Talk:Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority

"Heavy rail" terminology

I find the heavy/light rail distinction confusing and overly-technical in a manner that is pretentious and uncommonly used. "Rapid transit" is a much more common phrase for the technology used by MARTA in the United States. Rail Rapid Transit, or RRT, specifically describes the kind of metro service pitched by the FTA to systems like DC Metro, BART, and MARTA, so as to entertain the idea that "light rail" rapid transit systems can still be rapid transit, LRT. Describing the types of transit service provided by an agency does not seem to follow any kind of template on Wikipedia. I propose that the "heavy rail" section be renamed "rapid transit." I'll leave this comment on here for a few days before changing it.69.94.192.147 (talk) 04:29, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Ongoing budget crisis

I cleaned up some of the wording in the last paragraph of the funding section. My intent was to make it easier to read, while correcting a few factual inaccuracies (i.e. MARTA has mentioned that it might have to cut one day of service, of which a weekday was mentioned once, and Sunday has been mentioned in all other cases).

Honestly, I'm happy with the "Georgia General Assembly caused" language already there before my edit, but I'm open to discussion about whether or not caused by inaction is a good construction.

I would like to have a section on the ARC funding plug mentioned.69.94.192.147 (talk) 11:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

"Opposition to MARTA from neighboring counties" line

I'm going to delete the following line from the article: "Opposition to MARTA from neighboring counties has been primarily due to MARTA's poor service, consistent record of delays, and crimes occurring on MARTA buses and rail platforms."

Here's why: 1. It has a "citation needed" tag, and no citation has been provided. 2. There's valid debate that perhaps should not be waded into here that MARTA is, in fact, opposed by neighboring counties for the reasons of racism and anti-urban fear, not primarily for the reasons provided in this sentence. 3. "Poor service" and "consistent record of delays" are refuted by later parts of the article, specifically MARTA rail's 90+% on-time performance statistics. Also, without a citation, and being qualitative measures, I think they reveal editorializing POV. 4. While crime perhaps factors in to fears about MARTA service, "occurring and rail platforms" is poorly-worded without a citation. I know of a few high-profile crime-related incidents involved at MARTA, but many have not occurred inside the physical agency itself. This was a point of debate with the woman who was abducted from a MARTA parking lot and then assaulted off-premises, for instance. Also, many specifically fear MARTA because they fear people will (I'm not entertaining this notion, by the way, just describing it) take the train, get off, steal something, carry it back to the train, get back on, and ride off. Or they think it will bring a "bad element" into the area, or whatever. My point being, if you want to talk about fears of crime being a reason the suburbs don't pick up MARTA, perhaps it should be described more accurately and cited.

I think that's grounds for removal without waiting for a response, but there's always a revert if you disagree. Just post something here if you revert, please. 69.94.192.147 (talk) 15:03, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

TWP assessment, further comments

I was asked to make a few more comments for the TrainsWikiProject assessments so here goes (using bullets so action items can be more easily addressed)...

• My first impression is that there are still quite a lot of lists here and I'd like to see the prose/list ratio increased a bit by moving some of the lists to subpages. The list of stations, for example, is duplicated on List of MARTA stations and does not need to be included here.
• The lead section is too short for an article of this length. It does not adequately cover the subject matter that is included. The Breeze Card section's summary of the attendant subpage is a good approximation of what I'm looking for here.
• The order of sections could be improved by a little switching around. I think the system's story would flow better if it were arranged as: History (planning, construction, inauguration), Present system (services, connections), Future development, Extras (see also, external links).
• If this article is going to move up the chain toward featured status, a good initial goal would be Good article status. The GA criteria is a good guide here:
  • "Well written": This is kind of hard to codify in precise terms. But, looking at this article, I see a few very short sections that could be combined or expanded and others that rely heavily on list data.
  • "Factually accurate": While the number of references is commendable, they need to be formatted in a consistent style. The templates in Category:Citation templates help immensely in this regard. Another aspect of this is the number of online versus the number of paper edition references. A quick search of the Trains Magazine indexes should provide additional reference material.
  • "Broad in its coverage": I don't see any really major topic that is missing from the article, but there are parts that delve into minutiae a bit more than is necessary.
  • "Neutral point of view": The criticisms section already included here helps in this regard.
  • "Stable": This will come as the major editing is complete, so I don't think that anything special needs to be done here.
  • "Contains images": There are several, but there is a large chunk of text from the present History section to the end of the article that doesn't have any images.

