Photos: A history of mass transit in Gwinnett County

Metro Atlanta

A history of mass transit in Gwinnett County

In this photo gallery, we take a look back at the various efforts over the decades to bring MARTA to Gwinnett County. In 1971, Gwinnett voters rejected MARTA, even as other counties embraced it. In 1990, Gwinnett voters again rejected MARTA.

In 2001, Gwinnett County Transit began express bus service to Atlanta and in 2002, started local bus service in the county.

The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority began additional express bus routes from Gwinnett to Atlanta in 2006.

In straw polls conducted by the Republican and Democratic parties, Gwinnett voters once again rejected MARTA in 2008.

In 2012, Gwinnett voters overwhelmingly rejected a regional transportation sales tax proposal that included seed money for unspecified transit options linking the I-85 corridor in Gwinnett to MARTA in Doraville.

Although the 2012 T-SPLOST referendum failed to pass in the metro Atlanta area, by 2015 a Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce poll showed that 50 percent of likely voters would pay a 1 percent sales tax to bring MARTA to the county. That same year, local groups sponsored the Gwinnett Great Exchange on Transportation, a series of in-person and online discussions about transit, which found a desire for options like rail transit.

In her February 2016 “state of the county” speech, County Commission Chairman Charlotte Nash shows illustrations of Gwinnett’s future that include bus rapid transit, a kind of bus service that some see as an interim step toward rail transit.

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In this photo gallery, we take a look back at the various efforts over the decades to bring MARTA to Gwinnett County. In 1971, Gwinnett voters rejected MARTA, even as other counties embraced it. In 1990, Gwinnett voters again rejected MARTA.

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