ATLANTA — If you ride a MARTA bus, chances are your route is changing.
MARTA’s biggest re-design of its bus system in the transit authority’s history went live on Saturday.
A lot of routes are going away altogether.
MARTA said its objective is to get buses showing up far more frequently on the most popular routes.
It’s the first time since MARTA’s founding in the early 70s that it has redrawn the entire bus system from scratch.
MARTA has shrunk the number of routes from 113 to 81, shutting down many routes that were scarcely used.
What the new network does is triple the number of routes where a bus arrives every 15 minutes or sooner.
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Another 11 routes will have service every 20 minutes. In short, MARTA said there’s more service to high-demand corridors.
“What that leads to is better access to all sorts of things. Better access to grocery stores, better access to jobs, better access to hospitals,” Andrew Pofahl with MARTA said.
MARTA hopes shorter wait times will attract new riders and their fares.
The authority said the 81 fixed routes will operate at the same frequency for most of the day, seven days a week.
In a statement, MARTA CEO Jonathan Hunt said the goal is to “deliver more access to more places in less time.”
Regular rider Kasey Jones told Channel 2’s Bryan Mims that he worries about those who no longer have easy access to a bus stop.
“It is unfortunate for some of those routes that I did see that are being changed, and they’re just like being completely knocked out,” Jones said.
MARTA will have about 300 ambassadors at bus stops this weekend and on Monday to help riders navigate the changes.
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