Now is an opportune moment to take a fresh look at putting rail on the Beltline’s Eastside trail.
The case to move forward with rail on the Eastside trail is as strong as ever.
It is the one corridor that makes the most sense for transit, given the density of development on the Eastside. It is the project that is farthest along of all the More MARTA projects in terms of engineering, design and designated dollars, with the exception of the Summerhill Bus Rapid Transit line now under construction.
And it is the only rail project that could be operational this decade — in a city and region that’s in desperate need of rail transit. More MARTA was passed in November 2016 with 71 percent of the vote. But, nearly a decade later, there’s little to show for it.
There may be a window to do the right thing.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, in an exclusive interview on Sept. 12 of last year, said he might be willing to revisit the issue of rail on the Eastside trail after the election. (The mayor won reelection decisively in November.)
“I revisit stuff all the time,” Dickens said during the interview. “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.”
Courtney English, Dickens’ chief of staff, said the mayor’s position hasn’t changed.
“I just spoke to the mayor, and he reiterated he is open to revisiting the prioritization of the More MARTA project list, including Beltline rail,” English said during a phone interview Monday morning.
Now there’s one more reason to revisit the issue.
When it comes to good governance and transparency, going forward with Beltline rail on the Eastside trail is an opportunity for the mayor, the Beltline and MARTA to correct the embarrassment of a significant policy decision being made outside the public eye. It’s a matter of good governance and transparency.
Excellent reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Sara Gregory revealed a key vote to stop the streetcar extension along the Eastside trail was taken on May 27 in a closed committee meeting “unbeknownst to the public.”
(The comprehensive story published on Jan. 20th shows why local news is so vital, and why it’s important to subscribe to the AJC and support our community’s journalism outlets.)
The article disclosed a key vote by the Program Governance Committee,which includes representatives from MARTA, the City of Atlanta and Atlanta Beltline Inc., led to MARTA asking the engineering firm of HDR to stop all its work on the streetcar extension project two days later. The only person to vote against stopping the work was Collie Greenwood, then MARTA’s general manager. Seven weeks later, Greenwood resigned, citing immigration issues.
The move to change course on the streetcar extension was made without an official vote by the MARTA board or a briefing before the Atlanta City Council, two public bodies where engaged citizens could have weighed in.
“I’m disheartened that the vote was not made public and not shared with the MARTA board,” said Doug Shipman, former president of the Atlanta City Council, who did not run for reelection. “The best possible outcome is that the mayor reprioritizes the Eastside project at the top of the priority list. The answer is not to go behind closed doors to pass something outside of the public view.”
Another reason to revisit the issue is the outcome of the November election, showing the popularity for rail along the Beltline’s Eastside trail.
In the surprise city election of 2025, Kelsea Bond won the District 2 open city council seat, beating four other opponents with 64 percent of the vote. District 2 completely envelops the Eastside trail.
The perception had been that people in the district, especially in the Inman Park community, were against Beltline rail.
But Bond’s election proves otherwise. One of Bond’s major issues was strong support for Beltline rail. During the election, the campaign polled the district to see how aligned they were with Bond’s positions.
Nearly 64 percent of likely voters polled said they strongly or somewhat supported Beltline rail, compared to 21 percent very or somewhat opposed. Support for rail was as high in Inman Park as the rest of the district.
“One of the primary things that motivated our volunteers was my support for Beltline rail,” said Bond, who won with the help of 200 volunteers.
Bond supports rail on the Beltline’s Eastside trail for environmental reasons.
“I’m very concerned about our climate and what our city is doing or not doing to fight climate change. The issue is way more urgent than we treat it in Atlanta,” they said. “We owe it to future generations to invest in public transit.”
Bond also said it’s important to make sure the investment of 10 years of planning and engineering work on the streetcar extension is not thrown out the window.
“If we start from scratch, it would take one more decade before you could put tracks in the ground,” Bond said of other possible Beltline rail projects. “The Eastside is ready to go.”
It’s also a matter of building back public trust.
