It’s a question the transit agency often gets asked by riders, would-be travelers, even their own board members: Why can’t MARTA run express trains, especially to the airport, from, say Lindbergh Center or even North Springs station?
The answer is simple: there’s no room.
“If you want to run a service like that you have to design the system up front to accommodate it,” says Richard Krisak, MARTA’s chief operating officer. “This system never envisioned having any kind of express trains, or third tracks or fourth tracks to run on. If you look at the systems that run those kinds of express services — like the Broad Street subway in Philadelphia, parts of New York City — they were designed to do that (with extra tracks).”
In short, trains have to pass other trains or express trains cannot work. “It’s like driving down a two-lane road and you’ve got to pass the other cars to fit in,” Krisak says. “We don’t have that capability to pass without severely interrupting the service coming in the opposite direction. And we don’t have room to put a separate passing track in.”
Nevertheless, questions about express trains keep coming up, so agency officials developed a presentation for the MARTA board of directors to explain the eliminating factors. Krisak outlined the reasons MARTA can’t run express trains:
First, there are the tunnels. “We’re not going to build a new tunnel bore to put an extra track in,” Krisak says. “The tunnel is two tracks, that’s all it’s going to be.”
Second, there are the elevated tracks. “A lot of our system is on aerial structure. It’s elevated, so we’d have to build a bridge parallel to the existing bridge. That eliminates a portion of it.”
Third is the right-of-way. “I really don’t think SRTA (State Road and Tollway Authority) is going to give us additional right of way to put more tracks in (on the existing line) up Georgia 400.”
Even if MARTA wanted to add capacity for express trains, the cost of a buildout would be prohibitive. Generally speaking, in today’s dollars, it costs $200 million a mile for heavy rail technology, Krisak says. “That’s a lot of money to spend to save riders what might be six minutes on, say, a 43-minute run time. It’s kind of hard to justify that kind of expenditure for that kind of travel-time savings.”
Without being able to provide express service, MARTA is looking at other ways to help airport travelers: offering parking discounts; installing phone-charging stations on train platforms; designing luggage racks on reconfigured rail cars. If you ride MARTA to the airport, you know the inconvenience of stowing your bags nearby.
And if you’re a commuter, you know the perils of suitcases blocking the aisle and the hassle when people board with enough luggage for a safari, only to place it on a seat that you would like to inhabit.
“As we recondition our rail car fleet, or we purchase new fleets, we’re looking at putting better luggage capacity in the vehicles,” Krisak says. “We do have designated luggage areas now, but they are a little remote from where you sit, and people are concerned about that. There’s luggage in the aisle. There’s luggage on top of the seats. The regular riders don’t like it.”
The answer may be “multi-purpose areas” for baggage, for bicycles and for riders who prefer to stand even when seats are available. These new luggage areas would be more along the lines of the racks you see on airport shuttle buses.
As MARTA did with its new buses, the public will be invited to comment and offer suggestions for new rail car design.
MARTA is also seeking to partner with a company to provide WiFi on the system and its parking lots, a welcome amenity for riders who endure dropped electronic service when trains go underground. Once you get in a tunnel — MARTA has 10 miles of tunnel track, according to its website — there’s no coverage for electronic devices.
The above enhancements may not make your ride any faster, but they will make the service more comfortable and convenient. Every little bit helps in that regard.
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