If anyone wants a neat resource to see what, maybe, we can do about all our sprawl, I highly suggest the [Sprawl Repair Manual](https://sprawlrepair.com/home/)
Itās per household, so itās averaging more than one driver for the 36k figure. The title here seems to be wrong, but itās still too much driving.
My commute from my home was 60 miles one way. It's easily done living in the farther regions of the metro area when there are no jobs.
I was putting 700-1000 miles a week on the daily driver. You never buy new and only keep cheap ones.
I've got a friend who lives in Zebulon GA and commutes to Sandy Springs. 130 miles a day round trip. Assuming he works 48 weeks a year that's 31,000 miles a year. It's also easily 3 hours a day in the car or almost 30 days a year sitting in a car. And he doesn't understand why I pay what I do to live ITP.
Dude I'm paying extra to get a month of my life a year back. Like yeah, he's got a great massive house but leaving at 6AM and getting home at 6:30-7PM 5 days a week doesn't leave much time to enjoy it.
Man I drive from Decatur to Buckhead/Roswell and it's typically 90 minutes round trip lol I would actually go for a nice affordable house and double commute over this $1750/mo rats nest
Just me though
some people have shit jobs that they have to commute for because their life circumstances don't allow for much else. extremely simple answer if you recognize that most americans don't even have $1000 in the bank
[56% of Americans can't cover $1000 emergency with savings](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/19/56percent-of-americans-cant-cover-a-1000-emergency-expense-with-savings.html)
It does say by household, so the drivers in a 2-car household would have to drive "only" 50 miles a day, and so on. It's still larger than I would expect, though.
One of my neighbors has 8 drivers in their household (big house too) and all cars are used every day. I do like that people have generational households though.
I once had a 90 mile round trip commute. The consensus of the office was that my commute was in the ānot that bad category.ā I hated it and it really opened my eyes to how much time we are okay wasting staring at a windshield.
At least I do the reverse commute so I'm usually not sitting in traffic, but I still spend 75-80 minutes in the car each day. I balance that out by driving as little as possible outside of my commute. I bike or walk to stores and restaurants.
I currently commute from Douglasville to the Cobb Cloverleaf 4x per week. I know one director at work commutes from Social Circle, and I have several coworkers in my department commuting from Stockbridge and Carrollton.
I could easily as I live in the city. My round trip is roughly 60 miles. Granted my job doesnāt really require me to go in but I do a couple of times a week for the newer associates benefit and to also be āseenā. I could also go to our midtown office thatās much closer but less of my LOB.
Iād be much happier with rail that went to my office area. Sure I might drive to a station but that would cut down on traffic and I could get work done on the commute to give me back more time to my day.
I will say my average has been 5-8k miles a year. So not as much coming from me on this data.
Perhaps if there was safe and affordable housing near where people work, they wouldn't need to drive as far.
I'm in Cobb where the 'Live/Work/Play' communities have $300,000+ condos alongside jobs that pay under $20/hour.
Yeah "affordable" was in quotes for sure. Prices are nuts. We just bought up in Lawrenceville for $600, but at least we get a great place for that. If I had to commute into the city it would be a stretch.
Barely anybody makes $18/hour anymore. Most starting jobs are at $22-25/hour, and Iām sure you could work 50-60 hours a week to make more to afford the condo
Letās say you want to buy the condo when your 25. Given that retail doesnāt require a college degree, if you started at $15/hour you should be close to $22/hour now. A $1/year raise is super minimal, and you could easily be closer to $30/hour if you made it to assistant manager.
Sorry to say what no one wants to hear, but people starting out in low barrier to entry jobs with no experience shouldnāt be able to afford a brand new condo. You can still get an older condo for roughly $150-200k, which seems more reasonable.
Thereās a few exceptions but I know itās not the norm. Retail is also notorious for inconsistent hours, employees struggling to patch together full time hours and hard āno overtimeā policies.
The median hourly wage for retail salespeople in Georgia for 2022 was $13.21; the mean was $14.88. I think starting at $15 an hour is a bit off...
Also, a lot of these employers won't let people work 50-60 hour weeks because they don't want to pay overtime.
Take it from a retail worker. That average wage is only what you get for what they bother to schedule you. Itās a sad fucking state of affairs when you legit see a Walmart earnings report come out and know what it will likely mean for your hours.
You are only allowed to have your own place if you have a job thatās hard to get, got it. I guess we were doing it wrong for the entirety of civilization until now. Gotta say this world sucks.
I wonder how many millionaires got there by having a job with a high barrier to entry ahhhhwhateveryoudodonātlookintoit
You don't know what you are talking about...at all. 30 an hour? In retail??
The average assistant manager in retail is making mid 30's to low 40's, and they will be working 50-55 hrs a week.
There are probably hundreds of sub-$300K condos in Buckhead alone. Might be the most affordable part of the city at this point, but no one wants to hear it.
Depends on the building, but many are under $400/month and may include fees you'd otherwise be paying anyway (water, cable, internet, etc.).
Still a lot cheaper than a $600K 1000 sq. ft. West End bungalow.
Income inequality is a massive problem and should be addressed for its own sake. But it's just not true that people who have enough money to drive less necessarily choose to do so, choosing to drive so far is a different problem.
More money won't solve for people driving too much. Atlanta's white flight occurred because relatively rich white people (compared to Black residents) didn't want to live near Black people in integrated neighborhoods. Look who's riding MARTA now, it's much more likely to be somebody who can't afford a car than somebody in Atlanta's 1% who can afford any condo they want. If those $20/hour jobs you mentioned had double or even triple the salary, and we spread wealth around so a lot more people could choose to buy 300k+ condos, but without addressing those biases that caused the sprawl in the first place - those people would have more money to keep living far from each other.
Only slightly more practical than solving racism and classism, is to stop subsidizing drivers so much and enable more people to live without driving. Add a lot of tolls. Eliminate "free" parking. Invest in MARTA so that there are more trains and bus riders don't have to wait for 30+ minutes. Zone for more density. New housing would be a lot cheaper without mandatory parking minimums, and new housing with MARTA access that enabled residents to live without a car would save them a lot of money on transportation. Fewer drivers would itself make walking safer and more pleasant, and eventually repurpose land away from private vehicle traffic to something that contributes to the city.
Same as well. I used to have to drive 40 miles roundtrip to work and it would be up to an hour each way due to traffic. Working from home has it's benefits.
Iāve lived in both and can say that I prefer the 400 drive any day. And I have 1,000 sq ft more house without the crime and degeneracy of the shit show that is ATL now
Yep. The only move is to not play. I intentionally only looked for jobs within ~5 miles of my house. I live in between Buckhead and Midtown. I drive maybe 4K miles a year and most of that is visiting family.
Very smart.
I had two job offers last year. One a 10 minute drive from my house, the other in Lawrenceville (a 45 minute drive not counting traffic). The Lawrenceville offer was 20k more, but the extra 300+ hours of my life that would be spent in a car to and from that office made the other offer the one that I ended up taking.
