Legislators, MARTA advocates rally for action

State legislators and MARTA advocates rallied Wednesday to voice fury at the state’s leadership for inaction that could lead to severe service cuts for MARTA trains and buses.

At Five Points station in downtown Atlanta, they called on leaders to have a special session of the Legislature, or for Gov. Sonny Perdue to impose an emergency fix.

Neither option seems viable to Perdue, according to recent statements from Perdue and his staff.

“We are here, most of us, today to go before our Republican pharaohs and say, ‘Let our money go!’ ” said Rep. Roger Bruce (D-Atlanta).

The Legislature adjourned Friday without freeing up MARTA’s access to its own money. MARTA officials say they will be forced to close a budget gap with drastic measures, perhaps shutting down all service one day a week.

MARTA gets more than half its revenues from a sales tax levied in Fulton and DeKalb counties, and those revenues fell as the economy soured. To close a gap of $24 million to operate the system, MARTA officials want to use $65 million they have sitting in capital reserves. But state law requires MARTA to spend half of those sales tax revenues on capital expenses, not operating the system, so that $65 million is off limits.

Senate Bill 120 would have lifted the restriction. It passed the Senate, but stalled in the House. House members passed other legislation that would have eased the requirement, but to do that they stripped out a bill the Senate wanted.

Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Atlanta), who heads the Legislature’s oversight commitee on MARTA, said the $65 million wouldn’t solve the long-term funding issue.

Bruce and other Atlanta-area representatives said that House leaders had held the MARTA bill hostage for their votes on another bill (SR 1), which the Atlanta legislators opposed. They confirmed that House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island) had told them he lived closer to Disney World in Florida than he did to Atlanta, and only rode MARTA occasionally, to ball games.

Keen did not return calls.