Same start, different finish: Comparing the Seattle transit system to MARTA

Over the next two decades, Seattle built a robust bus system and felt enough confidence to return to voters with a new offer in 1996: Pass a $3.9 billion measure, and the regional government would build the spine of a functioning transit network, plus an express bus system.

Around the same time, progress in Atlanta was screeching to a halt. The last two new MARTA stations opened in 2000.

Credit: SUNNY SUNG

Credit: SUNNY SUNG

“Atlanta basically had this one-time investment, and there have been a couple of extensions, but other than that, it’s been stuck with heavy rail that has just been that one system since,” said Keri Watkins, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis. Watkins also worked for a decade at Georgia Tech and earned her doctorate at the University of Washington.

How did Seattle, the city once left in Atlanta’s dust, come to lead the nation in rail development?

It’s been a commitment to a stated vision, coordination with multiple agencies at all levels of government and a repeated demonstration of the ability to deliver projects, according to several transportation directors, engineers and advocates in Seattle.

So what can be learned from Seattle, as MARTA continues to struggle delivering projects, expanding the system and, now, is in search of new leadership to drive the agency into the future?

After Seattle voters turned down the initial bid, known as Forward Thrust, community leaders pitched a cheaper solution: growing a vast bus network. Today, that bus system spans the entirety of King County, where Seattle sits, and connects to Snohomish County to the north and Pierce County to the south.

Credit: Ramon Dompor for the AJC

Credit: Ramon Dompor for the AJC

Riders also have Washington State Ferries and Amtrak as additional options for longer commutes, not to mention measures that have funded biking and walking paths to provide options for intracity treks.

Throughout the decades, Seattle has consistently found that voters are willing to invest in transit systems.

“Nobody likes to be taxed. In particular, they don’t like it when they can’t see exactly what they’re getting for their money,” said Roger Millar, Washington’s former Secretary of Transportation.

Millar said the Puget Sound’s most recent ballot initiative in 2016 passed because people in the taxing district saw a benefit.

“The elected officials went to them and said: ‘If you give us your money, we will build you this system,’” Millar said. “A solution had been articulated for them that they found worth it.

“You have to have a compelling vision for a different system in the future, and you have to be committed to that over time. It transcends term of office. It transcends economic cycles. It transcends technological change.”

And you need to bring in enough wins as you move along to keep people on board with the vision, he said. Seattle has maintained a reputation of moving people reliably.

Credit: Ramon Dompor for the AJC

Credit: Ramon Dompor for the AJC

“They’ve turned it into a fast, efficient system that moves people from suburbia into the center, from a place they can walk to to a place where they can easily transfer to a train that takes them all the way across town,” said Kirk Hovenkotter, executive director of Transportation Choices Coalition, a group that advocates for transit in Seattle.

How Seattle carved a path

Transit chiefs and supporters say what most notably separates Seattle is its governing approach that gives the agency more autonomy and allows it to move with less restraint.

“Transit has been top of mind in this region for the last 30 years, and I think it’s been a priority locally,” Hovenkotter said. “But we’ve also kept the state legislature out of our business. I think that’s been a huge key to the success.”

The politics around transit have always been tough in a legislature that represents more suburban and rural areas than big cities, he said. State lawmakers enabled Sound Transit, the agency that runs light rail in the region, to operate in a way that allows it to go directly to voters instead of needing prior legislative approval.

“We’ve also had this alliance of business, labor and environmental advocates who were singing from the same sheet of music,” Hovenkotter said. “It was a chorus. Everyone was hitting their own notes, but they were all singing the same song, and that gave those elected officials the support they needed when they went to the state legislature to be able to get these investments.”

Contrast that approach to the Georgia Legislature, which Peter Rogoff, former CEO of Sound Transit, said has a “renowned” reputation in terms of “micromanagement of MARTA while giving them no money.”

For example, the state Legislature dictates what percentage of tax dollars MARTA can use for operations versus capital expansion and then holds hearings as to whether that has been honored.

