Who Will Save MARTA?
Decatur Metro | December 18, 2008Has anyone else been following this MARTA $60 million budget deficit story?
Over the past week or so, we’ve gotten a nice, healthy taste of the impending crisis for MARTA, thanks to its heavy reliance on the 1 cent sales tax (it accounts for 52% of revenue). As people buy less, MARTA receives less tax money. This isn’t an uncommon way of funding public transit – this document I discovered thru Terminal Station shows that a 1 cent sales tax is the majority funding mechanism for most city’s around the country.
But what to do when the market collapses? (We could ask this same question about 401k dominated retirement plans!)
Who foots the bill for public transit when stops growing? In ultra-dense areas, like NYC, where public transit is widely supported, legislators are thinking about implementing a payroll tax. But that would never fly in Atlanta/GA. So who will save public transit in car-smooching cities like Atlanta, which provide questionable support for transit even in boom times?
At a Tuesday meeting of MARTA minds, general manager Beverly Scott announced that it would do whatever it could to reduce costs, including a hiring and salary increase freeze, freeing up some funding tagged for construction only, and reversing a prohibition on eating, which could invite food vendors (and their fees) into the stations. But that won’t do much to ease the pinch. Without some sort of outside help, MARTA predicts a “draconian” reduction in service and a huge ticket price increase in the coming year.
So, who will come to MARTA’s aid? The state? Yeah right. The feds? Maybe. But every other transit org in the U.S. will be clamoring for the same help…so MARTA will be just one beggar among the masses.
So how big is the nation’s purse when it comes to its commitment to public transit? Are the struggles of the U.S. auto industry a sign that we’ve moved beyond the automobile era and have turned a corner into a century where the auto lobby doesn’t rule supreme on Capitol Hill? Or is this just a hiccup for the auto industry?
Once we get the answer to “Who Will Save MARTA?” we should have a much clearer idea.
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Raise the fares, raise them sharply, and raise them now. An unlimited use MARTA pass is $52.50/month — this is ridiculously cheap, and even moreso when you consider that the fares can be paid for with pre-tax income. Obviously, we need at this point to ask those who use the service to pony up a bit more than the mere 30% of the services’ operating expenses for which their fares now account.
An even steeper increase in the one-way fare is even better, as many of those folks are taking MARTA to the airport, sporting event, etc., and even a large increase pales in comparison to the money it costs to park a car. Compare: taking BART from the SF Airport to the financial district costs about $10. Why shouldn’t MARTA charge $5 — more than twice the current fare — to get one from Peachtree Center to Hartsfield? Why does MARTA charge the same fare to get you from Avondale to Decatur as it would to take you from Avondale to North Point? The whole fare system is very poorly managed and almost designed not to maximize revenue.
The food vendors idea, unfortunately, has the very definite possibility of turning the stations into festering garbage dumps.
I think you’ll definately see a distance based fare system in the very near future. On the previous token system it would have been hard to do, but with the Breeze system the technology is there.
Inviting food vendors + freeze on hiring additional personnel to clean up food waste = UNGODLY MESS
And a time-of-day based fare system, as well.
Increasing fares, especially gauged on distance traveled, would be a fair way to increase revenues. But I don’t want to see food vendors in the stations and more eating/drinking on the buses and trains — it is prohibited now, but it still happens. Imagine the messes that will be created with a laissez faire policy, and fewer people to clean up!!! Please, NO! Just increase my fares, and I will still be happy. I haven’t owned a car in 10 years (by choice), and I don’t want to go back to that nightmare. Perdue needs to spend more $$ on mass transit/public transportation, not less. I hope for the best, for Atlanta’s sake. I am moving away soon, but hope MARTA will still be here when I come back for visits.
I’m also cool with the fare based idea.
And I definitely question the idea of allowing eating and vendors. How much $ can that actually bring in? I can’t imagine its all that much. And won’t they need to add additional cleaning staff if they also the selling and eating of food?
Odd idea.
The folks to pay attention to on the State level are the state reps and senators on MARTOC.
Sen John Wiles, the vice-chair, who is from — of all places — Marietta is very skeptical that MARTA is using tax payer dollars wisely. My suspicion is that his attitude will be to cast MARTA as a waste no matter what MARTA does, or how clean their sheets really are. Same goes for the chair of the committee, Jill Chambers.
