MARTA was a nightmare to use after the national championship game. Management guessed there would be a problem, but check out how they tried to deal with it:
Deputy General Manager Rob Troup told the board there weren’t enough employees available to handle the crowd. The agency asked for volunteers to work extra hours, but the employee turnout was 30 percent less than expected, he said.
Can you imagine the sales pitch for that? “Guys, we know the weather sucks out there, and you’ll be dealing with a bunch of drunk college football fans, half of whom will be pissed off because their team lost, so how would you like to come in and help manage that situation into the wee small hours of the morning without getting paid?”
Hell, I’m surprised the turnout was only 30 percent less. Maybe the rest figured that since the players weren’t getting paid, they shouldn’t, either.
Get The Picture 
I probably won’t read the link, but would he not have meant volunteers [from among the body of employees] to work [what would presumably be overtime] ? If not, wow !
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That’s my take after reading it.
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I didn’t read it as saying they weren’t going to be paid either rather I think they wanted people to volunteer to cover the extra shifts rather than ordering people to do it. They should have ordered it, of course less people showed up than anticipated.
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Only got a sentence or two in before the pop up blocked me. So by volunteered that meant they would work extra hours for free? My guess is that they would pay for the overtime, but still no interest.
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Same thing here. About 10 seconds to read before the popup killed it.
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Workaround to the pop up blocker:
as soon as the page loads, click & drag over the article , then hit “CTRL C’ [copy]….
open up a word doc and hit “CTRL V’ [paste] , and VOILA you should have what you seek .
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bout to blow some minds here fellas…
type outline.com/ before the url of the paywall’d site and you should be able to read most/a lot of paywalled articles.
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That’s amazing. Thanks.
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http://www.myajc.com/sports/gwcca-board-raises-concerns-about-mercedes-benz-stadium/2XH43ltGHcJqgx3duFLb9J/
Mercedes-Benz Stadium didn’t have a good night, either.
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I turned it off at the end of regulation. 🙂
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I didn’t take it as “work for free”. I took it as “the union won’t let me require you to work overtime, so I’m asking if you’ll volunteer to work overtime.” Either way, I believe they were still getting paid.
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Looks like they could have been asking for volunteers to work overtime Senator. I didn’t see it as a volunteer to work for free. Are they a union shop? If so, contract issues could have been the reason they requested “volunteers” i.e. the company couldn’t force anyone to work. Asking for volunteers to work extra hours doesn’t have to mean they were working for free.
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The discussion on Five Points in that story — people calling 911 and how jammed it was — reminds me why I’m happy to walk that mile from the stadium to Peachtree Center and push onto the train there.
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Did the same thing. Much easier
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The setup of MARTA in relationship to the stadium causes this. Riding MARTA one or two stops east to Five Points and then getting off to transfer to a north-south train creates a sure-fire log jam. It also amazes me how many fans wait until after the game to line up at the kiosks to buy their fares, creating another push and shove just to get to the turnstiles. MARTA can triple their manpower and it won’t matter.
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Fire one of the $300k per year paper pushers and give $1000 bonuses to 300 employees and they would have been glad to help.
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The trick is to use the Vine City station. It is a close walk to the Benz. I had no issues and got on the first train that arrived. Vine City is why the trains are already full when they pull into the GA Dome Station.
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SSSSHHHHH!
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😉
I know I should keep my mouth shut. Hey, if I have to suffer longer train rides because Georgia is a regular in the Benz it will be worth it!
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wish you would not have told that.
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I was on the second train. It was full of vomit and hookers.
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Sounds like my car in college.
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Nobody has their best day every day and this is not one of your better days Senator …….or as you have said before “how in Bejezus do you come to that conclusion from that statement” He was clearly asking them to volunteer for overtime work. To request otherwise ,I’m about 90% sure, would be a violation of Wage and Hours laws. Maybe you need an editor. Weasel ain’t doin shit.
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I was on that first train headed north from 5 Points. It was sitting there, waiting to be boarded, mostly empty when my wife and I got on. 20 minutes later, we finally left. A fight broke out in our car as a drunk jackass was shoving to get onto a car that had no more room.
We needed to switch in Lindburgh because they do not run North Springs trains from the main line after normal hours. We got off at lindburgh and waiting 40 minutes, before giving up on a train and riding Uber, with surge charge, paying 60 dollars to get to the North Springs station where we parked.
Also, the train we rode south to the stadium broke down prior to arts center, and we sat there for 20 minutes as well.
So all in all, it was a complete Charlie Foxtrot, because Marta couldn’t run things properly for the biggest Marta transit day of the year.
Also, as I’m rambling on, this was the night to knock it OUT OF THE PARK for all of the riders coming in from northern Fulton County. Marta is begging for buy-in from North Fulton to expand and pay for expansion broadly in that region. They get the chance to show why Marta is great for them, and they just utterly, disastrously drop the ball in a most high profile way.
Morons
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So now they want put our tax money toward running a bus line up 400.
So to get to Philips Arena / MBS, all you have to do is fight traffic to drive your car to one of the new bus stations next to 400, park and wait for a bus to come along to pick you up and drop you off at the North Springs Station, then wait for a train to take you to the Lindbergh Station, get off and wait for a train to take you to the Five Points Station, then get off and wait for a train to take you to the Dome station, while you watch everyone else return from the game you missed.
Well done.
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mcgarity did it. the dirty bastid.
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Uber and Lyft don’t need volunteers.
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Big MARTA fan here. Regular rider. MARTA usually does a really solid job, and I am not a very patient person in general.
The night of the championship came was a complete cluster, though. Terrible time to fall on their face.
Like some others have said, my wife and I gave up quickly at Five Points and walked north. Got on at Civic Center.
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I’ll wait on the train. Tried the walking deal once and ran into a group of thugs. Probably would have had a real issue had a Patrol car not pulled in and stopped. They backed off and let my wife and I move on. Scared the shit out of her. She’s not been back.
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MARTA was definitely a cluster, but you guys have pretty well covered that, disgraceful, but it was just my time I lost. The bottleneck to get out was of MB was the much, much bigger issue. While it was just time that night, my jaw dropped when I realized there were no exit doors available, emergency, or otherwise. Had there been an emergency that night, the vast majority of the attendees would have died. Who in the hell designed anything that stupid? I would blame GT but even their people could not have been that oblivious to the dangers.
I was seated lower level on the 20 yard line where the “bad play” occurred. It took 20-25 minutes after that play to get to the concourse level because all the traffic was routed to Exits 2-3 and it was slow merging in. Then we got into the retirement home shuffle, stifling hot with people all pushed together; stagnant exhaled air. Now we had to navigate over a hundred yards for over a half hour to get to the exit door at the far end. That is one hour folks, and then we had to get into the MARTA backup outside, at the least the air was fresh, if frigid. People pushed, broke in line, trains broke down, wow, what a mess. I decided then, no other family of mine would attend an event there until there were several, many, exit doors added. I would have paid the fine was opening an emergency door….had there been one available. And that sound, ugh!
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At the very least, turn off the escalators.
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Going in and coming out. Complete cluster. So many at fault and yet to hear one person in charge own it.
Never going back. 65″ tv wins vs Atlanta city incompetence
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On yes, metro Atlanta. WAFU place!
Move the game from Atlanta to New Orleans.
SEC should not play in ACC slum town!
After the fiasco in GHSA championship games, most high schools now want it moved from Atlanta. Move them to Valdosta State Stadium.
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