Drastic cuts proposed for ATL’s Xpress bus service as metro traffic only gets worse

A proposal to slash the Xpress commuter bus system in half is creating angst to hundreds of riders who rely on the system to get from the suburbs to the city.

In a plan called “Redefining the Ride,” the ATL (the Atlanta-Region Transit Link Authority) is proposing to cut the existing 27 routes with 55 stops to 10 routes with 12 stops. It also would reduce the 27 park-and-ride lots that serve the Xpress bus service to 17 park-and-ride lots. (See large map below). 

The changes are expected to be implemented next spring, pending approvals by the ATL board. Plans call for later phases to offer other bus services, like reverse commutes.

A major reason for cutting the service is a dramatic drop in ridership since the pandemic. In 2019, the Xpress buses had an average daily ridership of 7,685. It plummeted to 771 during the pandemic, and it has been steadily increasing its ridership ever since, but it’s nowhere near its peak.

Jannine Miller, executive director of the ATL (as well as the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority – GRTA, and the State Road and Tollway Authority – SRTA) described the challenge at the July 10 GRTA board meeting saying ridership is about 30 percent of where it was before the pandemic.

Work patterns have shifted in the past four years as more people are working from home or comeing into the office fewer than five days a week. The Xpress bus service was designed 20 years ago to take commuters from the suburbs to intown destinations in the morning and take riders back in the afternoon in luxury-style buses that had Wi-Fi so people could work during their commute.

“A lot of work was done to determine the needs of industry and businesses back in 2002,” said Sonny Deriso, GRTA’s board chair, who has been on the board for decades and has seen a host of plans for transit come and go.

Dick Anderson, Fulton County’s manager and vice chair of the GRTA board, also has been involved since 2008 when he served as GRTA’s executive director for two years. He’s been on the board ever since.

“In the early days of Xpress, it was a very well-thought-out service,” Anderson said in a phone interview. “The service was well received. We kept expanding it, and it demonstrated there was a market for a transit in the suburbs and exurbs.”

The proposal to cut back Xpress buses points to metro Atlanta’s difficulties in implementing a comprehensive regional transit system that would alleviate congestion and provide alternatives for people who don’t want to drive. 

Since Xpress buses were launched 20 years ago, Miller told GRTA board members that the region has had a 30 percent increase in population and a 30 percent increase in employment. 

Back then, there were extensive plans to expand MARTA and provide rail service to serve Cobb County, North Fulton to Alpharetta, DeKalb County and Clayton County. But once metro voters defeated the Transportation Special Local Sales Tax (T-SPLOST) in 2012, there were limited resources to build out rail.

“Plans for rail were cost-prohibitive,” Anderson said, adding that having so many counties doesn’t help. “The biggest challenge in Atlanta is the balkanization and funding structure for transit. It’s a huge hindrance.”

Now the region’s transit solution is to piggy-back off the Georgia Department of Transportation’s investment of about $11 billion in the managed (express) lane program and put buses on those lanes. Transportation officials often call that bus rapid transit — BRT — but buses would share those lanes with cars so it wouldn’t be true BRT. 

For Bernadette Guzman, the proposed cuts in Xpress service will be a major inconvenience, and she said she may have to resort to driving in rather than taking transit.

Guzman lives in Gwinnett, and she’s been riding Xpress buses for more than seven years. She works in the commercial real estate department of Cushman & Wakefield in Midtown, where cranes adorn the skyline.

“We encourage other modes of transportation, especially getting into Midtown,” Guzman said. 

But the ATL proposal calls for eliminating all Xpress bus service to Midtown (now 14 stops). Instead, commuters would be dropped off at the Civic Center MARTA Station and then they would have to transfer to the train to get to Midtown.

None of that makes sense to Guzman.

“A lot of people are not aware that they can live in the suburbs and take the Xpress bus into Midtown,” she said. “We want more bodies in seats. They don’t promote the service. If you are so concerned about ridership, what are you doing to promote ridership? They have not done a good job communicating about the changes, nor have they done a good job promoting the service.”

