More rapid bus delays push MARTA project beyond 2026 World Cup

The ballooning budget is likely to become a new point of tension between MARTA and city of Atlanta officials, who must also approve significant budget increases because the program is primarily funded with the city’s half-penny More MARTA sales tax.

The city wants more information first, Chief Operating Officer LaChandra Burks wrote in a Thursday letter to Atlanta City Council members and the city’s three appointees on MARTA’s board.

“It would be highly irresponsible for the city to agree to substantially increase a single project budget by tens of millions of dollars without the detailed, requested information on that project,” Burks wrote.

The city wants a breakdown of budgeted and actual expenditures on the A-line project and three others, which Burks said MARTA has agreed to provide.

The Rapid A-line is the Atlanta metro’s first rapid bus line, a type of route that functions more like rail, with fewer stops and dedicated lanes. When finished, the nearly 5-mile loop will run through the Capitol Gateway, Summerhill and Peoplestown neighborhoods to connect downtown Atlanta with the Southside Beltline trail.

The project was initially estimated to cost $58 million. In the design stage that number was revised to $61 million before climbing to $91 million and now $122.9 million. A $12.6 million federal grant is the only outside money that can be used for the project.

Most of the increased costs and delays are because of the unexpected construction discoveries, Abhay “A.J.” Joshi told the MARTA board. Joshi oversees MARTA’s expansion projects.

When construction started on Hank Aaron Drive, crews discovered shallow and unmarked water lines, Joshi said. Those have been an issue on downtown sections of the route, as well.

The water lines “just kind of spaghetti their way across south downtown,” Joshi said.

MARTA and its contractors made plans based on maps from the Atlanta Department of Watershed Management. Those maps “were not accurate,” MARTA Chief Capital Officer Carrie Rocha said.

“The water lines are not designed to any sort of standard,” she said.

An underground parking garage in downtown also was not on any maps.

MARTA decided to use ground-penetrating radar to see what lurked below the surface of the areas where construction has not yet begun. Those scans show more of the same types of obstacles, which will lengthen the construction time when crews get to that section of the route, Joshi said.

When More MARTA projects exceed 10% of their expected budget, both MARTA’s board and city officials have to formally OK the increase.

Burks said the transit agency asked the city to approve the cost overruns for the first time on Monday. City and MARTA officials met again Wednesday, and MARTA’s capital programs committee received its update Thursday.

The city must OK the budget before it goes to MARTA’s full board.

Time is of the essence, MARTA officials said. Approval of the revised budget is needed in order to issue change orders to pay for the remaining work.

That needs to happen in May or there’s a risk MARTA won’t have time to expend all of its available federal funding and would instead have to use local funding to make up the difference.

The $12.6 million federal grant must be fully spent by Sept. 30, and a little more than $4 million remains.

“If the work gets underway by May, we believe that we will be able to fully utilize the federal share,” MARTA spokesman Payson Schwin said.

MARTA now expects the full project to be complete by fall 2026.

Joshi said they’re exploring a phased service rollout that would partially open the route in April 2026, in advance of the World Cup. The remaining portion of the route would open in September next year.

“We want to get service out to the public as soon as possible,” he said.