“Unfortunately, I think our city has a transparency problem,” Bond said. “I believe the numbers are on our side for Beltline rail. I believe the energy is out there. We’ve already taken the More MARTA votes. There was a community discussion. Why would we waste all of that? I think a narrative shift needs to happen.”
Remember, the MARTA board unanimously approved going forward with Beltline rail on the Eastside on July 13, 2023. At the time, Mayor Dickens was a strong advocate of Beltline rail on the Eastside, but as time went on, his position softened, then changed while he was running for re-election. The theory was influential leaders in Inman Park had the mayor’s ear.
Going further back in time to the fall of 2021, it’s important to note that Dickens was able to get into a run-off with Felicia Moore (easing past former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed by a few hundred votes) thanks to support from Eastside neighborhoods.
Shipman, who runs along the Eastside trail almost every day, said he believes there is strong support for the rail along the corridor. As a strong supporter for Beltline rail, Shipman said people would constantly thank him for pushing the project.
“Anecdotally, I felt there was broad support for Beltline rail and a little bit of vocal opposition,” said Shipman, who believes there must be better alignment between MARTA, the city and the Beltline on the More MARTA project list. “This is an opportunity to reset the MARTA relationship and to reset priorities.”
Shipman also said the case for rail on the Eastside is as strong as ever.
“The Eastside trail connects jobs to people, and that’s vital to making a transportation system work,” Shipman said. “The Eastside is one of the major economic engines in the city. The best possible outcome is that the mayor reprioritizes the Eastside project at the top of the priority list.”
53% of citywide respondents in 2018 picked Eastside BeltLine Rail as a top 3 project.
Something seriously wrong when no matter how much $$$ available, from More MARTA’s $2.5 Billion or additional $5.5-12B from TAD Extensions, leaders refuse to include it on their To Do List.
Thank goodness it didn’t get included on the TO DO list. Sometimes common sense and good judgment prevaill. It’s also interesting that Maria turns the AJC article reporting that planning on the Eastside rail has been shut down into a win for her side. Her logic escapes me
It’s all about Equity. Ain’t no Mayor Dickens gonna gift these trains to the crackers.
Love how Dickens somehow didn’t realize inequality was a problem in Atlanta until his second term.
Mayor Dickens halted the project for good reason and got close to 90% of the vote. I would think it was a political advantage to not move forward with a waste project.
You are a sucker, Maria. When will you learn this Mayor and his lackey will never be honest about transit? They could restart rail on the Beltline tomorrow if they wished. And the moment Dickens changed his mind, the Beltline and MARTA would once again support the project too.
But instead, the Mayor would do nothing by making promises he has no intention of keeping, or even working towards, like infill stations and Southwest Beltline rail.
And despite how clear it is they are full of it, your blog keeps false hope alive, much like Charlie Brown and his football.
“ …your blog keeps false hope alive.”
Agreed.
Rail needs to go in on the southeast and westside trails first. MARTA needs to focus on where fast and accessible transportation is nonexistent.
Hi Katherine, The Southside and Westside beltline do not currently have the population density to support light rail (most estimates suggest around 5000 people per square mile). Currently the only beltline section that is in that range is the Eastside. Building elsewhere right now would be another great Atlanta white elephant.
David, ridership projections for rail on the Eastside Beltline are around 4,500 a day in 2040 for the entire streetcar loop (from downtown all the way up to Piedmont Park). That’s pitifully low for such a project, which is estimated (conservatively) at $125 million a mile. According to PATH traffic counts, more people already TODAY get where they’re going along individual segments of the Eastside Beltline — despite the overcrowded conditions on the existing narrow trail. Even Ryan Gravel acknowledged in his thesis that Beltline rail couldn’t be justified as a transit project; he said it was needed for economic development. Well, the development came without rail, and the ridership projections remain very low. Our precious transit dollars should be spent on actual transit projects that have equal standing on the More MARTA list, such as bus rapid transit serving transit-dependent westside neighborhoods. More bang for buck — especially in an era of declining federal transit aid.
Ken – you’re an ignorant dumb*ss if thats how you read my thesis.
I read your thesis. You only focus on transit, not parks and trails. Yet you continually take credit for the latter. Explain why you do that when you know that came from the late Alycen Whiddon.
