Xpress commuter bus service is collecting feedback from riders about proposed changes

The Xpress commuter bus service is set to make some major changes to its routes and frequency in June of this year, and the team working on the Redefining the Ride plan is seeking public comments on the proposed service through Feb. 12. 

The changes — prompted by lower ridership since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and a $4 million reduction in the funding that state legislators allocated to the Xpress budget in fiscal year 2025 — include discontinuing 12 of the existing 27 routes, closing nine of the 27 park-and-ride lots, and reducing the number of daily trips from 197 down to 96. 

“We are at this point still operating more service than is being consumed on this system,” Cain Williamson, deputy executive director of Atlanta-Region Transit Link Authority (ATL), said during a public meeting about the proposed changes on Jan. 15. 

The combination of the drop in fare revenue due to lower ridership and the reduction in state funding for Xpress has made service cuts a necessity, he said, noting that even opportunities for federal funding require a match with state dollars and that fare increases would not be sufficient to make up the budget gap. 

The proposal presented aims to adjust or eliminate underutilized routes, trips, and park-and-ride lots in an effort to bring down costs and increase utilization rates for Xpress service, Williamson said. The ATL board voted to move forward with refining this plan back in August 2024.

For riders, the changes mean that they may have to drive five to 15 minutes further to reach a park-and-ride pickup point. As a result of reducing the number of trips each morning and evening, most locations will only have bus service running every 45 to 60 minutes, rather than the 20 to 30-minute frequency of some current routes. 

With a goal of increasing efficiency, more of the Xpress bus routes will connect to MARTA stations, encouraging transfers onto the rail service in order to get commuters to their final destination. Xpress commuters will be able to make free transfers into the MARTA system in the mornings and free transfers from MARTA onto Xpress service in the evenings, Williamson said. 

Based on feedback from two public information sessions over the summer, the proposed plan did incorporate recommendations of riders to add some stops back into Midtown and Downtown rather than MARTA stations, Williamson said. 

In the current draft plan, routes from I-20 East, I-20 West, I-75 South, and US-78 will be combined to serve both Midtown and Downtown, while trips along the I-85 North corridor will have separate routes for these destinations. 

Riders who tuned in for the Jan. 15 public meeting had concerns about overcrowding on the buses and about being able to make it to work on time with the proposed changes. 

“We’ll continue to monitor the ridership on each trip in the AM and PM to make sure we aren’t exceeding the seating capacity on a coach bus,” Hunter Abel, senior planner for the project, said during the call. “If we see a peak at a certain time, we want to make sure that we schedule maybe more than one trip slightly before and slightly after that peak time.” 

The draft schedules posted on the Xpress website show that the latest return trips depart from Midtown locations between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., and several riders pointed out that with many commuters finishing work at 5 p.m. this doesn’t leave enough time to get to the stop and use Xpress to go home in the evening. 

“This is critical that we hear customer feedback during this input period. If people are getting off around 5 or 5:30 and the proposed schedule does not work for a large majority of the rider base, then we definitely want to look at changing the proposed times so that we can minimize impacts and work within the customers’ work schedules,” Abel said. 

He encouraged riders to participate by taking the survey on the proposed changes, which will be collecting responses through Feb. 12. 

Williamson will present the updated draft service plan for Xpress bus changes to the ATL board at their Feb. 6 meeting. The final version of the service changes will need to be approved by the ATL board before Xpress can begin implementation in June.