Slambo (Speak) 12:36, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Well fans, there you have it. The outside third opinion. Too many paper (i.e; AJC) references. Exactly the same commentary I've made earlier. Finally an outsider has sided with me on Factual Accuracy and NPOV issues. Looks like that station list with its atrocious Lindbergh RideStore caveat needs to go too. LOL! I wonder if the editors who heatedly disputed with me previously regarding these same issues now change their tune? Three against one and .... Kokayi 14:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that's too high a ratio of online references. There should be more references that are published on paper listed here. I know there have been briefs in Trains Magazine because I subscribe to it. There are likely other printed resources as well such as Passenger Train Journal (which includes some coverage of light rail topics), Railfan & Railroad, Traction & Models and maybe even the now defunct Bus World. Wikipedians within MARTA's service area should have access to newspaper articles from the local press and to the Georgia state archives for regulatory filings with the state. Verifiability extends beyond "teh intarweb". Slambo (Speak) 15:43, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Slambo. I would guess that so many online articles are cited because of easy they can be found and accessed. I personally don't subscribe to the paper, so that is why i have used many online references. A simple trip to the library could fix the online articles, as all those articles appeared in print and contain the date and section information. There is a book actually written about Atlanta and MARTA, Biomedeng is working on/or already has a copy and will be making changes shortly. Also regarding the photos we ahve been looking into that because MARTA forbids photography on the system unless you have written permission, and even then those photos are not allowed to be posted on the internet. Thanks again for the feebdback, it is greatly appreciated Slambo! Amazingracer 17:11, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I would hope that they're only requiring permits if you're actually standing on or within MARTA property, because taking photos of any subject from public property (like a public park or street sidewalk) is not forbidden in Federal law (I don't know if there's a state law against it, but I would be very surprised if there were). Oregon attorney Bert P. Krages II summarized the legalities of public photography in this guide (PDF) and in his book "Legal Handbook for Photographers". You may have heard about the proposed plan on the New York subway system to ban all photography; that plan fell flat and has since been cancelled. This is one issue that I've been following closely as I want to continue my own railfanning pursuits. Slambo (Speak) 18:36, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes its just for inside the system. Like in the stations, on the train, or on a bus. Biomedeng and I talked about this when thinking of ways to improve the station articles, we just figured on taking some outside pictures. Actually much of the system is above ground, so a few more pictures from the outside would be no problem. Amazingracer 20:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

What if I risked violating the policy and took the pictures? Is it not okay to put the pictures on the wikipedia? Can MARTA really claim I can't post MARTA pictures? What if my "friend" took them and I posted them? Is that against wikipedia policy? Biomedeng 01:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

A good starting point for us would be to poke around the other Good article status rapid tranist articles like Washington Metro. Although there rail system is fastly superior to ours both in area served and resources available, which allows those Wikipedians to have more information available to them. Im not saying we copy their article to our page. Just saying it a place to start looking to see where we need to go. Amazingracer 17:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Slambo, thank you very much for your assesment of what the article needs to improve. I am certainly open to moving the list of stations to a sub page and history to the top. As for improving the history page I would like to get some old plans for MARTA and post them up to show how dramatically reduced MARTA's rail is compared to the original plan. I found some partial scans here, but I am not sure where they came from or how to get a better copy. AubieTurtle is this your work? For the history I am personally more interested in the political struggle over MARTA, but that is not to say that we don't need more historical analysis of the methods of construction, ridership, fare history, etc. Also I have searched the NTSB and found that MARTA has had two incidents; are these worth mentioning (both involve trains striking MARTA workers or subcontractors)? Biomedeng 19:35, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I found the old maps on a message board and reposted them on the LiveJournal community but I am not the original source. I think someone mentioned finding one of the maps at the Atlanta History Center but I could be getting things mixed up. I know there are several versions of the maps floating around, perhaps if enough of them are collected they would deserve their own page showing how the plans changed over time. AubieTurtle 04:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

There is a website somewhere that has a picture of all the unfinished sections of track. I figure it would be worth mentioning since the system is supposed to have a few more miles of track than it does already. I also saw those incidents awhile back, I think they are worth mentioning. Amazingracer 20:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure if this is the track map you are talking about, but I like this map because it shows all the switches in the tracks. The only problem is that it is copyrighted and lists North and Sandy Springs as not yet open and doesn't have the Armour Rail Yard. Anyone out there have the means to recreate this map? There are also some provisions for future expansion already built into the tracks. Biomedeng 17:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