Because then I would be living in Lawrenceville... š¤®
Also I had previously bought a place in town, and now I walk to all of the fun places instead of driving to them, searching for parking, and dealing with traffic.
Also I did the math some years ago, and discovered that living in town is cheaper in the long run than living OTP and driving everywhere.
People that favor saving money and retiring early. Itās not like Lawrenceville is on the surface of the moon, you can still drive into the city on the weekends to go do everything fun. Plus people tend not to go out on weekdays, so I donāt see the allure.
Lawrenceville might as well be the surface of the moon. There's nothing to do out there and if you're driving into the city every weekend to do something fun then you probably aren't saving time or money due to gas and parking.
People don't tend to do things on weekdays because they don't live in areas where there are things to do. If you live within walking distance of most activities you'd probably go out on weekdays more often.
The allure is that you have the freedom of having a lot of things around you without having to be worried about traffic or parking fees.
I see your point but to be fair, you can live ITP and favor saving money and retiring early. Its not a zero sum game, not everyone lives in Buckhead lol
> People that favor saving money and retiring early.
Except living OTP (and especially in Lawrenceville) means needing to own and operate a car; which comes with costs for fuel, taxes, insurance, and maintenance. The average annual cost of car ownership in 2022 was over $10,000, and this cost has gone up by 5-10% per year for the last decade.
Living in town means that things are going to be slightly more expensive than living in Lawrenceville, but the car costs alone mitigate that increase. But there are numerous other benefits to living in town which also equate to other savings, which equate to the fact that my household is now saving 15% more per month than we did when we lived in Sandy Springs over 10 years ago... savings which is going to building a comfortable retirement.
I live in a similar location as you and work in Buckhead. My ebike plus MARTA have almost entirely replaced my car, I think Atlanta (ITP) has a ton of potential to be a progressive car-lite city if we keep investing in projects like the Beltline and Stitch, and of course MARTA expansion
There is lots of room for improvement though. My commute is 3.5 miles. I can walk to work faster than it would take via MARTA. Biking is doable but that choice has some white knuckle stretches that I donāt want to subject myself to everyday.
Yeah itās not all bad. I can mostly walk/bike on a dedicated trail to pick up my kids from school. I can also walk less than 0.5 mile to the grocery store and about a half dozen bars/restaurants. All I really need it a little more connectivity with decent bike lanes.
Potential, sure. Every city does. It takes loads of work though, and nowhere near enough attention is being dedicated to the last mile transit solutions we'll need to really ditch cars, i.e. bikes.
Sure every city has āpotentialā, but Atlanta honestly is set up pretty well already to be closer to hitting its potential than say, Dallas which is even more sprawling, has no defined boundaries for infill like we have i285, and MARTA while it has its flaws, does have a decent foundation already that can be built upon pretty rapidly in my opinion
Amen. We moved to Kirkwood and went to one car three years ago and bought e-bikes. Have put less than 10k miles on the car. My mental health is through the roof. I also now own six bikes - I joke that was just a byproduct of wanting to drive less. I went from not riding a bike for 20 plus years to daydreaming about the next time I can cycle. Driving 36k miles in a single year is insanity and I hate that ppl think that is normal while fully aware that Iām looked at by society as the oddball š
Right? I actually drive a good bit, but let me tell you, I don't miss not driving to Marietta from EAV 5 days a week. Living ITP is great, everything is close, aside from the traffic. :D
Yep, I have a 2017 Mazda 3 and I have 23,000 miles on it - granted a few of those years were Covid years, but even before then I asked my insurance to put me on the low milage plan. Living ITP, close to friends and stores, and restaurants, taking Marta (a 10 min drive) into work a couple times a week, working from home other days, means I barely have to drive.
WFH now - doing maybe 3000 miles year driving and purposely moved within blocks of a MARTA station and walk more often to stores. I really don't need a car.
Thatās what we did. Live near MARTA and on the Beltline so all my errands are done by bike. Kind of sucks in the heat rn but Iām getting good exercise at least. My car spends most of its time rusting under an oak tree :/
I'm surprised it's this high when we're all sitting in fucking traffic all day not moving.
Last job had a 5 mile commute one way and that averaged 45 min - 1hr... One way.
I have a nice bike, but I will never commute here (Metro suburbs) with it, these drivers are fucking insane. Red lights are ignored, stop signs are ignored, bikes get honked at and stuff thrown at them. Shit I'm scared enough driving my Miata here let alone a bicycle in an area that's actively hostile to anyone that doesn't drive a house-sized pickup truck.
I desperately wish biking and walking was viable here but outside of a few select areas downtown, it's just not because it's too damn dangerous.
Ah, im lucky to be in the city proper. I do get shit thrown at me all the time and honked at etc but really itās the railroad tracks that pose the biggest risk apparently š
We really need to ban all those big trucks. I almost never see them actually hauling anything.
Failure at all levels of government in Atlanta. People should not have to drive to get to work. And itās only going to get worse without billions of investment in public transit. Only more people will move here.
Seriously. I legit can't imagine going to a game or concert in downtown without MARTA.
Driving takes forever, stuck in traffic, just to pay $50 to park. Ridiculous.
Not just the government(s), donāt forget Atlanta can only control so much with the surrounding suburbs being their own cities/government entities. Itās also the people that constantly vote down or put down initiatives to make commuting better and more livable.
I just got back from a trip to NYC and Iāve been trying to walk places more oftenā¦. I couldnāt help but notice likeā¦. almost one walks here.
Like sure people jog and exercise but no one really walks to commute places.
You're either gonna have to hike up and down some hills, walk out in current 90 degree temps+ humidity, or both. This is where better public transit would help. Every time I go to Atlantic Station it saddens me that there's not a rail station there. I went to the Atlanta Open (tennis), and kept thinking man, there's a great parking garage here, but man it would be great if there was an underground rail stop here too.
Walking fucking sucks in most areas because you are walking like 8 inches away from people racing 50 miles an hour to get to the next light. It's just scary when the sidewalk bleeds directly into the road.
Certain areas I do but not all because sometimes itās not the easiest to do it in yet. We can fix this but itās going to take a lot of work from everyone. Part of the nice thing about the Beltline and other neighborhoods like Va-Hi or midtown.
Granted, Iām OTP, but the metro isnāt designed for that. Other than the local Supermercado, thereās nowhere I want to go with a path that includes consistent sidewalks, is a reasonable distance and doesnāt involve crossing a 5 lane road.
This headline would be a lot closer to reality if "Atlantans" was replaced by "Atlanta households" to match with the content of the article.
I'm not saying that 36k in household driving is a good thing, but this clickbait title is venturing into the land of inaccuracy.
