MARTA officials hope the nearly $857 million budget they passed Monday will put a new face on the troubled transit agency.
The budget that goes into effect on July 1 doesn’t add more trains, buses, or perhaps most importantly, bathrooms in the next 12 months. But it did forgo a planned 25-cent fare increase — which would have been the third in five years — and MARTA’s plan has it creating a financially sound agency able to restore cut routes and increase service within a few years.
General Manager Keith Parker hopes avoiding the fare increase — and possibly nixing a planned 15-cent increase in fiscal 2015 — will build credibility with customers who are paying 43 percent more for fares since 2009 with cuts in routes and the frequency of trains and buses. He expects the five-year budgetary plan will build enough credibility with the Legislature that it will seriously consider providing some state funding, and he is counting on a 3 percent bonus in December and a 3 percent raise for employees in the following fiscal year to restore morale.
“I think the budget puts us on the path to fiscal sustainability,” he said.
It may be a bumpy path. MARTA management began labor negotiations with representatives from Amalgamated Transit Union Local 732 Monday for a labor contract that could collide with Parker’s five-year plan.
Union President Curtis Howard has said the union will oppose Parker’s plans to privatize seven departments, including payroll and para-transit services — by suing in court if necessary. The budget for fiscal 2014 isn’t dependent on savings from outsourcing although the five-year budget plan is. “It is part of the transformational plan,” said Fred Daniels, chairman of the MARTA board of directors.
The union also considers the five-year plan an attack on its members’ benefits in terms of pensions and health care, which they negotiated in return for forgoing raises. Parker contends that management recommendations for revamping the health care plan do not necessarily equal cuts in benefits. “They could end up getting something just as good as today but more streamlined,” he said.
But MARTA’s future is also tied to attracting more riders — currently almost 70 percent are transit-dependent — and to do that, Parker knows he has to improve service. In the next year, the system is replacing 88 buses with new ones and plans a “secret shopper” program of using undercover operatives to gauge employee courtesy and responsiveness.
One thing that might help — better access to bathrooms — won’t happen until 2015, Parker said.
MARTA officials also said they are going to put more police on buses and trains to make patrons feel safer and to crack down on “knucklehead” rider behavior — such as talking or playing music too loudly and panhandling or peddling on transit. They hope such moves will make the service more attractive to “choice” riders — the minority of patrons who have alternate transportation.
Currently officers spend more time patrolling areas such as parking lots to prevent car burglaries, but camera surveillance could fill that role, Parker said.
He said the system is investing in video analytics, camera systems that can detect anomalies, such as a package left behind or a person entering a restricted area. The agency has already put surveillance cameras on most buses that have three years of service life and expects to have them on trains before next spring, Parker said.
“We think that is going to do wonders about the perceptions of safety,” he said.
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