The Atlanta Transit Company (ATC) was a

public transport Public transport (also known as public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) are forms of transport available to the general public. It typically uses a fixed schedule, route and charges a fixed fare. There is no rigid definition of whic ...

operator based in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

, which existed from 1950 to 1972. It was the immediate predecessor of the

Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA ) is the principal public transport operator in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Formed in 1971 as strictly a bus system, MARTA operates a network of Public transport bus service, bus route ...

(MARTA).

History

Since the 1920s, the Georgia Railway and Power Company (now

Georgia Power Georgia Power is an electric utility headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was established as the Georgia Railway and Power Company and began operations in 1902 running streetcars in Atlanta as a successor to the Atlanta Consol ...

, a part of

Southern Company Southern Company is an American gas and electric utility holding company based in the Southern United States. It is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with executive offices located in Birmingham, Alabama. As of 2021 it is the second largest ut ...

), had been losing money on transit. It commissioned a study from Beeler in 1926, but the suggestions were not enough to help. In the late-1940s most years saw double-digit percentage losses of ridership: from 125 million in 1946 down to 100 million in 1948 and finally 86 million in 1949. In April 1949, Georgia Power ran the last

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

on Atlanta's original network, and in May of the next year its drivers went on strike. During the five-week-long work stoppage, Georgia Power sought for a buyer for its increasingly troubled transit business. In response to this, Atlanta businessmen Clement Evans, Granger Hansell and Inman Brandon, along with Leland Anderson of

Columbus, Georgia Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee ...

, formed the ATC and purchased the transportation properties on June 23, 1950, just over a month into the strike. More than 1,300 employees signed on to the new company and ended their strike. Anderson became the president of the ATC, and in September 1950 a Georgia Power vice president, Jackson Dick, joined to become the chairman of the board. The system consisted of the trolleybus (trackless trolley) system as well as regular (diesel)

transit bus A transit bus (also big bus, commuter bus, city bus, town bus, urban bus, stage bus, public bus, public transit bus, or simply bus) is a type of bus used in public transport bus services. Several configurations are used, including low-floo ...

es. The former was phased out in 1963, allowing the city to remove its

overhead wires An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, electric multiple units, trolleybuses or trams. The generic term used by the International Union of Railways for the tec ...

. The city's drivers and

mechanics Mechanics () is the area of physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among Physical object, physical objects. Forces applied to objects may result in Displacement (vector), displacements, which are changes of ...

were part of Amalgamated Street Car Union Local 732. One of the company's promotional drives was called ''Orchids for Operators'', in which customers could nominate a helpful or courteous employee for that honor. In 1965, the newly formed MARTA began plans for a new

rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT) or heavy rail, commonly referred to as metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport that is generally built in urban areas. A grade separation, grade separated rapid transit line below ground su ...

system. By 1972, when planning was mostly finished, Fulton and DeKalb counties had signed on to the new rail system. As a result, MARTA purchased ATC for

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

13 million, making it the sole mass transit entity in the area.

References

*''Forty Years on the Force'' (1972), Herbert Jenkins *''History of the Georgia Power Company 1855-1956'' (1957), Wade H. Wright, Foote and Davies *''Mule to MARTA vol 2'' (1976), Jean Martin, Atlanta Historical Society {{Atlanta history History of Atlanta Defunct public transport operators in the United States Companies based in Atlanta Defunct companies based in Georgia (U.S. state)

History

See also

References