MARTA’s CEO is in Washington asking for safety dollars the state still will not send

Jonathan Hunt joined a transit safety summit, cited this summer’s fatal train stabbing, and noted Georgia is the outlier: other big systems at the table get state money. MARTA does not.

The federal meetings included Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and leaders at TSA and FTA before Capitol Hill visits. The pitch is facilities, patrols, and modernization — not a new slogan.

Hunt tied the ask to rolling stock, the Five Points station rebuild, and bus rapid transit, all of which need money Georgia historically has not put on the table for MARTA. Former mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, running for governor, said she would support a dedicated state funding stream.

Separately, MARTA says new fare-gate installation is still underway at 14 of 38 stations and is supposed to be finished by the end of October, a hardware answer to fare evasion that does not substitute for the safety budget fight.

If you ride or rely on the system, the next two months are fare gates plus a state-funding argument heading into the legislative year.

MARTA CEO Jonathan Hunt spent this week in Washington with other transit chiefs asking federal agencies for more safety and security funding after a summer in which a woman was stabbed to death on a train.

Hunt also plans to take the same argument to the Gold Dome. He told the AJC that every other agency at the summit receives state funding except MARTA, even as metro Atlanta is now the sixth-largest U.S. region.