Train delays after Shakira concert are latest cause for concern for MARTA

On X, formerly Twitter, MARTA said single-tracking was put in place because of a mechanical issue. A spokesperson for the agency later told the AJC the post was incorrect, and said single-tracking was in place to do scheduled maintenance between the Garnett and Civic Center stations.

“State Farm and Mercedes-Benz Stadium host hundreds of events per year, and the work sometimes has to happen during event nights,” Payson Schwin said in an email.

MARTA projected low ridership for the concert and “was proven correct,” he said, adding that the GWCC/CNN platform was cleared within 30 minutes of the end of the concert. Additionally, MARTA offered extra shuttle service between the station and Five Points after the concert.

Service alerts indicate MARTA was dealing with multiple issues Monday night, including staff shortages, a power issue at the Five Points station before the concert’s start and the scheduled track work later in the night.

The mechanical issue led to single-tracking at the Five Points, Peachtree Center and Civic Center stations.

Atlanta City Council member Matt Westmoreland was among the concertgoers caught up in the delays. He excitedly tweeted about taking MARTA to the concert, saying it was “both faster and cheaper than by car or scooter” before posting about the post-concert experience.

“In full transparency … between single-track miscommunication, and long-headways … decided to ride a scooter home from Five Points Station,” he wrote. “We have to do better, on multiple fronts, with MARTA’s $1.6 billion annual budget.”

Westmoreland said in an interview he had no issues leaving the concert until he arrived at Five Points. There, his group missed two northbound trains that boarded on the southbound platform because there were no announcements in the station about single-tracking being in effect.

A “helpful” MARTA employee, Westmoreland said, directed his group to the correct platform, but he ultimately decided to rent a scooter after seeing the next train was almost 20 minutes away.

Westmoreland said it’s hard to see MARTA struggling with both daily ridership and big events. The agency apologized last fall after complaints of long waits during Atlanta Pride celebrations, in part because of scheduled track work, and MARTA reevaluated weekend track maintenance schedules as a result.

“Frankly, it feels like we’re firing not as well, or on not as many cylinders, as we were even before we started taxing ourselves an additional half-cent,” he said, referencing the 2016 vote approving a sales tax for transit expansion. “I’m frustrated by that, and I imagine that a lot of other folks are as well.”

MARTA has dealt with many mega downtown events without incident, like when Taylor Swift and Janet Jackson concerts brought an estimated 140,00 riders during one 2023 weekend. The agency maintains a list of concerts, sports games and other big events and regularly increases service levels to meet the higher demand.

But issues with other big events have prompted concerns over how the agency will handle next year’s FIFA World Cup games and, more immediately, whether service will run smoothly for the upcoming Club World Cup.

The first game is in less than two weeks, on June 16.

Transit advocate Darin Givens, the co-founder of urban advocacy group ThreadATL, said issues like the delays after Shakira’s concert should be treated as a big deal.

Downtown events might be the one time many people consider taking MARTA, Givens said. If they have a bad experience getting there or back, it’s likely to discourage them in the future, which runs counter to efforts to get people to use public transportation.

“It’s hard if, once a year, your interface with transit is a terrible experience,” Givens said. “That’s not putting a good face on transit for those people, especially for first-time riders.

“We should be beckoning them in, and when we have service problems, especially for big events, that’s not happening.”

He said MARTA should find ways to better communicate when issues arise.

“It speaks to resiliency,” Givens said. “You know unplanned breakdowns and problems are going to happen. You have to be resilient in that moment so you can still offer people good service and good communication about what’s happening, rather than just people getting shocked when they show up at the station.”

MARTA officials have said they’re treating the Club World Cup games as a trial run for next year and are leading a push to get fans to take public transit to the matches.

“From three Super Bowls, College Football Playoff National Championship games, and NCAA Final Four matches, to regular Falcons, Hawks, and Atlanta United games, MARTA consistently proves itself as the backbone of Atlanta’s event infrastructure, and for many is an essential part of the gameday experience,” the agency said in a news release Monday.

For the Club World Cup matches, MARTA plans to operate additional trains before and after the games, as well as a pregame shuttle train that will run between Five Points and the Georgia World Congress Center stations. MARTA also plans to have transit ambassadors and police stationed throughout the system.

Routine maintenance that would require single-tracking won’t be scheduled during the Club World Cup matches because the anticipated crowds will be much larger, Schwin said.

Westmoreland said there’s so much attention on the World Cup that he expects MARTA, and the city overall, to be prepared. But he said just as much attention should be put on daily service. He said MARTA’s flagging ridership numbers show the system isn’t working as well as it should for many riders.

“It’s not just about hosting eight World Cup games,” he said. “It’s about the hundreds of thousands of people who call Atlanta home on a daily basis and want to be able to ride their transit system with predictability and stability.”

Givens said regular service is his primary concern, too. A MARTA rider since the 1980s, he said the transit agency typically rises to the occasion for big events.

“When these things come along, MARTA is able to improve its service temporarily,” he said. “But it does not seem to have a long-lasting effect for weekday riders that I’ve seen.”