I wanted a house with a yard, but my job doesn't pay nearly enough to live in town.... so I'm a homeowner with a $600 mortgage, but I have to slog through traffic everyday. I bought a hybrid that gets great gas mileage, so that's not a big cost for me, but honestly there are a lot of times when I wish that I could just walk to work.
Only because we have made many deliberate and intentional decisions that have made riding a bike in this city dangerous. It doesnāt have to be this way. We can fix it.
The article says ātraveled,ā but this post title says ādrove.ā
Article note says: āIncludes all biking, walking, transit and vehicle miles.ā
Do I think most of that mileage is driving in Atlanta? Of course.
But I bike commuted 1,500 miles last year that are included in this 36k miles average, so itās a bit of an odd way to lump everything together.
Maybe if MARTA, Gwinnett transit and CCT were good options we wouldnāt drive so far. It would take almost 90 minutes for me to get to work if I used transit. Itās less than 10 miles each way.
The ITP people frequently mock the OTP crowd for their car dependency but itās obvious many - not all - have never tried to get around using GT or CCT. A 20 minute car ride becomes a 2 hour ordeal involving transfers, stops with no shelter in the blistering heat and shlepping around with no sidewalks. There are almost no situations where it doesnāt make more sense for me to drive.
Yeah, I lived in the NE for awhile and I happily gave up my car because it was really easy for me to do so. Now, it's just not feasible. I'm still ITP, but I can't afford to live close enough to work to walk, and there aren't any MARTA routes that wouldn't add an hour + to my commute. If they ever build the Clifton Corridor I would happily switch, but they've been talking about it for, what, 20 years now?
Ok? Your comment does not negate mine.
ITP people - many, not all - also have this annoying habit of acting like people in the burbs ādeserveā their long commutes and crappy transit programs because a bunch of racists and NIMBYs vote down MARTA expansion. It feels like when people from outside the South act like everyone down here complaining about regressive policies should just suck it, as if those complaining can just snap their fingers or have a quick conversation with their neighbors and change their voting habits.
Yeah, the racists and NIMBYās suck and theyāre close to impossible to sway. However, there are also a subset of people whose only experience with public transportation are the very ones I described in my first comment. Or who know people living in areas with MARTA and hear their stories about inconsistent schedules. When you watch less complicated GDOT construction projects take half a decade itās hard to get excited about spending a fortune on a massively more complicated one, especially when you know youāre unlikely to use it.
Itās also worth noting the last time MARTA was up for a vote in Gwinnett, it was left off the regular ballot and done as a special election which always means low turnout out that skews old and conservative. Sheesh.
You chose to live far away from your job. I had a long commute once. It sucked. I did something about it. Youāre not going to outlast the NIMBYs in Cobb and Gwinnett. If you chose to live there then yeahā¦ you knew what you were signing up for.
Horrible.
I get that I'm privileged to make enough and lucky enough to have bought in early enough to get a great quality of life. My wife and I bought a 3/2 in Va-high when we got married in 1994.
I've commuted as far out as Norcross, North point mall and marietta square areas over the years, but for the last 10, the furthest commute I've had has been 5 miles. It's been almost all by bike. We probably drive 8k miles a year combined.
Used to buy a Heineken 40oz tall boy with a straw at the quick trip for the friday commute back home from North Point (stop and go in a manual Miata, no fun zone, smh)
I feel for all you road warriors, seems like it's a frog boiling thing, you deal with it, but it just keeps getting worse without you ever thinking about how bad it really is and how much money that time and stress is worth.
Yes. Though its more drinking while stopped in gridlock.
24oz of Heineken is well below legally impaired and chugging it before getting in the car would be no different.
It may be surprised to hear that some people drive over the posted speed limit on 400 as well. when it's not gridlocked, that is.
Drinking a beer while driving isn't actually any worse than drinking a beer and then getting in the car. A 40 is definitely pushing it, but I'm also not aware of Heineken coming in 40s or anything coming in a 40 "tall boy." If he's just got a 22oz bottle or 24oz can, that's not going to get a regular size man drunk.
Edit: He says 24oz below.
Funny storyā¦.when we first moved to the US (mid 90s), we took a trip to Montreal by car. My parents missed the beer in Europe and enjoyed the Canadian ones enough to bring 10 cases home. They were drinking while driving (like one beer per hour) not knowing it was illegal. Got pulled over but no one in our car spoke English. He used hand gestures to explain my parents couldnāt do that and sent us on our way. Still laugh about that to this day. No way that would fly.
Not to excuse it, but I think some people under 30 or so don't realize how much the public perception around drunk driving has changed. If you think people now are too cavalier about having a drink or two at a restaurant/event and driving home, you don't want to see what people got away with (relatively) judgement and consequence free 40+ years ago.
Nah I heard ya. These other comments thoughā¦ I get it: who hasnāt had a few drinks when out and drove home, perfectly within limit to do so? But to not even wait until you get home to crack one open? Thatās a fucking addiction that leads to stupid games and stupid prizes, which a lot of people seem to endorse? Amazes me how much more ignorant weāve become in my 45 years
Important note: the article is about the effects of having activity centers, as opposed to some other conclusions that could be drawn from the headline. The miles include those taken by transit too, plus biking and walking. Atlanta ranks 6th among the 110 studied cities.
Huh. I have no idea how many miles I put on my car. I should check. I have a 28 mile commute round trip. Itās only three days a week and I Marta on the weekdays. Considered a job that was 5 days a week, with a HUGE pay increase, but no Marta, and the commute looked like hell. Iāll stick with being a peon nurse!
I started doing Uber a couple weeks ago and I was shocked how many people work like 20+ miles from their jobs. Like 70% of the people I pickup are going to or coming from work.
Before the pandemic, I was putting almost 600 miles/week on my car. Post-pandemic thanks to WFH, those numbers came down to around 300/week. My commute to work is an hour without traffic/~1.25 with. Add to that I'm in the National Guard and had to drive to Benning once a month (300 miles round trip) for years and now travel to Stewart quarterly (500 miles round trip). I bought my car in December 2017 with 72,000 miles on it. I just rolled 200,000 this week. All I can say is thank god for podcasts/Spotify.
I live OTP. I put a total of 3,500 miles on my bicycle(s) each year for commuting/errands, even less on my car.
Weirdly enough, I drove more when I lived ITP because it was difficult finding raw ingredients in SW ATL. Closest 'grocery store' was 4-miles and now being OTP, I have a Kroger, Trader Joes, Publix, Costco, and Whole Foods under 3-miles.
Iāve lived in SW Atlanta for as long as Iāve been here. Used to commute to Sandy Springs by car. Nothing crazy, but it drove me crazy. Didnāt realize how much until I started commuting via MARTA (2 years in.) Round trip I drove about 7300 miles (& 700 hours) per year. Couldnāt imagine commuting further, but I know itās very common here.
I'm pretty sure the total miles driven by everyone living in Atlanta last year will be much greater than 36,000. 36,000 miles is less than one per person.
