Flawed budget threatens Clayton C-Tran buses

Rate hikes, service cuts proposed for already crowded transit system

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By Ariel Hart

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Clayton County’s mass transit service, C-Tran, could leave riders stranded next year because of a flawed budget the county put together, said MARTA CEO Beverly Scott.

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JOHN AMIS, AJC file C-Tran riders can attend a public hearing on Oct. 7 in Jonesboro.

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After delays and MARTA’s warnings, Scott said, the county has started the legal balls rolling to address the crisis, though. If those actions continue, it appears unlikely the service would actually shut down. Rather, it would be faced with cutting service in a system that is already packed with riders, and increasing fares to levels rarely seen by any local transit agency.

C-Tran is owned by Clayton County but operated by MARTA, unlike MARTA’s regular systems in Fulton and DeKalb counties.

The county, which sets the fare, has called a public hearing for Oct. 7 to propose service cuts, a fare hike and a temporary surcharge that could bring fares to more than $3.

“Our estimate to Clayton County is that if we continue to just keep running fat, dumb and happy like we are, that what’s going to wind up happening is that you will be stranded with no service from MARTA as of the end of March,” Scott told a standing-room-only crowd at a public meeting in Riverdale last week.

Franklin Beauford, Clayton County’s public transit director, did not return several phone calls or an e-mail.

“We on Oct. 7 will have a public hearing,” said Jamie Carlington, a spokeswoman for the county commission. “The county is definitely going to listen to everything that the public is saying about that. That’s all we have to say on the matter right now.”

For months MARTA officials had asked for more information on Clayton County’s plans for C-Tran for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2009, Scott said. When the county finally sent MARTA C-Tran’s budget a month into the new fiscal year, Scott said, it showed some sources of revenue that made no sense.

The budget assumed that a fare increase from $1.50 to $2 would produce nearly $1 million more than it actually would, she said. “The budget starting right out of the hopper was off by $1.3 million,” she told the audience in Riverdale. She said C-Tran’s total expenses for the fiscal year that just ended were $7.8 million. In the fiscal year that just ended, people took 2.1 million rides on C-Tran buses, according to MARTA.

Transit agencies, which take federal money, are legally required to undergo lengthy warning periods with public hearings before raising fares or substantially cutting service. So the delays this year are now a problem, Scott said. Even if the county acts as soon as possible to reduce service, it will not be able to start the actual cost-cutting for several months. That means the measures to come afterward will be all the harsher, Scott said.

MARTA officials don’t plan to attend the Oct. 7 hearing because Scott doesn’t want MARTA or herself to become its focus.

Justin Anderson, 20, takes C-Tran buses from Riverdale to his college in Norcross and his job in downtown Atlanta. He attended the Riverdale meeting. “It would be drastic” if C-Tran went away, he said. “I’d lose my house, my education will go down.”

Anderson echoed an assertion by Scott that the bus service is already overcrowded. “It’s ridiculous,” he said. “You don’t have a place to sit and the aisles are completely filled.”

Sixty-five percent of C-Tran riders have no access to a car for their rides, and 61 percent take it for work trips, according to MARTA.

Public hearing

What: County hearing on C-Tran

When: Oct. 7, 7-9 p.m.

Where: Clayton County Administration Building, 112 Smith St., Jonesboro, GA 30236