high humidity, I didn’t have a single curl left in my hair by the time I got to my desk, doggone it! Do I need to haul my hot curlers to the office, too?
Permalink | Comments (24) | Categories: Cynthia Tucker
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