Ryan – We can always count on you for bringing civil, reasoned approach to the debate. It is puzzling to me that you fell into such bitterness — why didn’t you declare victory by noting that your vision of community development came about without draining needier parts of the city of their transit dollars? And yet even after all this time the density, there’s STILL not the density to justify a $3.5 billion project. Here is one of several relevant passages from your thesis. “It must be clear, however, that this is not a transportation study. It does not justify light rail transit according to current ridership projections, but proposes that if the redevelopable territory associated with the Belt Line is handled appropriately, future population will support it.”
It will not look like the photo. It will be a weedy, gravelly mess. Literally hundreds of trees will be cut down on the east side trail. This is an unnecessary and wasteful vanity on the east side.
Agreed. It would take Atlanta’s crown jewel and destroy it with tracks and a fence to keep people off those tracks, just like the eerily-quiet Charlotte Rail-Trail.
Residential housing is booming in the Midtown/Eastside area, but the streets in these neighborhoods cannot accommodate the increased traffic. There must be more alternatives to cars, and rail on the Beltline, which was part of the original plan, is the obvious place to start. Continued reliance on cars will turn the whole city into an immobilized parking lot.
Yes, continued reliance on cars is a bad idea. But the fast, easy, practical solution — which is already being used extensively — is a wheeled lane. The wheeled traffic needs to be separated from foot traffic. And with e-bikes, people can get around very easily. Bikes allow the user to go from door-to-door, solving the “last mile” problem. Use the bike to get to the Beltline, zoom down the Beltline, then take your bike to your final destination.
Bikes. E-bikes. That’s what HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS, if not BILLIONS, of people use in other parts of the world. Ever been to the Netherlands?
Not everyone can afford an ebike, not everyone is able bodied enough to ride an ebike, it rains nearly 1 out of every 3 days in Atlanta, the list goes on.
Light rail is the least intrusive option that solves all of these problems. Build the rail.
For the money it would cost to build the Beltline streetcar, we could give thousands of city residents e-bikes, scooters, motorized wheelchairs, and so on. The streetcar isn’t about solving a transportation problem. It’s about a small group of people who want a big, shiny, expensive tram in their own neighborhood.
You can tell that because they are so dismissive of a streetcar in less prosperous areas. If they really thought streetcars were the answer to mobility, they would be pushing for them wherever they could get them, not just on the Eastside Beltline.
Laughable that the NIMBY board members of BAT try to make this an argument about “equity” as if y’all don’t solely care about your property values.
I am sure that the owners of multi-million dollar homes, Ladybird, Kevin Rathbun etc. are so civic minded about the prosperity of the south side.
Agreed. Given that many of the streetcar experiments of the late-1990s and early-2000s have failed up to expectations (Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Washington DC, etc), it’s time to move on and address a mode that people actually want to use. The Beltline provides the perfect corridor for micromobility, but the growth in its popularity makes it impractical and unsafe to force those on wheels and those on heels onto the same narrow pathway. Best practices call for a separate path. Let’s quit stalling and get it built.
Pedestrians and cyclists need to be separated on the east side of the Beltline. Your illustration pretends there’s no problem. There is. You solve it by paving the path of the rail line, making that bike only. Trolleys and bikes are more compatible than bikes and walkers because they seek to move at the same speed. It’s the difference in speed that kills.
Yes! With the advent of e-bikes, keeping bikes and foot traffic on the same path is crazy. The “wheeled path” can be implemented quickly and cheaply. Rail takes way too much time, money, and is totally inflexible. E-bikes are the way.
Agreed. This is a common best practice in cities with developed micromobility infrastructure like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and now Paris. Atlanta politicians want to pretend that the city is leading in mobility, but we are falling behind while endlessly arguing over a tram plan from over a quarter-century ago.
