Regardless of what anyone thinks, its not so much the art you learn, as the teacher that you learn it from. Any martial art can be deadly effective, as long as you have a teacher who knows what he's doing, and teaches it the way it was meant to be taught. The reason TKD has such a bad rep is that most dojos these days are run by people who really have no idea what they are doing, and are trying to make a quick buck by running people up the belt ladder as quickly as possible. A competent TKD teacher will make you a compentent TKD artist. No matter how awesome BJJ or Judo may be, a crappy teacher will create a crappy student, and no matter how crappy the art, an excellent teacher will make an excellent student.

All that being said, if you want to take TKD, go for it, just make sure you do youre research on the school, and more importantly, the teacher. Other less "mainstream" martial arts, such as Judo, tend to have higher quality teachers in general, making it easier to find a good school, but theres no reason you cant find a good one somewhere nearby.