in 2022 to develop a dynamic financial model to account for changes in project costs, delivery dates, state and federal funding opportunities, and MARTA looked forward to providing updates to the committee as soon as possible. MARTA leadership notified the Committee that it had contracted HDR Inc.

'There has been inaccurate reporting regarding the More MARTA Atlanta Program after a meeting on Wednesday between MARTA executives and the City of Atlanta Transportation Committee. So maybe the program's very name also needs revised? 'A Little More MARTA' sounds fitting. Projects that appear likely to make the pared-down list of seven, per the newspaper, include renovations at Five Points and Bankhead stations, BRT lines through Summerhill and Campbellton Road, and bus system improvements (aka, Arterial Rapid Transit) down Cleveland Avenue and Metropolitan Parkway. But that promise hardly placated councilmembers, who said constituents are fed up with MARTA’s inability to complete a single project with funding overwhelmingly approved by voters when President Barrack Obama was still in office.Ĭhair of the Transportation Committee, Councilmember Amir Farokhi, spoke of “waning trust” that “something’s going to get done in a timely manner” regarding MARTA’s growth, per the AJC. Greenwood did vow to bring the revised More MARTA project list to that meeting. The CEO did note that MARTA has made more accelerated progress since an expansion agreement was finally set in stone in 2020. Greenwood blamed rising costs (see: Summerhill Bus Rapid Transit construction delays) and the complex nature of major transit projects for the lack of expansion progress since Atlanta voters approved a half-penny sales tax to fund a more robust MARTA system in 2016. The revised list is being negotiated with Mayor Andre Dickens’ office and is close to being finalized, according to Greenwood, the newspaper reported. Instead, MARTA’s chief believes a tentative shortlist of seven projects-none of them specified yet-now stands a realistic chance of being completed. In a scene reminiscent of Atlanta’s “rebaselining” efforts of 2018-when voter-approved Renew Atlanta and TSPLOST infrastructure improvement programs were found to be woefully underfunded and in need of paring down-Greenwood told the council’s Transportation Committee the agency’s 17-project, $2.7-billion More MARTA expansion plans can’t proceed as originally envisioned.

That’s according to the transit agency’s recently installed CEO Collie Greenwood, who laid out MARTA’s disconcerting, apparently insurmountable budget shortfall before a none-too-pleased Atlanta City Council on Wednesday, as the AJC reports. Unsettling rumors swirling lately around local media, social media, and the minds of Atlanta alternative transportation enthusiasts have proven true: MARTA isn’t going to be able to deliver the ambitious list of expansion projects voters approved more than six years ago. UPDATE: 4:15 p.m., January 27: See below for a statement issued by MARTA officials today.

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