Dave Cummings was thinking of leaving Atlanta for a lot of reasons, but this September’s MARTA cutbacks, he said, were the last straw.
Cummings doesn’t know it, but he was a completely expected casualty of MARTA’s service cuts, one of many.
MARTA has just crunched the numbers, and in the month after it cut bus hours by 10 percent and rail hours by 14 percent, MARTA lost a heap of riders.
The service cutbacks began Sept. 25, and pass prices rose on Oct. 3. In October, people took 37,000 fewer train trips than they did in September, and 325,000 fewer bus trips. Those are declines of 0.5 percent and 5.6 percent.
Although ridership can vary seasonally, that doesn’t appear to be the problem. Comparing October of this year with October of last year brings the same result, a decline. MARTA passengers took 670,000 fewer bus trips this October than last October, and 131,000 fewer train trips. That’s a decline of 11 percent of bus ridership and 1.9 percent of train ridership.
"MARTA was never super-easy," said Cummings, who coaches acting classes. "But when cuts went into effect, it really added to how much time I would have to wait" for rides. "It was just a straw that broke the camel’s back kind of a deal."
When service scales back and fares go up, “you’re going to lose riders,” said Jane Hayse, transportation planning chief at the Atlanta Regional Commission. “It’s just a matter of how steep that decline is.”
According to MARTA's chief of business support services, Ted Basta, the decline so far was not as steep as MARTA feared. Cautioning that one month of data is not much, Basta noted that the ridership declines were smaller percentagewise than the service cutbacks.
“To me, this says, despite the fare increases, despite the decrease in service we were forced into, MARTA is still viewed as a great option for traveling,” Basta said. “Otherwise we would have experienced pound for pound.”
But the ridership decrease still cuts into MARTA’s fare revenue, not to mention that it flies in the face of the region’s attempts to decrease traffic congestion by providing options.
“Obviously it’s inconsistent with our overall policy of trying to reduce [traffic] and trying to provide more choices for the citizens of the region,” Hayse said. “I think it’s indicative of just the state we’re in right now, with the lack of funding available for these services, and then the tremendous need for the services.”
The cuts did not put MARTA in the black. MARTA is pulling $69 million in reserves to help make up a $109 million deficit. Its overall operating budget is $425 million, Basta said. By the fiscal year 2013, MARTA's reserves will be depleted.
Because of the spiral effect where service cuts cause more losses of revenue, MARTA would probably have to eliminate about half of all its service to completely close the gap, MARTA CEO Beverly Scott has said.
MARTA is hoping that the regional transportation referendum going before voters in 2012 helps the service, but there are restrictions on how money from the tax could be used for MARTA if it passes.
Looking at the new ridership data, Basta said MARTA does not know for sure what happens to those dropped passengers. Some of the lost trips just vanish, like Cummings’ will after he moves to New York in January.
That's not true of all the lost trips. Some passengers who had to get to jobs said they would try to buy a car or had already got a hold of one.
Page Lewis, a wheelchair user, used to pick up a MARTA bus to Publix right in front of her home in Midtown, but that stop was eliminated. Now she has friends make special car trips just to drive her, putting an extra car on the road. That's less expensive for her than MARTA's Mobility service for the handicapped, which is expanding service to comply with a court order.
Regionwide, ARC’s last transit survey showed that 40 percent of passengers had no access to a car.
That extra car for Lewis means added congestion, in an area that is already the third most-congested in the United States, according to the study Urban Mobility by the Texas Transportation Institute.
One thing is clear to Basta, he said: With the train ridership falling so slightly, many passengers who used to take the bus to the train are still getting to the train somehow.
But fewer bus routes aren't the only obstacle for those trying to use MARTA trains.
Roda Osman works at an airport shop and is still taking the train -- but at a cost. The train now doesn't start until 6 a.m. on weekends, but Osman has to open her store at 5:30 a.m.
She can’t give up the $10 per hour she makes at her job. So on weekends, the single mother does the only thing she can: She takes the train to the airport the night before, she said, and sleeps in a chair in the lobby.
“What are you going to do,” Osman said. “I have to be here in the morning.”
MARTA ridership*
Sept. 2009: 12.595 million
Oct. 2009: 13.136 million
Sept. 2010: 12.697 million
Oct. 2010: 12.337 million
MARTA train trips
Sept. 2009: 6.930 million
Oct. 2009: 7.005 million
Sept. 2010: 6.911 million
Oct. 2010: 6.874 million
MARTA bus trips
Sept. 2009: 5.624 million
Oct. 2009: 6.087 million
Sept. 2010: 5.742 million
Oct. 2010: 5.417 million
Source: MARTA
* MARTA ridership includes train trips, bus trips and Mobility service.
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