The MARTA board of directors approved a review of the city’s audit and authorized property acquisition for the planned transit centers in South DeKalb and Stonecrest at the monthly work session and meeting on Thursday.
The board voted to have accounting firm KPMG take a second look at the audit of More MARTA conducted by Mauldin & Jenkins and released by the city last month, following a recommendation from the chair of MARTOC, the agency’s governing body at the state level.
Board members also voted to authorize the purchase of property for the South DeKalb transit center, which has received a $25 million federal grant, and a MARTA bus hub in the city of Stonecrest.
Ryan Van Sickle, director of technical services and service planning at MARTA, presented the board with an update about the bus network redesign. The new network, which has been in development since 2021, will consolidate routes while aiming to provide more frequent service and access to more job centers.
“The frequencies on the whole network will largely be more consistent throughout every day of the week. A big part of that was making sure that we were not designing this system and tailoring it to older models where there was maybe more of focus on 9-to-5, typical office jobs,” Van Sickle said. “By providing more frequent service across most of the day and through the weekend as well, then this network should serve people who are working all kinds of different jobs and who are reporting to work at different times of day.”
The team working on the redesign plans to host final public engagement meetings later this year in conjunction with local community organizations to gather feedback about the proposed route and stop changes. The rollout is expected to begin at the end of 2025.
“We’ve gone to the public a couple times now…. This we hope will be the last round of public engagement,” MARTA General Manager and CEO Collie Greenwood said. “We’ve always taken the approach that it’s more important to listen, go back to the drawing board, get it right — because it’s a once in a generational change.”
Greenwood shared that MARTA has a transit security grant program from FY2024 worth more than $924,000 that MARTA police will use to “harden and protect MARTA assets” around major events like the College Football Championship game in 2025 and potential club FIFA games in June 2025.
During public comment, Beltline Rail Now chairperson Matthew Rao called on MARTA to seek federal funding for the Streetcar East Expansion and other More MARTA projects.
Leaders from the labor union that represents MARTA employees also voiced concerns about MARTA seeking to outsource certain operations and maintenance duties that could be in violation of the labor agreement with union members, as well as the challenges of aggressive riders and low pay that MARTA operators face day-to-day.
