MARTA service cuts now a reality

Jyndiyah El-Amin knew that the big MARTA cuts now rolling out would mess with her Waffle House staff on Roswell Road.

And they did. Out of seven employees on the 7 a.m. shift this weekend, one showed up on time. Waiting for the others to trickle in, the night staff had to keep working.

Then came Monday, and the workweek. In the pre-dawn rain, Marlon Robinson stood waiting at the Lithonia park-and-ride lot for the commuter bus No. 216 to pick him up. When a reporter asked what he would do now, it took a minute to register. “It’s not coming today?” he asked.

The man next to him looked wide-eyed, said “It’s been cut?” and bolted to another bus standing nearby. As Robinson debated with a MARTA bus driver from another route about whether the signs posted in the No. 216 had confirmed the bus was cut, a third man walked up from the parking lot, heard their conversation, turned foot and ran back to his car.

MARTA officials say they have done their best to notify their 142,000 daily passengers that 440 miles of bus coverage are disappearing, as is train service before 6 a.m. on weekends. As revenue from sales taxes and fares has fallen, forcing tightened belts at all levels of government and in transportation agencies regionwide, MARTA has cut back 10 percent of bus service and 14 percent of rail service.

So the agency has plastered notices on defunct bus stops, on the inside of bus windows and laying on seats, and at end-of-the line train stations (including that No. 216, where a flier with the No. 216 circled and crossed out in red read "Route Discontinued," according to MARTA).  It’s held meetings, sent press releases and opened its phone lines to questions. Its website in recent days has featured clear descriptions of routes that are going away or changing, and what alternatives may exist.

It didn't work for everyone.

"As far as I knew, it was going to be cut possibly, sometime," Robinson said. "Me being out here today really messed me up." Shortly afterward, Bryan Penton, waiting for the same bus at the same stop, found himself in the same boat. "I was aware," he said. "I just didn't know when."

Before them, a stream of refugees from the No. 216 marched briskly up to other buses at the Lithonia park-and-ride lot -- the No. 111, the No. 86 -- and sat down. They said they learned from signs or fliers in the No. 216, or talking to bus drivers or passengers, that it was going away and they had to figure out their new routes.

For those passengers and many on other routes, there was no chaos. Just an hour or two gone from each day, permanently.

"I'm not going to make it home before the school bus," said Shaaron Austin, who loves to greet her two youngest kids with a PB&J sandwich. She said she would normally take the No. 86 bus directly to and from her work as a home medical care assistant, but now she has to take three. "I'm usually at work by now. I'm really late," she said. "I didn't think they were really going to do it."

Austin said the morning seemed mixed up. "The buses this morning, they didn't know where they were going. Everybody was behind schedule" by a few minutes, she said. "They weren't familiar with the routes they were taking."

Another passenger, Brittany Langford, said she checked the train schedule over the weekend and didn't see it.

Langford was waiting for a northbound train at the MARTA Five Points station Monday morning, and she said she had to leave earlier because of the schedule change. “It’s difficult,” said Langford, who depends on MARTA to look for a job.

A spokesman for MARTA, Lyle Harris, said that the new train schedules were up over the weekend. As of dinnertime Monday, MARTA hadn't been swamped with an unusually high number of calls, he said, but that could be because of shorter call-center hours, or because passengers were just getting their heads above water and would call later to figure it all out.

"The day’s not out yet," Harris said. "We’re a little surprised. ... We’re bracing for folks who may be a little bit confused." At the same time, "we think we may have done a pretty good job communicating the changes."

Considering what he called "dramatic" bus route changes, Harris added, "except a few snafus, we haven’t had any major problems with routes."

For El-Amin's diner employees, it wasn't botched planning, but a simple lack of a train at the necessary time.

“With the first train leaving at 6 a.m., it affects almost all of my employees,” said El-Amin. “We can’t do anything but work with them.”

Not all the news was rough. Kai Lewis even liked his new route better than the old No. 111. "Actually this bus is better," he said. "It goes straight up Covington Highway.  The No. 111, it would weave."

A few MARTA passengers said the cuts were going to lead them down a very expensive path, for their wallets and for Atlanta's traffic: They would buy a car.

Seattle’s Best Coffee barista Shante Heath, who is supposed to be at work at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport at 5:30 a.m., said it's her only choice, with weekend service beginning at 6 a.m.