If you’d like to sample Buford Highway’s culinary delights with a side of public transit advocacy, the “39 Ride and Dine” on April 27 is for you.
The ticketed “bus crawl” of several of Buford Highway’s diverse restaurants from Doraville to Brookhaven is a joint effort of the We Love BuHi community organization and the MARTA Army transit advocacy group.
Groups of attendees will ride MARTA’s Route 39 bus with a team leader and make tasting stops at several restaurants before ending the evening at a Brookhaven lounge. Along the way, they’ll hear from such experts as MARTA transit-oriented development chief Amanda Rhein and Sally Flocks of the pedestrian advocacy group PEDS.
The new bus crawl is similar to We Love BuHi’s “Bikes & Bites” bicycle tours of Buford, whose latest installment was held earlier this month. Marian Liou of We Love BuHi said the bus crawl team-up with MARTA Army is similarly about “trying to get people to think about Buford Highway in different ways.”
“How can we use what’s best about Buford Highway and about MARTA and begin a conversation about its greater challenges?” Liou asked. “How can we get more people on Buford Highway to think about it from a non-car-centric angle? How do we make Buford Highway more livable and lovable?”
MARTA Army is an independent organization, but MARTA is pleased with the event, said Lyle Harris, a spokesperson for the transit agency.
“Although we’re not directly involved in planning or staging the event, we support the activities of the MARTA Army to encourage greater transit ridership and to help knit our community together,” he said.
The 39 Ride and Dine will begin Wed., April 27 at 6 p.m., with successive groups of riders leaving every 12 minutes from the Doraville MARTA Station. Tickets are $15 and include the food-tastings and event admission, but not MARTA fares. Attendees are encouraged to buy a MARTA day pass good for unlimited rides. A first batch of tickets already sold out, and more will be put on sale Thurs., April 14 at 10 a.m. For tickets and information, see 39rideanddine.eventbrite.com.