MARTA reroutes buses around Halloween high jinks

By Ariel Hart

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It’s Halloween: time to reroute the buses.

Halloween falling on a Saturday means few worries about a bedeviled rush hour, as no weekday commuters will be hitting the road en masse to see the kids off before dark.

But on MARTA, mixing fright night with the most partying day of the week could make for a sinister ride.

That’s why bus routes 4, 18, 42, 51 and 69 will skip some regular stops and be routed around trouble spots Saturday night, according to MARTA.

In previous years, marauding revelers turned Halloween into a fiendish drive for some buses, throwing eggs and bricks and even damaging the vehicles. So MARTA last year temporarily rerouted some buses for the night, a Friday.

“We had a tremendous decrease in vandalism,” said Alvarez Mathieu, MARTA's general superintendent of Perry garage. So MARTA is repeating the exercise this year.

For more detail on the routes, go to itsmarta.com and look under “news and events” and “system updates," or call (404) 848-5000.  Here are some of the bus changes, according to Mathieu:

Route 3, between Hamilton Holmes and West Lake stations: not going to Barfield Loop.

Route 4, between Five Points Station and McDonough Blvd: not going to Hendrix Loop.

Route 18, coming in and out of Decatur Station: not going to Hardee Circle.

Route 42, between Lakewood Station and Five Points: avoiding all loops.

Route 51, toward Collier Heights: Takes a left on Joseph Boone Ave. instead of continuing ion New Jersey Ave.

Route 51, toward Westlake Station: no changes.

Route 69, outbound toward to West Lake Station:  not going to Tiger Flower Loop.