MARTA cuts roll out Saturday

By Ariel Hart

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

With service cuts going into effect Saturday, MARTA riders -- and their employers -- must come to terms with significant changes in routes and schedules.

-- Many MARTA bus stops -- 2,700 of 11,500 -- are plastered with notices that they will soon serve no buses.

-- Passengers who ride the train before 6 a.m. on weekends have done that for the last time, according to MARTA.

-- Customer service offices, bathrooms, information booths, lost and found and a host of other services on Friday are seeing their last day of longer hours.

Across the metro area, people who depend on MARTA are bracing, as the agency lifts the knife on 10 percent of bus service and 14 percent of rail service.  Pass fare increases and the final phase-out of tokens happen at the beginning of October. Of MARTA's 142,000 daily passengers, the agency estimates 14 percent won't be in easy walking distance anymore.

Bethlehem Mekonnen, Joel Gerber and Rodney Poitier don’t know one another, but their lives are changing because of what starts Saturday. Thinking of that day, they and other MARTA patrons hold their heads in their hands, or frown and shrug, or snap.

“I don’t know,” fumed Mekonnen, when a reporter asked what she’s going to do when she can’t get to her job at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport shop she opens before 6 a.m. “Always I’m going to work on Saturday and Sunday late?” Her employer knows about the MARTA problem, she said, talking at the Five Points station, but “That’s a business. They don’t have a choice.”

MARTA officials say they don’t have a choice either, as sales tax revenues from Fulton and DeKalb counties that fund much of the agency’s operations have declined. Even with the cuts MARTA is making to address an estimated $109 million deficit, it will still come up $69 million short, and have to pull that from reserves. It projects its reserves will run dry in the fiscal year 2013.

The impact varies across the metro area for people who use MARTA trains and buses to get to work or transfer to another transit system.

Detailed maps posted on MARTA's website and at train stations show how bus routes will veer away from less-used paths, or take longer routes to pick up dropped portions of other buses. In general, train passengers will see slightly longer waits, and more who take branch lines will have to stop for transfers.

Government and transit agencies across the country and metro Atlanta have faced cuts because of the tough economy.

Clayton County reaped national attention when it completely eliminated its bus system, C-Tran, earlier this year, citing budget pressures. The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority set up its Xpress commuter bus system without permanent operations funding, and without new money, it will go broke and shut down in the next fiscal year. Expecting local operating funds to decrease, Cobb Community Transit has proposed fare increases and reductions in service.

As for MARTA's changes, not all cuts are bad, said Rep. Jill Chambers, who chairs the legislative oversight committee that oversees the agency.

"I can certainly show them routes in my community that can be cut or at least the frequency cut," Chambers said. Especially with money running out, "That’s not to say they’re not providing a good service, but these are things that need to be taken into consideration."

Rather than wait for the ax, Gerber and his fellow volunteers at a mission house in the Capitol View section of Atlanta are already trying to do without the No. 54 bus that stops right in front of their group home.

Joel Gerber, 30, and his wife, Leslie, 24, gave up their cars and teaching jobs in Kansas -- and, in Joel’s case, work as a head football coach -- to come volunteer with the poor in Atlanta for at least a year.

"There were tons of people at home that were like, ‘What are you guys, crazy?'" he said. "The basic idea for both me and Leslie was that, where we were at and how people were treating each other, there has to be more to life than just the normal nine-to-five and just grinding it out. The world has got so much potential for people who want to do good, and we wanted to be a part of that."

MARTA was going to make getting around a snap, until the cuts.

The house they live in with other volunteers is spare but comfortable -- inside. Outside, the neighborhood is a mixture of boarded-up, overgrown buildings and cared-for homes. There is one intersection in particular they need to avoid, house organizer Jannan Thomas said, because of drugs, gang activity and prostitution that creeps out there at night.

Thomas runs another program that has a van, so she switched the van to the volunteer home -- though who knows what they'll do when the van has to go back in spring. In the meantime, three volunteers are juggling use of the van to make sure no one walks after dark. Joel Gerber gets himself to the MARTA station at midday -- usually by bike, but when the bike tire goes flat, as it did one day this week, on foot.

Other passengers are in tougher spots, wondering if their livelihoods are in danger. As Poitier stood at the Five Points station before dawn last Saturday, he called the people around him the "human infrastructure" that the nine-to-five crowd sometimes forgets about.

"They're the ones that clean the homes, that get up and get the hotels started, the hospitals, the nursing homes," he said.

He said he thinks MARTA should have tried harder with administrative cuts before cutting service. MARTA officials counter that management has forgone raises, laid off hundreds and eliminated more than 700 positions.

End of the line

Detailed information is available on MARTA’s website, itsmarta.com. Check there first if you can. This is clearer information than was posted there a couple of months ago: For example, the website formerly said under bus No. 45 that “service will no longer be provided” along North Highland Avenue. But the route explanation on the website now makes it clear that as the No. 45 goes away, the No. 16 bus will provide service instead on North Highland.

Try the website. If that doesn’t work, MARTA is answering route questions at 404-848-5000.

Starting Saturday

• Buses

Reducing bus route coverage from 1,479 miles to 1,034 miles.

Eliminating 2,700 of 11,500 bus stops.

For information:

Bus stops slated for elimination have been marked with a “Rider Alert” sign.

Detailed explanations of each route change, and new route maps, are available online for passengers with Internet access at itsmarta.com.

End-of-the-line stops show the new routes.

• Trains

Waits for trains will increase by up to five minutes.

The first hour of weekend train service will be eliminated, and trains will start at 6 a.m.

Smaller trains at night, with fewer cars.

Final train runs start at 1 a.m., even on weekdays.

More passengers will have to transfer between train lines when using the red and green lines. Those lines will start running their shorter runs at 7 p.m., earlier than they currently do.

For information:

MARTA has not yet posted detailed train times on its website.

Basic terms of the longer headways and train line changes are online at itsmarta.com.

• Call centers

Reduced hours: Route information from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekends and holidays

Customer services: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays

Five Points information booth: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, no holidays

No more checking Breeze card balances over the phone. You can still do it online or at a Breeze vending machine.

• Ride stores

At Lenox and Lindbergh, they will close.

At the airport and Five Points stations, they will stay open.

• Restrooms

They will close to the public everywhere except nine stations: Bankhead, College Park, Doraville, Edgewood/Candler Park, Five Points, Hamilton E. Holmes, Indian Creek, Lindbergh and North Springs.

To get access, you must ask a station agent. They will open at 6 a.m. every day. Everywhere but Five Points, they will close at 7 p.m. Five Points’ restroom will close at 10 p.m.

• Reduced Fare Office

Closed from noon to 2 p.m.; otherwise open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays-Fridays.

• Lost and Found at Five Points

Closed from noon to 2 p.m.; otherwise open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays.

Starting Oct. 1

• Tokens

Yes, some people still use them to buy Breeze cards, but token time is soon over. Trade them in for Breeze card rides by Sept. 30, or lose them. No refunds, no selling them back to MARTA.

Starting Oct. 3

• Fares

No change in the $2 one-way fare or the one-day pass.

Mobility passes and passes from two days to 30 days all go up.

• Free kids

Only two children under 46 inches tall can ride free with an adult, as opposed to four.

Starting next year

Shuttles to Braves games and Lakewood Amphitheatre eliminated.