Piedmont Park and the Atlanta Botanical Gardens are two major jewels of our city. Ever wonder why the Streetcar Extension terminates at Ponce and doesn’t go onto Piedmont Park? A MARTA engineering study identified no less than three major impediments the remedy for which are outrageously expensive. The Streetcar Extension would be a train to nowhere in my view. The Mayor was right to shift his priorities.
ah ‘Collie and Clyde’ . . . transit crimes. Meantime, Doug Shipman smart enough to see the exit
BUILD IT!! This will be a great way to connect communities, neighborhoods, businesses, entertainment, etc., that MART trains and busses don’t do adequately or, at all. Keep the passenger cars cutting edge modern technology so people want to get in them and no raised rails of any kind.
BUILD IT!! This will be a great way to connect communities, neighborhoods, businesses, entertainment, etc., that MARTA trains and busses don’t do adequately or, at all. Keep the passenger cars cutting edge modern technology so people want to get in them and no raised rails of any kind.
It most definitely needs to be built. I live on the westside of the Beltline and work on the east, very close to Krog Market. To get to work I have to walk to the heavy rail station, get off near Edgewood Ave (choice of two stops) then walk 20 mins to my office. That’s not fun in the balmy heat of summer or the bitter cold of winter (it was 15 degrees this morning!) I can’t imagine how that feels for a non-able bodied individual. The pedestrians and bikers already have their path, let them sort it out…oh wait, they aren’t out there today because its freezing. I guess they only use it for recreation. Not necessity. Not all of us can afford a car, not all of us can/want to ride a bike, and both sides likely agree that buses suck…and share traffic..while somehow claiming to relieve said traffic. And that’s if they even show on time. Give it a break…build transit in the unused sections (currently bushes, no real substantial tree canopy to destroy) that was set aside for it! Atlanta is becoming too big a city to still think rubber tired single occupancy transit of any kind will sustain growth!
Being that the land surveys will take years before ground can break anyway — there is no good reason to not begin the shovel ready east side trail while beginning the studies on the west/south side corridors. Walk and chew gum at the same time.
I live on the west side and I have to basically play frogger if I want to cross to access the Beltline. You know what traffic/quality of life on the South/West sides while the east side trail is being built?
– Downgrade freeways like Ralph David Abernathy that run through residential as streets and add protected bike lanes/speed tables and more pedestrian features like crossings, bridges when possible
– strengthen/enforce rules on train companies parking on tracks that lead to civilian deaths when people can’t cross
– pedestrian bridges where traffic reductions can’t exist (think the MARTA pedestrian bridge between O4W and Inman Park)
– Establish more robust homeowner and resident retention programs for people who live in the South/West corridor *before* rail is built there to minimize displacement
There is a LOT that can be done to improve quality of life/transit/traffic in underserved communities while the east side is being built.
Maria, whether done in secret or not, the latest AJC reports that planning for rail on the eastside has ended. Sure, anything could happen. The mayor could change his mind again, but I doubt it and I doubt that the election of Kelsea Bond will make a difference.
Agreed. Swapping out several hardline pro-streetcar councilmembers for one is not a trend that BRN wants to see. The Beltline streetcar is as dead as the Stone Mountain Freeway.
“Whether or not the mayor and his cronies possibly broke the law doesn’t matter because *I* got what I wanted”
We can have transition to improved transportation without a train on the Beltline. Adding a “Wheels” platform can address issues such as safety & can be installed at something close to a 90% lower cost per mile.
Actual transportation can be supplied by adding small footprint e-shuttles on the “Wheels” platform. Start small & scale up as needed feels very rational to me as a taxpayer.
I tried to explain the benefits of autonomous shuttles to Ryan back in 2019 over a friendly cup of coffee & was told that he would never trust a driverless car or shuttle. So I would never expect him or the BRN folks to say anything but “Train or Die”
We should all favor improvement in transportation -but we don’t need to be handcuffed to dated & expensive technology
As opposed to being handcuffed to expensive contracts with Silicon Valley vaporware companies that have done nothing for the communities that have implemented them.
“Laughable that the NIMBY board members of BAT try to make this an argument about ‘equity’ as if y’all don’t solely care about your property values.”
I don’t own property on or near the Beltline. I just use it to get around. If BRN cared about equity at all, they would have pushed for a streetcar on the Southside. But, they decided to fight it, instead. In doing so, they shown Atlantans how reactionary they really are.