Georgia news, GARP Options

[KevinKorell]

Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers (GARP), newsletter for July 2010:

MARTA is facing its biggest service cuts in history, effective September 25th of this year. 40 of the agency's 131 bus routes will be totally eliminated. The heavy rail line will have service cut by 14%, with shorter trains and longer headways. 96 of the existing 318 railcars will be pulled from service. MARTA will close some station restrooms and two "ride stores". The $2 base fare will be maintained, but some monthly and weekly pass prices will go up. The agency will eliminate 734 jobs, merit and cost-of-living raises will be skipped, and mandatory 10-day furloughs will take place. MARTA remains the largest US transit agency with no state funding.

Atlanta was shot down in its bid for federal funding of planned streetcar lines. They applied for 2 routes, one along Peachtree Street, and another between Centennial Olympic Park and Martin Luther King Center. Now another application has been submitted for just the latter route.

The I-285 beltway around Atlanta is in need of improvements on its northern segment to reduce congestion. One option is to widen the highway to include a dedicated right-of-way for a transit line.

The town of Douglasville, GA (25 miles west of Atlanta) would like to have a station stop on Amtrak's Crescent. The city formally asked Amtrak to establish a stop there. GARP would like to see the one inadequate station north of downtown Atlanta replaced by one larger station downtown, one in the western suburbs (such as Douglasville), and another north of the city in Norcross or Duluth.