By State law, half the sales tax revenue that MARTA receives must go to capital expenses. What they receive is far more than enough to pay off existing bond obligations, so there’s a lot of MARTA money that’s going to a bank account and nowhere else. MARTA is asking to change that, but Chambers and Wiles are criticizing MARTA for not spending that money on extending their rail lines.
The problem with extending the rail lines is that such a move would mean new operations expenses for MARTA — and it’s in operations where MARTA is facing their heavy deficit.
The best use of that money comes, instead, through Transit Oriented Development initiatives, which allow more people to live near MARTA rail stations. Chambers and Wiles are also criticizing Transit Oriented Development.
So, in other words, there’s not enough revenue coming from fares. Therefore, MARTA is criticized. But when there’s a commonsense initiative to make it easier to raise earned revenue, MARTA is criticized for that, too.
When MARTA operates like normal, they’re criticized for being inefficient. But when MARTA spends some of its money that by State law can’t otherwise be spent on infrastructure that would make MARTA more efficient, they get criticized.
No matter what MARTA does, they get criticized and they continue to receive no funding. Way to go, fellas.
Joe, do you think that MARTA’s fares make sense and maximize revenue? It seems to me there’s plenty of reasons to blame a large part of their problems on poor management.
MARTA is facing some daunting challenges and raising the farebox revenues may not solve much. The rail cars are in decrepid condition. Spare parts hard to come by. The trains are kept together with bailing wire and chewing gum. Over the next few years MARTA will be challenged to keep running a safe operation.
MARTA is required to provide heavily subsidized para-transit for many people with disabilities. This para-transit service is essentially a taxi service and it bleeding MARTA dry.
MARTA’s legal burearcracy has been a huge obstacle for implementing the transit oriented developments strategy. One of the best examples is the lack of progress at the Avondale station parking lot. There is supposed to be a joint venture between the Decatur Housing Authority, a private developer and MARTA. Lawyers with MARTA have drawn out the deal for so long that it missed the previous building cycle. Now we are in a recession/housing depression. Who knows when ground will be broken.
I may be way off base, but if I was a big invester, buying bonds issued by MARTA, or the City of Atlanta or the state of California would seem a lot more risky today that a year ago. I’d expect downgrades in their bond ratings. To attract investers, these governments would have to offer a big yield. So the cost of capital is probably going up for MARTA.
The distance based fare is a good idea, but I don’t know if it can be accomplished with the Breeze cards? Hopefully it can.
If the Obama administration wants to put people to work, reduce our dependence on oil and keep the air clean – a cash injection in MARTA would hit the spot.
Dem – The difference is that between the legislators and MARTA, I’ve only seen MARTA show any interest in solutions. The legislature is primarily interested in playing politics and punishing MARTA for whatever the next scandal of the day is they can come up with. So if you include the GA Legislature when you say there’s a problem with management, I would agree. There is no good reason for the legislators to be part of the solution.
Technically, by the way, MARTA is a creature of the Legislature. Positive change can happen, and it would be more likely if it started from the top.
D — your comment about the rail cars is way off base. A rehab program for the rail cars has been underway and is getting pretty close to completion. Say good bye to those carpets.
You’re correct, though, that the paratransit program is costing a ton of money. It turns out that MARTA could see a 10% or greater cost saving in that program through transit oriented development, which would allow more people of all abilities to live near rail stations.
One of the few benefits of the 50/50 sales tax split I mentioned earlier is that it guarantees that MARTA will always have more than enough money than they need to ensure very favorable bond ratings. That’s the whole reason why the split is even there. However, they could achieve the same result with a split that put more of that share into operations.
It’s quite normal for TODs and other sorts of mixed-use developments to be very complex
(Sorry – I hit submit prematurely)
…very complex deals. That MARTA is working so hard on the TOD projects is not something I would sweat over too much.
The state of Georgia should be doing ALL IT CAN to encourage mass transportation, not only within Atlanta and other large Georgia cities, but also between cities. As an example, presently, there is only one van shuttle service between Atlanta and Athens, and it costs $90 roundtrip. UGA and the city of Athens both have bus services and various routes around Athens. In Atlanta, we have not only MARTA buses and trains, but also the Emory bus system (terrific service to our community!), the Buckhead neighborhood bus, and Georgia Tech buses. There are also special commuter buses from outlying cities that connect with various MARTA stations. There may be others of which I am unaware. People need and appreciate these “extra ways” to get to where they are going, and every car off the road just saves $$ and wear&tear on the streets and highways and thus future maintenance costs.
