*Murphy Crossing offers a vertical connection to Beltline rail and to Campbellton Rd transit extended 0.5 miles past Oakland City MARTA. Image by Fast+Epp*

It was a peculiar time for an announcement of such magnitude: 5pm, close of business on a Thursday, and with the Atlanta City Council out of session. But the news produced such a reaction that by 6:00 Mayor Dickens’s announcement that all four new infill transit stations will be on the Atlanta BeltLine had sent shock waves through the city’s transit networks. Those shock waves are reverberating throughout every community underserved by transit or ill-connected to it, and through those neighborhoods where people are choking on the traffic that density without mass transit has spawned. The Mayor reaffirmed the power of the BeltLine by announcing a two-billion-dollar plus investment to connect the BeltLine to MARTA heavy rail. His order directs COO Lisa Benjamin and BeltLine CEO Clyde Higgs to identify the transit solutions ON the BeltLine that will provide seamless circulation from the new stations he has committed the City to build. We might yet join the ranks of 20-something other cities around the world that already have circular rail transit lines connecting to axial spokes radiating out from their centers. BeltLine rail is that 22-mile circular connection. Mayor Dickens has elevated the entire transit program with his bold, audacious vision. This plan has the potential to make Atlanta one of the country’s transit leaders and to elevate the entire More MARTA network of transit projects.

I have a feeling that I will remember exactly where I was when the news broke. This is an announcement on par with Mayor Maynard Jackson’s major 1978 expansion of Hartsfield-Jackson airport and the addition of the domestic airport MARTA station more than 40 years ago. Today’s announcement by Mayor Dickens is THAT significant. But now MARTA and the Dickens administration must follow through without delay. It is not too late for Atlanta to garner some of the remaining billions of Biden Infrastructure Act dollars for planning and even constructing these infill stations.

There are many unanswered questions about how to pay for these stations and how quickly they can be built. In our 2021 Funding White Paper, BeltLine Rail Now suggested ways to pay for these stations and to build Beltline rail transit, but that was before President Biden allocated many billions of dollars more for transit. The case for BeltLine rail just got a lot stronger, but the Mayor stopped short of saying we are moving forward with it, even as $3.5 million is being spent on studying it through the federally funded BeltLine rail study that began in November. Also, the Streetcar East Extension connecting Peachtree Center MARTA to Ponce City Market entered the final design process in January, with service to begin in 2028.

We congratulate Mayor Dickens, and we thank him for his bold leadership. Yesterday’s announcement eclipsed Monday’s celestial events and overshadowed all other transit news of the week. We encourage our mayor to move forward quickly with connecting this city and its 45 core neighborhoods with BeltLine rail. An Atlanta with these new MARTA stations and circular Beltline rail will have the kind of infrastructure that connects us instead of dividing us, now and for the future.

All Roads Lead To The BeltLine

Join us at the Inman Park Festival Parade, or join our table!

Thank you to Mayor Andre Dickens