In a few months, my partner and I will probably be moving into the city of Atlanta proper.  We currently live in one of the larger northeastern suburbs, right outside the Perimeter.  For those unfamiliar with the Atlanta area, the Perimeter is I-285, a 70-mile long interstate bypass that encircles the city and its inner suburbs and divides everyone into two rival factions.  Those who live inside the Perimeter ("ITP") think of themselves as more hip, trendy, and popular, and those who live outside the Perimeter ("OTP") are seen as inbred rednecks, ethnic minorities, and hicks of every type.  (It does not matter what OTP people think, as we are lower than low.)  Imagine the Sharks and the Jets, but without the manly dancing and switchblades.

A typical group of people who live OTP. We could not find a good picture of ITP people as the light emanating from their robes overwhelmed the camera. 

Of course, all of this is completely partially untrue!  Certain areas outside the Perimeter are actually quite ritzy, especially some of the northern suburbs like Alpharetta and Sandy Springs, especially since Atlanta has been experiencing quite a bit of white flight in the past decade, with many affluent whites moving out of Dekalb and Fulton counties (the two major counties with substantial parts inside the Perimeter) and into surrounding counties like Cobb, Gwinnett, and Forsyth.  In addition, there has been a large amount of Asian and Hispanic migration and development in the Northeastern suburbs, which has caused an explosion of business in places like Duluth and Lawrenceville.  In addition, with the exodus of some of the more (dare I say it) racist whites from the city, the people who are left are maybe a little more hip, a little more with it... and to my mind, much, much more fun.  It's why we're moving in town, really - I would occasionally like to be able to go somewhere after 10pm.

Of course, not everything has left Atlanta... for one thing, it is just about the only place in the State of Georgia with any kind of appreciable night life left.  It also hosts most of our local sports and entertainment venues.  What this means is that even the people who left Atlanta for the outer 'burbs have to come into the city every so often.  And one thing that every single person in the greater Atlanta area knows is that the parking situation is awful.  You will pay more than $10 to park anywhere, you will get your car broken into, and you will get accosted by about a million homeless people on your way there and back.  And so, as everyone knows, when going somewhere popular in Atlanta, you have to take MARTA, the much-maligned, unfairly targeted, deeply misunderstood public transit system that criss-crosses the city, providing 200K+ people per day with a way to get where they're going.

The average OTPer's impression of MARTA.

A recent Facebook conversation put this attitude in stark relief for me.  Basically, someone who had lived in Atlanta for four years finally got up the nerve to take MARTA and found it inconvenient, too spread out, and scary.  And he doesn't want to wait for the bus.  I'll give him the inconvenient, I'll even give him the too spread out (although actually using the bus would fix that...).  But scary?  Give me a break.  People who find MARTA scary are basically afraid of minorities and maybe the occasional crazy person who comes their way, and you get that anywhere you go in Atlanta.  I've been approached in the parking lot of my local grocery store by someone in a cloud of pot smoke asking me to buy him some potatoes because his car was broken down.  This guy wasn't afraid of MARTA.  He was afraid of the city.  It's telling to me that he was even unwilling to wait for a bus.  This attitude is the product of a very sheltered life, and it is unfortunately a very common attitude, born mostly of white flight, unspoken racism, and a massive mistrust of the urban poor.

He does, however, have a point about it being somewhat inconvenient and not going to enough places.  To understand why MARTA is the way it is, it's necessary to go back in time to 1965, when the idea was first put into motion by the Georgia General Assembly.  As originally conceived, MARTA would operate in the five innermost counties: Clayton, Cobb, Dekalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett.  (The City of Atlanta is split between Dekalb and Fulton.)  The original plan was quite ambitious, and I personally believe that had it been implemented as originally planned, Atlanta would be much better off than it currently is.

But when push came to shove, Cobb voters rejected the initial referendum that would let them participate, and eventually only Dekalb and Fulton counties finally agreed to create a 1% sales tax to fund MARTA, and to this day, MARTA only operates within Dekalb, Fulton, and the City of Atlanta.

The GGA also decided that the 1% sales tax combined with fare collection would be enough to fund MARTA and declined to add any state funding to the mix.  As a result, MARTA is the largest transit system in America to not receive any state funding, and the GGA's rather shortsighted structuring of MARTA's budget has led to the ridiculous situation of MARTA cutting back routes and train frequencies while simultaneously spending a massive amount of money to overhaul their entire fleet of train cars - even ones that weren't particularly old or out-of-shape.

So even from the beginning, MARTA has been treated as a red-headed stepchild by the GGA and most Georgians in general.  The originally ambitious plans have been cut back to four rather limited lines and as a result, the general impression of MARTA is that it doesn't go anywhere and has unreliable service to the places it does go.  There have been recent rumblings about a couple of expansions - one into Gwinnett County and one that would form a kind of mini-Perimeter of light rail around the inner part of the city - and they can't come fast enough for me.

My partner and I are looking forward to moving in town.  The apartments we've picked are within walking distance of a MARTA station, and that means that our gas usage will be going way down.  I'll still have to drive to work since I work in Gwinnett and Gwinnett's nascent bus system doesn't go anywhere near my job.  But going to the store, or the movies, or to dinner, or to a bar, or really just about anywhere we want to go, will require nothing more than a walk to the MARTA station.  I will finally live among the city people.  I'll be a short bus ride away from the artist's enclaves of Little Five Points and East Atlanta.  I will finally, finally, live ITP. And I for one can't wait.