And, yes, the upgrade and maintenance of MARTA stations, rails, train cars, and buses ARE occurring, and I believe it is a safe system of travel for all. The drivers are all very professional and courteous, and will go out of their way to help passengers, especially the disabled. Yesterday, a bus driver got out of the bus and helped a woman in a motorized wheelchair to cross the street when he saw the traffic she was facing. The nearest stoplights available for her to use in crossing were 5 blocks in either direction, and no crosswalk light there on Clairmont, even though the YMCA is where the bus stop is on both sides of the street. The YMCA does not seem enthusiastic about requesting a crosswalk light there, for whatever reason.
I am a daily MARTA user, so I see all of its problems and I see some obvious solutions, but apparently the people in charge of $$ and criticism aren’t riding MARTA to see up close and personal what is going on. Just sayin’…
Carolyn , you should be going straight to the Gov’s and House Speaker’s office to tell your story. And, talk to Rep Jill Chambers, the chair of the legislature’s Marta Oversight committee. The road builder’s lobby is a big reason that things are the way they are, so other points of view need to be heard. BTW, Reps Benfield and Oliver and Sen Adelman are squarely on your side – so consult with them also.
I read somewhere Obama was looking at 850 billion towards infrastructure. Hopefully that would include some money for Marta…since nothing is coming from the state
Maybe they could replace those darn tiles at the platforms and raised crosswalks that are as slick as ice when its wet. Someone was not thinking when they specked those things.
Steve – Thanks for these names and suggestions for contacts who might listen to a faithful MARTA rider. I will carry through and try to talk to these people. Atlanta deserves to be a great city, and it can be that if proper attention is paid to infrastructure. And, Newbie, I am hopeful too that a big chunk of Obama’s proposed $$ will go to building/rebuilding infrastructure for cities, including mass transit needs. The next few years are CRUCIAL!
850 Billion…whew!
Those printing presses at the Treasury will be smokin’….
and the debt continues to rise like Momma’s yeast biscuits…
Otherwise, this was good information to read and digest…
Judging from the earlier postings, there are a lot of people far more knowledgeable on the funding intricacies of MARTA than I am, so I just wanted to post some comments from a MARTA rider perspective.
I commute on MARTA daily, and have been doing so for a couple of years. I get a monthly ticket (subsidized by my employer), and it’s a bargain, so there probably is room for fare increases. On the flip side though, to drive to my office would take me about 30 minutes each way, whereas I’m EXTREMELLY lucky to get away with an hour each way on MARTA. Hence, there’s a degree of sacrifice involved in using public transport, and I’m sure that if the fares changed too drastically I wouldn’t be alone if I switched back to driving.
Assuming there isn’t a cash injection from some external body, the solutions basically can be outlined as:
a) Increase passengers
b) Increase fares
c) Cut costs
Ideally, MARTA needs to achieve elements from all three areas, but in reality each goal negatively impacts the others. i.e., increasing fares and reducing service (to cut costs) will undoubtedly result in passenger declines.
Carolyn makes some excellent points on the hidden saving associated with increased public transportation usage, and I wish her well in any communication she has with the contacts Steve provided. I ultimately believe there should be some form of funding directed towards public transportation. The automobile (not to mention the giant SUV) reigns supreme in the US, and to get the public to consider alternatives isn’t easy. People constantly grumble about Atlanta traffic and pollution, but probably a miniscule number really do much about it. One of MARTA’s biggest boosts would have been from gas at $4 a gallon – only time will tell how many converts leave their cars parked now gas is back down.
If I had to go with a recommendation for MARTA I’d say to review the fare structure, and focus on increasing usage over cutting services. If I had to go with a recommendation to the public, I’d say try and use the service if you can (even if it means a little sacrifice).
Sorry for the long posting!!!
Multitasking on MARTA is what I do to pass the time when I’m not enjoying talking to someone or just looking around at people and seeing what they are doing. One extra hour/day to use MARTA does not seem like a whole lot of time (nor “wasted”) if you take a book along, check cell phone messages, file your nails, review work papers, write someone a letter, etc. And, you are far safer on a MARTA train or bus than you would be driving your own car in traffic in all kinds of weather conditions. If your employer pays for your MARTA pass, you are ahead in an additional financial measure too — less gasoline, no parking hunt nor fee, etc. If you aren’t presently riding MARTA, please give it a try — you may get actual enjoyment out of it if you approach it as a win-win investment of your time and money. I am crossing my fingers that the Athens transit system + UGA buses will work out anywhere near as well for me!