The system has since built most of the proposed rail lines, as well as stations in Sandy Springs and North Springs which were not included in the original plan. In 1971, the agency agreed to purchase the existing, bus-only Atlanta Transit Company and on Februthe sale was completed for US$12.9 million giving the agency control over all public transit.Ĭonstruction began on the MARTA system in 1975, with the first rail service commencing on June 30, 1979. Although a 1968 referendum to fund MARTA failed, in 1971, Fulton and DeKalb Counties successfully passed a 1% sales tax increase to pay for operations, while Clayton and Gwinnett counties overwhelmingly rejected the tax in referendum, fearing the introduction of crime and "undesirable elements". In the same year, four of the five metropolitan area counties (Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett) and the City of Atlanta passed a referendum authorizing participation in the system, but the referendum failed in Cobb County. MARTA was formed by an act of the Georgia General Assembly in 1965. MARTA was originally proposed as a rapid transit agency for the five largest metropolitan Atlanta counties: DeKalb, Fulton, Clayton, Gwinnett, and Cobb counties. Main article: Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority History The continued refusal of neighboring counties to participate and the lack of state funding for operation of MARTA has limited the ability for a truly regional transportation system to be formed in Atlanta. ![]() The other two largest counties in the metro Atlanta area, Cobb and Gwinnett, have refused to join or fund MARTA and as a result both have independent transit agencies which connect to MARTA. MARTA is the largest United States transit agency not to receive state operational funding. As a result the MARTA system only operates within the boundaries of the City of Atlanta, Fulton County, DeKalb County, with bus and future rail in Clayton County and additional limited bus service to Cobb County. MARTA is funded and operated by the City of Atlanta, Fulton County, DeKalb County and ClaytonCounty. The MARTA acronym is pronounced as a single word, not as individual letters. ![]() As of 2006, the system has an average weekday ridership of 451,064 passengers. ![]() MARTA operates a network of bus routes linked to a heavy rail rapid transit system consiting of 48 miles (77 kilometers) of track with 38 train stations. The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, more commonly called MARTA, is the largest public rapid-transit system (in both size and ridership) in the Atlanta metropolitan area, and the ninth largest in the United States. As with Metro Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA). The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The original article was at Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority.
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