Rob Kelly, senior program manager of transportation for the Midtown Alliance, said he has been trying to tell Xpress riders about the proposed cuts. A majority of those he spoke with were not aware of the possible changes.

“The current Xpress bus service offers convenience and reliability to Midtown,” he said. “Xpress buses have been a good option to cut down on the number of cars coming into Midtown. I’m not sure what will happen to ridership because of these proposed cuts.”

Guzman is concerned all those cuts will create more traffic, especially out of Gwinnett, where the population just surpassed one million residents.

“Everyone knows the gridlock we face on I-85,” Guzman said. “I would love for Gwinnett to join MARTA. If Gwinnett would please vote on rail, I would take it. We just need a mass transit system. We should not be cutting transit.”

Unlike bus service, Guzman views rail as a permanent investment. “You can’t just shut down a rail station,” she said.

Interestingly enough, part of the “Enhanced Efficiency” plan for cutting Xpress buses includes getting more riders to transfer to MARTA.

“The realignment has more drops at MARTA stations,” Miller said. “The most reliable trip we can take in the Atlanta region is on MARTA rail lines.”

Ironically, when Xpress buses were first proposed, several urbanists questioned why GRTA wasn’t taking advantage of the MARTA rail system, opting instead to bring buses to the center of the city and causing more congestion. The Xpress system, however, touted giving commuters direct service without transfers.

Guzman said she would prefer for being dropped off at MARTA station (say Doraville) so she could transfer and ride the train to the Arts Center Station. But the “Redefining the Ride” plan would have the Xpress bus go to Civic Center, and then Guzman would have transfer to MARTA rail and back-track up to Midtown.

Raneez Kariyambath, who works at Anthem in Midtown, commutes from Gwinnett three days a week. He has been riding Xpress buses for about a year.

“I don’t want to drive in Atlanta traffic,” he said while waiting to board his bus to go home. “The bus is very convenient. We can work while we ride because it has Wi-Fi. To be honest, since I started riding, I’ve seen an increase in ridership.”

Miller explained the legislature has cut $4 million in her annual budget for Xpress buses, another reason for having to scale down the service in what will be the most significant change for the transit system.

“We want to be sure we are good stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Miller said, adding that a service with 17 percent utilization was not a good look for transit. 

“Transit on express lanes is our approach,” she said. “It’s a really good approach given the costs of heavy rail versus buses.”

Another factor is the state motor fuel tax, which can only be used for roads and bridges and not rail.

“Transit can ride on those roads,” Miller said. “I can’t look back. We are going forward.”

She did acknowledge the Xpress service cuts will likely reduce ridership initially. “That’s not great, but we have to be very judicious with taxpayer money,” she said.

For the record, it’s probably a good idea to tweak Xpress bus service to align it to new work patterns — but the goal should be to add riders, not cut transit.

“The goal is always to have more people use transit,” Deriso said. “The goal is to get more riders.”

Meanwhile, it will take years for express bus service on managed lanes has been in the works for nearly a decade, and it likely will take many years to implement because it will depend on road construction firms to build stations that would serve buses along the lanes.

“Any of these major infrastructure projects, whether it be rail or BRT, require a long horizon,” Anderson said. “I would think BRT is inherently quicker and cheaper than rail.”

The problem is we keep investing in road infrastructure rather than rail or transit. It makes no sense to cut $4 million in Xpress bus service when we’re spending $11 billion on managed lanes with no firm timetable to incorporate regular bus service on those lanes.

As a journalist who has covered transit in Atlanta for decades, it’s disheartening to be where we are. My discomfort was reaffirmed in a recent analysis of the cities with 10 best transit systems in the United States.

Not surprisingly, Atlanta was not on the list. But San Francisco’s BART system and Washington, D.C.’s Metro system did make the list. 

Let me provide some historical context. Atlanta, San Francisco and Washington D.C. all received federal funding for transit in the 1970s during the same cycle. But unlike MARTA, other cities kept expanding their rail and bus networks. 

No wonder we’re stuck in traffic. We are planning to cut regional transit service while we add more people, more jobs and more cars to our already congested region.