Commuter Buses Have Atlantans Fuming

Everyday, over 100 commuter buses go through Atlanta streets picking up and dropping off suburbanites. When the buses have been seen almost empty, sometimes idling on the streets, some Atlantans get fuming.

""Don't they have stops? They just stop wherever?" said Page Gardner, an office administrator for a nonprofit, as she stared from her office balcony at two Gwinnett County Transit buses parked in the far right lane of Piedmont Ave., at the beginning of rush hour last Monday.

When the state put together a transportation project including a major expansion of GRTA's bus program, Atlanta officials complained that it slated $56 million for suburban park-and-ride lots to accommodate the buses at departure points, but nothing to manage them when they arrive downtown. Under a new deal, the state will pay $99,500 to study the problem, and will apply for federal money to make downtown transit improvements."