Atlanta Magazine's Traffic Challenge

image by ryotnlpm

We were flipping through last month's (March 2009) edition of Atlanta Magazine and came across a one page article that was really interesting. I love experiments and this one pitted public transit versus the car. The goal of the experiment was to see which form of transportation could get from the Atlanta Magazine offices downtown to Lenox Square the quickest. Here were the results of the experiment:

- MARTA (from Peachtree Center to Lenox Station) - 27 minutes
- Taxi Cab - 27 minutes
- Surface Streets (2005 Honda CRV) - 35 minutes
- Highway (going with traffic in 2005 Toyota Corolla) - 36 minutes
- Highway (driving posted speed limit in 2003 Honda Accord) - 40 minutes
- MARTA Bus - 68 minutes

The article also rates each mode by Advantages, Disadvantages, Convenience, Speed, Cost, Comfort and Overall. The one thing that I took away from this article was how disproportionately disadvantageous the bus was. I'm sure we could ask thousands of bus riders about the disadvantages of taking the bus and the significant time that it takes to get around and get roughly the same answers. In my opinion, if the powers that be could do one thing in Atlanta to reduce congestion and thus time spent in traffic, they would work to make riding the bus more efficient and just plain sexier. Many other cities struggle with just this problem but others seem to have it down. Cities such as Curitiba, Brazil and London, England have extremely popular bus systems. Each of them for different reasons. Just a thought... Are Sexy Buses the Answer?

And since we're on the subject... Woman is almost kicked off bus for being "too sexy."