UrbanizeAtlNewsBot@yall.theatl.social

UrbanizeAtlNewsBot@yall.theatl.social

BREAKING: Atlanta mayor yanks support for eastside Beltline streetcar Josh Green Thu, 03/13/2025 - 15:22 In a surprising turn of events, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens today indicated the city is shifting priorities from building out a light-rail system on the most popular Beltline section to instead focus on transit in other parts of town.

Dickens told MARTA’s Board of Directors during a transit meeting today that a southside Beltline transit system in conjunction with MARTA would better serve the city than downtown’s current streetcar branching to the Eastside Trail, and then on to Ponce City Market, according to WSB-TV.

Another focus would be improving the current streetcar system and extending it into Southwest Atlanta, with a connection at the Beltline’s planned Murphy Crossing development.

Courtney English, chief policy officer and senior advisor to the mayor, told the AJC the city remains committed to building rail in the Beltline corridor but not with the eastside strategy that’s been planned—and hotly debated—for several years.

MARTA officials had estimated the streetcar extension project along the Eastside Trail to Ponce City Market would cost roughly $230 million. The transit agency’s forecasts called for breaking ground late this year and beginning fare service sometime in 2028.

Transit-rich future for the Beltline’s Southside Trail? Atlanta BeltLine Inc.

Early reactions

Walter Brown, president of Better Atlanta Transit, which has lobbied against rail-based transit in the Eastside Trail corridor, provided the following statement in the wake of Dickens’ comments to MARTA officials:

“Congratulations to Mayor Dickens for making the wise and courageous decision to defund the expensive, unnecessary, and inequitable Streetcar Extension East. It’s clear that the $3 billion Beltline rail loop would do nothing to address Atlanta’s actual transit needs and that it would detract from the enormous success of the Beltline.

The Streetcar Extension would have gobbled up hundreds of millions of precious More MARTA dollars for a rail stub serving primarily wealthy eastside neighborhoods. That money will be better spent on transit TO the Beltline, such as the mayor’s proposed infill stations, and on transit that serves ridership demand in less well-healed neighborhoods, such as the Hollowell Parkway-North Avenue Bus-Rapid Transit line.

We urge Atlanta Beltline Inc. to use this opportunity to leverage the Beltline’s success as an Emerald Necklace of trails and parks that has already connected neighborhoods and spurred economic growth. The Beltline trail is a wildly successful micromobility corridor. ABI must do more to nurture this asset. One place to start would be to examine the possibility of building a separate path for pedestrians along the most crowded stretches of the trail.”

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Regarding the matter of Beltline transit and the mayor’s opinion, Matthew Rao, Beltline Rail Now chair, provided Urbanize Atlanta with the following transcript of his statement to MARTA’s board:

“Today you heard from Mayor Dickens and Courtney English about the administration’s changed priorities for building rail on the Beltline, nearly a year after pausing this project in final design with a $13-million contract approved unanimously by this board.

We heard a brilliant presentation by English characterizing one of the principal pillars upon which Beltline rail as a cornerstone of the Beltline project is based—and that is equity. But that presentation for all its luster leaves much to the imagination and ignores certain realities.

English drew a line from Northwest to Southeast and suggested that statistics show that the income divide is along that line. He is right to do so. The entire Beltline project and its transit component are based on equity. And while income inequality is represented by that line, so is the prosperity divide. The opportunity that exists on one side of that line does not exist on the other today, and delaying connection to the Eastside Trail with a thought of one day connecting the southwest side will not help move the equity needle, not in the short term nor in the long-term. The Peachtree Center MARTA station that exists now can get you to the Beltline at Ponce City Market in 15 to 20 minutes, if we adopt reasonable fixes to the downtown streetcar. We have the density and precursors for ridership success there.

The fact is, you stand ready to deliver a project in revenue service in three years that crosses that equity divide. That’s a fact. You will be blamed for a failure to show progress if you delay —not the mayor. He will be long gone when those projects happen. What are you going to do now?

We have met with your staff and are confident that they want to deliver a world-class project and that they can, if given the chance. Our impression is that MARTA is eager. It is City Hall that wants to take your eyes off the ball and then let you take the fall.

To start over yet again would waste your progress and millions of dollars. And we would not get rail transit in three years but more like seven to 10. That not only represents a delay, but also a fabulous waste of money—and a delay in the point when people can access the thousands of jobs, the recreational, and health and shopping opportunities that already exist, and are only growing more rapidly in that corridor.

It also puts pressure on developers to continue to increase the problem English identified, which is the city of cars choking on traffic based on large amounts of parking in every development to make them economically viable.

The antidote was always planned—and that is Beltline rail.

And by starting later somewhere else and one day, hopefully coming back around to where we already are, we will not deliver on that promise. And it will have been too late. We urge you to continue with [a streetcar extension eastward] on the Beltline and to move forward and enact the program that English proposed for Southside rail in due time when it is ready and it can be paid for.

You have collected nearly $700 million in taxes and spent nearly eight years doing it. It’s time to show progress today and not someday, halfway into the 40-year program. With your leadership, collaboration and cooperation with this and future mayors, there must be away forward from where we are now that does not mean sidelining Beltline rail yet again.”

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