MARTA’s mess: outrage over Five Points Station is justified
Co-authored by ThreadATL | May 31, 2024MARTA’s presentation to City Council this week about the redesign of Five Points Station dropped a bomb that has Atlanta transit riders shaken up…
Riders won’t have access to Five Points from the street from this summer until 2028 (except for a break during the 2026 World Cup when it temporarily opens) — and for those four years, riders with limited mobility will need to take a shuttle bus in order to transfer between the North and East trains and South and West trains due to elevators at Five Points being closed.
You can watch the video of the MARTA presentation to City Council's Transportation Committee, and download slides. Below is the slide showing the jarringly long timeline for the work.
Source: MARTA powerpoint presentation to City Council Transportation Committee
This is a disaster for riders who are dependent on access to Five Points Station and its bus routes, and particularly for those who need to use elevators.
As transit and mobility advocate Carden Wyckoff pointed out in a reply to MARTA online this week, the “10 minutes round trip” being promoted as the delay for the use of mobility shuttles is deceptive. It doesn’t seem to account for the amount of time it takes to even get out of a station like Peachtree Center, which is deep underground, and the time it takes to strap a wheelchair in on a shuttle:
https://twitter.com/cardenonwheels/status/1796189658553926039
This is going to be a major delay in trips for anyone needing those elevator transfers. It’s a ridiculous inconvenience and MARTA needs to address this. Here’s MARTA’s description of the ADA Mobility Shuttle that will replace elevator connections at Five Points until 2028.
Source: MARTA powerpoint presentation to City Council Transportation Committee
Why are we even taking this project on?
When it was announced a few years ago, the Five Points transformation plan appeared to be a $230M vanity project for impressing World Cup crowds. But given that it won't be completed by the World Cup, it’s a little harder to understand what’s led MARTA to commit so strongly to this, versus taking a breath and reconsidering it, given the consequences.
One factor in the commitment is likely the federal and state funding involved. MARTA is getting $13.8 million from the state of Georgia, and a $25 million Federal RAISE Grant to help foot the cost of the project. Cancelling the work would, reportedly, put MARTA in a tricky position for getting other grants in the future. But what good are grants if they’re going to be used on questionable projects that majorly disrupt service, particularly for the most vulnerable users, such as the mobility-impaired?
Yes, the plaza needs some TLC. It's dirty and needs cleaning. It seems intentionally hostile to people. There are “no loitering signs everywhere.” No benches anywhere. Very little shade and the trees that are there all have spikes on the pots so people can't sit underneath them.
Photos (Matt Garbett) from a visit to Five Points Station this week.
We could put a few more trees in there, some benches and tables with parasols, remove the no loitering signs and the spikes, allow outdoor vending from street carts (not food trucks) and pressure wash it regularly.
Instead, we’re going to these highly problematic lengths for the purpose of a new canopy on the station. The project does not even add needed infrastructure that would allow for vertical construction on top of the station in the future, despite the great need for development in an area that's deadened by too many data centers and parking decks, as seen in the graphic below (note: this graphic doesn’t even show the land taken by data centers on the other side of the station, adding even more dead space):
The waste of space near Five Points: blocks and blocks devoted to parking. Active uses (for humans) are needed badly.
The shiny new canopy and plaza won’t deliver more customers to stores or add street-level vibrancy. Downtown has plazas already. A lot of them.
There is no logical rationalization for spending $230M on a non-essential project instead of other transit needs, and disrupting the lives of tens of thousands of people a day who use MARTA to get to work, goods, and services for four years (except for the World Cup because we can upset locals but not visitors?). And even if the redesign was justified by that crucial missing element — adding infrastructure for vertical development — the timeline’s effect on riders would still be damnable.
This is the kind of project we get from an agency that, according to info from various insiders, has too many decision makers who are not regular transit users. The plan for Five Points feels like the work of people who are embedded in a windshield-perspective on Atlanta due to their car-oriented lives. The voice of local transit riders needs to be more respected, and the needs of Downtown more clearly understood.
If there’s time left to do anything about this now, at the very least MARTA should improve the access issues during construction.
NOTE: we’ve reached out to MARTA for comment and will update as needed.