That second website you mention Biomedeng was the map I was referring to. I think it is worth mentioning since the system was suppposed to be 53 miles long and have seven more stations than the system has now. That map (one for expansion) is actually mounted above the escalators at the Peachtree Center Station. I wonder if we contacted the creator of the site to let us use some of those pictures. Amazingracer 21:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to follow some of Slambo's earlier suggestions. I moved the history section back to the top (although it still needs some work), and moved the list of stations to the list of stations article. I also tried to expand the lead section, but I wasn't quite sure exactly what to say, so feel free to expand or change it. I also added a couple of interesting statistics from the Sprawl City book. The only other thing I think we could add (beyond improving the history section) would be a safety section. Biomedeng 01:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Here is a US Government Report on the history of the formation of MARTA. It discusses in quite a lot of detail the initial formations of MARTA, the 1965 vote to form MARTA, the failed 1968 referendum, and the 1971 passing referendum. I am not sure how much information we want in the MARTA article and if we should start a separate MARTA history page. Biomedeng 23:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I've done another round of edits on the article. Per the TWP assesment I reorganized the article, wrote a longer lead section (please feel free to modify), and did some major cleaning on the references (dead links were replaced with full AJC citations; if people are nitpicky about a certain citation formatting let me know). I also added a safety section (please give your comments on whether this is good or simply cluttter). I'd really like to spin the history article off into a seperate sub-article, focusing on the the politics of the formation of MARTA (others who know more about the construction aspects can add as well). I am also planning to trim down the Nat Ford financial scandal now that the Kokayi controversy has died down (if there are still objections on this issue please speak up). Hopefully by the end of the month we can resubmit this for another review and see if we are at good article (GA) status. I haven't seen too many of the regulars editing lately, but I really appreciate this being a group project. My main interest is the politics of MARTA, but there is a great deal beyond that and I would like to avoid the article having that kind of slant. Biomedeng 02:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Although trimming the Nathaniel Ford financial scandal might have been a good idea, the object should have been the most brevity without sacrificing an accurate portrayal of the scandal's magnitude. Ford and his secretaries were accused of stealing at least $150,000, using two credit cards that MARTA's Board of Directors didn't even know existed, according to Atlanta Business Chronicle staff writer Ryan Mahoney. See the article "Ex-MARTA CEO abused credit cards" at http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2006/08/21/story3.html.

I have a rough draft of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority History page. I would appreciate people taking a look. Almost all of the information came from a congress case study of the history of public transit planning in Atlanta from 1950-1975. Obviously this might be somewhat biased in its analysis of the circumstances. Also there is a big gap from 1975 to the current system which still needs to be filled in. I'm not sure what else should go in this article, but I put a couple of sections based on the outline I had envisioned; feel free to add to these sections or add new topics. Please also let me konw if what I have is too detailed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Biomedeng (talk • contribs) 18:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC).

Peer review from automated javascript tool peerreviewer

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You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Roswell native 05:37, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Striking out the suggestions I changed in the article. Biomedeng 02:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Performance Data

Should we create a new article for performance data? I think it is important to have more than one year's worth of data in order to show trends in MARTA's operation. However I am fine with just the latest year's data being shown in the main article if the rest of the data is easily available through a sub-page. AubieTurtle 04:24, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I think maybe we should put this in a section in the MARTA history article. I was thinking of adding fare historical data (maybe a graph) to the history subarticle. Biomedeng 02:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Adding the data to the history article sounds like a good idea. We'd just need to be sure to add a link to that section from the main article's performance section. AubieTurtle 21:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Service Area