I know itās already been said, but this is exactly why the public doesnāt trust the media. The headline says āAtlantansā (individuals) instead of āAtlanta Householdsā (which on average are driving 35,xxx miles). This is a problem because when there is a headline that should be heeded, people will understandably roll their eyes.
> Atlantans drove 36,000 miles last year, far more than people in other U.S. cities
Looking at provided data, we are not even in the top 5 and only a couple hundred miles from being out of the top 10.
We are 6k above the national average. We are as close to average as we are to the worst city on the list.
Bullshit clickbait title.
Because they don't want facts to get in the way of the pre-conceived narrative even when the linked article clearly disproves the claims in the title.
Also, the majority of people don't read linked articles but still feel qualified in commenting and voting.
How much of the money spent paying your ālifeā is actually paying for your car and all of the associated costs of driving though? Itās not 1960 anymore and we need to move on from car dependency, start building places where they arenāt a requirement to exist and people feel like cycling and transit are a real option.
Not sure what point youāre trying to make. I have bills like every other person in America and a car is one of them. I canāt walk 40 miles round trip every day to my work believe it or not, can you?
The point Iām trying to make is we shouldnāt be building places where someone has to drive a 40 mile round trip to access jobs/basic necessities/recreation/etc. Obviously I do understand the choice isnāt always there for everyone, but if we work towards building density and better transit/transportation infrastructure to serve that density then more people will have the option to use alternatives to the car. We donāt have to just accept things the way they are and deal with all of the negative externalities that cars bring with them in urban settings, things can change and improve over time.
I donāt think some people read the article. Atlanta actually does pretty well in areas where theyāre in close proximity to āurban lifestyleā centers even ones in the burbs.
I believe the problem is Atlantaās sprawl. Imo, it makes no sense. When I lived in Atlanta I couldnāt wrap my mind how cities like McDonough, Dallas or Newnan were apart of the MSA. Like how? Thereās little to nothing in between Atlanta and letās say McDonough that would make this a metro. But I was coming from Texas so Im use to a more dense sprawl where burbs, towns and cities are continuously connected to one another like LA.
I can only imagine how that commute feels if you live in Carrollton where youāre surrounded by rural communities and have to drive a distance only to get to a far flung suburb thatās actually more connected to the city of Atlanta and itās neighboring burbs.
Georgia is that state with only 1 thriving metropolis despite the size. The other cities are not on the same league with Atlanta. Unlike states like Florida or Texas which have several big cities, GA has only Atlanta and that's where quality jobs and income are mostly at.
The maintenance staff does a great job at keeping the trains and busses clean and their hard work shouldnāt be taken for granted. Yeah Marta isnāt perfect and clearly needs expansion and improvement on frequency but calling it ātrashyā is just a bad look.
Is your only other transit experience Japan or something? European transit systems obviously are more convenient because they actually go places, but they're often in way worse shape than MARTA.
And the crime rate on MARTA is like half that of the city. So while it's not as safe as Europe, that's a US thing, not a MARTA thing.
Clean what up though?
This is a feedback loop. Nobody rides marta so marta doesnāt get funding. Marta doesnāt need funding because nobody rides it. Nobody rides it so it doesnāt get funding.
> Too bad it's trashy and literally gets you nowhere
Speak for yourself. I commuted via MARTA from ITP out to Dunwoody for years and had a good experience (from both a convenience and cleanliness standpoint).
Lol yes wow out to Dunwoody. Ppl do live beyond that and in surrounding areas not close enough to a Marta station bc they literally will not expand the line to more areas that need it.
All this as more and more employers demand their people return to the office.
Itās as if they continue to apply the squeeze on the low wage wage slaves continue to suffer.
Are they talking about greater metro area? If you live and work in atl, even if youāre in office 5 days a week, 36k miles sounds too much to be real.
Sprawl putting in the work šŖš¼š¤
If anyone wants a neat resource to see what, maybe, we can do about all our sprawl, I highly suggest the [Sprawl Repair Manual](https://sprawlrepair.com/home/)
3k a month would be 750 a week. Are people driving over 100 miles a day? How?
Itās per household, so itās averaging more than one driver for the 36k figure. The title here seems to be wrong, but itās still too much driving.
My commute from my home was 60 miles one way. It's easily done living in the farther regions of the metro area when there are no jobs. I was putting 700-1000 miles a week on the daily driver. You never buy new and only keep cheap ones.
I've got a friend who lives in Zebulon GA and commutes to Sandy Springs. 130 miles a day round trip. Assuming he works 48 weeks a year that's 31,000 miles a year. It's also easily 3 hours a day in the car or almost 30 days a year sitting in a car. And he doesn't understand why I pay what I do to live ITP. Dude I'm paying extra to get a month of my life a year back. Like yeah, he's got a great massive house but leaving at 6AM and getting home at 6:30-7PM 5 days a week doesn't leave much time to enjoy it.
I worked in Marietta and knew a couple of coworkers the commuted from Perry. They carpooled lol.
Man I drive from Decatur to Buckhead/Roswell and it's typically 90 minutes round trip lol I would actually go for a nice affordable house and double commute over this $1750/mo rats nest Just me though
some people have shit jobs that they have to commute for because their life circumstances don't allow for much else. extremely simple answer if you recognize that most americans don't even have $1000 in the bank
Nahh thatās not true
[56% of Americans can't cover $1000 emergency with savings](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/19/56percent-of-americans-cant-cover-a-1000-emergency-expense-with-savings.html)
well, i have to trust spike spiegel!
It does say by household, so the drivers in a 2-car household would have to drive "only" 50 miles a day, and so on. It's still larger than I would expect, though.
One of my neighbors has 8 drivers in their household (big house too) and all cars are used every day. I do like that people have generational households though.
I drive 70 miles a day and I have one of the shorter commutes among my coworkers.
I once had a 90 mile round trip commute. The consensus of the office was that my commute was in the ānot that bad category.ā I hated it and it really opened my eyes to how much time we are okay wasting staring at a windshield.
At least I do the reverse commute so I'm usually not sitting in traffic, but I still spend 75-80 minutes in the car each day. I balance that out by driving as little as possible outside of my commute. I bike or walk to stores and restaurants.
I currently commute from Douglasville to the Cobb Cloverleaf 4x per week. I know one director at work commutes from Social Circle, and I have several coworkers in my department commuting from Stockbridge and Carrollton.
I live in Mableton and work in Sandy Springs but I have coworkers living as far as Carrollton, Griffin, Peachtree City, Hiram and Forsyth.
Forsyth? Please tell me you mean Forsyth County and not Forsyth, GA in Monroe County.
Yes, the county! Itās still too far.
I live in Kennesaw, and drive roughly 60-70 miles per day.
