A new MARTA station at Murphy Crossing in southwest Atlanta will make BeltLine rail even more vital to our city’s future mobility.
That’s according to Joel Dixon, co-founder and principal of Urban Oasis, a joint venture partner with Culdesac, the winning team that is developing Murphy Crossing, a cutting-edge development being designed around pedestrians and transit rather than cars.
“If we just had a MARTA station at Murphy Crossing, that would not be enough,” Dixon said in a recent interview. “We still need to have BeltLine rail. The very power of the BeltLine is that it fills in the gaps within the existing MARTA system.”
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens announced a plan to add four new MARTA stations on the existing rail network at the State of the City on March 25 with the first one identified as Murphy Crossing.
The proposal was enthusiastically received.
But then the questions came. Where would the other three stations located? How much would they cost. And how would the new MARTA stations be paid for and implemented? And would these new MARTA stations come at the expense of BeltLine rail?
Collie Greenwood, MARTA’s general manager, answered the questions as best he could at an Atlanta City Council transportation committee meeting.
“There’s a lot of work that has to happen,” Greenwood said, adding that putting in new stations “is not a new conversation.”
Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman asked Greenwood if the new stations were in lieu of BeltLine rail.
“They are both and right now,” Greenwood said.
In a brief interview after the meeting, Greenwood elaborated on his response.
“This is being approached independently,” Greenwood said. “We have a lot of work to do to make sure that’s a sound option and that we can continue to do that. But it’s an independent thrust. We haven’t taken anything away from the Beltline. “
Greenwood said adding new stations will improve riders’ ability to have greater access to MARTA’s 38 existing stations.
When it comes to paying for the new stations, Greenwood said MARTA would pursue local, regional, state and federal funding.
“Any opportunity we have to partner with our elected officials and our jurisdictional partners in the pursuit of transit is music to my ears,” Greenwood said.
The current plan to extend the Atlanta Streetcar to the BeltLine’s Eastside Trail and then to add rail transit along the right-of-way from Irwin Street to the Ponce City Market is being funded by the More MARTA half-penny sales tax.
Building rail on BeltLine’s eastside trail is just the first leg of what has been envisioned to have a circular 22-mile rail corridor along the entire right-of-way of the BeltLine. But no existing heavy rail MARTA stations currently intersect with the BeltLine.
That’s why Dickens’ proposal to add MARTA stations along the BeltLine, starting with Murphy Crossing, makes BeltLine rail even more critical to creating a more accessible and equitable city, according to Dixon.
“By just adding a MARTA station at Murphy Crossing, you have only added another stop on a limited rail network,” Dixon said. “BeltLine rail is essential for the BeltLine, period. BeltLine rail is important for Murphy Crossing as one of the catalytic sites and as a major point of commercial retail and housing activity. We want to ensure access from our development to the whole city — access to the east side and Krog Street and access to West Midtown. That’s why BeltLine transit is important.”
Dixon, who lives within walking distance of Murphy Crossing, gave me a tour to show how the BeltLine intersects with MARTA. Ideally, one could get off a streetcar at Murphy Crossing and transfer to MARTA rail at a Murphy Crossing station.
“Rail transit on the BeltLine was and has always has been the expectation, but we had no idea when that would manifest itself,” Dixon said. “I have been an advocate and an interested party in seeing the interconnectedness between the BeltLine and MARTA. I know there are challenges, but those challenges can be overcome with financial resources and commitment to get it done.”
Dixon said building BeltLine rail is essential to equity and the city’s quality of life.
“If you are really serious about equity, you have to make sure you connect people on the south and west sides of the city to the east and north sides of the city,” Dixon said. “We need both BeltLine rail and a MARTA stop.
The reason Murphy Crossing is such an important site is because I want to enjoy Ponce City Market and West Midtown from Murphy Crossing in my neck of the woods. Equity is for everybody.”
Dixon also said the city’s population growth makes transit expansion even more important.
