C-Tran shutdown would alter lives

By Ariel Hart and Megan Matteucci

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Twenty-year-old Bridget Milam takes Clayton County’s bus system, C-Tran, wherever she goes. She takes it to Brown Mackie College in Atlanta, where she’s getting an associate’s degree in early childhood education. She rides it to her job at a day care center. She has never had a car and can’t afford one now. C-Tran is her lifesaver.

Not for long.

On March 31, Clayton County is scheduled to shut down its bus service, for lack of funds. According to MARTA, which operates the service under contract to the county, the budget falls short by $1.3 million. That’s in spite of projected fare increases.

More than half of C-Tran riders say they have no regular access to a car. People take about 2 million rides a year on C-Tran. Buses are often packed, and they serve important destinations like the county courthouse, Southern Regional Medical Center and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which mostly falls within Clayton County.

Georgia Regional Transportation Authority express buses will continue to take Clayton residents to jobs in Atlanta, but only one route makes multiple stops in the county, said GRTA spokesman William Mecke.

If C-Tran shuts down, it will rearrange the lives of some riders.

“This is my only means of transportation,” said Martell Blackmon, 24, as he walked from a C-Tran bus to his job as a barber. With an arrest record for burglary, he said, finding a job in his field wasn’t easy. He is glad MARTA trains connect to C-Tran buses for his two-and-a-half-hour commute from Atlanta to Morrow. “This is my profession,” he said. “This is what I love to do.”

Milam, the college student, may have to put school and her day care job on hold. “It means I have to find a job closer to home, in walking distance,” she said. “It would probably be fast food.”

The Morrow resident makes $300 to $500 a month at the day care center and saves money by living with relatives.

Milam expressed frustration that she will “have to settle rather than doing something that could further my career.”

Commissioners who voted 4-1 Tuesday for the shutdown said the county is faced with difficult financial choices in a brutal economic climate. Plus, they asserted in a statement issued after the vote, paving roads is a primary duty of the county. Public transit isn’t.

“It’s in the hands of the legislature,” said Commissioner Wole Ralph, who voted for the closure.

Georgia Regional Transportation Authority Deputy Director Jim Ritchey painted a different picture. “In Georgia, local roads are a local responsibility, and local transit is a local responsibility,” he said.

State funding for C-Tran seems unlikely before March 31. The state Department of Transportation is squeezed as it is, said Deputy Commissioner and Chief Engineer Gerald Ross. The state gas tax can only fund roads and bridges. New transportation funding legislation has failed in the General Assembly each of the last two years. Even it passed in 2010, it could take months or years for the money to roll in.

Commissioners have discussed a one cent increase to the county’s sales tax to fund C-Tran. Raising the sales tax would require approval from the legislature and county voters. Joining MARTA would likely require a one cent sales tax and a county referendum.

The Atlanta Regional Commission is unlikely to repeat its rescue of MARTA with C-Tran, said ARC’s director of comprehensive planning, Tom Weyandt.

That was “a one-shot deal” made possible by the federal stimulus and MARTA’s ability to repay the ARC with restricted money that MARTA had on hand.

“Which only serves to emphasize that the truth is it’s not just a MARTA issue, not just a C-Tran issue,” he said. “It’s a fundamental issue of how we fund transit as a state.”

Staff writer Marcus Garner contributed to this article.