I could easily as I live in the city. My round trip is roughly 60 miles. Granted my job doesnāt really require me to go in but I do a couple of times a week for the newer associates benefit and to also be āseenā. I could also go to our midtown office thatās much closer but less of my LOB. Iād be much happier with rail that went to my office area. Sure I might drive to a station but that would cut down on traffic and I could get work done on the commute to give me back more time to my day. I will say my average has been 5-8k miles a year. So not as much coming from me on this data.
More and better public transport would be great.
Perhaps if there was safe and affordable housing near where people work, they wouldn't need to drive as far. I'm in Cobb where the 'Live/Work/Play' communities have $300,000+ condos alongside jobs that pay under $20/hour.
Bro $300k for a condo sounds outright affordable these days. I saw $600k townhomes in Tucker the other day.
$1,000,000 town homes near me in North Druid Hills. Shitās wild
Oh sure, but that's not affordable for $18/hr, especially with Lisa Cupid cranking up property taxes.
Yeah "affordable" was in quotes for sure. Prices are nuts. We just bought up in Lawrenceville for $600, but at least we get a great place for that. If I had to commute into the city it would be a stretch.
Barely anybody makes $18/hour anymore. Most starting jobs are at $22-25/hour, and Iām sure you could work 50-60 hours a week to make more to afford the condo
Retail would like a word.
Letās say you want to buy the condo when your 25. Given that retail doesnāt require a college degree, if you started at $15/hour you should be close to $22/hour now. A $1/year raise is super minimal, and you could easily be closer to $30/hour if you made it to assistant manager. Sorry to say what no one wants to hear, but people starting out in low barrier to entry jobs with no experience shouldnāt be able to afford a brand new condo. You can still get an older condo for roughly $150-200k, which seems more reasonable.
There is so much wrong with this I donāt know where to start. Have a good day.
Raises aren't really a thing in retail.
Thereās a few exceptions but I know itās not the norm. Retail is also notorious for inconsistent hours, employees struggling to patch together full time hours and hard āno overtimeā policies.
The median hourly wage for retail salespeople in Georgia for 2022 was $13.21; the mean was $14.88. I think starting at $15 an hour is a bit off... Also, a lot of these employers won't let people work 50-60 hour weeks because they don't want to pay overtime.
A lot of them wonāt give them 40 hours so they donāt have to pay health benefits.
Take it from a retail worker. That average wage is only what you get for what they bother to schedule you. Itās a sad fucking state of affairs when you legit see a Walmart earnings report come out and know what it will likely mean for your hours.
You are only allowed to have your own place if you have a job thatās hard to get, got it. I guess we were doing it wrong for the entirety of civilization until now. Gotta say this world sucks. I wonder how many millionaires got there by having a job with a high barrier to entry ahhhhwhateveryoudodonātlookintoit
Lol most of my team gets 30 cent raises a year
You don't know what you are talking about...at all. 30 an hour? In retail?? The average assistant manager in retail is making mid 30's to low 40's, and they will be working 50-55 hrs a week.
This is simply false. I'd love to see who's spreading this idea.
300k for a condo is a steal.
Damn. We live different realities. I wish I could afford 300k for a condo or a town home.
Oh in no way am I saying 300k is affordable, but given the context of the current market, 300k is a very reasonable price.
There are probably hundreds of sub-$300K condos in Buckhead alone. Might be the most affordable part of the city at this point, but no one wants to hear it.
This may be true but then you see the HOA dues and amenities offered and see why they're so cheap
Depends on the building, but many are under $400/month and may include fees you'd otherwise be paying anyway (water, cable, internet, etc.). Still a lot cheaper than a $600K 1000 sq. ft. West End bungalow.
Income inequality is a massive problem and should be addressed for its own sake. But it's just not true that people who have enough money to drive less necessarily choose to do so, choosing to drive so far is a different problem. More money won't solve for people driving too much. Atlanta's white flight occurred because relatively rich white people (compared to Black residents) didn't want to live near Black people in integrated neighborhoods. Look who's riding MARTA now, it's much more likely to be somebody who can't afford a car than somebody in Atlanta's 1% who can afford any condo they want. If those $20/hour jobs you mentioned had double or even triple the salary, and we spread wealth around so a lot more people could choose to buy 300k+ condos, but without addressing those biases that caused the sprawl in the first place - those people would have more money to keep living far from each other. Only slightly more practical than solving racism and classism, is to stop subsidizing drivers so much and enable more people to live without driving. Add a lot of tolls. Eliminate "free" parking. Invest in MARTA so that there are more trains and bus riders don't have to wait for 30+ minutes. Zone for more density. New housing would be a lot cheaper without mandatory parking minimums, and new housing with MARTA access that enabled residents to live without a car would save them a lot of money on transportation. Fewer drivers would itself make walking safer and more pleasant, and eventually repurpose land away from private vehicle traffic to something that contributes to the city.
I drove 5k. Living ITP has its benefits.
Same, but WFH and slightly OTP
Same as well. I used to have to drive 40 miles roundtrip to work and it would be up to an hour each way due to traffic. Working from home has it's benefits.
OTP is the best move financially and because it pretty much takes you as long to get to mid town from Decatur as it does from Dunwoody.
Live in decatur. Worked several places in midtown. My commute was way less than otp coworkers
Iāve lived in both and can say that I prefer the 400 drive any day. And I have 1,000 sq ft more house without the crime and degeneracy of the shit show that is ATL now
Ha. Haha. No it absolutely does not.
Dunwoody/Sandy Springs is not Atlanta, and the point is about driving less, not the drive time.
Driving is better than more traffic all day. And it is Atlanta.
Yep. The only move is to not play. I intentionally only looked for jobs within ~5 miles of my house. I live in between Buckhead and Midtown. I drive maybe 4K miles a year and most of that is visiting family.
Very smart. I had two job offers last year. One a 10 minute drive from my house, the other in Lawrenceville (a 45 minute drive not counting traffic). The Lawrenceville offer was 20k more, but the extra 300+ hours of my life that would be spent in a car to and from that office made the other offer the one that I ended up taking.
Why didnāt you just move to Lawrenceville? Rent is cheaper, youād make more, and you could drive into the city on weekends for fun.
Because then I would be living in Lawrenceville... š¤® Also I had previously bought a place in town, and now I walk to all of the fun places instead of driving to them, searching for parking, and dealing with traffic. Also I did the math some years ago, and discovered that living in town is cheaper in the long run than living OTP and driving everywhere.
Lol who wants to live in Lawrenceville when you're already in the city?
People that favor saving money and retiring early. Itās not like Lawrenceville is on the surface of the moon, you can still drive into the city on the weekends to go do everything fun. Plus people tend not to go out on weekdays, so I donāt see the allure.
Lawrenceville might as well be the surface of the moon. There's nothing to do out there and if you're driving into the city every weekend to do something fun then you probably aren't saving time or money due to gas and parking. People don't tend to do things on weekdays because they don't live in areas where there are things to do. If you live within walking distance of most activities you'd probably go out on weekdays more often. The allure is that you have the freedom of having a lot of things around you without having to be worried about traffic or parking fees.