The article states "As a result the MARTA system only operates within the boundaries of the City of Atlanta, Fulton County, and DeKalb County, with additional limited bus service to Cobb County." Technically this is incorrect as the airport rail station is in Clayton County. The inclusion of the City of Atlanta while excluding other cities such as Doraville, College Park, East Point, Decatur, Dunwoody, and several others gives the wrong impression. Either we should list all of the cities or just the counties. The way it is now could lead readers to believe that Atlanta is the only city served by MARTA. If the City of Atlanta extended into a county other than Fulton or DeKalb while MARTA provided service in that area, then it would make sense to explicitly list the City of Atlanta. Since bus service goes to just about every incorporated area of Fulton and DeKalb, the list of cities would be long so it might be better to just remove "City of Atlanta". AubieTurtle 04:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure the Airport MARTA station is in Clayton County? If you look at the MARTA website for Airport station it shows the address as Atlanta, Georgia. I also read the wikipedia article on Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport which says parts of the Airport are in Fulton County and parts in Clayton, and that part of the Airport is in the city limits of Atlanta. Another link is somewhat contradictory: MARTA on Google Maps. Can anyone find some definitive information whether or not the station is in Fulton County or the City of Atlanta? The reason I put the city of atlanta in the header is because it has a controlling interest in MARTA, but I see your point and perhaps it should be removed from the lead section. Biomedeng 02:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Google Earth shows county boundries and that's where I was able to determine that the station is actually in Clayton County. Also the Wikipedia article on Clayton County claims that the airport station is in Clayton [1], though they don't cite a source. AubieTurtle 21:26, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for being so slow on this...I've removed the reference to the city of Atlanta, since your point about the other cities served by MARTA is well taken. I checked Google Earth as well and the station is definately in Clayton County. I am still perplexed how MARTA operates in Clayton County and if they sought their permission or if it isn't an issue because the City of Atlanta owns most of the land the Airport sits on. Perhaps we should add a line in the intro about how MARTA technically also operates in Clayton County? Biomedeng 23:12, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The legal jurisdiction of the airport appears to be a complex subject. A few years ago the City of Atlanta asked Clayton County to pass a law making it legal for Atlanta police officers to use arrest powers in the Clayton portion of the airport. Clayton County insisted that Atlanta officers already had that power since the airport belongs to the city but passed the law anyway just to be safe. More recently Clayton County has looked at passing a sales tax that would only be collected at the airport and only in the part that is outside of the City of College Park. So you have at least three municipalities involved at the airport. The legality of building the airport station may be related to the original law that created MARTA that included Clayton County even though Clayton never voted to fund MARTA. Or it could be that no one bothered to file a lawsuit against MARTA when they built the airport station since it would have just resulted in a special law being passed allowing MARTA at the airport. I have no actual facts that we can add to the article to explain the situation. Perhaps we should just add a footnote that explains that while Clayton is not a funding member of MARTA that the airport station is a few hundred yards in that county. This makes the article correct while not giving the false impression that MARTA has full service to Clayton. AubieTurtle 17:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Two things: I think that the Airport MARTA station is in a discontiguous part of City of Atlanta, which may or may not (as far as I know) include Clayton County. In any event, and really my second point, specifically including City of Atlanta as part of the MARTA service area clears up that issue. The other reason to include the MARTA service area in the description is because it is one of the three distinct jurisdictions that comprise the "service area" when decisions about, say, extending or enforcing the sales tax are rendered. (To make matters more confusing, but in a way that does not detract, I think, from what I'm saying, Clayton County, as per the ol' state MARTA-enabling legislation, has begun raising a 1% sales tax in the Clayton County portion of the Airport to fund MARTA's contract with Clayton to run C-Tran.)68.209.119.35 03:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Station templates

Crossposted from User talk:Biomedeng so that everyone else can comment: Hello there. I've changed Lindbergh Center (MARTA station) to use the new standardized templates developed by Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains. Before I roll these out to the rest of the network I was wondering what you thought of the new look and had any concerns/objections/polemics. Thanks, Mackensen (talk) 22:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I was wondering if the station name go above the picture? I like the idea of more parameters, but since I am a novice with wikipedia templates can you point us to a guide for how to use the infobox to the fullest? Perhaps there is another rapid transit system which has already implemented these infoboxes? Or are you willing to work with us to implement this on all the station pages? Biomedeng 23:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The convention has been to have the name below the image. There's full documentation of the main template at Template talk:Infobox Station. The station template is in use in a number of places: Amtrak stations, some Washington Metro, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, PATH. I'm also more than willing to implement this on every page myself; I'd feel better having a go-ahead from the actual maintainers! Mackensen (talk) 01:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I like the new template. If you're willing to put in the work to convert the stations over, I have no objections to the new format. AubieTurtle 17:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the consensus appears to be to convert all the templates. Feel free to keep going (I've noticed you've done a few more stations) but let me know if you need any help. Biomedeng 20:39, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll keep at it. I find I'm on a bit of a break at the moment, but it'll get done. Mackensen (talk) 21:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I wraped up the remaining East-West station infobox conversions this morning. Thanks to Earlopogous for helping and to Mackensen for getting us started. A couple of concerns I had were:

• Should we change the station navigation boxes to distinguish the North-South line from the Northeast-South line and the East-West line from the Proctor creek line? Right now they are lumped together under orange and blue colors, but if you look at new marta maps there are now also red and green colors to distinguish them.
• When I converted East Lake (MARTA station) to Indian Creek (MARTA station) I formatted the station navigation boxes to say 'towards H.E. Holmes' instead of 'towards H.E. Holmes or Bankhead'. Is this okay with everyone? My rationale was that Bankhead trains don't ever go past Edgewood.
• When I converted Bankhead (MARTA station) I tried to indicate that it goes 'towards Edgewood/Candler Park' (since trains from Bankhead never go any further) but the template wouldn't let me overide the Indian Creek Parameter. Mackensen, can you give some help on how I can adjust the East-West line template? I figured out how to do this. Please look at it and see if you want it to say toward Edgewood or toward Indian Creek.

