By Jock Ellis | CUMMING, Ga., June 30, 2015 — NBA hoops was the first thing I heard when I would hop aboard a MARTA bus headed toward the Lindbergh Station.
Two guys, one on either side of the aisle, would be deep in conversation about the previous night’s game. Both clearly enjoyed getting to talk about something they obviously loved. One guy was a 40ish black man wearing work khakis while the other, a 30-something white guy, was dressed in a three-piece, blue pinstripe suit. Their conversations would run from before I hopped on until we disembarked to await the train. And maybe after.
Here were two guys on what appeared to be opposite ends of the economic spectrum, if their clothes were any indicator, but a talkative testimony to the fact that even in diversity, we share interests and concerns. To me, their bond is the reason public transit is necessary in Metro Atlanta, a place that is nothing if not diverse.
As the expression goes, “We need to talk!” Over 50 years of a continually expanding and improving road system and increasingly cooler cars have had the effect of insulating us from all but a handful of our fellow Atlantans, our best-buds and work or church friends. But if E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one) is to work, making a cosmopolitan population of about five million people spread over hundreds of square miles into a solidified force able to work together to make the metropolitan area more livable and prosperous, it is going to take knowing those who are around us.
Who is more likely to understand concerns of others and have sympathy for their plight, the two guys talking hoops, or two people driving alone down Interstate 85?
These are not the only unaffiliated riders I’ve ever heard talking and their ideas and concerns, which are probably shared by thousands. When was the last time you heard two Atlantans talking who didn’t know how to solve the city’s problems? Travel doesn’t have to be around the globe to be broadening; it can be riding to work each day.
Of course, one of the biggest problems those of us in Metro Atlanta have is getting to work. Some of us have no cars, others have heavily traveled surface roads for commutes, and many of us have the jammed interstates that are sure to put us in a “mood” for the day. Transportation is a topic we can really sink our teeth into.
Gwinnett County is just another version of Atlanta, only more diverse. The area has been a huge draw for peoples from all around the world, as I’m sure anyone who reads this already knows. The idea of bus and/or rail transit is being kicked around by many people. It appears that for the first time since the original MARTA vote met with general scorn from the still relatively rural population, it could now actually have a chance of passing.
Should it do so, it will most definitely give this varied population a chance to become that Unum on the Lincoln penny.
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