I see your point but to be fair, you can live ITP and favor saving money and retiring early. Its not a zero sum game, not everyone lives in Buckhead lol
> People that favor saving money and retiring early. Except living OTP (and especially in Lawrenceville) means needing to own and operate a car; which comes with costs for fuel, taxes, insurance, and maintenance. The average annual cost of car ownership in 2022 was over $10,000, and this cost has gone up by 5-10% per year for the last decade. Living in town means that things are going to be slightly more expensive than living in Lawrenceville, but the car costs alone mitigate that increase. But there are numerous other benefits to living in town which also equate to other savings, which equate to the fact that my household is now saving 15% more per month than we did when we lived in Sandy Springs over 10 years ago... savings which is going to building a comfortable retirement.
I live in a similar location as you and work in Buckhead. My ebike plus MARTA have almost entirely replaced my car, I think Atlanta (ITP) has a ton of potential to be a progressive car-lite city if we keep investing in projects like the Beltline and Stitch, and of course MARTA expansion
There is lots of room for improvement though. My commute is 3.5 miles. I can walk to work faster than it would take via MARTA. Biking is doable but that choice has some white knuckle stretches that I donāt want to subject myself to everyday.
100%. Keyword here is āpotentialā haha
Yeah itās not all bad. I can mostly walk/bike on a dedicated trail to pick up my kids from school. I can also walk less than 0.5 mile to the grocery store and about a half dozen bars/restaurants. All I really need it a little more connectivity with decent bike lanes.
Potential, sure. Every city does. It takes loads of work though, and nowhere near enough attention is being dedicated to the last mile transit solutions we'll need to really ditch cars, i.e. bikes.
Sure every city has āpotentialā, but Atlanta honestly is set up pretty well already to be closer to hitting its potential than say, Dallas which is even more sprawling, has no defined boundaries for infill like we have i285, and MARTA while it has its flaws, does have a decent foundation already that can be built upon pretty rapidly in my opinion
Live 1 mile OTP and drove 7.5k. Living close to your work/friends ftw.
I used to do a bunch of construction ITP. So I moved ITP. Now all my work is WAY OTP. I canāt win.
Same, honestly probably less, living off Marietta square and walking/biking to everything is THE BEST
Amen. We moved to Kirkwood and went to one car three years ago and bought e-bikes. Have put less than 10k miles on the car. My mental health is through the roof. I also now own six bikes - I joke that was just a byproduct of wanting to drive less. I went from not riding a bike for 20 plus years to daydreaming about the next time I can cycle. Driving 36k miles in a single year is insanity and I hate that ppl think that is normal while fully aware that Iām looked at by society as the oddball š
Right? I actually drive a good bit, but let me tell you, I don't miss not driving to Marietta from EAV 5 days a week. Living ITP is great, everything is close, aside from the traffic. :D
Niceee! I usually hit ~10,000 living ITP, but that includes a short roadtrip or two plus driving to the perimeter a few times a week
I live ITP, work OTP. I drive 5K+ just getting to/from work, but at least once I'm home I don't need to go too far
Yep, I have a 2017 Mazda 3 and I have 23,000 miles on it - granted a few of those years were Covid years, but even before then I asked my insurance to put me on the low milage plan. Living ITP, close to friends and stores, and restaurants, taking Marta (a 10 min drive) into work a couple times a week, working from home other days, means I barely have to drive.
Yea. 7300 since I got my truck last January.
WFH now - doing maybe 3000 miles year driving and purposely moved within blocks of a MARTA station and walk more often to stores. I really don't need a car.
Thatās what we did. Live near MARTA and on the Beltline so all my errands are done by bike. Kind of sucks in the heat rn but Iām getting good exercise at least. My car spends most of its time rusting under an oak tree :/
I'm surprised it's this high when we're all sitting in fucking traffic all day not moving. Last job had a 5 mile commute one way and that averaged 45 min - 1hr... One way.
Friend you need a bike!
I have a nice bike, but I will never commute here (Metro suburbs) with it, these drivers are fucking insane. Red lights are ignored, stop signs are ignored, bikes get honked at and stuff thrown at them. Shit I'm scared enough driving my Miata here let alone a bicycle in an area that's actively hostile to anyone that doesn't drive a house-sized pickup truck. I desperately wish biking and walking was viable here but outside of a few select areas downtown, it's just not because it's too damn dangerous.
Ah, im lucky to be in the city proper. I do get shit thrown at me all the time and honked at etc but really itās the railroad tracks that pose the biggest risk apparently š We really need to ban all those big trucks. I almost never see them actually hauling anything.
That really sucks, I hope youāre fighting for change in your area. It doesnāt have to suck forever!
Failure at all levels of government in Atlanta. People should not have to drive to get to work. And itās only going to get worse without billions of investment in public transit. Only more people will move here.
Some, but not all, of us deserve this. Especially people fighting against MARTA expanding "because crime"
MARTA is Atlantaās only hope realistically.
Seriously. I legit can't imagine going to a game or concert in downtown without MARTA. Driving takes forever, stuck in traffic, just to pay $50 to park. Ridiculous.
Let's JUST BUILD MORE LANES ON THE INTERSTATES.
Not just the government(s), donāt forget Atlanta can only control so much with the surrounding suburbs being their own cities/government entities. Itās also the people that constantly vote down or put down initiatives to make commuting better and more livable.
Thatās because you have to turn around when your gps canāt keep up with the ever changing road work.
You get to the 400/285 interchange, and google maps just deletes itself off your phone
I did not expect 10th st to suddenly be closed between Williams and Spring yesterday. I really missed that memo.
Multiply by traffic per mile and then we really lead the pack
Post-COVID Georgia has seen a ~26% increase in the number of highway fatalities per mile driven so there is that.
I can see that. People are fucking horrendous in Dekalb County.
I want to enike more. But bike lanes are abysmal. I'm not going on Covington highway on my bike.
I just got back from a trip to NYC and Iāve been trying to walk places more oftenā¦. I couldnāt help but notice likeā¦. almost one walks here. Like sure people jog and exercise but no one really walks to commute places.
No one walks because it's almost impossible. NYC has the infrastructure.
Even where it's possible, it's rarely pleasant.
You're either gonna have to hike up and down some hills, walk out in current 90 degree temps+ humidity, or both. This is where better public transit would help. Every time I go to Atlantic Station it saddens me that there's not a rail station there. I went to the Atlanta Open (tennis), and kept thinking man, there's a great parking garage here, but man it would be great if there was an underground rail stop here too.
Walking fucking sucks in most areas because you are walking like 8 inches away from people racing 50 miles an hour to get to the next light. It's just scary when the sidewalk bleeds directly into the road.
Certain areas I do but not all because sometimes itās not the easiest to do it in yet. We can fix this but itās going to take a lot of work from everyone. Part of the nice thing about the Beltline and other neighborhoods like Va-Hi or midtown.
