Subject: taking MARTA from airport to IETF55 hotel

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 23:49:09 -0500

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I arrived today and made some minor notes that might be of use to others.
(I've been to Atlanta many times for N+I, but always wind up having to
stay up in Buckhead, so taking the MARTA has become routine on visits to
Atlanta).

In my moderate experience, Atlanta has the third best train link to the
airport. First is Zurich. Then Washington National, then Atlanta. I've
yet to do other than change planes in Amsterdam, and the EWR->NJ-Transit
link was not finished last I was there, so my rankings may change.

At Hatfield (Atlanta) airport, you'll take the people move from the concourse
to the baggage claim. There are two claims, north/south, I think. When you
head to the exit, between the two areas (i.e. north of the south side, south
of the north side) is the airport MARTA station. $1.75 gets you a token.
$10 gets you 5 tokens + $1.25. 

{At this point, you get out a knife from your check baggage, and adjust your
DSCP. You have picked a nice AF2 or so service by using the MARTA.
I75/85 is a best effort service. }

Put your token in the bucket, and board the carrier^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htrain. Don't
worry about which train, etc. the airport is single homed. 

You will travel north through very pretty and less pretty areas. S7->S1,
then there is a BFR called Five Points. Do not change wavelengths. Go to N1.
Exit the train.

At this point, you have to egress the platform. Use the north (direction the
train was going) stairs. (The south ones will take you 4 blocks out of your
way. Although you will discover there are more restaurants there)

There is somewhere there an entrance to the Peachtree Centre - I keep missing
it, even though I've come out it several times. If you took it you would
go up to above street level and have to wander through a a highly congested
layer-2 hub. It has a multitude of autonomous client systems wandering around
conducting various kinds of layer-8 protocols with servers of various kinds. 
{Remember that in the Atlanta XML DTD, the correct response to "thank you",
is "uh huh"} You have to cross this food court and exit northward across a
walkway that goes diagonally across. You then in "Marquis tower A", and the
hotel lobby is across a foyer. 

If you, instead, as I did, exit onto the street, you'll be at the corner of
Peachtree and Harris. To the east (the right as you edit), Harris goes down
a hill. Go east a block, cross, turn left (north). There is the front 
entrance to the hotel.

]       ON HUMILITY: to err is human. To moo, bovine.           |  firewalls  [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works, Ottawa, ON    |net architect[
] [email-masked] http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/ |device driver[
] panic("Just another Debian GNU/Linux using, kernel hacking, security guy"); [

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From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: 14 Nov 2002 00:28:23 -0500

> link was not finished last I was there, so my rankings may change.

Just a word of warning: 

While MARTA may be great for getting from the airport to the hotel,
that's about all its good for. Don't get here and expect something like
DC or Boston. We're a car town and we like it that way. ;-) MARTA has
only two real routes: North/South and East/West. And the busses are just
there to annoy the rest of the people on the road. So be warned....

Plus, I-75/I-85 (or the Connector as its called) should be low traffic
on the weekend unless someone's jack-knifed a 18-wheeler...

-MM

-- 
Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
HHI, Inc.

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 08:19:13 -0500

> that's about all its good for. [...]  We're a car town and we like 
> it that way. ;-) 

Indeed, the only things within reasonable/safe walking distance of 
most of the MARTA stations are parking lots.  

Keith