ATLANTA — Everyone from the Mayor to the Police Chief to the Super Bowl Host Committee are telling people to take MARTA down to the events going on this weekend. But people who ride MARTA regularly keep telling 11Alive they don't think they're ready for the crush of people who will be on it this weekend.
11Alive's Kaitlyn Ross went to investigate.
Around 7:30 Thursday morning, the parking lot at the Brookhaven MARTA station, and getting a special edition Super Bowl MARTA Breeze card was ... a breeze.
Heading up the platform, there were only a few other people waiting for the train. But one of the biggest complaints regular riders had was that the boards in the stations had scheduled times that were either inaccurate, or they drop off all together.
While Kaitlyn was at the station, it said the next train was four minutes away. She timed it - and exactly four minutes later, the train pulled up and took off on time.
There were also still plenty of seats on the train, though online, folks complained to 11Alive that there is not enough room - some even tweeting photos of packed cars.
Another commuter wrote, "always an inconvenience. Mechanical problems, no announcements, and people waiting for trains to get to work. No one should have to leave home 3 hours early to hopefully make it to work. Not Super Bowl Ready. Not Even Daily Ready."
MARTA told 11Alive it added trains to lines in anticipation for the Super Bowl - and though it wasn't crowded, it was cold. A security guard at the Five Points station told Kaitlyn that the heat was broken inside the station.
Kaitlyn said the transfer to the Green and Blue lines went smoothly, with trains running on time - but the signs inside the train may confuse some out-of-town visitors.
Kaitlyn snapped a picture on the way to Mercedes-Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena - it still says "Georgia Dome" and "Phillips Arena" on the signs.
A sign inside the Mercedes-Benz Stadium stop said they're working on fixing them, and in the meantime, to download their app.
In all, it took Kaitlyn about 30 minutes to get there, and all the trains were running on time. Once you get up the escalator, you're just steps away from the stadium... it's hard to argue with that kind of convenience.
The trip back - on the other hand - wasn't quite as smooth. Kaitlyn got stopped on the tracks for about five minutes. She tried to check the MARTA app and their Twitter feed, but she were underground and couldn't get service. No one on board seemed that surprised by the hold up.
Once we got moving again, MARTA's Twitter feed said the delay was due to a maintenance issue, but there wasn't any update on the app.
Kaitlyn was back to the Brookhaven station by 9:05 a.m. - with the trip to the Stadium and back taking about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, trains will start running 24 hours a day for the Super Bowl festivities, this weekend.