MARTA addresses City Council committee on alleged budget shortfall | What we learned

ATLANTA — Following a claim made by a recently-departed top MARTA executive that the transit agency faces a $1 billion shortfall to complete approved projects in the city of Atlanta, representatives on the City Council asked for MARTA leadership to clear up the issue.

MARTA CEO Collie Greenwood and another top official, Chief Capital Officer Carrie Rocha, went to the City Council's Transportation Committee meeting on Wednesday to take questions and address concerns from committee members.

RELATED: Ex-MARTA executive alleges $1 billion shortfall for Atlanta projects | What's going on?

What resulted was a lengthy exchange between the MARTA officials and City Council members including Transportation Committee Chairman Amir Farokhi, Council President Doug Shipman, Marci Collier Overstreet, Antonio Lewis and Alex Wan.

Here's a bit about what we learned about the state of MARTA, its budget, expenditures since a 2016 sales tax approved by city voters to fund MARTA expansion and where some key projects for the city stand.

Takeaways from MARTA's presentation on the budget situation

• The alleged $1 billion shortfall could exist, kind of: It gets a little bit complicated. MARTA said in previous public statements that the number was pulled off a funding model they've contracted to be built by a firm called HDR. That model, however, is not yet complete, and the precise picture of the budget situation it would paint is, accordingly, not yet known. Greenwood said Wednesday it should be complete by the time of MARTA's next quarterly meeting with the City Council on March 1.
• But you said the $1 billion shortfall could exist: That appears to be the case, not based on the funding model but based on Greenwood's comments. Context is important though - Greenwood said the More MARTA Atlanta expansion package was initially produced with 70 candidate projects at a total cost of $12 billion - the tax money approved in 2016 is only supposed to account for about $2.7 billion. Greenwood described that as a $9 billion "shortfall" right off the bat. Over time, MARTA and the city have worked together to whittle down the wishlist to about 17 projects costing $4 billion - still in the range of a $1 billion "shortfall." 
• More context - the shortfall, to the extent it exists, is not a matter of money that was collected and lost or misspent: It simply describes what it would cost for what MARTA and the city are aiming to build (something like $4 billion) and projected revenues ($2.7 billion). The numbers aren't exact, but so far only about $47 million has been spent on project development and planning, a number that appeared to not be in dispute by anyone at the meeting.
• So why hasn't anything been built since 2016?: There was some contention on this point, but Greenwood framed it as a matter of progress needing to wait until MARTA and Atlanta had entered into an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) in November 2020 that outlined how the More MARTA expansion would go forward. Basically, it established how projects would be chosen and carried out, and Greenwood's argument is that MARTA could not simply go cowboy into the city and start building things on its own without agreement from the city. That agreement wasn't in place until a couple of years ago, and then actually getting projects off the ground takes a few years from that point. (See more on the IGA at Page 22 of this document.)

Watch the back-and-forth with MARTA and the Transportation Committee starting at roughly 59 minutes in the video below:

So what IS being built?

There are sort of two main points on this front that emerged from the meeting, though the expectation among council members was that it would be really clear when MARTA makes its quarterly report to the Council in March.

1. First point: Greenwood basically said that there will be roughly seven projects on the final list that have a real, hard expectation for moving forward and being built in Atlanta. He said MARTA believed the list was essentially final, but that there was still some additional input from the other members of the IGA - the Mayor's Office and Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. - that may result in some tweaks before it's finalized and presented to the Council in March.
2. Second point: Of those seven, Greenwood was asked by Council President Shipman how many might have any progress already to speak of, where they might be considered at the "point of no return" - as in, we are definitely committed to these projects. Greenwood said there are four projects that meet that standard: the Summerhill Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, the Campbellton Road Corridor BRT system and general expansion, the Bankhead Station transformation and housing development project, and the Cleveland Avenue/Metropolitan Parkway Arterial Rapid Transit (ART) enhanced bus system.

Anything else concrete - in terms of future projects, how they're expected to progress and what their funding levels are looking like - will likely come with the quarterly update on March 1. 

What do riders and non-riders have to say about this?

11Alive headed out to multiple MARTA stops to speak to riders and non-riders about what they'd like to see. Here is what they had to say:

Ranequea Mumford does not drive and relies on MARTA to get around. 

"[I'd like to see] more routes far out," she said. "Douglasville or something like that, to go far out. It's a good price. $2.50 to get from point A to point B then $2.50 to get back, so it's only $5. Cheaper than Uber."

Donna only rides MARTA to sporting events and occasionally to the airport.

"I lived in northern Virginia-D.C. area before I moved here and I had my car parked all the time because the metro took me everywhere I wanted to go," she said. "I’d love to see MARTA have more off-shoots from the basic north, south, east, west routes."

Daryl was walking down the road with her, too adding that MARTA could be better.

"Part of the problem is we don’t have a consolidated regional system as they have in the Chicago area where you can catch one train to the other train," he said. "The other thing that could also be nice is if they could connect up to Amtrak so then you can go to the inner city instead of just the metropolitan area."

Mike Waddell, who lives in Marietta, said he has never used MARTA.

"It's nowhere near," he said. "To get to it, I'd almost be at work. I don't know how many miles but about 30 minutes?"

Aamir Kazi doesn't ride MARTA much either, mostly because it doesn't serve his needs.

"Where I live it just doesn't go out that far. It has a limited reach to the airport and back," he said. "I live out in the Highlands so it doesn't really get me where I need to go."

Nirav Shah lives in Buckhead and wants the MARTA to go to more places as well.

"I definitely would like to see it more expanded," he said. "Maybe into the suburbs a little more, maybe a little more available in Buckhead? We don’t live where Lenox Mall is, we live in the residential area of Buckhead. I think city officials probably need to start looking at long-term investments in public transportation for the city of Atlanta. We’re growing really, really fast and eventually, it’s going to be a problem."

Vernon Finch relies on the MARTA to get to work but hopes that in addition to expanding routes, more buses are made available.

"Sometimes I go and I’m waiting on a bus – it might say it’ll be here in 10 minutes and shows up in 30 minutes, so you lose what your agenda was at your time. You may be going to a meeting, court hearing, or even the hospital. So it takes time to commute from one side to the other," Finch said. "So my thing is being punctual and on time."