By John Ruch
MARTA and Gwinnett transit station makeovers searching for federal grants have been approved for matching funds from rideshare charges by the Atlanta-Region Transit Link Authority (ATL).
The whole of $15.75 million in matching funds is supporting elements of MARTA’s Five Points Station renovation and an enlargement of the Gwinnett Place Transit Center, a regional bus station.
Five Points is the nexus of MARTA’s rail traces and “ground zero” for its system, as Jonathan Ravenelle, the ATL’s transit funding director, put it at an April 7 assembly of his authority’s board. MARTA is planning a multi-phase renovation, with the majority of it aiming to be prepared for the 2026 World Cup soccer matches hosted in Atlanta.
MARTA says the primary section of the $150 million venture is below-ground platform and mezzanine renovations. Phase 2 is deconstructing a cover and creating a brand new plaza stage. Phase 3 could be transit-oriented growth atop the positioning. For the present software, due April 14, MARTA is searching for a U.S. Department of Transportation RAISE grant of $45 million — the utmost attainable quantity — for Phase 2 work. The ATL licensed the required native matching funds of $11.25 million.
For Gwinnett County, the transit middle at Gwinnett Place Mall is vital to fitful plans to broaden the system and, as Ravenelle famous, can play a task in surrounding financial growth. Gwinnett County Transit (GCT) is searching for $8 million in federal funds for the primary of a two-phase enlargement, in accordance with the ATL, which licensed $2 million in matching funds. The Gwinnett software is due May 31.
The first section would come with increasing the bus switch middle and beginning a constructing to accommodate GCT customer support, in accordance with county spokesperson Heather Sawyer. A guide is within the early phases of a conceptual web site plan. The total imaginative and prescient is a multi-modal middle that will serve the present six native routes in addition to bus fast transit, rideshares, pedestrians and bicyclists. Public plazas, assembly areas, on-site fare gross sales and restrooms are amongst different future facilities. And supporting future mall redevelopment is one other purpose.
“The county also has embarked on the creation of a fresh new Transit Development Plan, which may identify other connections to the center,” stated Sawyer.
For the ATL, the usage of rideshare funds is important as not solely a income, but in addition a manner to offer matching funds that officers say are sometimes laborious to safe on the county and metropolis stage. The ATL says Georgia ranks thirty fifth within the nation for receiving aggressive federal transportation grants regardless of rating Number 8 by way of inhabitants and being dwelling to MARTA, one of many prime 10 methods by ridership.
The income stream approved by the Georgia General Assembly in 2020 imposes a payment of fifty cents per trip or 25 cents per carpooled journey on rideshare operators. That cash now flows into the Georgia Transit Trust Fund established by the state legislature final 12 months. The belief fund’s trustee is Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) Commissioner Russell McMurry, who not too long ago licensed transferring $15.75 million to the ATL for metro Atlanta transit tasks.
The quantity of rideshare income is a matter, as estimates of accumulating round $40 million a 12 months had been dashed by the payment beginning in August 2020, the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic’s first 12 months. In that preliminary 12 months, the charges had been disbursed by direct appropriation, not the belief fund. According to the ATL, $7.6 million of first-year collections had been appropriated to GDOT, which in flip spent most of it on serving to to fund MARTA’s Bankhead Station enhancements ($6 million) and Athens-Clarke County Transit ($1 million). But now, the ATL says, rideshare payment income is rising.