If anyone else has any comments or concerns about the new infoboxes please comment. Biomedeng 14:56, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding rail line colors, the maps are all over the place, including the website, so even if they were created on a lark by someone in the marketing department, the new line colors appear to be MARTA policy now and I think the article should reflect that. AubieTurtle 04:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I am going to look into creating new templates for the Red North Springs line and the Green Proctor Creek line and hopefully change it in the next week. In the mean time it seems that some anonymous user has edited every marta station page and replaced the line parameter in the infobox from a template to a hard-coded text. This is frustrating to me, because the purpose of having a line template is so that we can edit the template and have the changes propogate to all of the station pages. I will also revert these changes back to the template, and if there is some desire to reformat the font color of the line then the editors should simply edit the template. Biomedeng 03:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I created seperate lines, adding the red (north springs) and green (bankhead) colors. Biomedeng 01:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

The yellow line has also very recently been changed to the gold line. Somebody should be able to verify this with the AJC.Joseph398 (talk) 05:25, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Chairman Arrest

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a court of law. It does not matter that the chairman received oral sex from a man he met on Craigslist. If he had received oral sex from a woman he met at Pizza Hut, it would have still been the same situation. What is important is the illegal act and the effect it has had on his position at MARTA. Otherwise we should include all kinds of details such as the color pants he was wearing, which bathroom stall they were in, and if he is circumcised. None of that matters, only that he committed this particular crime and that it caused him to resign. The rest is fluff and serves only to inflate an article that is already too heavy on current events and lacks the ability to put events in the correct perspective of an encyclopedia article that covers several decades of history. Six months from now all of these details will seem out of place. 76.17.65.206 22:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it's just stating a fact. Your points about the specific details do not belong, but there's a difference between hooking up at a restaurant and hooking up via craigslist. - Penwhale | Blast the Penwhale 22:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

How is the difference between craigslist and a restaurant in any way, shape, or form relevant to MARTA, a TRANSIT SYSTEM? All that matters is that he committed a crime that has caused him to step down as the chairman of MARTA. If it is just stating a fact, then once again, we should include all the facts such as the other man's name, height, bellybutton type, etc. None of it is relevant. This is an article about MARTA, not the Atlanta police blotter. Should we go back an include the name of the 150 passengers on the train that derailed? Their names are facts but unimportant to the article. The same is true of the details of this matter and once again, it only serves to bloat the article and cause it to get a poor external assessment for not being able to put events in their proper historical perspective. We should be consistent with the level of detail in the article. Putting in every detail of this incident makes this a current events article and not an encyclopedia article. This is Wikipedia, not Wikinews! 76.17.65.206 23:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we should not sensationalize the story with juicy facts. The paper reported that Wall met the man on Craigslist because it sounds more scandalous. Since this is the MARTA article we should only discuss facts relevant to MARTA. Wall was arrested for crime X and had to resign as chairman. Wall is only notable for working for MARTA and getting arrested. Someone else already created an article on Wall to try and discuss more of the details about him (work history, marital status, number of kids, etc) but this was deemed not notable and was deleted by an administrator. Penwhale, I am not sure why you are so interested in the issue since you haven't been editing the article? Are you genuinely interested in helping out with the MARTA article or more interested in helping with conflict resolution? Biomedeng 02:33, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Judging from other edits made to Wikipedia articles by the anonymous user(s) who refuse to justify their edits on the talk page, it appears that we have a couple (or perhaps just one) keyword warrior on our hands, determined to grind their ideological axe and win a victory for their cause. The details of who Mr. Wall met and how he met him are not important to this article. If these anonymous edits continue, we should speedily move into the conflict resolution process and perhaps have a lock placed on the article to prohibit anonymous edits. AubieTurtle 14:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Railway line templates

I stumbled across WP:TRAIL and thought this template might give a better result than what we currently ahve on List of MARTA stations. Take a look at User:Biomedeng/sandbox for an idea on what it would look like for our system. Unfortunately the template makes everything in red. I would appreciate input if this effort is worthwhile. Biomedeng 03:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Nomination

Good morning (GMT time); I have reviewed this article on 03:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC) in accordance with the Good Article (GA) criteria. There are seven main criteria that the article must comply with to pass:

1. Well-written: Pass
2. Factually accurate: Pass
3. Broad: Pass
4. Neutrally written: Pass
5. Stable: Pass
6. Well-referenced: Pass
7. Images: Pass

I have concluded that, in my opinion, the article has passed all categories and I therefore award it GA status. Congratulations to the lead editors, and keep up the excellent work!

