Along with the GA legislature’s failure to pass a transportation bill for the second straight year, the body also failed to pass legislation that would allow MARTA to use more of its 1 cent sales tax money toward operational costs.
MARTA has threatened canceling service on Fridays or the weekend to make up the deficit it now faces. If and when this happens, I’m sure we’ll hear the public outcry.
Too bad its too late.
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Why does MARTA have to struggle so to make its own budget pay for the priority things that they need to do? They have this same problem in the public transportation system in my previous state, and no one could ever explain WHY the budget had to be evenly divided between capital and operating costs. How and why this financial arrangement was ever set up to divide the budget in such a way that one side could be so outbalanced by the other is still a mystery to me. Without a great public transportation system, operating 7 days/week, Atlanta cannot continue to be a great city for work and recreation and further development.
I hate to be hateful about this, but I am extremely mad at our legislature right now. The specter of MARTA cuts saddens me, but the larger transportation mess we’re in is truly disgusting and exasperating, in that the legislature would rather play politics and get huffy with one another than do the right thing. I hope they feel the wrath of voters when gas goes back up to $4 and everyone’s stuck in traffic, and when Atlanta starts losing convention business because the rail line from Hartsfield-Jackson to the downtown hotels and convention centers is severed one day a week.
Carolyn, former Atlanta Mayor Sam Massell has an explanation, though only part of the story: Lester Maddox got it that way because of a fear of “winos” riding it all day (word to Lester’s ghost — a fare didn’t, and doesn’t, stop them). Mind you, Massell’s pipe-dream dream of a fareless system was crazy in pragmatic terms, but still, the 50/50 funding restriction is ludicrous.
And to the critics saying that MARTA’s leaders are getting what they deserve from any actual or perceived mismanagement: please realize the whole mess is screwing hundreds of thousands of people over. Including me. My car is held together on duct tape and hope. I can’t afford a new one, and if it goes out, I rely on the transit system alone. I also use the system to get back and forth to work downtown from Atlanta-in-DeKalb.
Also, no one has yet mentioned that MARTA being closed on Fridays might hurt passengers from Cobb, Gwinnett, etc. who are ferried in by GRTA or their local transit agencies for work. Not everyone works right where the Xpress bus stops, and often a whole slew of folks get off the buses from suburbia at MARTA Civic Center Station to go elsewhere.
From the AJC:
MARTA to face drastic cuts after bill stalls
By ARIEL HART
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday, April 04, 2009
MARTA officials are bracing for drastic service cuts, after the General Assembly failed to pass legislation that would free up the agency’s access to its own money.
Shortly after the Legislative session ended at midnight Friday, MARTA General Manager Beverly Scott sat, exhausted and dejected, with her team of lobbyists.
“It’s Armageddon,” Scott said. “That’s what it is. My board’s going to have some very difficult decisions in front of them.”
Scott said that in order to fill an immediate gap of more than $20 million, her board would have to decide among severe options. One is stopping all MARTA service one day a week, probably Fridays.
A majority of MARTA’s funding comes from a sales tax levied in Fulton and DeKalb counties. With the faltering economy those revenues have tanked.
In Senate Bill 120 MARTA wasn’t asking for new money from the state, though advocates say it will need it.
Instead, the bill would have lifted a state restriction on how MARTA can use money it already gets. MARTA must spend half its revenues on capital expenses, as opposed to operating the system. That means it can’t touch $65 million it has sitting in capital reserves.
The measure passed the Senate, then surfaced in different bills as it got caught up in political wrangling over other transportation funding proposals. The House passed a bill that would have eased the restriction to 40 percent, but to do that House members stripped out a bill that the Senate wanted.
Scott put the failure down to “high politics,” not policy opposition. “It wasn’t about MARTA,” she said.
Transit riders are the ones who will pay first, and then the businesses where they work and shop, she said.
“It’s especially astounding in these economic circumstances,” said Lee Biola, president of Citizens for Progressive Transit. “It will have real personal consequences for people who ride MARTA.”
Scott said the MARTA board would make a final decision in June, and the cuts should be in place by September.
Can MARTA legally borrow against the $65m in capital reserves to fund the operating system?
Cutting out day of service is obviously a disaster–not just for people who depend on MARTA, but for the long-term viability of MARTA. If people can’t use MARTA to commute in on Fridays, they’ll make the arrangements to drive in (probably all 5 days) instead. You just cannot have a viable public-transmit system that shuts down entirely like that.
I don’t know the financial costs, but how about curtailing service hours to 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. (instead of 5 a.m. to 1 a.m.) and reducing service frequency on off-peak hours?
