A bridge, cracked sidewalks, and a traffic-heavy street — this is the path that elderly residents living in a senior home in Southwest Atlanta say they must navigate to get to their new bus stop after MARTA eliminated the stop in front of their building.
LeRon Moore, one of the residents at Berean Village Senior Housing in Mozley Park, said he relies on the MARTA bus system to get to his doctors appointments as he recently went through chemotherapy for cancer. He said his various doctors are located across Fulton County and Clayton County.
Since the bus stop shut down in April, the 84-year-old said he struggles to get to his appointments, as the nearest bus stop is now about a half mile away. Moore and other seniors at the home said the walk isn’t easy for them as many of them have health conditions or mobility issues.
“When I was using the bus service, all I had to do is walk out to the front and take the bus and go where I had to go at, but now since the situation changed, it’s at least 20 to 25 minutes away,” Moore said. “My feet hurt at times, it’s difficult to do. It affects me very much.”
The walk is all the more difficult when it rains or is very hot, he said, as the path includes going over a bridge and crossing Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard. Moore said he doesn’t feel safe doing the walk alone and has had to cancel some of his appointments because of the transportation barriers.
The old bus stop was previously on bus route 813. It was consolidated in April as part of MARTA’s NextGen Bus initiative, which aims to increase bus ridership and route efficiency throughout the city. The program called for the consolidation of about 31 routes across the city, but senior citizens and local officials say that the plan has left elderly and disabled residents behind.
In statement to Capital B Atlanta, MARTA’s communications manager, Payson Schwin, said the following:
“Decisions like this were difficult. Ultimately, the change near Berean Village came down to two factors: historically very low ridership, and the operational challenge of navigating full-sized transit buses through narrow neighborhood streets.”
Belinda White, another resident of Berean Village, said the walk has been “really dangerous.”
“We’ve got canes, we’ve got wheelchairs, we’ve got all kinds of equipment, respiratory equipment, and things of that nature,” White said. “We’re walking on cracked roads with no sidewalks. We’re walking across bridges and it takes at least 30 minutes to get there because we have to stop and start, stop and start, catch our breath. It’s impossible.”
White said she’s reached out to MARTA to try and rectify the situation. She said MARTA created a shuttle service called MARTA Reach to pick up residents in low ridership areas. The program has 12 different geographical pick-up zones throughout Atlanta, but in speaking with MARTA, White learned that Berean Village is not included in any of the zones.
“They don’t care. They’re more interested in FIFA, and pouring all the money into that, and cleaning up the town for that than they are their own locals — totally inhumane and selfish,” White said. “Would they want their grandmothers, mothers, and their grandparents walking a half mile across a bridge?”
Gaps with the NextGen Bus system
Planning and development of the NextGen Bus initiative began in 2021, with the program officially launching this April. According to MARTA’s website, the bus system restructure “focuses on frequent service along high-demand corridors, increased access to jobs and essential services, and equitable access for underserved communities.”
While MARTA originally had 113 bus routes, the NextGen initiative brought the total number down to 81.
“Pieces of older, winding routes were combined into newer, straighter lines so we could deliver more efficient and frequent bus service to more customers. While the new network is much more efficient overall, we know that consolidation means some routes moved,” Schwin said. “We fully understand that for some riders, a more direct route means a longer walk to the nearest stop, and we don’t take that disruption lightly.”
Schwin said that proximity to senior housing, medical facilities, schools, job centers, and grocery stores were a “core part” of MARTA’s evaluation when it came to restructuring the city’s bus routes. Low ridership near Berean Village was one of the main reasons the stop was shut down, Schwin said, noting the stop had “roughly five boardings per day.”
Jasmine Hope, the president of the Mozley Park Neighborhood Association, said she questions MARTA’s data collection and evaluation process.
“I would want to look at the data and see some transparency from MARTA to see what they’re talking about because what the numbers they’re reflecting isn’t something that I’ve seen with my eyes when it comes to their ridership,” Hope said.
Hope has been working with the seniors at Berean Village to get MARTA to fix its transportation issues. While Hope said MARTA officials agreed to speak in person with her and the seniors later this month, she said that officials told her it could take up to a year for them to make any adjustments.
“While we do not plan on making any changes to the bus network in the near term, MARTA welcomes all customer feedback and is committed to working with the community to improve our service in the future,” Schwin said.
Elderly and disabled left behind by MARTA
Senior citizens at Berean Village aren’t the only elderly residents impacted by the bus route changes.
At a May 20 Fulton County Board of Commissioners meeting, Commissioner Marvin Arrington told MARTA officials that seniors who attend the Harriett G. Darnell Senior Multipurpose Facility, located in Fairburn Heights, said their bus stop has been affected by the changes.
“Apparently, there was a bus stop right in front of the center and it’s been moved half a block or a block up and so for the seniors with mobility issues, that is a challenge,” Arrington said.
At the same meeting, Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman reprimanded MARTA about its treatment of the elderly and residents with disabilities.
“Our seniors and our disabled must rely on MARTA after FIFA leaves. And we want you to understand that right now what we’re seeing is a disrespect of the community,” Abdur-Rahman said.
After receiving multiple calls from seniors, she said she learned they had been given incorrect information about the changes happening with MARTA and voiced concerns with the MARTA Mobility program — a curb-to-curb bus service for qualifying passengers with disabilities and health conditions.
“I have been increasingly getting calls about [MARTA Mobility] even to the point our commission on disability affairs has voiced concerns to us about MARTA Mobility,” Abdur-Rahman said. “I’m going to need to see in these reports an effort to make sure that MARTA is treating our community with respect and they are doing what they need to do. I am not concerned with any excuses today.”
The MARTA Mobility program has faced scrutiny this year. Atlanta News First and WSB-TV reported riders have been experiencing long wait times. One resident who uses a wheelchair was left waiting for seven hours.
While Berean Village is not included in the MARTA Reach program, MARTA officials have encouraged the residents to utilize MARTA Mobility. However, White said not everyone qualifies for the program — including herself — and Hope said she has concerns as well.
“It’s not consistent, there’s already been some complaints from people who use MARTA mobility consistently that they’re not able to make their appointments that way either,” Hope said.
If MARTA can’t restore the bus stop in front of Berean Village, Hope and White said they’d like for the community to be included in the MARTA Reach program as a compromise. That decision is ultimately in the hands of MARTA, however.
White said she feels MARTA could have avoided this situation had it done more targeted community engagement with senior citizens.
“You all did a poor job of communicating this, especially to seniors — we’re a very weak, unique population, and we’re very vulnerable,” White said. “You didn’t even take it into consideration. I feel like that’s senior abuse.”
