Working-class people deserve peace, too.

A disturbing MARTA trip reminds me that calm and quiet are luxury goods in the United States.

Yesterday, I flew back from Washington, DC to Atlanta. Arriving in the Peach State after a forgettable flight, I power-walked the corridors of Atlanta’s depressing airport, which has all the charm of a DMV office, to the MARTA station. For a rail station at the “world’s busiest airport,” it’s surprisingly neglected, a reminder that public transit is generally understood as a residual safety-net program in the United States. MARTA closed the station for six weeks of renovation work earlier this year, but since its completion they’ve struggled to keep it clean. Unlike most of my fellow riders, I dutifully scanned a QR code (i.e. paid for my ride) and climbed the unkempt stairs to the platform.

Having just spent a few days using DC Metro — a troubled system recently revived by the arrival of a dogged general manager from Austin, who has focused on reliability, fare evasion, and crime — I was girding myself for a return to the (less pleasant) MARTA experience, a rail system where ridership remains down 50% from pre-pandemic highs and you’re more likely to encounter suboptimal conditions, ranging from stations that reek of urine to violent and unhinged behavior on the trains. But, even my attempt at managing expectations couldn’t prepare me for what I was about to endure.

At platform level, the signs said it would be 20 minutes until the next departure. That’s the kind of service offered to travelers — and the army of low-wage workers — who regularly use MARTA to travel between metro Atlanta’s sprawl and one of the country’s most important aviation hubs. At $2.50 for a ride to any station, it’s cheap compared to other airport trains, but you quickly realize there’s no free lunch. For example, because the trains are so old, they lack the exterior buttons you find on European trains, which allow passengers to personally open and close the doors, preserving a comfortable climate when stopped at stations for extended periods.

About 10 minutes into the chilly wait, a man and his bag of snacks sat down, began talking to himself, and watched videos without headphones. Maybe he was high? I don’t know what was up or down, but he was harmless and kind of funny — the kind of person you’d probably enjoy sharing an edible with in another, more appropriate place. As time passed, the train car became busier with a mix of travelers, airport or airline workers, and people with unmet social needs who use the airport’s pre-security areas as a kind of day shelter. A few seconds before departure, however, another man raced into the train, pointed, and screamed something like “there’s gonna be a fight!” Startled, many passengers looked around. The man then started rambling incoherently and shook the hands of another passenger — for a long time. As the train left the station, he grew more animated and, while it was hard to understand him, seemed to be angrily shouting about a desire to fight or be violent.

As I’ve previously written, one thing that makes anti-social behavior so problematic in the U.S. context is that you never know when someone experiencing a mental health crisis might pivot to violence and possess a deadly weapon — guns are actually legal in the pre-security area at Atlanta’s airport.

To his credit, the man with the snacks tried to talk him down and — with great compassion — remind him that he should just focus on getting home safe. While this was happening, another man, seated a few feet away from me, started vaping, sharing his smoke with everyone else on the crowded train, from children and the elderly to exhausted airport workers.

If you’ve just spent 10 hours behind a deep fryer at a Chick-fil-A or moving luggage all day long on the tarmac in the heat or cold, is this the environment you want for your ride home? Or do you just want to be able to look at your phone in peace? Close your eyes and rest? When the state refuses to guarantee order and peace in public spaces, life becomes one stressful experience after another for those who can’t buy their way out of the chaos.

At the first stop after the airport, myself and a number of other riders got up and moved to the next car. I contemplated leaving the system and pinging an Uber, but $40 is a steep price to pay and the roads aren’t necessarily a safer option. My new car lacked the imminent threat of violence, but there were loosies and mini-liquor bottles for sale from a black plastic bag, a lot of loud phone videos, and a general feeling of disorder. The new space felt safer, but still not like one where you could truly relax.

Rules rarely enforced by metro Atlanta’s MARTA transit system.

Distracted by my heightened state of alert, I almost missed my stop at Five Points station, where I had to transfer to an eastbound train. There, I was momentarily delighted to stroll onto a waiting train just seconds before the doors slammed shut. Normally, you have to wait 10 or 15 minutes when transferring at night — but, yesterday I got lucky, or so I thought. After a few seconds, the nauseating smell of stale urine hit my nose and another angry man’s ranting blasted my ears. It was challenging to decipher his message, but there were a lot of “motherfuckers” being dropped, repeated references to domestic violence, and seemingly unrelated racist tangents about Arabs and Jews. An innocent pizza box was randomly hit like a drum at this solo performance of rage.

Again, fearing for my safety and wishing to avoid smelling like urine upon arrival at my destination, I changed cars at the next station. This was a jackpot by MARTA standards! Apart from one guy watching videos without headphones, it was fine.

About 10 minutes later, I arrived at my station, walked up the stairs, and scanned my QR code again to leave the system — as about 80% of other passengers avoided paying anything at all by walking out the emergency exit, the door’s loud metallic clank signaling each act of theft. Despite personally supporting robust action to tackle fare evasion, I couldn’t help but feeling like a sucker at the moment for having paid for such an awful journey.

Most MARTA rides — even with the loud videos and questionable commerce — are fine, even a little interesting. But last night crossed a line for me, because I was forced to share two cars on two lines with two deeply unwell, violent individuals. Given I’m currently suffering from a nasty cold, maybe I was more annoyed than usual, but I was also startled by the contrast between the improved conditions on DC Metro and the seriously degraded MARTA ones.

It’s worth reflecting on why DC Metro has improved so much while other U.S. systems have been left to languish. Yes, the new general manager has done excellent work, but DC is also one of the richest metro areas in the country and its trains transport an outsized number of affluent professional-class riders. Meanwhile, MARTA — and most other public transit systems — primarily serve working-class people, especially now that many individuals with email jobs are working remotely. Even some of MARTA’s board members rarely ride their own system!

Like gold-plated health insurance and home ownership, order, peace, and security are more and more “luxury goods” for the privileged while everyone else is left to navigate unacceptably chaotic or unsafe spaces. If you don’t live in the privileged metro area with the highly functioning transit system or you can’t afford an SUV or Uber in Atlanta, suck it up and inhale some random guy’s smoke every morning and night, I guess. It’s like the social and economic policies of recent years supercharged the phenomenon of private luxury and public squalor.

The ability to move between one’s home and workplace — or one’s home and an airport or entertainment venue — with peace and security should be considered a right, not a privilege, but that’s not true in the United States. Many cities and states have decided that the well-being of working-class people can be conveniently ignored, either because of progressive politics opposed to assertive policing or conservative politics disinterested in the provision of quality public services and addressing the unmet social needs of those on the margins of society. Meanwhile, Americans left behind to simmer in the resulting squalor and chaos may turn to populist politics as a relief valve, because there’s little “joy” on MARTA trains that are going off the rails in a country whose elites are increasingly unconcerned with the well-being of the people who service them.