THAT SEVENTIES CITY / A look at the decade when Atlanta came of age

City leaders launch MARTA with an eye toward greatness

By CHRISTIAN BOONE

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, December 31, 2008

“Atlanta is on the threshold of greatness, but has a long way to go. A metro transit system is a must.” Former Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr., 1960

On June 30, 1979, MARTA launches the East Line from Avondale to Georgia State Station, the first stage of its rapid-transit system and the culmination of more than 20 years of planning.
The vision for what would become Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority dates back to 1954, when the Metropolitan Planning Commission noted the need for transit. Five counties — Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton — are to be served by 66 miles of subways.
More than five decades later, the city continues to grapple with traffic. Cobb, Gwinnett and nearly all of Clayton still have no rapid transit. Many of today’s problems can be traced to decisions of the 1970s by local governments not to be part of the MARTA system.

The crucial year: 1971

A referendum on a one-cent sales tax to fund MARTA faces stiff opposition in Clayton, Gwinnett, Fulton and DeKalb counties. Cobb County refuses outright to participate.

Gwinnett and Clayton voters overwhelmingly reject the measure

The referendum passes easily in DeKalb, but in Fulton the vote is so close, opponents demand a recount. The tax is approved by fewer than 500 votes. If those votes had gone the other way, MARTA would have been disbanded.

The following February, the new transit agency buys the Atlanta Transit System for $12.9 million and takes control of the city’s bus lines. Subway construction comes later in the decade and continues for more than 20 years; the latest extensions open in the year 2000.

But nearly all of that expansion is in Fulton and DeKalb. Subsequent referendums to expand MARTA to Gwinnett fail. Today, Clayton has some MARTA bus service, but no rapid transit apart from the line to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

A question of race

Opposition to MARTA at first is found in both the black and white communities.

A $377 million bond issue fails in 1968, largely because of black opposition. African-Americans are barely consulted in planning for the system, and the community’s leadership opposes the idea as originally conceived.

Whites, meanwhile, are starting to migrate to the suburbs, and a significant majority fear subways will import crime from the city neighborhoods they had just fled. A derisive spin on the MARTA acronym becomes popular in the ‘burbs: “Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta.”
Well into the 1990s, author Frederick Allen writes in his book “Atlanta Rising,” “MARTA remained a predominantly black system.”

Then and now

As more people move to the outer counties, more commuters fill the roadways. Today’s expressway network is in place by the 1970s. Aside from the opening of the Ga. 400 extension in 1993, it’s been a matter of widening, straightening and smoothing things out ever since.

In 1979, traffic is becoming an issue. Today, traffic is so bad, business leaders fear corporations are bypassing Atlanta for other, less crowded Southern cities. A 2007 Urban Mobility study finds only Los Angeles to be more congested.