Hundreds convened at Georgia International Convention Center on Feb. 19 for the 23rd annual South Metro Development Outlook Conference, where industry and political leaders dive into regional challenges like transportation.
The day-long conference focused largely on Metro Atlanta’s quickly growing population. The Atlanta Regional Commission predicts an additional 1.8 million people coming to the metro by 2050.
“People are coming, 1.8 million of them, and they’re coming whether we think we are full or not,” ARC Executive Director and CEO Anna Roach said. “So we are not full.”
Metro Atlanta has doubled in size over the last twenty years and plans to keep on growing. But it raises questions about how people will get around the infamously traffic-ridden city. At the South Metro conference transportation session, transit leaders previewed the future of navigating the region.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport got special attention. As planes flew overhead the conference center, Glydways previewed a personal rapid transit pilot program headed to the airport in 2026.
The company announced plans to launch its first fully public operation earlier this year: Small, four-person “personal” driverless vehicles set to ride along a predetermined half-mile route. Riders will hail the vehicles via a mobile app and ride along a track between the airport and the Georgia International Convention Center.
“We were founded eight years ago with a very ambitious mission, and that mission is to provide access to mobility because we believe that access to mobility is access to opportunity,” Glyways Senior Vice President Mariah Ray said.
Ray said that driverless cars will be able to move up to 10,000 people per hour, according to the destination. If the two-year pilot program proves successful, the company will expand to other stops along and near the busy airport.
MARTA CEO Collie Greenwood said the project is an educating step in analyzing the future of transportation.
“We believe that the future of transit is a high capacity, flexible solution that can be accessed autonomously but with an incredible user experience,” Ray said.
The transit solution aims to help people who have to commute to the airport for work and “show what’s possible.” But Hartsfield-Jackson Airport is growing in ridership, too. Within five years, the airport aims to reach 125 million annual passengers.
“Expansion is our future plan,” Interim Airport General Manager Jan Lennon said. “It is already in motion.”
The airport will expand Concourse D to accommodate increased passengers. Other improvements include plane train enhancements to reduce congestion, modernizing and replacing parking decks, adding new gates, creating curbside relief measures and expanding security checkpoints and terminal capacity.
Lennon also said Hartsfield-Jackson will use artificial intelligence-driven security enhancements and automation to “improve the passenger experience.”
“Expansion is necessary, but our commitment remains the same,” Lennon said. “To keep Atlanta connected, competitive and positioned for the future.”
Transportation is changing within the region, too. The Georgia Department of Transportation announced billion-dollar highway projects at I-285 and I-20 interchanges. Two projects are set to reconstruct the interchange to improve bottlenecking.
MARTA CEO and General Manager Collie Greenwood also previewed the new MARTA railcars. The agency unveiled the state-of-the-art cars on Jan. 30 with plans to roll out the entire updated fleet in early 2026. He also showed progress in the rehabilitation of the run-down College Park MARTA station.
While the threat of federal funding cuts looms over all transportation projects, GDOT Chief Engineer Meg Pirkle said the plan is to do “business as usual until we get different guidance.”
“Our projects are all needed, we’re keeping them moving and we’re doing business as usual,” Pirkle said.
How many times do we have to see these “autonomous” pods run to know they are BS. Also this company doesn’t have their own parking lot to run these in? What do we really expect to gain from running a small pod around a parking lot for a few months? What is being applied to this project that was “learned” from the pilot project at the braves stadium over the past couple of years.
Moreover, why can’t we get serious and build proven transit projects in Atlanta instead of looking for cheap shortcuts.
To “Fedup”, it could be helpful to educate yourself about the technology by reading DOT studies, going to TRB conferences, or joining the Advanced Transit Association. Your questions involving parking lots indicates you have not learned the basics.
This is a cool idea and curious to see what they learn during their two year pilot. The future is a mix of transit methods and cities designed around public transit, not the other way around. Atlanta needs to continue to plan and design the city with public transit first in mind. We simply cannot continue to grow at the pace we’ve been growing and remain car dependent. Studies prove time and time again that building more roads only puts more cars on the road.
MARTA needs to expand its existing rail lines to reach outside the perimeter on the east and west sides and extend current rail lines. That’s the biggest and most valuable impact to the future of Atlanta and its inhabitants. Cobb and Gwinnett county voters need to stop putting their own selfish fears of declining property values and rise in crime to vote against Atlanta’s growth and future success.
We NEED more rail lines. People want to be able to rely on getting around via MARTA but can’t because it’s only accessible to those in the city and even within the city, MARTA’s rail lines are limited in where they can transport you to.