Why Is There a MARTA Blue Line Train That Stops at Candler Park?
Decatur Metro | June 14, 2013
Michael points to this interesting article on Saporta Report that rather boldly states…
MARTA could reduce average wait times and improve customer satisfaction by extending the Blue Line Train’s final eastbound destination from Candler Park to Indian Creek during rush hour.
As a frequent rider on the eastbound Blue Line train, I often wonder why MARTA runs a short train that terminates service at Candler Park instead of continuing on to East Lake, Decatur, Avondale, Kensington, and Indian Creek stations. This odd routing decision adds up to 7 minutes—not an insignificant amount of waiting time—to each one-way trip for riders traveling eastbound from Five Points to stations beyond Candler Park.
Read more over on Saporta. The article is part of a MARTA Challenge series being run by Saporta Report to uncover the most innovative ideas “to make MARTA the best transit system it can be.” Cool!
Chart courtesy of Saporta Report
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This assumes that the alternative would be to run two trains to Indian Creek, when the more likely alternative would be to eliminate the short run to Candler Park. Obviously it would cost more to run two trains, something that is justifiable on the fuller north/south trains, but of questionable value on the less traveled east/west line. As for why they run a train to Candler Park, I used to assume it was to provide extra coverage to Georgia State and King Center (for tourists) and that extending it to Candler Park was merely for logistical reasons. Pure assumption though.
They run the short trains from the Proctor Creek branch line on the west side so eliminating them altogether is unlikely. Off peak the short trains terminate at King. Peak at CP. options are. Long trains from Proctor to Indian Creek or restoring the old peak hour frequency on the Indian Creek to HE Holmes. Either one is better than now for riders but can MARTA afford it?
I just want to know why we have colored lines on a map, but really – the trains aren’t referred to by their color on the trains themselves – have had many very confused tourists, and locals. Doesn’t make any sense. Someone asks where do I catch the “gold” line – they you have to figure out is the “gold” line the Doraville or the N. Springs. Stupid.
public relations — ill-conceived public relations
compare to sister systems: WMATA and BART
I forgot that the short run serves Proctor Creek, so, yeah, elimination is unlikely. I wonder, though, how much ridership would improve at Decatur and East Lake (the least used station in the system, according to the article) if trains ran at double the frequency during rush hour?
Is he not talking about the Green (Proctor Creek) Line, as opposed to the Blue Line? I assume the Green line is the “Short train” that goes from Candler to Bankhead. I imagine he is advocating extending the Green Line to Indian Creek, offering more service to the “Blue Line” only stations.
The “Green Line” (aka Proctor Creek Line) short two car train can’t be more than two cars. The Bankhead station platform is short – it can only accomodate two cars and no more. So while the line could be extended to run from Bankhead to Indian Creek, the train itself could still only be two cars long instead of six or eight. Or you’re in a NYC 1 Train/South Ferry station situation. “You must be in the first two cars to exit at Bankhead.” I suppose that’s possible, but then it becomes that much more confusing for people.
I think the better option would just be to run more frequent complete (HE Holmes to Indian Creek) Blue Line trains and cut the Green Line to run from Bankhead to Five Points. Then Green to Blue transfers can all happen at Five Points where all the other transfers occur.
I think the Green Line is purposefully cut off at Candler Park before it gets to the busy stations toward the end of the line to prevent hordes of people from trying to jam themselves in the two cars.
Are the trains really fuller on the north/south lines? When I lived in Buckhead, no one ever took MARTA, and now that I live in Decatur I know lots of people who use the east/west line. I thought they just gave the east/west line the shaft because racism or something. Are there stats that indicate it’s actually more used north/south?
If you look at the chart in the article, it shows that the stations north of Five Points up to Lindberg are the busiest. Speaking from past experience the northbound trains were much fuller than the eastbound, especially when you consider they are running double frequency during rush hour (Red and Gold). A lot of this ridership is airport related. And during events (games, festivals, etc.) those northbound trains are crazy packed. The busy stations on the east side are those near the end of the line (Avondale, Kensington), which I suspect are used by “non-choice” riders; the northbound trains seem to have more “choice” riders.
You know, now that I look at that chart again, there are as many above-the median-usage stations east of Five Points as there are north of Five Points to Lindberg (but of course there are more stations north and northeast of Lindberg). So maybe an extra train during rush hour–which is effectively what riders between Five Points and Lindberg experience– from Five Points to Indian Creek would be justified,
Good point about the short train and Proctor Creek, but given MARTA’s financial woes, I can’t see them adding frequency to the blue line, as most of the least used stations are on it. I’d look for any service improvements to come first on the north/south lines (red and gold)–perhaps the extension of the red line’s operating hours from the airport to N.Springs station.
Ridership is ver time sensitive. I ride the east line often around 11 pm, and it’s always jammed on weekdays with second-shift workers heading home to places like Lithonia and Stone Mountain, usually from the airport. It’s SRO with a long bus ride at the other end. Nobody would envy those folks their daily commute.
Yeah, that would be one of the issues with adding rush hour frequency to the blue line, as much of its ridership is not the traditional 9-5.
DM, what’s bold about that?
I’m all about over-dramatization. You really should know that by now.
Great point. It’s just that there are so many misconceptions about MARTA.
If I’m remembering right, in addition to the normal Blue Line train, there’s also a Blue Line train that terminates at CP, right? And that’s what the article is talking about?
