Service Equity

Metro Atlanta's transit network spans 10 counties and four operators, but access is far from uniform. This analysis joins 2020–2024 ACS demographic estimates with weekday GTFS service data to map how transit availability aligns — or doesn't — with concentrated poverty, minority share, and limited English proficiency. Fixed-guideway access (rail and streetcar) is rarer than bus, but bus frequency varies widely across the region.

Transit access by demographic profile

The map below shades each of the 1,224 metro Atlanta Census tracts by the selected demographic. Route lines show the four-operator network; MARTA fixed-guideway lines are drawn thicker. Hover over any tract for a service summary.

MARTA rail & streetcar MARTA bus CobbLinc Ride Gwinnett Xpress (ATL)

Service frequency by demographic quartile

Each of the 1,224 tracts is assigned to a quartile based on the selected dimension. The chart shows population-weighted average peak headway per quartile. Tracts with no transit service — transit deserts — are assigned a 120-minute sentinel, which pulls their quartile's average up substantially. The n= annotations show how many tracts and transit deserts fall in each group.

Preliminary In this sample, highest-income tracts show approximately 42 more average effective minutes of wait time than lowest-income tracts (86.8 min vs. 45.2 min by income quartile). This reflects transit desert rates: 55% of highest-income tracts vs. 8% of lowest-income tracts have no service — a suburban coverage gap, not a service-quality gap in served areas. Causal claims await peer review — see methodology.