Articles

Fast Transit Key To Luring Drivers

Julie B. Hairston, AJC Staff
February 3, 2004

Make transit fast, easy and inexpensive and as many as two-thirds of Atlanta's commuters would consider getting out of their personal cars -- at least some of the time.

That was the message metro area commuters sent through a new transit marketing survey commissioned by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and several private business groups.

The survey asked more than 1,100 residents of metro Atlanta about their current mass transit habits, their feelings about buses and trains, and the most important factors in their decisions about whether to use transit or drive.

The factor that emerged in the survey as most critical was time. People said they would be most likely to take transit if they knew it would get them to their destination as quickly as driving.

Other significant factors in the decision included free parking at stations, the ability to bypass traffic congestion on highways and roads, reasonable fares and being able to get to a destination without having to change vehicles more than once.

"We found that if you do all of these things, up to two-thirds of commuters would consider using transit," said chamber President Sam Williams.

For almost a decade, the chamber has devoted significant time and money to addressing Atlanta's traffic congestion and has been touting rubber-tired vehicles designed to ride like buses as part of the solution.

The chamber and community improvement districts in Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton counties commissioned the independent $300,000 survey. Community improvement districts are special self-taxing areas that devote extra property taxes to specific public purposes such as transportation or public safety.

Cumberland district Chairman Tad Leithead said the survey is different from other studies that have been done in Atlanta. Other surveys have focused on where to put transit or what technology to use, but this survey is the first to focus on the preferences of potential transit riders.

By understanding the market, Leithead said, regional leaders can devise a transit system that will attract the most riders and help ease traffic congestion.

"We hope this will not be a fait accompli, but that [the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority and the Atlanta Regional Commission] will take this and build on it," Leit-head said.

In fact, the survey sponsors released the results the day before a scheduled GRTA board tour of possible routes for a transit corridor from intown Atlanta to the Town Center area of Cobb County.

The board is divided between those who prefer to put transit on I-75's high-occupancy vehicle lanes and those who want to put it in dedicated lanes outside the interstate's path.

Ron Sifen, president of the Vinings Homeowners' Association, said he expects the market survey to weigh in the board's ultimate decision on where the transit line will run.

"GRTA board members have said they wanted to see the results of this survey before they decided," Sifen said.

Susan Laccetti Meyers, vice president of Georgians for Better Transportation, a group advocating increased transportation spending, declined to comment on the survey results, saying she had not seen them yet.

Last month, Meyers supported the ARC's recommendation of a bus rapid transit line for the top end of I-285, calling it "a no-brainer."

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