MARTA officials say an escalator at the Vine City station had “nothing wrong” with it mechanically and malfunctioned after a Beyoncé concert this week only because it was overloaded with too many people.
The transit agency had half as many staff as it needed and will be evaluating how to fully staff events and manage crowds on escalators going forward, Chief Customer Experience Officer Rhonda Allen told the board of directors in a briefing Thursday.
Allen said the number of people on the escalator exceeded its capacity, which caused the failure shortly after midnight Tuesday. The escalator rapidly sped up and then stopped, throwing passengers into a pile at the bottom and sending seven to the hospital.
Routine, monthly maintenance was done on the escalator just days before, on July 10, she said.
“Everything had been done properly there and signed off,” Allen said. “There was nothing wrong with the escalator except it was overloaded.”
Thursday’s meeting was the first time the board has gathered since the incident at Vine City and an earlier issue that caused significant delays during the AJC Peachtree Road Race. Allen briefed the board on both events, as well as service during the recent Club World Cup.
MARTA General Manager and CEO Collie Greenwood was not in attendance. Later in the meeting, board attorney Jonathan Hunt announced that Greenwood, who is Canadian, was stepping down from his position “due to immigration and personal matters.” Allen will replace Greenwood as interim CEO.
The escalator malfunction has led to a call for an investigation from one Atlanta City Council member. MARTA board members did not discuss that request or make any of their own for a review. Only two members asked questions.
Atlanta City Council member Marci Collier Overstreet, who is vice chair of the council’s transportation committee, said there needs to be an investigation to determine what went wrong so future incidents can be prevented.
Overstreet said the probe should look at the escalator’s inspection and maintenance history, the cause of the abrupt speeding and stopping, MARTA’s crowd control efforts and the systemwide risk to other escalators.
“This was a terrible, horrific situation, and it could have been even worse,” Overstreet said in an interview. “I just want to make sure we have a plan for next time.”
Allen said MARTA had 200 additional staff helping with service during the Beyoncé concerts.
“Unfortunately, that was about half of what we needed,” she said.
Staff were near the fare gates to control entrances into the station, as well as on the concourse and platform. MARTA police were also present. Because Vine City is a smaller station, it takes more effort to manage an even flow through the station, Allen said.
There was no staff managing entrances onto the escalator, she said. That’s something they are going to look at ensuring in the future.
MARTA has said a woman outside the station screamed after seeing a bug, causing those who didn’t know why she screamed to panic. People inside the concourse tried to exit the area through the escalator, Allen said.
There should not be more than one person on each escalator step, Allen said, but “that is not what happened.”
It was overloaded beyond capacity, causing it to speed up rapidly for 5-10 seconds, she estimated. Then it came to a sudden stop.
That’s what’s supposed to happen during an emergency, she said. But the force of the stop threw people onto the platform.
Allen said inspectors from the state came Wednesday and examined the escalator alongside MARTA staff.
The Office of the Commissioner of Insurance oversees escalator and elevator inspections. A spokesperson for the agency said it investigates after any incident causing injuries to “get down to the nitty-gritty.”
“Incidents are usually few and far between,” spokesman Bryce Rawson said. “We want to make sure we have a proactive report.”
The agency won’t identify an official cause until it has received reports from MARTA and police, expected shortly. They’ll be investigating whether weight limits were exceeded or if there was a faulty part.
“We just don’t know,” he said.
MARTA has two escalators at the Vine City station, one built in 2011 and the other in 2023, according to an inventory completed earlier this year. It’s not clear which one malfunctioned.
Escalators are inspected annually, and the two at Vine City were last inspected in November, according to copies of the inspection reports provided to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after a records request.
There were no issues found, according to the reports.
In February 2024, MARTA was dinged for not keeping Vine City escalator maintenance records. No other violations have been noted in the past five years.
MARTA is in the middle of an elevator and escalator modernization project that began in fall 2016. At the time, many of the system’s escalators were beyond a 25-year recommended life span.
As of November 2024, about 75% of escalators had been updated, according to the transit agency’s website. This year’s budget includes $15 million for rehabilitation, followed by an additional $10.4 million through 2028.
The $217 million modernization project was initially scheduled to be finished in 2026.
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