The story
Beginnings
MARTA was proposed as a rapid transit agency for DeKalb, Fulton, Clayton, Gwinnett, and Cobb counties. These were the five original counties in the Atlanta metropolitan area, and to this day are the five largest counties in the region and state. MARTA was formed by an act of the Georgia General Assembly in 1965. 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.
Although a 1968 referendum to fund MARTA failed, in 1971, voters in Fulton and DeKalb counties successfully passed a 1% sales tax increase to pay for MARTA operations, while Clayton and Gwinnett counties overwhelmingly rejected the tax in the referendum. Gwinnett County remains outside of the MARTA system. In November 2014, however, Clayton County voters passed a 1% sales tax to join the MARTA system, reversing its 1971 decision. The initial sales tax was matched by a $900 million grant from the federal government that was originally earmarked for a rapid transit system in Seattle that was rejected by voters.
The agency agreed to purchase the existing, bus-only Atlanta Transit Company in 1971; the sale of the company closed on February 17, 1972, giving the agency control over all public transit in the immediate Atlanta area.
Heavy rail system
Construction began on MARTA's heavy rail system in 1975, with the first rail service commencing on June 30, 1979. The system has since built most of the proposed rail lines, as well as stations in Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, and North Springs, which were not included in the original plan. The missing rail segments from the original plan include a Tucker-North DeKalb line with service to Emory University and North Druid Hills, a Northwest line with service to Brookwood and Northside Drive, the extension of the West line to Brownlee-Boulder Park near Fairburn Road, the extension of the Proctor Creek line to West Highlands, and a branch off the south line to Hapeville and Clayton County.
Georgia State University was contracted to undergo archaeological excavations of rail construction areas in the late 1970s with the MARTA Archeology Project. Artifacts from the excavations are still housed at GSU.
In December 2000, MARTA opened the final three MARTA rail stations to be built, Dunwoody, Sandy Springs and North Springs - all north of the Interstate 285 Perimeter. The tracks to those stations were run on the surface of the median strip of Georgia 400, which was constructed just east of the Buckhead area as a tollway during the early 1990s. This is one of just two places at which the MARTA rail system extends outside of Interstate 285. The other is at the Indian Creek Station in eastern DeKalb County.
Since 2000, there have been no active railway expansion projects in the MARTA system due to lack of additional sales-tax funding, the need to spend its limited capital budget on refurbishing its older rolling stock, replacing the fare-collection system, repairing the tracks and their electrical systems, and other long-term maintenance, repair, and operations requirements.
Service expansion
On September 27, 2010, MARTA opened a bus rapid transit line along Memorial Drive from Kensington Station to the Goldsmith Road MARTA park-and-ride lot in Stone Mountain and Ponce De Leon Avenue. The bus had two routes, the Q Express and Q Limited. Express service was discontinued due to low ridership in 2013.
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On November 4, 2014, Clayton County residents approved the 1% sales tax to join MARTA. Bus service was begun in March 2015. The contract also includes provisions for future rail transit to the county by 2025. In 2018, commuter rail was selected as the locally preferred alternative of transit mode along the Clayton County corridor, with plans to construct a line from East Point station to Jonesboro and Lovejoy. Those plans fell apart after the Norfolk Southern Railway said it would not allow MARTA to use its track.
In July 2018, MARTA also took over operations of the Atlanta Streetcar, which was initially built by the city in 2014.
Expansion to Gwinnett County
In September 2018, MARTA's board of directors and the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners gave conditional approval to an agreement that would see MARTA assume, and significantly expand, operations of Gwinnett's bus system (in operation since 2001) and clear the way for the long-sought-after extension of MARTA's rail system into the county from its current terminus at Doraville. The population of Gwinnett County has significantly increased, and become more racially and ethnically diverse, since 1990, the last time the county rejected joining MARTA. Whereas white business elites were the initial demographic to support the MARTA in 1965, most black voters had voted to fund transit. Large communities of rural white Georgians opposed MARTA.
The original plan in 2018 included a detailed multi-year plan to expand heavy rail rapid transit in Gwinnett County. Some aspects of the Connect Gwinnett plan include a train that runs every ten minutes and buying more buses to take people to the MARTA station. This was possible because Georgia Legislature permitted counties to raise taxes to fund transit, which before was not allowed. The contract with MARTA would go into effect only if a public vote, that was scheduled for March 19, 2019, succeeded. The agreement called for a new one-cent sales tax that would be collected in Gwinnett County until 2057. On March 19, 2019, the third transit referendum failed, with 54.32% of the vote being "No" to expand. A fourth transit referendum was added to the ballot during the 2020 presidential election, which failed by a margin of slightly more than 1,000 voters as 50.13% of voters chose to vote against the referendum.
More MARTA program
In November 2016, 71% of Atlanta voters approved a half-penny sales tax increase to fund "More MARTA" projects, projected to raise $2.7 billion over 40 years, in order to significantly expand MARTA by constructing additional bus rapid transit and light rail lines, and multiple infill stations. In October 2018, MARTA's board approved and allocated funding towards a comprehensive list of "More MARTA" projects, including 29 miles of light rail transit (LRT), 13 miles of bus rapid transit (BRT), arterial rapid transit (ART), transit centers and 15 MARTA stations.
In March 2023, MARTA significantly scaled back its list of projects prioritized for delivery by 2028, to six transit lines and the renovation and construction of 3 transit stations. Among those prioritized projects included the Summerhill, Campbellton, and Clifton Corridor BRTs, the Atlanta Streetcar Downtown East Extension to Ponce City Market, reconstruction of Five Points station, and a platform extension at Bankhead station. Other projects, including Beltline LRT at other corridors, transit centers, and the Streetcar Downtown West Extension, were deprioritized. In response to the announcement, the Atlanta City Council unanimously approved an independent audit of More MARTA's program revenues and expenditures. MARTA has been criticized for slow progress on its More MARTA expansion, rising costs, and ongoing delays.
In June 2023, MARTA selected a designer for the Atlanta Streetcar extension. Construction of the $230 million extension was set to begin in 2025. In March 2025, Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens withdrew his support from the Streetcar East Extension, and reprioritized a streetcar extension into the Southside corridor instead. Various lobbying groups, including Better Atlanta Transit had lobbied against this extension, while advocates of Beltline transit, including Beltline Rail Now criticized the late-breaking decision.
In June 2024, MARTA began construction on the Summerhill BRT, MARTA's first new transit line in 2 decades and Atlanta's first BRT line. The $91 million project was projected to be complete in spring 2025. The 5-mile (8-kilometer) line will run from downtown Atlanta, through Summerhill, and end at the Atlanta Beltline. The line, named the "MARTA Rapid A-Line", will utilize new 60 ft (18 m) articulated electric buses. In April 2025, completion of construction was delayed to 2026, due to construction issues.
In August 2024, a city audit found that $70 million of the More MARTA capital fund intended for capital projects, had been siphoned to cover MARTA operational expenses. The audit also found that the sales tax had raised $493 million in More MARTA funding from fiscal years 2017 to 2023, while $69 million had been spent during that time period. In March 2025, MARTA disputed the audit findings, citing that another audit that found MARTA owed only $865,000 to the More MARTA capital fund.
From Wikipedia’s article on Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5