Fayette to be player in metro transit group

Fayette County will have a voice on the new regional Transit Planning Board that was announced Thursday.

In its first two years, the TPB will advocate federal funding for regional transit needs, work to improve regional transit service coordination and develop a regional transit plan including financial analysis and public outreach, officials said. There will also be efforts to integrate fares between transit systems to make it easier for commuters who have to use two systems each day to get to and from work.

County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn, who served on the task force studying the issue, will be on the TPB along with other county commission chairpersons from Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties, along with Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.

Also on the board will be chairpersons of the regional agencies that deal with transportation issues including MARTA, the state Department of Transportation, the Regional Transportation Authority and two members of the Georgia legislature.

Fayette has been slow to adopt any form of public transportation for commuters into Atlanta, with no existing bus service. Part of this could be because the county doesn’t have drastic traffic congestion which might make transit a more viable option.

Some local commuters have banded together to “van pool” to work in a special large passenger van.

With six fixed bus route operators and one regional rail system, the Atlanta area transit offerings often compete against each other for state and federal transit funds, said Sam Olens, chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission. The idea behind the TPB is to eliminate those problems.

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