On a week that saw the most colossal traffic jam in Atlanta (if not world) history, how's this for ironic: We've earned the No. 3 spot in a list of public transit rankings! Most of us are still trying to reacclimate to human civilization following Freeze-nik 2014, a snow-driven disaster fueled at least partly by a cripplingly poor regional transportation system. WalkScore.com, though, is here to say it's not all that bad. Sort of. According to the website's newest rankings, Atlanta comes in at No. 3 for "top Southern cities" in terms of transit.
Before you get excited, please realize that the high ranking comes with an actual score of 43 (out of 100), and puts us well behind Washington D.C. (70) and Miami (58) in the region. Then the obvious question — besides when the hell did D.C. become a Southern city? — is where ATL ranks in the country. The answer? Not highly. Atlanta doesn't rank in the top 10 of transit-friendly major cities (a list that ends with Portland's score of 50) and falls into the "a few nearby public transportation options" category.
MARTA is actually a pretty big system for the South, but it all seems ironic for a city that just had people stranded on the interstate for six, 10 and 26 hours at a time … right? If the system was this respectable, maybe officials would have insisted that people use it in the face of traffic disaster. Instead ... crickets.
— By Curbed Atlanta contributor Tyler Estep
· New Ranking of Best U.S. Cities for Public Transit [Walk Score]
· What 70s & 80s MARTA Stations Say About An Era in Atlanta [Curbed]
· Recent MARTA coverage, discussion [Curbed Atlanta]
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