4 Notable Annoying Issues About Atlanta that Suck!

 Atlanta is a city where continual economic evolvement has a major influx of outsiders looking to move here and get a piece of the action. The self-proclaimed "Capital of the South," brings a distinct southern hospitality flavor to the table, with a unique brand that has reached international status. However, despite being a city of exponential growth over the past two decades, Atlanta does have its share of growing pains that can make the average transplant want to go back home to mama. These pains are discussed in further detail, in no particular order, because they all equally kick rocks!

Panhandlers on Public Transportation

If you have just flown in to Atlanta and have to ride the Marta train from the Hartsfield International Airport, do not be surprised if you have to hear a few speeches from so-called "victims of the economy." This means having a homeless looking guy asking you for a few cents to get something to eat or, a newly invented approach, someone holding a note in front of your face, addressed to you, and asking for food because the note holder allegedly cannot talk, read, or write. These scenes happen annoyingly quite often on the Marta train.

If you ride the Marta train often enough, you will see, a lot of times, that it is the same people running the same sob stories past naive new people, who think they are helping the situation by giving these panhandlers money. A veteran Marta train-rider only needs to get on a train for a couple of seconds and see a perpetrator, standing close to the connecting car doors (for a quick escape if they see the Marta police coming), warming up to make their strategically prepared speech to the congregation. The speech usually starts with: "Good morning everyone, may I have your attention for a minute please", "this is the day that the Lord has made" , or "it's good to see so many smiling faces today."

There is one guy who comes across as being the most obnoxious, however. His pitch always starts with his thoughts about how tough the economy is on America and how he has been victimized, as if the other 99% of people on the train have not been negatively effected, but have still found a way to keep food on the table, wants to hear this. He continues his speech by talking about his wife and two young daughters, ignoring the experienced passengers scream "Get a job!", finally closing his pitch by letting people know he is selling incense and $1 cologne. If he only understood that there are more self-respectable ways of selling his merchandise.

Public Transportation

The numerous panhandlers on the Atlanta public transit is one issue, but the Atlanta public transit system is a bigger problem within itself. Marta, the major Atlanta public transit, uses the phrase "Marta is Smarta " as their slogan. However, in many instances, if you need a ride to some place in metro Atlanta and want more reliable service, it would probably be best to call a cab and pay the substantially higher cost. The self assurance that you will feel when you get to wherever you have to go in a safe and timely manner is worth the extra dollars.

The biggest issue is with these metro Atlanta transit system employees. These people can be the most rudest, unprofessional people you can ever come across. From personal experience, I have seen many cases where, in riding the bus and approaching a bus stop with potential riders, the driver would drive right past the stop without thinking twice. When angry passengers would mention to the driver about the missed stop, on que, the driver responds with impatience to the passed potential passengers not being fast enough or, better yet, the drivers say they honestly did not see the potentials. This is why, many times, I personally stand on the street and wave my hand when I see my bus approaching.

Atlanta Bus drivers and train operators will conduct their own business while driving, meaning talking and texting on their cell phones to whomever. The most publicized case concerns a train operator being recently suspended by Marta for apparently "texting on his Twitter page" while the train was actually moving. A passenger took a picture of the culprit and reported this to the Atlanta transit. The question that I have is, if the passenger did not provide visual proof, would anything have been done to the train operator? Again, I have personally witnessed these Atlanta public bus drivers talking and texting on cell phones while driving.

Sports Attendance

Check out sports authority websites, such as ESPN and Fox Sports, and look up the "Worst Sports Town" polls and Atlanta usually falls within the top three. I would venture to say that these polls are fairly accurate. Atlanta has the most bandwagon fan support that you will ever see. This is appalling because there have been a lot of great athletes to come out of Atlanta.

The Atlanta Braves have recently come off a streak of 14 straight divisional titles, which also includes numerous National League pennants and 1 World Series title in 1995. If this type of run had occurred in cities like Boston, Los Angeles, or even Milwaukee, these teams would be worshipped for life. However, during this current season, the Atlanta Braves home attendance averages 22,000 per game, less than half the stadium seating capacity.

The Atlanta Hawks have not had similar performance results but, despite recent success in this year's NBA Playoffs, experienced similar fair-weather fan support. In the first round of the NBA Playoffs, the Atlanta Hawks defeated the Miami Heat in seven games. But the last game, which was played at Atlanta's Phillip's Arena, was not even sold out. In the next series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Phillip's Arena did sell out for the two home games. However, most of the fans were wearing Cleveland Cavalier 23 jerseys, in support of Lebron James, of course, and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Football remains king in Atlanta, but you have far more fan support for the college and high school football teams than the NFL's Atlanta Falcons. This is for good reason, however, because the Atlanta Falcons have been as fair weathered as the fans. The Atlanta Falcons have never had back-to-back winning seasons in the Falcons' 40 year history. A terrible excuse, none-the-less, because the fickle fan attendance, which ironically changed with the arrival of Micheal Vick (despite misguided naysayers biased opinions), could have been the difference for a lot of the losses that the Atlanta Falcon franchise have accumulated over the years.

Traffic

The obvious, most glaring issue in Atlanta remains the wall-to-wall traffic on the major Atlanta highways. At any time of the day, and night (for that matter), drivers are certain to run into a gridlock on their way to work or wherever they need to go in Atlanta. With Atlanta being a city, where seemingly every place of interest is 15 -30 miles away, the assumed travel time is 30 minutes. However, nowadays, traffic time must be a factor, due to impatient drivers constantly hitting each other's vehicles because of road rages.

The reality is that Atlanta traffic was not an issue until after the 96 Olympic Games. During the Olympics, outsiders got a inside look of what Atlanta has to offer and, thus, starts the outsider onrush. Structurally speaking, Atlanta was not ready for this people-rush and, because of this, from 6 am to 7 pm everyday, gridlock happens somewhere on I-20, I-285, I-75, and I-85.

The worst days are Fridays, especially during the mid afternoon to evening times. Of course, this is because so many thousands of people are wanting to rush home and enjoy the weekend, however, at the same time. Traffic usually comes to a stand still for long periods of time, especially in Gwinnett County. If you live in Gwinnett, and have to travel on either I-85 north or I-285 to get home, you might as well plan to spend, at least, two hours in traffic. The worst part is that even the back-roads, that used to be well-hidden secrets by native Atlantans, are now backed up too.

Sources

www.nba.com/

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/06/16/marta_driver_texting.html