MARTA in the black, possibly increasing train frequency. (Clayton: 2013, transfer)

[tikigod311]

I don't know if I believe this but : https://www.planning.org/news/daily/...y_id=189866564

FTA -

Officials had budgeted for a $33 million loss, but wound up adding $9 million to MARTA's general fund, Parker said.

The agency's newfound solvency was achieved in part by eliminating some positions in the information technology department, nixing four vice president positions and doing away with some of their support staffers, Parker said.

NICE!

They are thinking of using the "extra" funds to help increase train frequency. First would be having the Red line run down to the airport until 9pm instead of the current schedule of 7pm.

Despite the encouraging news that service additions are on the horizon, the transit system is still bleeding riders after more than four years of service cuts and fare increases in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

In fact, MARTA rail and bus ridership declined from 156 million trips in mid-2009 to 130 million trips in mid-2013, a drop of 26 million.
....
"We see ridership declining so significantly that we think these moves are necessary," Parker said. "We're hopeful this will create a new positive conversation about MARTA."

Agreed. Seems like Keith gets it. I don't use MARTA as much as I could because the time I spend waiting on the platform may be the same amount of time it takes me to get to my destination in a car. Implement distance based fares and more frequent weekend service and I guarantee my patronage will increase significantly.

I like this a lot. Make me proud MARTA!

[tikigod311]

Color me surprised that a MARTA topic with actual news has gone untouched for 4 hours! Whats going on C-D?

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by tikigod311

Color me surprised that a MARTA topic with actual news has gone untouched for 4 hours! Whats going on C-D!

The MARTA haters probably have not found a way to spin this yet, thus no heated and controversial discussion yet.

But this is good news. Another good sign for the direction of MARTA.

[gtcorndog]

So they can start to pay to perform their $500+ million in deferred maintenance costs...

That's a start.

[westau]

Good for them, but the only MARTA news I really would care about is network expansion.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

So they can start to pay to perform their $500+ million in deferred maintenance costs...

That's a start.

There it is...

[gtjared]

Originally Posted by Gulch

There it is...

It's also gtcorndog...

[GeorgiaLakeSearch]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

So they can start to pay to perform their $500+ million in deferred maintenance costs...

That's a start.

In MARTA la la land that does not matter!

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by westau

Good for them, but the only MARTA news I really would care about is network expansion.

increased headways are pretty important— right now MARTA operates like a former shell of what it was— the stations are old and beat up, the train only comes every 10-15 minutes depending on the time, there are all these signs set up in the stations about why you can't ride the train here at a certain time and how to transfer, signs about single tracking and budget cuts, etc.— yet the trains are still packed to the brim. increasing headways will make MARTA a more reliable form of transit, increase ridership and that will increase revenue. after the steps keith parker has taken thusfar, i would expect to see a massive change in things like station expansion and more basic things like station maintenance if MARTA is able to start making a profit.

i mean, i got on the train at 9:30 PM last night and it was packed, on a wednesday night, those are off hours. it used to be that if you got on at that time when there wasn't some sort of event going on, there were hardly any riders at all.

[Zanarkand A East]

This is great news, and increased headways will give more people incentive to ride. That increased revenue is what will fund network expansion, as long as outlying counties are finally on-board (I bet Clayton is!) I live on the MARTA line, so I'm fine either way, but seeing them get back in the black is fantastic news!