That is what he is talking about. But it is really the “Green line” if it stops at CP. Jon explained it all quite well above.
As a regular MARTA rider, I also lament the less frequent E-W service. Going to work, I can check the schedule, know exactly when the train is arriving at Decatur Station, and get off at North Ave 25 or so minutes later.
Coming home, I always have to wait longer catching the E-W line at 5P, even though it is rush hour.
If you take the ridership numbers posted and then factor out the frequency of the north/south vs east/west lines, I suspect it would show that E-W passengers get the short end of the stick.
Though I also find that the E-W trains stick to the schedule much more reliably than the N-S trains.
Random gripe – for at least a year, if not more, the red LED “clock” above the N-S platform at 5 Points has been 13 minutes fast. Won’t anybody ever fix it?
MARTA is HORRIBLE at going after gate crashers, and people walking through the emergency gates (which does NOT sound an alarm, no matter what the sign says). I think additional cops could pay for themselves in terms of fare $ saved. I see it almost daily.
A few weeks ago I was leaving Decatur Station with my family, exiting the turnstiles towards the bus station. A bunch of loud swaggering teens blatantly walked out the emergency gates. A MARTA police officer was standing right there – asked what they were doing. They told her, in a completely sarcastic voice – “it was an EMERGENCY.” And they just laughed. The police officer did not do a thing.
4 years ago I temporarily lived in DC for about a year, and one thing I noticed immediately is how aggressive they are at catching gate crashers. One reason is likely a better police presence – there are police present in about every station. At least during busy hours. I rarely saw people try to jump or tailgate the gates, and the two times I did they were caught.
DrB you are absolutely correct about fare evaders at Decatur. It happens all the time, which I believe is probably why the ridership numbers are not that high as they should be (not like Kensington or FP) but the numbers rely on card taps, and that is not done at Decatur very often. MARTA police are sorry, and I have emailed about those gates not making a sound before ( & will do it again). I was told they would be dealt with, but 1 year later I constantly still see people walking through without paying.
Changing the Eastbound Blue train’s departue time to not be the *exact* same time as the Southbound Red train’s arrival time seems like it would help reduce rush hour wait time every afternoon for that particular route. That said, I have no insight into the available capacity on that EB train (since I’ve never seen it).
If Marta could somehow cap wait time at each station I use to a 7 min max during rush hour, I’d take it every day.
While we’re on it, here is a fun email response I received from John Weber, Marta Director of Rail Transportation and Station Services, on May 20th regarding an inquiry into early departures. Enjoy:
Good morning Mr. [redacted],
My name is John Weber. I’m the Director of Rail Transportation and Station Services. I first want to apologize for your experience on MARTA and also thank you for using the system.
Regarding your questions about early train departures. MARTA does everything we can to keep trains on schedule including early departures. We do not condone early departures but our current train control system does not prevent individual Operators from leaving individual stations early. (You might note too that train times are estimates as mentioned in the published schedules)
Our On-Time-Performance is measure from end to end, meaning from the first departure station to the end of the line. Not individual stations. By industry standards, MARTA measures our performance within a 5 minute window. A train cannot leave past 5 minutes or arrive more than 5 minutes late or that train is not considered timely. As you can see, if we have a 5 minute window, we do have some room for individual Operators leaving stations before their scheduled departure times. Our overall On-Time-Performance consistently exceeds our goal of 97.5%, but understand that is no excuse for trains leaving early.
As I said, we do not condone Operators leaving early and we remind them constantly, but to manual track all 38 rail stations departures is somewhat difficult. The good news is, with our new train control system being installed as we speak, we will be able to automatically know when trains are early and hold them at the individual stations. The system is much more granular than out current system.
So to answer all your questions, yes, MARTA is aware of the situation; no we don’t condone it; yes individual Operators are responsible for individual departures; yes, the schedules are correct; and lastly, we have a solution to monitor and prevent early departures in our new train control system.
In closing Mr. [redacted], I again want to thank you for riding MARTA and letting us know when we don’t meet your expectations. I take our customer’s comments very serious and use all feedback to improve the service.
Sincerely,
John M. Weber
Director of Rail Transportation and Station Services
Seems like a nice enough and honest response.
I’m a choice rider, and it is intensely frustrating to rush and make my southbound train, only to wind up waiting 15-20 minutes, the board showing the Indian creek train is “arriving” for 5 minutes, and then at the last minute finding out the train arriving is actually for candler park and by that point the platform is overcrowded to the point that it’s unsafe. I absolutely can’t understand why running the train to candler park makes any sense when it practically does nothing to eliminate the crowding on the platform when it comes. If it were so necessary I would assume many people would get on when it arrives but based on my observations that’s not the case.
Completely unrelated complaint- I’m beyond annoyed with the many people peddling their various junk on the trains. Bootleg DVDs are the most common, socks, headphones, candy, all sorts of things. The fact they can do this so freely without the fear of being caught tells me there aren’t enough security officers on platforms or trains. But of course that’s obvious when you see the same exact people on the southbound trains everyday hitting up only the people with bags who look like they’re headed to the airport. What a great impression of Marta this must leave airport only riders with.
All choice riders should hound the new GM/CEO about increasing frequency on the rail lines.
If you run to Edgewood/CandlerPark, you can schedule a layover in the pocket track.