The Beltline is about to get bigger.
On Sept. 10, city leaders broke ground on the Northwest Trail’s Segment 3B, a one-mile stretch attached to the Northside Trail and a small segment at Monday Night Brewing’s The Grove. It brings the 22-mile loop closer to its 2030 completion date.
Once finished, the segment will bring the Beltline to about 17 miles of completed trail. Officials say it will take roughly two years to finish, but the segment comes with some challenges.
The first is the segment’s location. The Northwest Trail is the only area where the Beltline can’t build off an existing rail right-of-way. As a rail to trail conversion, the Beltline relies on abandoned railroad tracks that are already cleared out and flattened to convert into multi-use paths.
“This is the critical piece where we do not have an existing rail corridor to pull up, so we have to bob and weave through streets over Northside Drive,” Atlanta Beltline, Inc. CEO Clyde Higgs said.
Higgs said it’s a “technically complicated” project, especially because of Northside Drive. The Beltline will cut directly across the major traffic artery. Originally, Beltline planners considered adding a pedestrian crosswalk to the road. They eventually opted for a safer but more expensive pedestrian bridge set to go over the road.
“It blew the budget for sure, but it was the right thing to do for our community,” Higgs said.
The one-mile section will cross Northside via pedestrian bridge, continue through Atlanta Technology Center, through a passage under I-75 and onto an elevated trail with the Tanyard Creek concrete channel.
Still, Beltline leaders say the segment will be ready for a ribbon-cutting in about two years. Higgs said the trail is still on track to be finished by 2030, with only a handful of segments left. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens is pushing them to finish earlier.
“I’m pushing for a few months earlier than that because I walk out the door in 2030, and I want to cut the last ribbon in 2029,” Dickens joked.
Higgs took a more conservative approach. “We’re always looking for ways to be efficient, and if you look at our timeline, we’re definitely on schedule for 2030,” he said. “If the stars align, potentially we can accelerate even more, but construction is a capricious business at best, so we’ll see.”
But it raises a question: What marks the Beltline’s completion? Transit advocates say the path isn’t finished until it has rail.
“When Beltline officials talk about ‘we’re going to be done in four years,’ and they don’t acknowledge that the trail will be done, but the rail still has to get done, there’s a disconnect,” Beltline Rail Now member Angel Poventud said. “The city wants all aspects of the Beltline – trail, transit, green space and parks, not just trail.”
Last week, the Beltline recommitted to light rail on the trail with a final recommendation for a $3.5 billion transit system alongside the loop. It’s a firm move after years of fraught discussions and changed stances – Mayor Dickens walked back support for the original rail plan in 2025, instead pushing for rail on the Southside.
But there’s no timeline on the recommended system. Earlier this week, Atlanta City Council District 2 member Kelsea Bond created a resolution to request an implementation plan and quarterly project updates from the city. Bond said “it’s time to make good on our promise to voters and build Beltline rail.”
Beltline CEO Higgs said funding is the holdup. He said the agency would have to “figure out some significant funding opportunities to pay for that,” and suggested extending the Beltline Tax Allocation District set to expire at the end of 2030.
Poventud pointed to another funding source — More MARTA, a 2016 half-penny sales tax approved by Atlanta voters. It set aside $570 million to extend downtown Atlanta’s streetcar onto the Beltline, creating rail on the Eastside trail.
The funds would pay for the original rail plan, but they don’t cover a potential Southside Trail starting location. “That’s an additional funding thing we don’t have an answer to yet,” Poventud said.
Poventud, like many rail advocates, said he’s holding out for official action before believing in rail. “Until we get back on the map, design continues and construction starts, we’re not and I’m not satisfied,” he said.
In the meantime, construction will continue on the Beltline — one segment at a time.
