Cost-Effective Alternatives to Atlanta's Costly Rail Rapid Transit System.

Atlanta's rail rapid transit system (MARTA), which began operations in 1979 and has cost U.S. taxpayers and residents of the Atlanta metropolitan area more than $3.5 billion (1990s), has been identified by advocates of new rail systems in other U.S. cities as one of the most successful rail transit systems built in the United States since the end of World War II. Analyses presented in this paper demonstrate that widespread claims that MARTA achieved large increases in transit ridership by building rail are incorrect and result from the mistaken use of boardings rather than linked trips to measure system ridership.