As Atlanta Beltline Inc. celebrates its 20-year anniversary, it is still up in the air on how the city will move forward to build out the vision for transit.
The most tangible Beltline rail project is putting light rail on the Eastside Trail, extending the downtown streetcar to the Beltline and continuing the rail to the Ponce City Market.
The engineering design plans for that portion are already 30 percent complete, the right-of-way is there, funding from More MARTA has been set aside, and the corridor already has the density of residents and businesses to ensure the project’s success.
After all, it was the No. 1 project promised when voters overwhelmingly passed the More MARTA referendum in 2016.
But that project was put on hold in March when Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and his team recommended starting rail on the southside for equity reasons. Jonathan Hunt, MARTA’s interim general manager, reconfirmed that decision at his Sept. 11 press briefing by saying that the project has been put on pause.
But now there could be an opening to change course.
In a recent exclusive interview after the Sept. 12 quarterly meeting of the Atlanta Committee for Progress, Mayor Dickens was asked if he would be willing to revisit that decision after the city election in November. Dickens does have opposition, but none of the three opponents are seen as having a viable chance to prevent the mayor’s re-election.
“I revisit stuff all the time,” Dickens said. “Everybody doesn’t want what you want, and so we can have public discourse about it. Sure, fire up. Let’s talk Beltline come January, I’m open for it.”
The mayor did add that the city’s proposed strategy would bring rail where people need it most — on the south and west side.
Courtney English, the city’s chief policy officer and interim chief of staff, who was instrumental in developing the city’s transit plan, echoed Dickens’ comments, saying the mayor was open to revisiting the Beltline rail transit conversation.
But English added that the only viable way to put transit on the Beltline will be to extend the Tax Allocation Districts in the City of Atlanta. The city, Fulton County and the Atlanta Board of Education would have to approve the extension of the TADs.
Clyde Higgs, president and CEO of Atlanta Beltline Inc., told Atlanta Rotarians on Monday, Sept. 29, that extending the TADs would generate more than $6 billion in revenues, and it’s likely a chunk of that would go to building out transit on the Beltline.
“Light rail transit was always a vision for the Beltline,” Higgs said at the Atlanta Rotary meeting. Building rail on the Eastside trail would create disturbance, but then he added that streetcar technology has evolved since the Downtown Streetcar, where overhead wires are no longer needed to power the light rail cars.
Atlanta Beltline Inc. recently released its own transit study for the 22-mile corridor, which took nearly two years and $3.5 million to complete. The study provides real cost estimates for implementing rail. To bring the entire corridor to the 30 percent design and engineering stage would take $125 million. Again, the project for rail on the Beltline Eastside Trail has already reached the 30 percent engineering level, and it’s the only part of the 22-mile corridor that could be under construction by 2030.
Brian McGowan, former CEO of Atlanta Beltline Inc. and now the president of the $5 billion Centennial Yards development, agreed the city will have to generate its own funding if it wants transit on the Beltline.
“The truth is we have to add transit on the Beltline,” McGowan said. “If you look at ARC’s growth projections, we literally have no choice. We are not going to be able to move people around our region without transit, including rail. The TAD extension conversation is the right conversation to have.”
McGowan then said: “There should be transit everywhere on the Beltline as well as the crosstown connectors. We should start wherever it makes the most sense. Where there’s the most density is on the Eastside trail, and that’s where we should start.”
Higgs made similar points at the Council for Quality Growth’s State of the Beltline breakfast on Sept. 24, saying extending the TADs would be necessary to build rail on the Beltline.
“Transit is part of the Beltline’s DNA,” Higgs said. “We are going to add another 1.8 million people to metro Atlanta in the next 25 years. If we don’t figure out a way to give people options, we are going to choke on our success. If we are really about equity, we need to make sure we can move people from neighborhoods to job centers. Transit is the way to do it.”
Of course, the transit conversation not only exists for the Beltline.
Dickens, who also chairs the board of the Atlanta Regional Commission, envisions the leadership transition at MARTA as an opportunity to bring transit throughout the region.
