But perhaps nowhere in the country is the crisis more acute than in Clayton County. Officials with the transportation association say the system is the only one they are aware of that has completely shut down due to budget pressure.
It is also a place where a large number of suburban working poor may now be stranded: A survey of riders in April 2008 found that 65% of them do not have access to a car. In a survey last month, 3 out of 4 said they may lose their jobs when the buses stopped rolling.
Much of that worry trundled along with bus 503 as it made the last of its morning tours Wednesday. The 503 route is one of the system's most popular, ending at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where many riders work, and where others catch the regional MARTA train to points north.
Some riders on the 503 said they had arranged carpools with friends and family; others said their homes were within acceptable distance of the stops for the handful of regional express buses that will still run north into Atlanta. But many others were without solutions.
Carpenter Anthony Slade, 26, decided he would be walking to and from the airport MARTA station from his home four miles away. He figured that would come to about three hours of walking daily.
"It looks like I'm going to have to keep that up until they get the bus service going on again," he said.
Riding in the front of the bus was William Griffin Jr., 65 -- a minister, formerly drug-addicted and homeless, now clean and sporting a hat festooned with hand-scrawled tributes to Jesus.
He said he had called one of the private jitney services that have been circulating handbills promising rides for locals. But Griffin hasn't found one that goes to his neighborhood.
At stake, Griffin said, was his job at a recycling plant in the far northern suburbs.
"In this recessionary time, they're not going to hold this job for you until the buses are back," he said.
Mark Watson, 35, was heading to his job at the county dump. His wife works a 4 a.m. shift at a hospital in midtown Atlanta. He said he'd probably start driving her there, then driving 40 minutes back to Clayton County in the 20-year-old car they share.
"It's running bad right now, so that drive to midtown has got me scared," he said.
It was October when the county commission voted, 4 to 1, to end bus service by the end of March.