Kindest regards,
anthony^[cfc] 03:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, just stopped by to have a look at the article and see it made it to GA. Congrats guys and Biomedeng especially, I see you have put tons of work into this article since the whole Kokayi thing(which is I why have strayed away, for fear dealing with more like him). Just wanted to say Congrats! Amazingracer 21:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Safety Section

Currently the safety section only covers mechanical problems such as derailments. I think the next big topic for us to tackle should be crime, especially since the public perception is very misaligned with the actual crime figures. The police section of MARTA's website has some data that could serve as a start. It might also be helpful to gather statistics both from other transit systems and metro Atlanta communities in order to give MARTA's crime statistics some context. I'm not sure what will be the best way to present this data, perhaps table form? AubieTurtle 00:21, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Definately this would be a good section/subsection to start. I agree that there is a perception (or misperception) about crime on MARTA and any quantitative information would be of great help to validate/invalidate the perception. Maybe some general trends (crime is up or crime is down) and maybe a comparison to city/county statistics? Does MARTA publish a crimes per 1000 people figure that we could compare to areas of metro Atlanta? --Biomedeng 03:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I've seen the stats in crimes per 1000 passengers before but I don't remember if it was the website, annual report or somewhere else. I'll search around and see if I can find them. AubieTurtle 21:56, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The statement that MARTA was voted safest transit 18 of the last 23 years is marked citation needed. It also needs clarification: safest where? In the state? In the US? In North America? In the World? And by whom? And the last 23 years since when (2008, 1990)? According to the Official MARTA history pages, it was designated safest in the nation in '75, '81, '84, '88, '89, '90, and '91. Most reference that the designation is by the American Public Transit Association. The 1990 listing says it was designated safest in the US 11 times since entering in 1974. The 1991 listing says it's the fifth time it was safest in North America. The APTA site says their safety rating is based on injuries and fatalities not related to criminal activity, which may be an important distinction. Also, the word "voted" seem inaccurate. It wasn't based on a public opinion poll, but rather an analysis of the statistics of accidents. I haven't been able to find any listing of "safest transit systems" on the APTA site. 209.159.37.194 (talk) 17:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually the statement was under Criticism->Criminal Activity, not safety. Since the "safest" claim was both un-cited and is related operational non-criminal safety, I removed it from that section. If we can verify the truth, it would be a good addition to the Safety section. It may be misleading to list so many specific incidents without any context of how safe MARTA is relative to other transit systems. There will always be some accidents. I did find this press release repeating the safest 18 of 23 years claim, however it's for an unrelated business and clearly not authoritative. 209.159.37.194 (talk) 20:16, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

New Rail Map

MARTA has a new Rail Map on their website. It no longer has the "Green Line" and just lumps Proctor Creek in with East-West. Amazingracer 16:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

What? It seems like the opposite of what you're saying is true. That link shows a green, blue, red, a some orange/yellow number lines. What you're saying is the case used to be true; honestly, to a passenger, MARTA seems to be moving away from the two-lines-with -two-spurs-noted-by-cardinal-direction, and towards the colored four-line system, like agencies like WMATA note their lines. 68.209.119.35 03:20, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Map changed back to the original one now. Amazingracer 18:26, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

6 lines? What? I do not understand how this number is arrived at. I've heard 2. I've heard 4. I don't think the Proctor Creek turn-back and the North-South turn-back count as different lines. That's nonsense. I'm changing it to 4, unless someone can cite an article stating, "MARTA has 6 lines." (And then, I'll just find a better one saying it has 4 anyway.) 69.94.192.147 (talk) 15:10, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Redirect Gone

I just noticed the redirect from Marta has been removed. I checked the history there, it was actually removed back in May. Do we need to put the redirect back? Other wise we whould probably take out the note at the top of this article about "Marta" redirecting here. Amazingracer 18:26, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I think having Marta redirect to the disambig page rather than here is probably best. I'll go ahead and remove that note. –Pedriana (talk) 03:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree about the recent change. While I am biased for working on this article, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority is the most common usage of the term by an order of magnitude over all of the other things on the disambiguation page. Thus, it should be the redirect from Marta per wikipedia consenus. It is frustrating that another user User:Trialsanderrors would undertake such a change w/o discussion here. Also I am going to point out that if we do agree that the redirect should be to the disambiguation page we should re-name the disambiguation page to Marta instead of Marta (disambiguation) per Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Page_naming_conventions. Another thing is that we need to go and check to make sure that MARTA links in other articles point here if they are supposed to (I have taken care of many of these months ago, but there may still be some and whomever changes redirects needs to follow up on the affected links). One more thing is that MARTA redirects here and not to the disambiguation page; where should this link point? I am going to invite Trialsanderrors to participate in the discussion here. Biomedeng 02:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree BioMed, the redirect should be put back. I didnt want to change it on my own (not sure how and didnt want to make waves). I was suprised to see that the change happened with no discussion on the disambig page or here. Amazingracer 20:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

