Why is transit ridership sinking in Atlanta and not other cities?

As avowed transit advocates, let us first count the bright spots on MARTA’s horizon: 

State-of-the-art new train cars with more open interiors (and ostensibly increased safety) are set to start rolling this year. The transit agency’s first bus rapid transit system—a five-mile route now called MARTA Rapid A-Line—is on pace to begin revenue service in late 2025. A sweeping overhaul of train stations across the system is ongoing. And return-to-office mandates for Atlanta’s droves of federal employees could bring MARTA new customers, especially downtown. 

So why are metro Atlantans shunning rail transit like few other places in the U.S. right now (if they are)?  

That’s according to new Federal Transit Administration data that show only two other cities, Cleveland and Los Angeles, saw bigger drops than MARTA in terms of transit ridership in 2024. 

What could be more concerning, according to an AJC analysis of the federal report this week, is that transit ridership grew by an average of 24 percent across systems nationally last year, while MARTA’s rail ridership numbers dipped by 6 percent—now back to less than half of pre-pandemic, 2019 ridership tallies. 

According to the federal data, MARTA’s bus, mobility, and even streetcar ridership tallies grew between 2023 and 2024. (Note: The Atlanta Streetcar was closed for maintenance for a significant portion of early 2023.) But MARTA’s rail ridership numbers—29.5 million trips total—dipped by more than three million trips in 2024. 

What gives?

MARTA officials are adamant the federal tally is not an accurate reflection of how many Atlantans and visitors were actually riding trains around the city last year. 

Issues with recording customer trips, broken fare gates, and fare evasion are more to blame, per the transit agency. 

A MARTA spokesperson told the newspaper reporting issues began in late 2023 when rail ridership tallies started dipping, though other means of transit weren’t. MARTA has been working with its gates vendor, Cubic, to remedy a problem with recording trips—even when Breeze cards were used. Now, gates not reporting data have dipped considerably over the past month, the MARTA official told the AJC. (Before next year’s FIFA World Cup matches in Atlanta, MARTA hopes to have a new system installed at every station that allows riders to pay at gates with a mobile wallet or debit or credit card.) 

Some riders, including Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman and Beltline Rail Now head Matthew Rao, have voiced concerns that faulty gates are just one ill plaguing MARTA trains these days. 

In a recent editorial on these pages, Rao said cleanliness, infrequent night and weekend trains, and general safety are concerns that could be tackled in relatively short order. Based on conversations with constituents, Shipman echoed those concerns in an AJC interview (in addition to bus route cancellations that erode rider trust, he said), pointing to “unreliability and low customer experience” as deeper problems that need addressed. 

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