Photograph by Rachel Garbus
Things I don’t miss about dwelling in New York City: the summertime scent of eau de trash; the sky-high lease; loud Wall Street guys hogging all the bar stools.
One factor I undoubtedly do miss: reasonably priced, accessible public transportation.
Like the overwhelming majority of Atlantans, I don’t stay in strolling distance to a MARTA prepare, a useability difficulty that transit consultants check with as the “first-mile/last-mile problem.” To tackle that downside, MARTA has piloted a inventive resolution: an on-demand rideshare system dubbed MARTA Reach. Similar to Uber or Lyft, the service takes passengers on brief distances round city, usually from a cease close to their home to a MARTA station or bus cease. You can name a MARTA Reach experience by way of an app or by cellphone, and pay for it like a bus experience with a MARTA card or money. During the pilot program—which runs Monday via Friday, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.—a experience prices $2.50, the identical value as a MARTA bus or prepare experience, and transfers are free.
Always in search of a manner out of Atlanta site visitors, I made a decision to obtain the app and catch a experience with MARTA Reach.
Here’s the way it went.
Part 1: Calling a experience
Reach remains to be in pilot section, so it at the moment operates in only some particular zones. I don’t stay inside a zone, so I drove to the close by Avondale Estates MARTA station to start my journey. I deliberate to experience to Perc on Hosea Williams Drive in Oakhurst, one of my favourite espresso outlets.
The app, which MARTA in-built partnership with Georgia Tech, was immediately acquainted: it regarded loads like the apps for Uber or Lyft, with choices to pick out a beginning location and desired vacation spot. I rapidly made an account, the place I may add my most popular cost technique and any lodging (the Reach shuttles are ADA-accessible).
Once I chosen a place to begin, a shaded zone indicated the space the place I may journey from that time (you’ll be able to’t journey between zones). Reach isn’t fairly as versatile as common rideshare, in that out there pickup and drop-off spots are indicated by pins on the map. I assumed that will imply I’d should stroll a bit to get to my remaining vacation spot, however the map turned out to be blanketed in pins: I may choose a drop-off spot just some steps from PERC. Reach additionally offers you an choice to request a brand new spot on the map.
Part 2: The Ride
Once I confirmed my experience, I received an estimated wait time for my shuttle to reach. On the web site, MARTA says the approximate wait-time for a Reach shuttle is quarter-hour, however Anthony Thomas, program supervisor for buyer expertise innovation at MARTA, later informed Atlanta that the program has exceeded expectations: common wait instances have been nearer to 7 minutes.
Because I used to be already at the Avondale station, my wait time turned out to be nothing: the shuttle was already parked in entrance of the station entrance. The shuttle driver was anticipating me, because of the identical rideshare know-how that alerts a driver when a passenger has requested a experience.
On board, I paid with my Breeze card, and took a seat. The shuttle was empty, however the driver informed me enterprise has usually been fairly busy. And although we didn’t choose anybody else up throughout my journey, the service is designed to choose up a number of folks alongside a route.
![MARTA Reach pilot program](https://cdn2.atlantamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2022/07/martareach02_rgarbus.jpg)
Photograph by Rachel Garbus
The driver used a navigation app to ship me to my vacation spot, which additionally felt acquainted, as the digital voice intoned coolly to “Take the next left onto Commerce Drive.”
I may observe our route alone app, whereas an “in vehicle” message let me know the way a lot time was left in the journey.
The driver dropped me off at the pin I’d chosen, proper in entrance of Perc. Success! I grabbed a espresso and didn’t also have a likelihood to take a seat down earlier than bumping right into a buddy. (I really like when an enormous metropolis appears like a small city!)
Part 3: Getting again
When it was time to go away, I pulled up the Reach app once more and requested a experience in the other way. I waited about 5 minutes for a pickup. I wasn’t positive precisely the place to attend, however figured the MARTA bus cease in all probability doubled as a Reach pickup. The shuttle, with a unique driver, picked me up throughout the avenue. The experience again was simply as easy, and I used to be nonetheless the solely passenger.
![MARTA Reach pilot program](https://cdn2.atlantamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2022/07/martareach03_rgarbus.jpg)
Photograph by Rachel Garbus
The driver dropped me at the identical spot at the Avondale station, and similar to that, I used to be again at my automobile. For the value of two prepare rides, I’d hailed a city-sponsored rideshare.
Worth it?
On the service itself, I’d give MARTA Reach high marks. The app was extraordinarily simple to make use of and each my rides have been well timed, clear, and gratifying. I primarily use MARTA to get to sporting occasions downtown, and if I lived in a Reach zone, I’d undoubtedly use it quite than driving to a station.
That stated, I don’t stay in a zone, so I can’t think about I’ll use the Reach app anytime quickly. Thomas, MARTA’s buyer expertise innovation program supervisor, stated that if the program continues it’s going to broaden to extra zones, however once I requested if it will ultimately be out there all over the place, he stated possible not. “This is dependent on the results of the pilot,” Thomas defined, “But if they do decide to continue . . . I think it would be in sensible pockets around the metro area based on where our fixed route service is.”
Clearly, MARTA Reach gained’t be the silver bullet to unravel all the metropolis’s transportation woes. Atlanta desperately wants miles of highway and sidewalk restore, safer routes for strolling and biking, and extra strong transit choices by way of bus and rail. Those enhancements are coming, if slowly: Mayor Andre Dickens has made transportation a high difficulty of his administration, and City Council has saved up a gradual drumbeat of assist for brand new fast bus traces, enhancements in sidewalks and bike lanes, and growth of the Atlanta Streetcar and Beltline-adjacent gentle rail.
“Atlanta’s economic and environmental future depends on expanding transit options across our city and region,” City Council President Doug Shipman wrote to Atlanta.
And whereas a rideshare program like Reach gained’t clear up any of these issues, it does tackle the thorny first-mile/last-mile downside, which limits MARTA entry for folks with out vehicles—exactly the inhabitants in biggest want of public transit. Most of the zones the place Reach at the moment operates are in lower-income areas additional away from rail traces, the place would-be transit rider have beforehand been neglected, stated Thomas: “Folks that might live or work a bit too far away from existing MARTA services, they might have the desire to use it, but that extra 15-20 minute walk at the end, it might be a little too much.”
MARTA’s ride-share program is a component of a bigger development. Los Angeles lately piloted an analogous service, Metro Micro, and Salt Lake City launched UTA On Demand in 2021. Other cities have experimented with subsidizing Uber and Lyft rides. And the small Georgia cities of Valdosta and Gainesville have each launched a fleet of ride-sharing vans that residents can order for pickup by way of an app.
These initiatives are half of a wider bid to spice up public transit utilization, which plummeted nationwide throughout the pandemic. And they’re an progressive use of new tech to unravel outdated issues: MARTA’s Reach service makes use of a cloud computing platform developed by Georgia Tech researchers, via a grant from the National Science Foundation. “Georgia Tech’s mission calls us to develop leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition,” Tech president Ángel Cabrera stated in an announcement when the pilot launched.
But given Atlanta’s crumbling infrastructure, the place we drive each day over infinite metallic plates and stroll our canines on the jagged remnants of sidewalks, a program like MARTA Reach had one further, huge attraction: it was doable proper now. On my journey to Perc, MARTA solved my first and final mile downside with out ever having to elevate a jackhammer.
And in a metropolis the place getting from undertaking imaginative and prescient to undertaking execution can really feel like wading via a Kafka novel, that’s an achievement price reaching for.