JHunterJ replaced the redirect. Thanks! Amazingracer 01:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but where's the discussion on this that led to consensus? I think Marta should link to the disambiguation page - while maybe not the case in the US, I think Marta (the soccer player) is probably more well known in the world in general (search google for Marta, and her wikipedia article outranks this one, although MARTA's website outranks them both). Moszczynski 22:37, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The redirect has actually been there for a while, several years in fact. This discussion was on why it was removed with no warning. I also think that by your logic of google searches, since MARTA(this one) is the first hit for "marta", then the page should redirect here. Amazingracer (talk) 22:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

While not an expert on Google, I do know that it is attuned to its users' search habits. I live in Sweden and I'm interested in football (soccer), so Marta the football player (who plays in Sweden) completely dominates my search results. So I'm not sure that you can use Google as some kind of evidence for which topic is the most popular, since it's all relative. I also want to note (FWIW) that searching for "metropolitan atlanta rapid transit authority" yields 313 hits while searching for "marta vieira da silva" yields 15,600 - though I don't know if that's because I use Google Sweden and not google.com. Anyway, the point is that I think that in Europe and Brazil, the reference "Marta = the football player" is much more common than "Marta = the transit authority", which, I would contend, the absolutely overwhelming majority of people outside North America has never ever heard of. And of course, other people will make their own inferences to yet other things. Conclusion: I strongly urge that the redirect be shifted back to the disambig.David ekstrand (talk) 09:44, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

More editing and Peer Review

I am going to work on the article some more this weekend, mainly performing copyediting for clarity. I condensed some of the criticism seciton since I thought it was somewhat repetitive. I eliminated a couple of statemtents that were tagged for citations. I also removed the Bus Garages section since it didn't seem to add much. Here is the rest of my to do list:

• Add some info about the New Year's escalator problems under safety
• Condense down the Governance and Funding sections
• Add some more ADA info regarding the Martin v MARTA case [2]

Someone recently added some stats regarding ridership in the race criticism section. The stats are very helpful and add a great deal to the article, but unfortunately without a reference cannot remain. I would like to get a picture of an ADA paratransit van for the paratransit section. I'll try to keep a lookout for one on flikr but if anyone has they want to upload to wikipedia that would be great. I came across this little gem tonight: [3]. It is a detailed history of the construction of MARTA. It has some good old pictures of MARTA and I am going to check sometime to find out if it is a US Gov't publication (if so we can use the pictures on the history page). Maybe worthwhile to add some of the subway construction info to the article as well. I'd like to request a peer review soon on the article to see what else needs to be done for Featured article status. I asked the folks on the Trains wikiproject to reassess this article over a year ago and never heard back, so I am not sure who would do the peer review. I hope some of the regular editors can help out with suggestions on additional editing of this article. Biomedeng (talk) 02:57, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I have now formally requested a peer review of this artice. Biomedeng (talk) 04:15, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

When using the   is it supposed go between every number? Or just measurements. Because I went back through and was going to change some more of them like the part about 554 buses, but wasnt sure if it belonged there. Amazingracer (talk) 22:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I am confused by this as well and only stuck to measurements when I added the non breaking space, but it probably wouldn't hurt to have it everywhere between a number and a word. Biomedeng (talk) 15:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

new image at the top of the article

What do others think about this new image going at the top of the article:

I was thinking of replacing the nort avenue train image with this one since it is a nice picture of downtown Atlanta. Thoughts? Biomedeng (talk) 03:48, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Definitely; this is a great quality photo. The North Avenue photo could be moved.
--JKeene (talk) 21:27, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

My only concern is that the car in the picture is one of old styles of rail cars and not one of the new cars or renovated cars. Amazingracer (talk) 03:26, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

I've noticed some vandalism done to this page. I have corrected it. 128.192.56.141 (talk) 21:57, 2 October 2008 (UTC)Steve