Also, could MARTA just go ahead and spend the freakin’ money as they need to and dare the state gov’t to try to enforce their stupid 50% law?
“Also, could MARTA just go ahead and spend the freakin’ money as they need to and dare the state gov’t to try to enforce their stupid 50% law?”
I had the same thought, TOK. Make the legislators defend their inaction on the one side if they dare to take action on the other. And something I don’t understand, if Marta doesn’t get state tax dollars, why is the state legislature deciding how they can spend money?
Another question: why is a weekday the most likely service cut? Why not Sunday? Or Saturday and Sunday if necessary?
Also, could MARTA just go ahead and spend the freakin’ money as they need to and dare the state gov’t to try to enforce their stupid 50% law?
I say they should absolutely do that! Make the State Government sue them! In the meantime, voters with Marta service should really consider firing their state legislators.
Looking at those daily ridership numbers, it seems that cutting Saturday and Sunday combined would affect fewer riders than cutting any one weekday; and cutting two days of operating costs would certainly save more than cutting one.
To follow up on my could MARTA just go ahead and spend the freakin’ money as they need to and dare the state gov’t to try to enforce their stupid 50% law question: since the state gives zippo funding to MARTA, I’m genuinely curious what sort of leverage they have here. Haul MARTA management off to jail?
No, they sue MARTA and get a court order preventing MARTA from spending the cap ex money on operations. I suppose if MARTA wants to just openly flout a state statute it can try the same with a court order, but jail is, in fact, the ending point of that kind of exercise. The fact that the state does not directly fund MARTA has nothing to do with the legal issue.
From what I’ve read, Friday is the lowest ridership day.
The state legislature has say in how MARTA spends its money because MARTA is an Authority – a public entity created by the state.
That’s surprising. I would have assumed Sunday was by far the lowest ridership day. Are there any Marta stats like this available to the public, that you know of?
I believe they’ve put a bunch of the stats and scenarios (at least I think they have) here: http://www.itsmarta.com/about/MARTA_materials_list.htm. I saw them at the recent community budget update and it was not pretty.
I am thinking that Saturday and Sunday are high because of the number of service workers who have to get to places all over town, not to mention church on Sundays (a HUGE problem if they shut down on Sunday). I am not a churchgoer but we must be aware that church is very important to some folks. There’s also the ferrying to and from Hartsfield-Jackson, not to mention special events.
On the previous link, download the first powerpoint presentation and go to Slide 51. Here’s the breakdown by day, in total:
Be cautioned that Friday is the lowest-volume day during the week. Sunday has the total lowest ridership.
Monday: 199,596
Tuesday: 194,842
Wednesday: 194,804
Thursday: 199,177
Friday: 183,733
Saturday: 112,929
Sunday: 61,622
Maybe they’re looking at the days on a cost-per-trip basis. The cost of providing service on a Friday is essentially the same as any other weekday, but, with fewer riders, the cost per rider is greater. Sunday obviously has the lowest ridership, but, since services operate less often or not at all, the cost on Sunday is lower.
From what the CEO of MARTA told us at that meeting, they’d have to implement the next phase of Breeze fully — why it wasn’t in the first place, I’m not sure. The capability is there, and if they could at least make a move toward a BART or WMATA-like fare structure, it could help. Farebox recovery, however, never fully pays for everything. WMATA’s is the best of transit systems similar to Atlanta’s and it’s farebox recovery rate is only 44%. MARTA’s is in the 20s, I think.
Not all legislators are in the bad guy column on MARTA. Many of them who are come from outside the Metro area, so one must look at the voting record of their own representatives. Metro legislators generally support MARTA and other transportation initiatives.
Indeed. However, I think that MARTA unfortunately got caught, like with the rest of the transportation mess, being held hostage due to personality differences and argument. Collateral damage, in a way.
TOK, my personal circumstance validate your first comment perfectly – and I’m very sure I’m not unique (even if I like to think I am)
I commute to work on MARTA Monday through Friday, and am lucky in that it put me in a position to sell my car – if MARTA wasn’t an option on a Friday I’d need to reenter the world of car ownership…. The greatest cost involved in a car is the outlay to purchase and insurance it; once I lay out those costs, it makes little difference whether I drive the car 30 miles a week for my Friday commute, or 150 miles a week for my five day a week commute. Hence, if I couldn’t use MARTA on a Friday, I’d quit using the service entirely!
My car is running on hope and duct tape. I drive to the rail station (only 2 mi) but I can walk to it if necessary; there’s also the No. 18 bus within a mile. Without the system, I’m screwed.
Both you and Flaka need to vent your frustrations on House Speaker Richardson and Lt Gov Cagle. You can also find fault with Gov Perdue for not showing leadership on this subject.