ARC recently visited the Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia area on the LINK trip and saw a region heavily vested in expanding its rail transit network.
“The D.C. Metro is an awesome rail system,” Dickens said. “They operate as a region over there. The DC Metro goes into Virginia, goes into Maryland, and of course, it’s in DC. It knows its role is to get people to where they’re going and to connect folks.”
Dickens said he would love for MARTA to be viewed as a regional asset. Transit is expensive, and it needs regional participation as well as federal and state money through potential public-private partnerships.
To get greater support for expanding rail transit, the mayor said it needs to become a 2026 election issue regionally and statewide. When he sees people sitting in traffic on I-75 and I-85, he sees license plates from every county in the region.
“They’re stuck in traffic and complaining,” Dickens said, “They need to raise their voice and say to the state and to their regional leaders, you know, how can we get access? How can we get transit?”
Dickens also expressed frustration at the slow pace of More MARTA projects, saying he wished the Summerhill Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and the Campbellton Road BRT were up and running.
“More MARTA is behind because an agency hasn’t been good at doing project delivery for the last couple of decades,” Dickens said, referring to MARTA. “Now we’re asking them to do something different.”
Dickens said he’s focused on working with MARTA to find a new general manager who can increase transit ridership and support regional efforts to expand the system.
MARTA leaders will need to decide what kind of general manager it wants. Does it want someone who optimizes the existing system? Or does it want someone who can deliver a rail capital program and expand Atlanta’s and the region’s transit network?
If it wants the latter, MARTA, including the City of Atlanta and the board, must show it’s serious about moving ahead with rail. And the most tangible project with the greatest likelihood of success is building light rail on the Eastside Trail.
Note to readers:
To read a companion story about the Atlanta Committee for Progress, please click here.
The following two maps show the progress of the Atlanta Beltline’s trail development. It is on schedule to complete its 22-mile trail corridor by 2030.
The first slide shows the current status of the trail completion, and the second slide shows what is supposed to be completed by the 2026 World Cup.
Development of the trail network in September 2025:
Development of the trail network by July 2026:
The sooner we get rail on the beltline the better. Local neighborhood roads are choked with traffic.
Stop talking and build something
The first step toward Beltline rail should be adding a second path, parallel to the first, designated for bike traffic, 15 mph and less. That would prevent accidents AND prepare the way for rail when the money and support is there.
There are obvious problems with a “multi-use trail,” as anyone who has tried to use it for getting north or south on the east side knows now. You need to respond to that, and stop with the pretty pictures of leaders celebrating impending failure.
Agree with building a separate path for cyclists and scooters within the Eastside BeltLine, but separated by a few feet and well marked, between Irwin Street/Lake Avenue and Monroe Drive. During the week it’s mostly not too congested but on weekends if you’re a cyclist it’s better to avoid this stretch — too many people.
I agree with more bike trails, but doing so city wide *intersecting/looping* to the Beltline as a separate initiative that GDOT should be forced to fund. GDOR has been given DECADES to treat transit in Atlanta as its infinite pork barrel fund. I’ve seen banker boxes of files they’ve kept at one of their law firms for all the projects they want, and as we can see none of them have helped pedestrian or bikers at all for at least 3 3 decades.
Otherwise we’re just giving Dickens another carrot to dangle and another can to kick down the road towards the real goal.
Aside from that we’re also not addressing the other usage problem of the Beltline: a lot of people are still DRIVING too it instead of walking or biking.
A) it’s not safe enough to bike or walk
B) until there is transit on the Beltline you can’t blame people for driving or riding bikes until it’s done
C) which then keeps surface street car traffic at comparable levels which will then undermine the value for people to see the actual benefit which could in turn have the alternate misinformation that “the Beltline is causing more traffic than it’s worth”
However if we leverage BRT, whatever streetcar options exist *and* DEDICATED bike lanes (not just glorified cars patio pylons) on the streets that loop/intersect the Beltline — we have a decent loop around it to support bike traffic on the streets, and we still have time for physical or behavioral limitations for bikes *on* the Beltline. Add some pedestrian bridges for streets, freeways, and rail yards that are unsafe to cross and you’ve got even more ways to cut down car traffic. My wife and I currently live on a street that is across from our easiest Beltline access point: sad to say some days it’s safer for us and our dog to hop in the car and drive across the street than play frogger in the traffic with people barreling sometimes 60+ miles in any of the 4 lanes between us and the Beltline.
