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Last week witnessed an incredible amount of activity in Georgia’s Public Transit World.

MARTA held off a general fare increase for a year, added some fees for special event shuttles, and is going to incur some service reductions, even on the trains.  The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) is developing an agenda to create a Regional Transportation Authority and is deciding how should run it.

GRTA is continuing to pursue bus and land purchases and to consider how to stave off pollution fines that are coming our way.

MARTOC, a committee of the State Legislature led by Rep. Jill Chambers, is doing a detailed examination of MARTA’s operations but has given up steeridge of legislation regarding MARTA.

Some of the Players:

• Michael Walls: MARTA’s Board Chair is trying to hold together a working transit system without enough money and under tough labor negotiating pressures.
• Transit Riders Union: Headed by Terrence Courtney, this labor based organization has rallied for state funding and to lessen the influence of those not paying the 1 cent sales tax.
• Citizens for Progressive Transit: A grassroots coalition of working professionals who want transit to actually respond to their riders needs.
• Governor Sonny Perdue: He has to continue to appeal to rural voters, which means taking a stance against the Metro region, but is supporting regional rail as long as it services his home town.
• Chairwoman Jill Chambers: Tough in her questions, but far more supportive of transit and MARTA than was expected.
• House Speaker Glenn Richardson: He is alleged to have said that more trains will roll in Georgia only over his dead body.
• Steve Stancil: Executive Director of GRTA has acknowledged MARTA’s importance as the backbone for metro transit needs, but many are skeptical of his support for rail.
• Julie B Hairston: AJC Reporter who covers transportation for the paper

In the transportation fight there is a lot up for grabs. The key question is: who is going to run the show?

Will it be the State? MARTA? The Atlanta Regional Commission? Except for the Governor’s Office and the AJC, the consensus seems to be that the ARC is the best body to operate a regional transit authority. Their mandate is to examine things from a regional perspective and neither be distracted by statewide politics nor have a city only focus. The name MARTA alone would prevent the system from going into the outlying metro counties and few people in the region want the State Legislature to have authority over all the local taxes and federal money brought into the system.

There are also questions about how long MARTA’s G.M. Nat Ford will stay. He’s been bruised by some mishandled PR but has really turned things around in recent meetings and earned the respect of nearly everyone with whom he’s dealt. However, the strain of trying to use a straw and razor blade budget to fix a subway train is wearing on him. He may look to move to a system with a more stable funding environment.

Recent MARTOC meetings have brought to light some unusual issues.

Representative Chambers has led the committee to examine the operations and finances of the system. The result has been illuminating. MARTA has really taken some clever steps to find money to help run its operations. One ‘outside the box step’ that MARTA took was to sell all of their depreciating assets and then lease them back. This has generated over $100 million in additional operating revenue. How, you ask? Because MARTA is a non-profit agency, it can’t take depreciation of its assets. However, if a for profit company owns them, they can take depreciation on buses, rail lines, and trains. MARTA and the for profit then split this depreciation and MARTA adds it back into the operations budget. IT costs MARTA nothing and generates a ton of revenue.

We’ve also learned that MARTOC will not be handling the legislation regarding the system that has come down the pipe. Apparently, the Speaker has appointed a special committee on MARTA legislation, though no one knows who is on the committee and it does not appear on the page listing all house committees. Naming the House members who are now on this committee the sole members of the new committee would make the most sense, and Rep. Chambers would do an able job running this, but don’t count on it happening that way.

The various groups who represent riders and employees are also having to make strategic decisions. As the metro area’s transportation system is regionalized, what’s the right approach? Confrontational or co-operative? The Transit Riders union successfully bet that making a lot of noise would make it more difficult to raise the fare in the short term, though MARTA board members have said that as a new fare system comes into play, rates will go up. That tactic, however, may not work when it comes to getting actual legislation passed or affecting the outcome of commission meetings; so other folks are playing an inside track and trying to educate and persuade key people in their offices.

People need to be very aware of the transportation issues surrounding them. More people need to get involved. The quieter people are now, the more the road builders will run roughshod over any efforts to develop a market of transportation options in which automobiles are an option and not a requirement.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 14th, 2005 at 11:24 am and is filed under Politics, as Usual. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.