Tag: ohatlanta

MARTA STRIKES AGAIN

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This one was to send a message: “Suspicious package” near the Howell Mill Road exit leads to shutdown of I-75 southbound during the heart of the morning rush hour.  There is no MARTA alternative route coming from this direction.

This one’s for you, Cobb County.  For those of you who aren’t necessarily savvy to Atlanta county-isms, despite the fact that it would make more sense than peanut butter and jelly, Cobb County absolutely refuses to allow MARTA into its hallowed county lines.  To the point where MARTA rail almost patronizingly skates on the county line as it goes all the way up into the northern part of Fulton County.

Don’t believe anything else you may or may not care to inquire about why Cobb refuses MARTA, and just know that it has entirely everything to do with the simple fact that Cobb County does not want black people to have rail access into their sacred communities.  Because nothing is more synonymous with scary, scary colored people and their definitive crime that they will in fact bring, than rail access.

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IT’S MARTA HERE TOO

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Alternate route: take MARTA to Midtown or North Avenue stops to avoid sinkhole that has shut down two city blocks worth of Fifth Street

MARTA STRIKES AGAIN (alleged conspiracy theory)!!  Destroying highways wasn’t enough for Keith Parker, now he’s employing the route of sabotaging local roads, playing the card of griefing the locals and their surface streets, with hopes of getting them to use more MARTA as well.

This is actually a great litmus test, to truly compare the infrastructure of an American city compared to a place like Japan, because despite the obvious answer, I get that there is a little bit of unfairness in comparing the repair of a suspension bridge like I-85 isn’t the same comparison as repairing a block-sized sinkhole in Fukuoka.

The question now is how fast can Atlanta repair a sinkhole the size of a Little Caesar’s pizza?  Fukuoka fixed one the size of a regional airport in a week, but I’m going to have to assume Atlanta won’t get theirs fixed in remotely close to a week, and might just need a few million dollars of incentive to drive workers to actually do their job, and maybe by June, Fifth Street will be open again.

Anyone want to take bets on the speed in which it’ll get fixed?  Fuckin’ MARTA.

Their URL says it all

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

ITSMARTA(.com)!!!!!!

You heard it here first.  MARTA is behind all of this shit.  The collapse of I-85.  The chemical spill that crippled the Connector.  The seismic buckling of I-20.  It’s MARTA!

Coincidentally, MARTA riders would avoid the entirety of the chemical spill, as well as the smoldering remains of I-85.  Coincidentally anyone traveling westbound of I-20 would avoid the giant fisting the road decided to give motorists, if they rode MARTA from Indian Creek station into the city instead of driving. 

It just seems a little too coincidental that all these highway maladies are occurring in areas where MARTA would make too much of a logical alternative.

Keith Parker is a diabolical son of a bitch, but this guy right here is one step ahead of you at seeing through your transparent guerilla methods of trying to force increased ridership.  Apps, slogans and “riding with respect” only got so much faith back into MARTA, but once he hit the wall, he’s been forced to bring out the big guns.  Literally, by destroying strategic parts of the Metro Atlanta highway system, and then conveniently waiting in the wings to provide this alternative means of transportation, behind his friendly demeanor and sharply dressed image.

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So about all that increased ridership

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes, nature just takes care of itself: an apparent premeditated gun attack at the West Lake MARTA station results in one dead, several others injured

Yeah, about that thought that maybe MARTA planned the destrucity of I-85 in order to spike its ridership… such may have been the case, but much like using a cheat code Battletoads, sometimes the royal they know that something is amiss, and actions are taken to bring light to it.  MARTA destroys I-85 in order to increase their ridership, and then violence occurs on the trains to take the status quo back to zero; or at least that’s what the point of this whole post is about.

Surely, nothing is going to scare people back away from MARTA than good old fashioned gun violence.  Completely negating the efforts by MARTA to increase their ridership by destroying I-85.  But compared to the risk of getting hit by, stray bullets, I think commuters just might prefer setting in stand-still traffic for hours on end; at least in the confines of your own car, the chances of getting shot are less than being crammed shoulder to shoulder inside of a train car with no automotive skin to shield you from gunfire.

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This is what we call a disaster waiting to happen

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Incentives to rush usually equals incentives for shit work: Georgia Department of Transportation offers up to a $3.1 million dollar bonus to the company responsible for repairing I-85, if they can finish everything up before Memorial Day

Look, I’m all about getting I-85 up and running as quickly as possible.  And my bad on the part of previously saying that it wasn’t going to be done until Thanksgiving, because clearly I tuned out for a little bit and missed where they thought they would get it done by June 15th instead.  Whatever though, it’s not the weekend like the sinkhole was fixed in Japan, so it’s still taking way too fucking long to fix something that should really be fixed even faster than a target date of Memorial Day weekend.

And it’s obvious why Georgia wants I-85 fixed before May 25th, because that’s Memorial Day weekend, one of the heaviest loads of expected traffic all across the nation.  Surely, the loss of I-85 is going to be extremely taxing to I-285 on both sides as people would be forced to use those roads instead of the straight shot through the city itself, which then has a trickle effect on I-20, as well as I-75.  Ironically, those actually in the city of Atlanta itself would probably benefit the most, from prepared drivers not utilizing city proper streets.

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IT WAS A MARTA ALL ALONG

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Conspiracy theory alert*: A crackhead was blamed, crooked bureaucrats’ public waste was the fuel, but MARTA lit the match

*this post is tongue-in-cheek (partially), as if I really have to explain myself

One of the snarky observations I made when I heard that the repair of I-85 was going to take until like Thanksgiving, was who stands to benefit the most from this?  And I don’t think I’m entirely wrong with thinking that, because as most Americans know, little is done in the United States for free, regardless of the circumstances behind them, and as accidental as the burning and collapse of I-85 was, someone(s) will undoubtedly walk away from the scenario richer than they started.

From the onset, I would’ve suspected that part of the delay of repairing I-85 would be the extensive time it took for bureaucrats and talking heads to debate, broker and spin deals with crony companies to contract out the labor work for the bridge repair, to see how many people could pad their pockets as much as possible, before any work was actually planned much less executed.  Naturally, these involved parties would the ones who would somehow take a disaster and turn it into a money-making endeavor, regardless of how miserable it’s making citizens and travelers with each passing day with a giant hole in I-85.

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The new and unfortunate normal

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A major and historical in the worst kind of way thing happened in Atlanta this past week, when an entire block of I-85, well, broke.  A massive fire started underneath the bridge portion of I-85, and for whatever unfortunate reasons, the joints holding up a chunk of the interstate, basically fell off, leaving a sizable and impassable hole in the bridge, severing the stretch of highway that connects Montgomery, Alabama all the way to Richmond, Virginia, going northbound.

The fallout is fairly substantial, and the repercussions of having an impassable chasm are massive.  Anyone going northbound in, or through Atlanta will now have to reroute on either I-75 or just taking I-285 around the city.  GA-400 isn’t accessible going north anymore, because the hole is quite literally right before the exit to 400 North.

Sure, I’ve made plenty of jokes about how the hole basically reminds me of the bridge jump from Speed, or how the fires were basically when Tyrion Lannister used wildfire to blow shit up, and the internet has once again made a mockery of Atlanta and it’s apparent penchant for stupid shit like this.  Fortunately, nobody was hurt and there were no casualties aside from thousands of pissed off commuters, otherwise such might be in bad taste.  However, the reality of the situation is that this is going to be a massive and inconveniencing situation for all of Atlanta, and those who need to pass through Atlanta.

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