Atlanta, alone among the great cities of the world, is still unable to finish the high productivity rail network…decided years ago to finish the Red Line to Windward with “busways”, a second rate system, with low public interest.
“We are going to add another 1.8 million people to metro Atlanta in the next 25 years.”
Where Blairsville? Brunswick? Metro Growth is already stalling. You’re counting Dawsonville in your growth stats as part of Atlanta.
Unfortunately neither the mayor or Clyde Higgs can be trusted in relation to this matter. Clyde Higgs is clearly setting the transit bait in order to secure his TAD extension. The mayor on the other hand will continue to study transit anywhere but on the Eastside Beltline and deliver nothing. The sooner Atlanta is rid of these 2 weak “leaders” the better.
That’s rich to see Mayor Dickens urge people to speak up for transit when he has ignored tens of thousands of Atlantans begging, urging and demanding he move forward with Phase 1 Beltline transit on the Eastside trail which is funded and shovel ready, which he has ignored. He is the single reason construction is not underway right now and he has shown us that speaking up for transit Does.Not.Work because political leaders like him don’t listen. What is he even saying telling us that? It feels very disrespectful.
there will be no ‘building out the vision for transit’ conversation until after the mayor is crowned again. and no surprise the masons are involved, where power ain’t inherited it’s enforced.
Dickens gaslighting citizens is enraging. We already “spoke” on rail and transit when we agreed to the original transit tax funded plan.
He’s ignored everyone already demanding rail at the behest of better Atlanta transit.
Also the guy who threw out 100k voterof signatures for a referendum on public safety is REALLY funny person to suggest we “speak up”. Guess he can’t hear us sitting so high on that pile of corporate interest, money, and goofy minicar projects to hear the screams begging him to not derail rail
Maria and others have been touting transit for like forever. You advocates are clearly not business people. MARTA like just about every transit agency nationally has a math problem. The problem is that every time MARTA is expanded MARTA loses more money. The bottom line is that the fare box does not even cover 25% of the operating costs of the system. So the operating losses just get higher and higher every time rail is expanded or a new bus route is added. Not sustainable.
Solution? Well at least for the next 3 or 4 years won’t be coming from the Feds and still don’t see the state subsidizing something that is only used by a small portion of the state population.
So, what can be done? Double the MARTA sales tax in the city to provide more funds to cover operating losses.
By the way most folks don’t realize that the original subways in Boston, NYC, Atlanta streetcar (pre WWII) were for profit businesses with no government support. That is a fundamental change in recent decades- 100 years ago folks were willing to pay a fare to use transit that covered operating expenses, capital needs and delivered a profit. That is no longer the case as there is simply not enough demand for the product despite all of the advocates clamoring. Hence massive perpetual and endless tax subsidies needed.
Anyway double the MARTA sales tax in the city- this would cover the operational losses inevitable with any expansion and make it operationally feasible. Of course doubling the sales tax would make the city’s already highest sales tax in the state even higher but seems like the only viable solution.
I’ve been extremely frustrated with this mayor, as someone who voted for him because of his promises to support the east side Beltline rail project. I’ve been disgusted by his lack of spine in the face of wealthy opponents of urbanism (see the Peachtree complete street fiasco which led to literal deaths because Dickens ripped out the improvements).
But the one thing hope I’m clinging to is that his current stance is meant to stave off a challenger financed by the wealthy conservatives who are funding the BAT astroturf lobbying group. Maybe he’s thinking if he’s reelected, he’ll be able to change his stance again. It’s weak sauce, but the only hope we have for the next four years.