Transportation
Getting Atlanta on the Bus in the '70s
A photographer for the EPA explored the city’s new regional transit service, a big improvement over what it replaced.
MARTA, Atlanta’s public transit authority, ran its first buses in 1972. Formed through the Georgia General Assembly in 1965, getting dedicated funding to start up service wasn’t easy.
With the state unwilling to contribute to the transit authority’s operational budget, a new regional service depended on individual counties voting for a 1 percent sales tax increase. In a historically segregated region, the desire to keep black Atlanta out of white Atlanta is understood to be the main reason why a 1971 referendum failed in Clayton, Cobb, and Gwinnett counties. It did, however, succeed in Fulton and DeKalb—meaning MARTA would begin as a two-county system.