“Hamstringing an agency that’s trying to put out the right level of service and the right service map from a state Legislature is not a best practice, to put it mildly,” Rogoff said. “We are allowed to go out to the voters. We tell them what we’re going to build.

“There’s obviously still an incentive to try and contain operating expenses … but the percentages are not stipulated by Olympia (Washington’s capital). The percentages are dictated by the annual budget, adopted by the board of directors of local elected officials.”

Easy opportunities

While rail systems can take years of planning and billions of dollars to build, there is some low-hanging fruit for Atlanta.

Seattle built a network of bus-only lanes and designed service to popular destinations, such as stadiums and concert venues, at critical times.

Credit: Ramon Dompor for the AJC

Credit: Ramon Dompor for the AJC

“That got people on board the bus at a key moment when they’re open to taking the bus,” Hovenkotter said.

In addition, Seattle has worked with businesses, like Boeing and Microsoft, to offer transit passes to employees at a reduced rate and created a large base of fare revenue the agencies could count on, he said.

Those corporations bought in because, “rich or poor, traffic sucks for everyone,” Hovenkotter said. In fact, before the pandemic, Seattle had one of the highest average incomes per rider in the nation.

As in most major U.S. cities, Seattle still experiences crime. But the existence does not deter most riders. To keep people riding, Rogoff said what you really need are “validators,” because people can be influenced by their neighbors more so than politicians.

On a system maintenance level, the bus system — King County Metro — also frequently updates its maps to make routes more productive and more competitive to driving.

“In most of the country, and especially in Atlanta, a bus stop is mainly a pole in the ground and a hope that a bus will come,” Hovenkotter said.

About one-quarter of King County Metro’s bus stops have a shelter. A 2020 community report of about 3,200 MARTA bus stops found about 12% had shelters.

What Atlanta can learn from Seattle’s mistakes

Seattle is a different city politically and geographically from Atlanta. It is also known as a hotbed for environmentalists. But that doesn’t mean that everyone in the region is naturally a transit supporter.

For example, Sound Transit’s 2016 measure failed by 13 points in Pierce County, where Tacoma sits. But because it was a regional measure, the county still adopted the tax increase.

“Everybody pays it, and the projects that were promised in that county are going to get built whether the people in that particular county voted for it or not,” Rogoff said.

Once the measure was adopted, board members took the position that because people are paying the taxes, they should get the service, he said. And then, in a fairly short period of time, some elected officials shifted from being adamantly opposed to fighting over who gets the extensions first, according to Rogoff.

“People who never thought they were going to ride transit, and said so, suddenly find themselves on the train when they realize how convenient it is,” said Rogoff, who is a former federal transit administrator. “People’s hard-and-fast positions have been known to change.”

Credit: Ramon Dompor for the AJC

Credit: Ramon Dompor for the AJC

With transit comes other challenges — like rising housing costs — that Seattle has also faced head-on.

It’s difficult to build a high-capacity transit system featuring light rail stops that doesn’t change the community, and often bring with it gentrification.

“It happens. People get displaced,” Rogoff said. “That’s why Sound Transit committed to the most aggressive affordable housing commitment of a transit agency.”

Sound Transit purchases property for its projects, and when there is remaining property available, the vast majority is converted into affordable housing, Rogoff said.

As MARTA prepares to select a new chief, Rogoff has some advice.

“The new head of MARTA obviously needs to be very positive about the potential of what MARTA can be, and also be very frank with the public about what it’s going to cost to make it happen and try to establish a relationship of credibility and honesty with MARTA’s detractors,” he said.

Even as costs to purchase land and build rail are rising, the cost of inaction is greater, Hovenkotter said.

“Take it from us,” Hovenkotter said. “We were 25 years behind Atlanta and we got started. … We’re making up for lost time, but the more we wait, the more it costs.”

MARTA is at a crossroads in search of new leadership at a critical time, with huge projects on the horizon. The Future of MARTA is an occasional series looking at the past, current and future of a transit agency that shapes, and is shaped by, metro Atlanta.