As Athens Transit works on a plan for expanding services, Athens-Clarke County commissioners are discussing whether to reinstitute bus fares.
“I think that’s something we’re going to have to consider if we’re going to expand our services, if we’re going to make improvements,” Commissioner Dexter Fisher said at an Aug. 13 work session.
Athens Transit had long allowed University of Georgia students, faculty and staff to ride free—reimbursed at a lower per-ride rate by the university—and extended the fare-free policy to riders 18 and under in 2016, then seniors and the disabled in 2019. The system went fare-free for everyone when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 to allow for rear-door boarding and protect drivers from the virus. It’s stayed that way ever since, thanks to extra federal funding during the pandemic and TSPLOST, the voter-approved 1% sales tax for transportation.
Other commissioners are skeptical about restoring fares, though, because ridership could fall off. ACC officials have worked out a new deal with UGA to combine their ridership numbers and share the resulting higher federal funds, and it would cost money to buy and install new fareboxes. Commissioner Jesse Houle suggested the local government could essentially be charging itself because many county-funded nonprofits and social services agencies used to purchase bus passes in bulk to distribute to clients.
“It’s a public benefit for our community, especially the low-income and elderly,” Commissioner Patrick Davenport said. “You can get to a doctor’s appointment or work.”
Whether to stay fare-free should be a separate discussion from Athens Transit’s update of its five-year Transit Development Plan, department director Victor Pope told commissioners. The plan will include a menu of options for expanding service that the commission can choose from depending on funding.
If the commission wants an ambitious big-ticket project to headline TSPLOST 2026, bus rapid transit along Atlanta Highway would cost an estimated $61 million. Federal grant money could also be available for such a project. BRT offers a similar but lower-cost experience to light rail, except on rubber-tired buses. The buses come frequently, use a dedicated lane to avoid congestion, and pick up passengers from elevated platforms where they purchase tickets (if applicable) from kiosks beforehand. Such a line could run in a loop from downtown to Beechwood and along Baxter Street, or a straight shot down Atlanta Highway to a new transfer station at the mall, consultant Beth Hoffman said.
More modest expansions could include adding buses to existing routes to reduce headways, additional fixed routes ($500,000 a year), a route connecting to the metro Atlanta transit system in Gwinnett County ($500,000), a route to Watkinsville ($500,000) and/or on-demand microtransit service on the Westside, utilizing a new transfer station that’s part of the Georgia Square Mall redevelopment project ($450,000).
Bus service to Oconee County would benefit Athens residents going to medical appointments there, Commissioner Carol Myers said. Other area counties, like Elbert, are interested in a transit link to Athens for similar reasons, according to Pope. The Northeast Georgia Regional Commission is eyeing Athens as a transit hub for the region, he said.
Such regional services could be started in partnership with private bus companies like Southeastern Stages, Pope said. Athens Transit is also looking at other efficiencies, like reducing overlap with UGA Campus Transit downtown and on campus, and partnering with student apartment complexes that provide their own shuttles, he said.
Commissioner Melissa Link was interested in more loop routes, rather than the hub-and-spoke model Athens Transit currently uses. Pope mentioned Chattanooga, TN’s downtown circulator. “I love it,” he said. “I’d like to see us look at something similar in Athens.”
Overall, Pope said he wants to make bus routes more user-friendly. Input gathered for the plan suggests riders and other stakeholders prioritize faster and more frequent service over covering a larger geographical area, but that the public is at least open to a conversation about expanding service outside of the county. Athens Transit also heard requests for more evening and weekend service, but particularly from shift workers for early-morning service starting at 5 a.m.
Housing Fund Takes Form
More details also emerged during last Tuesday’s work session about a $5 million affordable housing trust fund the commission created earlier this year.
Commissioners included the funding in ACC’s fiscal 2025 budget, approved in July, based on a consultant’s recommendation that the county put $5 million annually into an affordable housing trust fund. The 2023 study found that Athens had a shortage of 8,500 affordable units, and a wide gap between rents and home prices and what the average family or individual can afford to pay for housing.
The funding is divided into three “buckets”: $2 million to provide gap financing for Low-Income Housing Tax Credit projects, which use federal tax credits administered by the state to fund multifamily construction; $2 million for a Single-Family Affordable Housing Fund, which could also be used for gap financing, as well as down payment assistance, grant matches or rehabbing owner-occupied houses; and $1 million for an Acquisition Strike Fund allowing ACC to buy small apartment complexes that could be sold to investors who would raise rents, and preserve them as affordable instead.
The county manager’s office is already handling gap financing, Acting Manager Niki Jones said, pointing to Athens Flats, an Athens Housing Authority LIHTC (pronounced “lie-tech”) project off Hull Road. A dormant land bank authority could be activated to handle property acquisition, or ACC could turn to an existing development authority like the AHA. It’s unclear whether such a group would have the power to oversee revolving loans, though, according to county attorneys. The commission’s Government Operations Committee will be tasked with sorting out the structure.
In addition, the ACC Housing and Community Development Department receives about $2 million a year from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that can be spent on affordable housing, economic development, infrastructure and public services within low-income Census tracts in East Athens and the Hancock Corridor.
During a discussion about a strategic plan for those funds, Commissioner Dexter Fisher wondered if Athens is becoming overbuilt. He said one apartment complex in his district has a 70% occupancy rate.
Community HCD Development Director Melinda Lord said it’s hard to know Athens’ vacancy rate because property owners and managers are often reluctant to say. “Even if there’s vacancies within the higher market rent apartments it’s not going to positively affect the amount of affordable housing we don’t have that’s needed to fill the gap,” Lord said. “What we would hope is that the market would shift enough so that the market-rate housing would go down because we have enough housing to make it more competitive.”
Last year’s affordable housing study noted that 78% of Athens’ affordable housing is naturally occurring, most of it housing stock built before 1999. “I don’t want to get stuck where we have all those units that become blighted,” Fisher said.
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