Redirect removed

In accordance with what I stated above, I have now shifted the redirect for "Marta" back to the disambig. David ekstrand (talk) 15:38, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Given that only one user has expressed interest in removing the redirect and did so with out discussing it here on the talk page the redirect has been replaced. Please do Not remove the redirect again with out discussing it here with valid reasons on why it was removed in the first place. Please note that this article is rated higher above all the other articles, and also note that a Google search for "marta", places this MARTA at the top links. Google Search: marta Amazingracer (talk) 18:07, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the the redirect should go to the disambiguation page. There's a number of factors to take into account here, but I think a basic test is to look at the number of page views for each article. It seems like it's much of a muchness really; Marta Vieira da Silva has been viewed 3512 times this month, compared with 3195 hits for Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. Ignoring the massive spike in interest in mid-January for the football player, the statistics show page hits are also very similar in January, and in pretty much all the months I looked at there is no significant "winner" in hits between the two. So Wikipedia readers seem to have equal interest in the two topics. Given that I'm not even considering the other uses of the word Marta listed on the disambiguation page, and that the current best women's footballer in the world undoubtedly has as much if not more global interest than a local railway system, I think the redirect should go to the disambiguation page. Hammer Raccoon (talk) 01:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Just to throw in my $0.02, I agree that the redirect should point to the disambiguation page, both based on the number of page views cited by Hammer Raccoon, but also because Marta is a common name. Given that, there are far to many possible searches to choose one particular usage as the primary redirect for "Marta" or "marta". (As opposed to the proper "MARTA".) This seems to me to be the exact sort of situation that disambig pages were created for.oknazevad (talk) 15:08, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'm going to move "Marta (disambiguation)" to "Marta". I really can't see any reason why this should be controversial. Hammer Raccoon (talk) 17:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Fine by me. You presented solid facts for the change rather than blindly changing because you personally think the redirect should be moved. Thanks for the facts guys!Amazingracer (talk) 20:17, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

MARTA at CPTDB Wiki

This page could really use a lot of help.

Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority at CPTDB Wiki —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.31.24 (talk) 00:09, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

System Map

There is now a full system map available at http://www.itsmarta.com/maps/viewer.asp. It's embedded in a Flash player, so you can't grab a PDF, but it does exist so I'm removing the comment that no system map is available. Patrick Sewell (talk) 18:40, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Move page to MARTA

I read the discussion page for SEPTA, which is named SEPTA, not the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, and realized that this page should be moved to MARTA. Read the Wikipedia guidelines on naming here: WP:NAME. The page should be moved because the agency is always referred to by its abbreviation/acronym "MARTA," just like NASA, NATO, etc. I will not move the page now, but if there is disagreement, then there should be discussion with the editors of the SEPTA article. These two pages should be consistent because they are very similar. Earlopogous 22:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Earlopogous (talk • contribs)

No objections here. Amazingracer (talk) 16:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Atlanta, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Georgia (U.S. state), Biomedeng (talk · contribs), Earlopogous (talk · contribs), Tom Caiafa (talk · contribs), Amazingracer (talk · contribs)--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:22, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Delisted due to lack of response to concerns.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:15, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I am reviewing this article as part of GA Sweeps. This article is in decent shape, but it needs to be edited to meet the current standards of WP:WIAGA. I am about to outline a partial list of issues that need to be addressed. After I post this listing, I will give concerned and interested editors a week before I reevaluate the article's quality rating. I will be following along with the progress of the article and may make additional comments as it is appropriate.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:47, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

• The WP:LEAD is extremely long and defies current guidelines that state a maximum four paragraphs. It is currently 533 words and 3370 characters. Please shorten to four paragraphs and less than 500 words and 3200 characters.
• There are a few citation needed tags.
• According to the altviewer the article needs WP:ALT text

I don't see WP:ALT in the GA criteria. Racepacket (talk) 05:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• According to the dablink checker the article has about 15 dabs in need of some attention.
• According to the link checker the article has over 30 deadlinks that need attention.
• The article has a few paragraphs without any inline citations. Please bring the article up to the current WP:WIAGA standard.

This is a misreading of the WP:WIAGA standard. If the paragraph does not contain quotes or contestable statements, no inline citation is required in a paragraph. Racepacket (talk) 05:10, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• It is difficult for me to tell why File:MARTA Rail Map.svg is in the public domain. Was it created for wikipedia or does it come from someplace official.
• Although the File:Happymartacards.JPG photographer may release his rights as a photographer, the passes seem to be original art and it seems to me that they require a fair use explanation.
• File:Marta token.jpg may require a fair use explanation as well. I am not sure what the policy is on subway tokens.

I will evaluate the progress made toward addressing my concerns in a week. I may make additional comments as warranted. I will strike concerns that I feel have been resolved if I see progress has been made.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:16, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Lawsuit

The GeorgiaCarry.org lawsuit does not seem notable enough to be included in this article. Why only list this lawsuit of all of the lawsuits filed against Marta over the years.68.217.81.85 (talk) 16:33, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks like this lawsuit is over Judge rules against It does not seem notable enough to include in this.68.223.123.230 (talk) 17:56, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Fair use candidate from Commons: File:Happymartacards.JPG

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