MARTA Ridership Effect of I-85 Collapse

As a former resident of Alpharetta, maybe this will wake up the legislature to the need for transportation options.

http://www.ajc.com/news/bridge-collapse ... XWtDIByfL/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Joanne Hughes emerged at the top of the stairs at Marta's Medical Center station and looked around in confusion.

"I just need to get my bearings.”

She'd always wanted to ride Marta to her job, about a mile away from the station on the Glenridge Connector. Now, thanks to Thursday night's I-85 bridge collapse, she was going to have to. Unwilling to battle traffic out of the city in the midst of the disaster, she'd don a pair of tennis shoes, consulted a Marta map and, after one false start when she got on the wrong train, was ready to walk the rest of the way to he job a little before 8 a.m.

Max Erwin wheeled his bike into the Midtown MARTA station shortly after 7 a.m. The station was quiet, with a small handful of commuters waiting and two MARTA police officers. Erwin, who works as a product development engineer in Sandy Springs, said he usually takes MARTA once or twice a week and drives 85/400 the other days.

and...

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta ... /507795258" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There have been reports of a 25% increase of riders on MARTA due to the Bridge collapse(KNX stream,CBS Network report)

It will be interesting to see if MARTA retains any of the diverted ridership. MARTA's on the brink of expansion; GA seems to be catching on, at least in the Atlanta metro. A run up 400 North would be the most useful; I could see a commuter service along the current Crescent routing. Of course, they're still figuring out what to do with the Peachtree station replacement...

In 2006, the de la Concorde overpass in Montreal collapsed. A GO Transit 8 bilevel trainset was sent from Toronto to help AMT cope with the increase in rail ridership.

Unfortunately Atlanta has no pre-existing mainline commuter system to boost, even if an agency like Music City Star had a trainset it could lend, and even if NS would agree to a train between, say, Gainesville Amtrak and Peachtree Amtrak which would parallel the affected I-85.

The problem with MARTA expansion and the state legislature is ...

1) the cities up north are still opposing MARTA up 400 (not likely to change)
2) the legislature just adjourned and doesn't go back into session until January 2018.

By that point this will be past history.

It's painfully obviously *something* has to be done, though ... Even if the state legislature was called back into session, and passed an emergency bill authorizing MARTA construction, it would be 5-10 years before it went into service.

Heck you could drop 50-100 million, and build cable cars up the side of 400 (construction, believe it or not, could be completed in < 2 years) and it would make a difference... really, just anything would help.

Biggest issue with the increasing MARTA ridership? There aren't sufficient parking facilities now to handle the larger number of cars driving to where the stations are, because the trains don't go to where the people are.

http://news.wabe.org/post/martas-post-i ... slows-down" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The day after a section of an Interstate 85 bridge in Atlanta collapsed, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority saw a 21 percent increase in ridership. Nearly a month later, the growth in new riders is slowing down.

Since the collapse, MARTA has experienced an average increase of 11 percent more riders on its trains.

MARTA spokesman Erik Burton said it led to parking challenges, with parking lots quickly filling up in the mornings and situations where both main parking lots and overflow lots are full.

"The initial challenges that we had was around the parking situation," Burton said. “Primarily speaking I would say that our lots still have availability, more so than they ever have before because we’ve added 2,400 spaces.”

After the bridge collapse, MARTA train stations with park and ride lots saw large ridership gains. Early numbers show Brookhaven has seen a 64 percent increase in ridership and Sandy Springs had the second largest increase at 43 percent since March 30. Burton said he wants to convert the new riders to regular riders.
...

22% more riders tried to use it immediately after the bridge collapse, only half of them continue to use it. In my opinion that's a failure! In another month, they could easily loose another half of the additional riders. Parking is a big issue for suburbanites. No parking available means fewer new riders continuing to drive to catch the train. Taking mass transit should be easy as pie, one should not have t work hard at it.

85 is now scheduled to open as soon as May 15th ...

I expect MARTA to retain a bump in ridership, but it probably won't be much, simply because too many people have to drive further to get to MARTA then they'd save actually riding it.

(the exception is, when the interstate burns down and you have no choice)

Outside of the city center, what is the land use around MARTA stations? Has there been much of an attempt to upzone the surrounding areas or is it mostly park-and-rides?

Some "park and ride", but there's been an increasing focus on building live-work-play style developments (plus the usual 4-story tall "millennial apartments") ...

Being near a MARTA station is very much an attraction, not only for the younger folk, but for many companies as well.

Sandy Springs landed the Mercedes Benz and State Farm HQ's specifically because of the Dunwoody MARTA station.