Life in Atlanta is as bustling as it gets- students from all over the world cojoin at the center of Metropolitian city area in the intersections that is traversed by the city’s infamous MARTA metro railways. Atlanta also continues to draw new sets of eyes as the economic epicenter of the Southeast, hosting reputable tech & film industries year after next.

So it came as suprise to my team that MARTA does not hold a reputation at par. Back fence conversations reveal that transit system is generally not considered safe, clean or reliable- and all for good reason. The Breeze 2.0 App’s interface isn’t exactly the most user-friendly, the metro schedules are hard to navigate and the last thing you want to arrive to when you arrive at a station is a broken kiosk or elevator (with your bike or wheelchair).

We did not want to rely on hearsay, so we decided to take the rail and bus routes ourselves. And while these problems did exist, the perception of MARTA was far more cynical that actual travel experience. But what contributes to such a radical perspective? Our team wanted to find the answer to this very question.