Rent is the number people compare when they are choosing between Atlanta neighborhoods. Transport is the number that decides whether the cheaper neighborhood was actually cheaper, and it rarely appears in the comparison at all.
This guide covers what MARTA actually costs, how the fare structure works, and how to put a defensible transport figure into your housing budget rather than guessing at one. Fares here are taken from MARTA’s published schedule. Fares change, so check the current figures before you commit to anything.
The fare structure
A single MARTA trip costs $2.50, and that figure does not vary with distance. A trip from the airport to Doraville costs the same as a trip between two adjacent stations. It also does not vary between bus and rail, which simplifies the arithmetic considerably compared with systems that charge by zone.
The passes are where the decision sits for anyone commuting regularly:
- Single trip $2.50
- Round trip $5.00
- Ten trip pass $25.00, which works out at the same $2.50 per trip
- Twenty trip pass $42.50, or about $2.13 per trip
- One day pass $9.00
- Seven day pass $23.75
- Thirty day pass $95.00
There is also a reduced fare of $1.00 per trip for seniors, riders with disabilities, and Medicare cardholders, and the Atlanta Streetcar charges $1.00 as a separate fare with no transfers.
Two card options carry a small one off cost. A reusable Breeze Card is $2.00 and can be reloaded for three years. A single use Breeze Ticket is $1.00 and cannot be reloaded, which makes it worse value for anyone staying more than a few days.
Where the break even sits
The thirty day pass at $95.00 pays for itself at 38 single trips in a month. A standard commute of two trips a day, five days a week, comes to roughly 42 to 44 trips depending on the month, so a regular commuter is past break even before doing anything else with the pass.
The calculation shifts if you work from home part of the week. Three days a week is about 26 trips, or $65.00 at single fare, which sits below the pass. Two days a week is nowhere near it. If your pattern is hybrid, the twenty trip pass at $42.50 is often the better instrument, and stacking two of those still comes in under the monthly.
The point is not that one option is correct. It is that $95.00 a month is the ceiling on your transport cost if you use MARTA, and knowing that ceiling lets you compare neighborhoods honestly.
Transfers, which are more generous than most systems
A single MARTA fare is valid for three hours and permits up to four free transfers, including between bus and rail. That is unusually generous, and it changes what counts as a viable commute.
A journey involving a bus to a rail station, a train, and a second bus at the other end is one fare rather than three. If you have been discounting neighborhoods because they require a connection, the connection may not be costing you what you assumed.
The three hour window also means a short errand and a return trip can fall inside a single fare, which matters more for occasional riders than for commuters.
The network, in brief
MARTA rail runs four lines across 38 stations. The Red and Gold lines run north to south, the Blue and Green lines run east to west, and all four meet at Five Points, which is the only station where a transfer between all lines is possible.
That single interchange shapes the network more than any other feature. A journey between two points on the same line is straightforward. A journey that crosses from a north south line to an east west one generally routes through Five Points, which adds distance and time even when the two points are not far apart geographically.
When you are assessing a neighborhood, the useful question is not whether it has a station. It is which line that station is on, and whether your destination sits on the same line.
What the fare does not tell you
Cost and time are different questions, and the fare tells you nothing about the second.
We do not publish commute times for Atlanta neighborhoods, and the reason is that a door to door journey depends on things no dataset captures: how far you walk to the stop, how long you wait, whether you transfer, what time of day you travel, and how service is running that week. In vehicle time is a component of a commute rather than the commute itself, and treating the two as equivalent produces figures that look precise and are not.
The reliable way to establish your own commute is to make the actual trip, at the actual time, before you sign. Do it on a weekday morning rather than a Sunday afternoon. Time the walk at both ends. If a connection is involved, note how long you waited rather than how long the schedule said you would.
Putting a real number in your budget
Work out your transport line the same way you would work out utilities, then hold it constant across every neighborhood you are comparing.
If you will commute five days a week, use $95.00 and stop there. The pass is the ceiling and you will hit it.
If you are hybrid, count your actual trips for a typical month, multiply by $2.50, and compare against $95.00 and against the twenty trip pass. Use whichever is lower, and note which you chose so the comparison stays consistent.
If you will drive, MARTA’s $95.00 is still a useful reference point, because it tells you what the alternative costs. Parking at a downtown building, fuel, insurance and maintenance are almost always well above it, and any neighborhood comparison that ignores parking cost while including rent is incomplete.
If a building charges for parking, that charge belongs in the same line as transport, not filed away as a building fee. A property that is fifty dollars cheaper in rent and charges a hundred and fifty for a parking space is not cheaper.
Questions worth asking
- Does my employer offer a transit benefit? Many do, and it can be pre-tax, which changes the arithmetic materially.
- Does the building charge for parking, and is it optional? A mandatory parking charge for someone who does not drive is a real cost.
- Which line serves the nearest station, and does my destination sit on it? A same line journey and a Five Points transfer are different commutes.
- How far is the walk, and what is it like? Distance on a map and the experience of the walk are not the same thing, particularly in August.
- What happens when service is disrupted? A neighborhood served by one line and no useful bus route is more exposed than one with alternatives.
The short version
$2.50 a trip, flat, regardless of distance or mode. $95.00 for thirty days, which is the ceiling for a regular commuter and pays for itself at 38 trips. Three hours and four free transfers on a single fare, which makes connections cheaper than most people assume. Four lines, 38 stations, one full interchange at Five Points.
Put the figure in your budget before you compare neighborhoods, not after. It is the line that most often turns the cheaper option into the more expensive one.
Homzora Housing Intelligence · Atlanta edition
Fare figures are taken from MARTA’s published schedule as of September 2026. Fares and the Breeze fare system change, so verify current figures with MARTA before relying on them. This page does not publish commute times, because door to door journey time depends on walking distance, waiting, transfers, time of day and service conditions that Homzora has not measured.
Homzora is a housing research platform. It is not a licensed real estate brokerage, a property manager, or a transit authority.