“If we continue to create sites that only enable automobile access for most people, we will continue to strangle ourselves with traffic,” Dixon said. “If we don’t put transit on the BeltLine, we will miss the opportunity to maximize the benefit of a dedicated right-of-way for all Atlantans. Clearly, we have the density for transit, or we wouldn’t have all this traffic. More density is coming, and we have to plan to have transit. The eastside already has that density.”
In response to people who oppose a streetcar along the BeltLine, Greenwood said MARTA is studying various new technologies to make rail transit as welcoming as possible, including not having an overhead wire and having rail run on a grass bed rather than concrete.
Again, as a city, we need to think about where we want to be decades from now. Developing new MARTA stations that intersect with a BeltLine transit system will greatly improve Atlanta’s mobility for people who want to get around without being in a car.
Imagine new MARTA stations at Krog Street and at Armour Yards along the BeltLine. All of a sudden, we would be taking full advantage of both MARTA and BeltLine rail, making Atlanta a much more interconnected city and making transit a more tangible option for people who want to get around without a car.
“BeltLine rail will increase access to others along the BeltLine, and it will increase the value to those who are already using the MARTA rail because now it will unlock all these stops and access to areas they couldn’t access previously,” Dixon said. “BeltLine rail should exist no matter what.”
This is exciting news from the mayor that he is supporting the long-awaited intermediate MARTA stations between the existing stations! Murphy Crossing, Armour Yards are two locations that will intersect with the Beltline and feeder trails from PATH – how cool is that! Adding better transit inside 285 is forward thinking and will support continued TOD development around stations and the Beltline.
That said, putting rail transit ON the Beltline IS NOT a good idea. Getting rail transit TO the Beltline IS a good idea. Don’t be fooled by the serene images of streetcars with a grassy rail bed and no overhead catenary lines. Why not wait for the Beltline to be completed in the next few years and see where or if we have density that warrants rail connections. Then decide if rail or other modalities make more sense – like rubber wheel trollies that move along the right of way along with walkers, runners and cyclist.
Investment like streetcars needs to connect large populations centers to large population centers (like Midtown to Piedmont Hospital) to assure higher levels of ridership. Otherwise, we have another empty streetcar like the one downtown.
MARTA is run by people who don’t even ride MARTA. When working, they conjure up plans, spring them on everybody, and “public input” is just a box they check in private. They constantly dissuade new riders by hiring TSA rejects, remove benches around bus stops (because “the homeless”), put bright LED lights and security monitors everywhere to make everyone feel like they’re prisoners instead of customers, and then act surprised when ridership slips, they lose money. MARTA needs to clean house if they want to get anything done. Ain’t happening…
There are good reasons to prioritize the new MARTA stations over the streetcar extension onto the Beltline (and over Beltline rail generally.)
First, there is immediate demand for these infill stations. They greatly increase access to the existing heavy rail network, and they give badly-needed access to the Beltline Linear Park.
Second, transportation technology is in enormous flux, so we can buy time by investing in new stations, which provide certain benefits. That gives time to assess how well MARTA’s new BRT lines function and to see whether autonomous vehicles transform urban mobility. Steel wheels may be undeniably obsolete in a few years.
Moreover, as more radial transit lines intersect the Beltline (e.g. North Avenue BRT, Northside Drive,) we may find that the Beltline is adequately served by transit connections. Most points on the Beltline may be within a half mile of a transit station.
Everyone supports transit but not so much that we must sacrifice the Beltline as a linear park. We can have green space *and* mobility.
I’m excited about all of it, as long as we follow through and keeping section 2.23 of the IGA intergovernmental agreement, then we shouldn’t have a problem here. I stay literally3 blocks away from the site. In regards to the NIMBY people, that’s fine for your portion, however my side of town the Southside numerous NPUs continue to advocate for the project and others and by your saying no, you are taking away people’s voices which is not fair. Its too late, by this time next year, the study will be complete then the corridor will be eligible for the next steps.