A carnival of technology

My MARTA riding has been going pretty well. I’ve given up altogether on driving, instead riding the two or three miles from my apartment to Medical Center. People have been surprisingly unjerkwadish on Glenridge, and I was even able to give someone directions to St. Joseph’s hospital today while stopped at a light, giving me a warm fuzzy feeling between gasps for air. Not having a car on the other end of the train has meant two rides in the rain, though, and I think I’ve already destroyed my brake pads trying not to careen into fifteen directions of traffic while riding downhill on a wet Roswell Road. I figure the bike is about due for its break-in service, so maybe they can replace them if needed and hopefully not make fun of me.

Riding the train has been a fun way to relax for a few minutes away from the hassle of traffic, and I’ve been noticing a few interesting things. For example, there’s apparently a Lexus advertisement in the tunnel between Dunwoody and Sandy Springs done as a sort of 50mph flip book. I wonder how much they paid to have that installed, and I wonder if Lexus is targeting the right audience with people riding public transportation. On one train ride I also happened to notice a rail map leftover from 1993 similar to that one at Peachtree Center station. Besides showing Sandy Springs and North Springs as under construction, as well as still calling the Western terminus “Hightower” and having Omni as part of the overnamed station to the west of Five Points, it showed provisional lines for some of their lofty ideas, such as the Northwest line, the Hapeville line and the line towards Emory whose name I forget. It also had a busway going south from Candler Park, which I found interesting in light of the newer East Corridor bus rapid transit idea. I really don’t understand the east corridor motivation besides being able to extend beyond Indian Creek without having to build new rail lines. Regardless, it’d be nice if they built more rail lines.

Another thing I’ve been noticing about MARTA lately is the voice that announces the next station. Among the various automated voices around Atlanta, such as the sorely missed robot people-mover voice (stop do not enter) and the welcome to the baggage terminal guy, MARTA lady definitely sounds the hottest. I wonder who she is. She’s probably about 60, though, so I don’t spend too much time fantasizing about a MARTA supermodel, hidden away in catacombs of the city, recording what’s near Lenox. I did, however, note today that she pronounced “GRTA.” GRTA is a money-pit started by Roy Barnes that, I think fairly recently, began running busses from the ass end of nowhere into the city. I usually make it rhyme with MARTA when I’m making fun of it (most of the time) and grr-tuh when I’m not. Apparently it’s actually pronounced something like gr?ta.