The cold weather took everyone by surprise on the afternoon of Dec. 7 and employees from the offices along Glenlake Parkway and Embassy Row tried to keep warm as they waited at stops for the Perimeter Shuttle.
Driver Cliff Bireley smiled as he opened the doors.
“Come on in here where it’s warm,” he said to passengers who quickly stepped inside and took their seats.
It’s a familiar routine for riders of the Perimeter Shuttle, a project that’s eight months old and already attracting notice from a clean air group and eliciting praise from its passengers. Before the reinvention of the Perimeter Shuttle program, passengers would have had to walk in that cold weather if they didn’t have access to a car.
The Perimeter Shuttle is a partnership between the Perimeter Community Improvement Districts, UPS, Newell Rubbermaid, Kaiser Permanente, Wells Real Estate, manager of One Glenlake and Winthrop Management, which manages Embassy Row properties. The partners have pledged to contribute a total of $90,000 annually toward operation of the shuttle, carrying 500 passengers a week from the Sandy Springs MARTA station to offices at Glenlake Parkway and Embassy Row.
The shuttle replaced an old MARTA bus route that was eliminated during budget cuts in 2010. Perimeter Transportation Sustainability Coalition Executive Director David Southerland said it’s the first time in metro Atlanta that the business community has replaced something that was previously a public service.
“This effort fills a gap that public transit had to abandon,” Southerland said.
Kelli Barley, UPS Human Resources and Communications Manager, said companies in the partnership have worked hard to give their employees better alternatives to reach work from the Sandy Springs MARTA.
“I think a lot of people want to take clean alternatives to work,” Barley said. “Our employees come from all different locations. People really want to do cleaner alternatives, but when they took the bus away, it was quite a walk. It didn’t give them any flexibility to take another route.”
The focus on reducing air pollution earned the shuttle a 2011 Clean Air Campaign PACE Award for “Most Innovative Program.”
In the months without a shuttle service, employees walked, brought cars and even used taxis to get to work on time. The new shuttle started in May, and employees and customers can ride for free.
“Until the shuttle started, most of them had to walk down this dangerous road,” Bireley said, referring to Abernathy Road as he made his rounds. The shuttle makes eight loops in the morning and eight loops in the afternoon. “The shuttle helps me stay out of I-285 and Ga. 400 traffic,” said passenger Pam Black on her way to the MARTA station. “I’m quite pleased with it.”
Hattie Taylor, another passenger, said before the shuttle returned she faced a 30 to 40 minute walk in order to make it to work on time.
“It was not a good thing,” Taylor said. “We were just elated to hear service was coming on board.”
The only issue passengers had was the recent decision to push shuttle afternoon pickup times back 10 minutes, a scheduling shift that complicated the trip home after work.
David Purcell, chief operating officer for the PCIDs, said he’s looking into the situation.
“This process is fluid in that we are learning every day from input from our riders,” Purcell said. “We appreciate our riders and will work to make them as happy as possible.”