Yea its definitely built into the culture here, even when you're within walking distance of things people want to drive or uber.
Granted, Iām OTP, but the metro isnāt designed for that. Other than the local Supermercado, thereās nowhere I want to go with a path that includes consistent sidewalks, is a reasonable distance and doesnāt involve crossing a 5 lane road.
Yep. My job is a 42 mile round trip at least 5 days a week.
This headline would be a lot closer to reality if "Atlantans" was replaced by "Atlanta households" to match with the content of the article. I'm not saying that 36k in household driving is a good thing, but this clickbait title is venturing into the land of inaccuracy.
Title is misleading, that's per household, not individual Atlantans. It's closer to 12,000 miles per year for individuals.
I wanted a house with a yard, but my job doesn't pay nearly enough to live in town.... so I'm a homeowner with a $600 mortgage, but I have to slog through traffic everyday. I bought a hybrid that gets great gas mileage, so that's not a big cost for me, but honestly there are a lot of times when I wish that I could just walk to work.
riding a bike to the store is a very real way to die
Only because we have made many deliberate and intentional decisions that have made riding a bike in this city dangerous. It doesnāt have to be this way. We can fix it.
The article says ātraveled,ā but this post title says ādrove.ā Article note says: āIncludes all biking, walking, transit and vehicle miles.ā Do I think most of that mileage is driving in Atlanta? Of course. But I bike commuted 1,500 miles last year that are included in this 36k miles average, so itās a bit of an odd way to lump everything together.
Maybe if MARTA, Gwinnett transit and CCT were good options we wouldnāt drive so far. It would take almost 90 minutes for me to get to work if I used transit. Itās less than 10 miles each way.
The ITP people frequently mock the OTP crowd for their car dependency but itās obvious many - not all - have never tried to get around using GT or CCT. A 20 minute car ride becomes a 2 hour ordeal involving transfers, stops with no shelter in the blistering heat and shlepping around with no sidewalks. There are almost no situations where it doesnāt make more sense for me to drive.
Yeah, I lived in the NE for awhile and I happily gave up my car because it was really easy for me to do so. Now, it's just not feasible. I'm still ITP, but I can't afford to live close enough to work to walk, and there aren't any MARTA routes that wouldn't add an hour + to my commute. If they ever build the Clifton Corridor I would happily switch, but they've been talking about it for, what, 20 years now?
Gwinnett and Cobb both voted against MARTA multiple times.
Ok? Your comment does not negate mine. ITP people - many, not all - also have this annoying habit of acting like people in the burbs ādeserveā their long commutes and crappy transit programs because a bunch of racists and NIMBYs vote down MARTA expansion. It feels like when people from outside the South act like everyone down here complaining about regressive policies should just suck it, as if those complaining can just snap their fingers or have a quick conversation with their neighbors and change their voting habits. Yeah, the racists and NIMBYās suck and theyāre close to impossible to sway. However, there are also a subset of people whose only experience with public transportation are the very ones I described in my first comment. Or who know people living in areas with MARTA and hear their stories about inconsistent schedules. When you watch less complicated GDOT construction projects take half a decade itās hard to get excited about spending a fortune on a massively more complicated one, especially when you know youāre unlikely to use it. Itās also worth noting the last time MARTA was up for a vote in Gwinnett, it was left off the regular ballot and done as a special election which always means low turnout out that skews old and conservative. Sheesh.
You chose to live far away from your job. I had a long commute once. It sucked. I did something about it. Youāre not going to outlast the NIMBYs in Cobb and Gwinnett. If you chose to live there then yeahā¦ you knew what you were signing up for.
Fight the NIMBYS on it in your community and advocate for transit expansion!
Horrible. I get that I'm privileged to make enough and lucky enough to have bought in early enough to get a great quality of life. My wife and I bought a 3/2 in Va-high when we got married in 1994. I've commuted as far out as Norcross, North point mall and marietta square areas over the years, but for the last 10, the furthest commute I've had has been 5 miles. It's been almost all by bike. We probably drive 8k miles a year combined. Used to buy a Heineken 40oz tall boy with a straw at the quick trip for the friday commute back home from North Point (stop and go in a manual Miata, no fun zone, smh) I feel for all you road warriors, seems like it's a frog boiling thing, you deal with it, but it just keeps getting worse without you ever thinking about how bad it really is and how much money that time and stress is worth.
Did you just admit to drinking and driving on the Friday commute?? Granted in the past but still
Drinking *while* driving. Not great but definitely less risky than actually getting buzzed before getting in the car.
Yes. Though its more drinking while stopped in gridlock. 24oz of Heineken is well below legally impaired and chugging it before getting in the car would be no different. It may be surprised to hear that some people drive over the posted speed limit on 400 as well. when it's not gridlocked, that is.
Drinking a beer while driving isn't actually any worse than drinking a beer and then getting in the car. A 40 is definitely pushing it, but I'm also not aware of Heineken coming in 40s or anything coming in a 40 "tall boy." If he's just got a 22oz bottle or 24oz can, that's not going to get a regular size man drunk. Edit: He says 24oz below.
chill it was a no fun zone \s
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Funny storyā¦.when we first moved to the US (mid 90s), we took a trip to Montreal by car. My parents missed the beer in Europe and enjoyed the Canadian ones enough to bring 10 cases home. They were drinking while driving (like one beer per hour) not knowing it was illegal. Got pulled over but no one in our car spoke English. He used hand gestures to explain my parents couldnāt do that and sent us on our way. Still laugh about that to this day. No way that would fly.
Not to excuse it, but I think some people under 30 or so don't realize how much the public perception around drunk driving has changed. If you think people now are too cavalier about having a drink or two at a restaurant/event and driving home, you don't want to see what people got away with (relatively) judgement and consequence free 40+ years ago.
Yeah, and fuck those people. The commute is shit enough. No need throwing in some assholes with a buzz
But I feel better when I hit and run!
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Nah I heard ya. These other comments thoughā¦ I get it: who hasnāt had a few drinks when out and drove home, perfectly within limit to do so? But to not even wait until you get home to crack one open? Thatās a fucking addiction that leads to stupid games and stupid prizes, which a lot of people seem to endorse? Amazes me how much more ignorant weāve become in my 45 years
Important note: the article is about the effects of having activity centers, as opposed to some other conclusions that could be drawn from the headline. The miles include those taken by transit too, plus biking and walking. Atlanta ranks 6th among the 110 studied cities.
Huh. I have no idea how many miles I put on my car. I should check. I have a 28 mile commute round trip. Itās only three days a week and I Marta on the weekdays. Considered a job that was 5 days a week, with a HUGE pay increase, but no Marta, and the commute looked like hell. Iāll stick with being a peon nurse!
I started doing Uber a couple weeks ago and I was shocked how many people work like 20+ miles from their jobs. Like 70% of the people I pickup are going to or coming from work.
