MARTA ridershop declining. (Atlanta, Chamblee, Dallas: how much, home, neighborhood)

[Ant131531]

MARTA bucks national trend: Ridership keeps falling | www.ajc.com


I wonder why. Considering the metro area is still growing and people are still moving here in droves, the transit system ridership is FALLING, not rising which is not a normal trend for transit systems across the country.

This only hurts support for any new transit or rails in the metro. So sad. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that Atlanta is the least dense top 20 metro in the entire country. Even I stopped riding it as often recently, mainly because...well , car is just so much more convenient in a city like Atlanta. If this was NEW YORK CITY or SAN FRANCISCO, using a car would be hell and I would always take transit. Atlanta makes it too easy to use your car to get around the city and that's part of the reason for this anti-transit trend that is taking place in this metro. One of only two metro rail systems in a decline in the country.

Even people who live next to these lines use their car. That's the sad thing. Even they won't walk to the transit station and use transit. Everyone here has a car whether or not you live in the city or not.

This is a sign of how successful the streetcar project will be. I've already made my prediction it will fare worse then what everyone is expecting. If the main transit line is failing, what makes us think the streetcar will fare any better?

[ATLTJL]

Well, it may be anecdotal, but I did live within walking distance of MARTA for 7 years and barely ever took it.

Like you said, it was generally too inconvenient. But the big reason had to do with Atlanta's climate. Most of the year, it's just too darn hot to take MARTA. If I walked to MARTA in the summer, then stood on a hot platform waiting for a train, I'd be a sweaty mess by the time I got wherever I was going. I remember paying to park at the airport a few times because I figured it was worth the price to not be a stinking mess by the time I boarded the plane and be totally uncomfortable for my trip.

In the winter, it's kind of the opposite. I don't want to be freezing my buns off on a platform while the wind whips down the tunnel. True, much colder cities have successful transit....but if you're anything like me, you don't really have too much of a wardrobe designed to handle the cold. It doesn't seem worth it since some years you really only need it for a couple of months. I usually just brave those months running from heated place to heated place.

The article states missed connections and late trains and buses. MARTA does tend to deal with budget problems by cutting services, not exactly the way to get ridership up. I also think that no matter how much millenials say they like transit on surveys, when the rubber hits the road, so do they in their cars.

If I were in charge of MARTA, I would say damn the torpedoes and I'd look into climate controlled stations, visible security at every station all the time, and newsstand type convenience stores in select stations. Sure, it would cost money, but someone has to have the balls to say we're going to do everything we can to make this work or else we're just going to abandon it. No more pussyfooting.

[Ant131531]

I doubt climate has to do with anything. Cities like NYC and Chicago can get pretty hot in the summer time. This also doesn't explain why it's one of only two transit systems in a decline. Dallas and Houston, even for their underwhelming transit systems are increasing in transit numbers, though it's not saying much in raw numbers. Dallas grew by 10%...in contrast, Atlanta decline by 4% which is pretty significant when you think about it.

I was thinking just maybe, it's the declining black population in the city, but then thought about it and said nah.

With increasing MARTA prices and lack of coverage or any improvements made to the system, why should people want to ride something that is even more inconvenient and cost more money then driving? I guess this is what MARTA gets for paying it's janitors 40,000 a year.

Even NYC with an already monstrous transit system is still improving and creating new lines. They pride in their walkable, urban city. Atlanta and it's government does not. I can't wait till traffic here gets so bad that people will start to move out. Maybe, just maybe then, we will have more transit coverage and a better, more reliable system.

[ThreeSides]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Well, it may be anecdotal, but I did live within walking distance of MARTA for 7 years and barely ever took it.

Like you said, it was generally too inconvenient. But the big reason had to do with Atlanta's climate. Most of the year, it's just too darn hot to take MARTA. If I walked to MARTA in the summer, then stood on a hot platform waiting for a train, I'd be a sweaty mess by the time I got wherever I was going. I remember paying to park at the airport a few times because I figured it was worth the price to not be a stinking mess by the time I boarded the plane and be totally uncomfortable for my trip.

In the winter, it's kind of the opposite. I don't want to be freezing my buns off on a platform while the wind whips down the tunnel. True, much colder cities have successful transit....but if you're anything like me, you don't really have too much of a wardrobe designed to handle the cold. It doesn't seem worth it since some years you really only need it for a couple of months. I usually just brave those months running from heated place to heated place.

The article states missed connections and late trains and buses. MARTA does tend to deal with budget problems by cutting services, not exactly the way to get ridership up. I also think that no matter how much millenials say they like transit on surveys, when the rubber hits the road, so do they in their cars.

If I were in charge of MARTA, I would say damn the torpedoes and I'd look into climate controlled stations, visible security at every station all the time, and newsstand type convenience stores in select stations. Sure, it would cost money, but someone has to have the balls to say we're going to do everything we can to make this work or else we're just going to abandon it. No more pussyfooting.

