MARTA Will Receive 1/3 Of GA's Transit $
February 19, 2009 | 9:53 amMARTA announced yesterday that it will receive between $60M-$70M of the $180M allocated for GA mass transit in the federal stimulus package. But as we suspected, that money cannot be used to cover operating expenses, so MARTA plans to use the funds for repairs and “system preservation projects”.
Not the sort of news that gets transit-huggers all hot and bothered, though I guess it could be considered “investing in the future”. I’m still eager to hear how the other $120M will be spent.
Meanwhile, it sounds like we won’t know for a couple months how the now much-malined (thanks a lot Harry Reid) high-speed rail money will be distributed. The U.S. Transportation Sec. will distribute that money directly.
Johnny Issakson better get crackin’! Here’s where you can contact him, in case you’d like to drop him a line.
Don’t get your hopes up about high speed rail in Georgia. There are no lines even close to a design stage and we can’t even get commuter rail like Atlanta-Griffin or Atlanta-Athens running.
Here’s a follow up to this story….
According to WABE, MARTA plans on using $15 million of their $60 mil on new buses. Also MARTA wants to make “much needed” updates at West End and Ashby stations.
“Stimulus money will also fund much needed improvements to rail stations like Ashby in the West End”.
I’d be interested to know what exactly the above statement means! I hope it’s not devoting funds to cosmetics at the expense of targeting infrastructure changes that can ultimately improve reliability!