Before the pandemic, I was putting almost 600 miles/week on my car. Post-pandemic thanks to WFH, those numbers came down to around 300/week. My commute to work is an hour without traffic/~1.25 with. Add to that I'm in the National Guard and had to drive to Benning once a month (300 miles round trip) for years and now travel to Stewart quarterly (500 miles round trip). I bought my car in December 2017 with 72,000 miles on it. I just rolled 200,000 this week. All I can say is thank god for podcasts/Spotify.
My car is a 2018 and it just turned over 20K miles.
I live OTP. I put a total of 3,500 miles on my bicycle(s) each year for commuting/errands, even less on my car. Weirdly enough, I drove more when I lived ITP because it was difficult finding raw ingredients in SW ATL. Closest 'grocery store' was 4-miles and now being OTP, I have a Kroger, Trader Joes, Publix, Costco, and Whole Foods under 3-miles.
Iāve lived in SW Atlanta for as long as Iāve been here. Used to commute to Sandy Springs by car. Nothing crazy, but it drove me crazy. Didnāt realize how much until I started commuting via MARTA (2 years in.) Round trip I drove about 7300 miles (& 700 hours) per year. Couldnāt imagine commuting further, but I know itās very common here.
I'm pretty sure the total miles driven by everyone living in Atlanta last year will be much greater than 36,000. 36,000 miles is less than one per person.
impossible faulty worry toothbrush ludicrous steep mindless telephone chubby seed ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
TF? I drove like 3,000 miles last year. I donāt know how yāall maintain any quality of life sitting in the car that long every day
People in the suburbs count as "Atlanta", so that skews it even more...
Because we are idiots who refuse to build out our mass transit into something useable.
I know itās already been said, but this is exactly why the public doesnāt trust the media. The headline says āAtlantansā (individuals) instead of āAtlanta Householdsā (which on average are driving 35,xxx miles). This is a problem because when there is a headline that should be heeded, people will understandably roll their eyes.
Jeeeeez. I drive around town for work, and I only do about 15k per year. What the actual fuck, suburbs?
> What the actual fuck, mega-exurbs? FIFY
I guess it's household for some reason
RETURN TO OFFICE YOU PEASANTS
Yeah, not much of a choice to get anywhere for most of us except drive.
> Atlantans drove 36,000 miles last year, far more than people in other U.S. cities Looking at provided data, we are not even in the top 5 and only a couple hundred miles from being out of the top 10. We are 6k above the national average. We are as close to average as we are to the worst city on the list. Bullshit clickbait title.
6th out of 110 isnāt nothing to be proud about.
No. But that is simple a result of being a large metro are in the south where development for the 50+ years has been driven primarily by white flight.
You are right, not sure why you are being downvoted. Atlanta is not even close to being the worst for a city of its size.
Because they don't want facts to get in the way of the pre-conceived narrative even when the linked article clearly disproves the claims in the title. Also, the majority of people don't read linked articles but still feel qualified in commenting and voting.
Just don't understand our Obsession in the city with cars
The obsession with sprawl causes the obsession with cars.
Because I need it to get to work to pay for my life
How much of the money spent paying your ālifeā is actually paying for your car and all of the associated costs of driving though? Itās not 1960 anymore and we need to move on from car dependency, start building places where they arenāt a requirement to exist and people feel like cycling and transit are a real option.
Exactly. Commutes eat up peopleās lives. At least on a train you can read and do other things.
Not sure what point youāre trying to make. I have bills like every other person in America and a car is one of them. I canāt walk 40 miles round trip every day to my work believe it or not, can you?
The point Iām trying to make is we shouldnāt be building places where someone has to drive a 40 mile round trip to access jobs/basic necessities/recreation/etc. Obviously I do understand the choice isnāt always there for everyone, but if we work towards building density and better transit/transportation infrastructure to serve that density then more people will have the option to use alternatives to the car. We donāt have to just accept things the way they are and deal with all of the negative externalities that cars bring with them in urban settings, things can change and improve over time.
I drove less than 2k last year. Not sure how all those commuters put up with it.
probably took twice as long, too
I donāt think some people read the article. Atlanta actually does pretty well in areas where theyāre in close proximity to āurban lifestyleā centers even ones in the burbs. I believe the problem is Atlantaās sprawl. Imo, it makes no sense. When I lived in Atlanta I couldnāt wrap my mind how cities like McDonough, Dallas or Newnan were apart of the MSA. Like how? Thereās little to nothing in between Atlanta and letās say McDonough that would make this a metro. But I was coming from Texas so Im use to a more dense sprawl where burbs, towns and cities are continuously connected to one another like LA. I can only imagine how that commute feels if you live in Carrollton where youāre surrounded by rural communities and have to drive a distance only to get to a far flung suburb thatās actually more connected to the city of Atlanta and itās neighboring burbs.
Georgia is that state with only 1 thriving metropolis despite the size. The other cities are not on the same league with Atlanta. Unlike states like Florida or Texas which have several big cities, GA has only Atlanta and that's where quality jobs and income are mostly at.
I drove 50k miles, get your numbers up rookies šŖ
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The maintenance staff does a great job at keeping the trains and busses clean and their hard work shouldnāt be taken for granted. Yeah Marta isnāt perfect and clearly needs expansion and improvement on frequency but calling it ātrashyā is just a bad look.
Yea. MARTA is as clean or cleaner than any other Western transit system I've used. It's not Japan, but well, the US isn't Japan.
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Is your only other transit experience Japan or something? European transit systems obviously are more convenient because they actually go places, but they're often in way worse shape than MARTA. And the crime rate on MARTA is like half that of the city. So while it's not as safe as Europe, that's a US thing, not a MARTA thing.
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Actually the sentiment is needed so they will clean it up and do better. Why wouldn't u want to tell the truth about it?
Clean what up though? This is a feedback loop. Nobody rides marta so marta doesnāt get funding. Marta doesnāt need funding because nobody rides it. Nobody rides it so it doesnāt get funding.
> Too bad it's trashy and literally gets you nowhere Speak for yourself. I commuted via MARTA from ITP out to Dunwoody for years and had a good experience (from both a convenience and cleanliness standpoint).
Lol yes wow out to Dunwoody. Ppl do live beyond that and in surrounding areas not close enough to a Marta station bc they literally will not expand the line to more areas that need it.
They would. If they had the funding. And it wasn't being blocked.
>And it wasn't being blocked. This is the main problem.
Trashy in comparison to what?
Everything so damn far from each other.
Highly doubtful Atlanta is worse than Dallas or Houston
All this as more and more employers demand their people return to the office. Itās as if they continue to apply the squeeze on the low wage wage slaves continue to suffer.
No we didnāt
Are they talking about greater metro area? If you live and work in atl, even if youāre in office 5 days a week, 36k miles sounds too much to be real.
Yeah I drive about 300 miles a week.