Talk:Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority

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/Archive 1 pre-11/2006
/Archive 2 11/2006 to 2/2007

Contents

[edit] 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 Cat: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 mnay 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)

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).

[edit] Peer review from automated javascript tool peerreviewer

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)
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