We live a short car ride from the Chamblee station. We've used the train twice to go downtown this winter. I took the option for several reasons. 1. Expose my children to mass transit. I don't want to cheat my oldest out of the experience while waiting on the youngest to mature. 2. A child's first train ride is always fun! 3. A brisk walk from the station to the destination and back, helps to make sleepy children. 4.The best way to discover things is on foot. That said, I would ONLY do this in autumn, winter, and early spring. I certainly know how to and enjoy dressing up for the cold. I do have an abundance of winter clothes. I can't imagine the same stroll during the summer. Different strokes for different folks.

[bryantm3]

removed - this is not a chat room - do not discuss other members in the room.


as for the marta ridership, you're in econ, you know what the problem is— they underestimated the elasticity of the demand for public transit when they yanked the price up to $2.50. they thought ridership would remain stable and farebox revenues would go up, and that didn't happen. this is a direct result of the fare hike.

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

MARTA bucks national trend: Ridership keeps falling | www.ajc.com


I wonder why. Considering the metro area is still growing and people are still moving here in droves, the transit system ridership is FALLING, not rising which is not a normal trend for transit systems across the country.

This only hurts support for any new transit or rails in the metro. So sad. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that Atlanta is the least dense top 20 metro in the entire country. Even I stopped riding it as often recently, mainly because...well , car is just so much more convenient in a city like Atlanta. If this was NEW YORK CITY or SAN FRANCISCO, using a car would be hell and I would always take transit. Atlanta makes it too easy to use your car to get around the city and that's part of the reason for this anti-transit trend that is taking place in this metro. One of only two metro rail systems in a decline in the country.

Even people who live next to these lines use their car. That's the sad thing. Even they won't walk to the transit station and use transit. Everyone here has a car whether or not you live in the city or not.

This is a sign of how successful the streetcar project will be. I've already made my prediction it will fare worse then what everyone is expecting. If the main transit line is failing, what makes us think the streetcar will fare any better?

Agree. Rail ought to be the preferred mode of transportation in the densest parts of the city, not cars. I think the price increase has also had an impact on ridership. Simple economics.
And Ive said all along that running the initial leg of the streetcar from the MLK Center to Centennial Park (The Streetcar to Nowhere) is a setup for failure.

[testa50]

I'll go ahead and quote my response to this in another thread:

Originally Posted by testa50

The main culprit is a $.50 fare hike that kicked in October 2011 (thus impacting 2012 YOY changes), and even bigger proportional hikes in monthly passes and buying tickets in bulk.

Here are the relevant fares for frequent riders:

Q1-Q3 2011
One-way fare: $2.00
20-trips: $34.00 (equivalent to 17 one-way trips)
30-day pass: $68.00 (equivalent to 40 one-way trips if bought in bulk)

NOW
One way fare: $2.50
20-trips: $42.50 (equivalent to 17 one-way trips)
30-day pass: $95 (equivalent to ~44.7 one-way trips if bought in bulk)

Notice the extra 4.7 trips you need to take now on a monthly pass to make it break even. For tons of people, this is the tipping point. To make a monthly pass make sense, you've got to use it more for daily commuting to work. If you're working 5 days a week and using MARTA only for commuting, then the maximum number of times you'll ever use a pass is 44 times in 30 days. And I travel for work--a week-long trip a month kills the economics of the new monthly passes.

Now, instead of buying monthly, I buy 20 trips at a time. This causes me to ride MARTA less often. I used to take it home from the grocery store sometimes as a marginal convenience instead of walking the ~0.5 miles home. Now I never do, since it will cost a little over $2. If my GF and I are headed to a random neighborhood to hang out we are more likely to drive, since I don't have unlimited MARTA anymore (thus effectively doubling the cost for both of us to ride MARTA).

I'm sure plenty of other people have made this decision: ditching the monthly passes and just buying fares in bulk.

I'm forced to take MARTA to work since I don't have a car and my office is way too far to walk, but many people have cars and choose to take MARTA on a day to day basis. If those people switched from monthly passes to buying fares in bulk, they suddenly lose the incentive to ride MARTA each and every day. Raining? Running late? Just drive the rest of the way to the office and forget riding MARTA. Maybe tomorrow.

The annoying this is that all of these fare increases are pretty paltry in the grand scheme of MARTA funding. I remember seeing the amount of money they added, and it was shockingly low...like $20 million if I recall, or ~5% of MARTA's budget. But they hit riders really hard, especially as service has been cut to the bone.


Another big issue is that, according to census data, many of the core MARTA service areas in west and south Atlanta are declining in population. I'm talking roughly 1-2% declines per year, which is dramatic. These are areas close to stations, well-served by bus routes, and with transit-dependent populations. This has got to be eating into MARTA pretty badly: much of the transit-dependent population is shifting to areas with little or no MARTA service.

[tonygeorgia]

Already been posted in other Marta thread

[atlantagreg30127]

As has been pointed out... continue the discussion here: //www.city-data.com/forum/atlan...rtation-4.html