Here we are at the beginning of 2025. The first leg of the Beltline rail project, which includes fixes to the downtown streetcar and the long-awaited Beltline rail from Krog Street to Ponce City Market on the Eastside trail, was supposed to be breaking ground this year. 

Instead, Mayor Andre Dickens paused the project …

Is abandoning the downtown streetcar to focus on building light rail around the 22-mile Beltline loop the right way forward for the city of Atlanta? No, it is not.

The downtown streetcar was always intended to be extended both east and west to provide connectivity to activity centers and MARTA stations. There’s no question the existing streetcar has shortcomings but they can be fixed. 

We are in the home stretch. We’re either going to get Beltline rail, or we’re not. In just over a month, Mayor Andre Dickens will decide whether the City of Atlanta’s long-held plans to deliver light rail on the Beltline will move forward.

Our initial take after reading Bob Amick’s AJC Beltline rail column was he thinks this project is the province of big business and established restaurateurs. But that’s not completely fair – we have no doubt Amick loves the Beltline.

Oct. 25- BeltLine Rail Now endorses Devin Barrington-Ward for Atlanta City Council Post 3 At-Large. Our endorsement has raised questions from our readers and others about how and why we arrived at that decision. Please note that our evaluation of the five candidates is based only on their position on Beltline rail.

More MARTA is failing. It is dying a death by a thousand cuts, getting progressively smaller and less meaningful than the transit expansion program 71% of voters backed in 2016.

Are the infill stations a plan to slow kill the BeltLine Rail?

There may be a limit to the amount of density Atlantans are willing to tolerate without the promise of mass transit. That's one takeaway from NPU-F's 282-84 vote Wednesday night denying zoning and land use changes for the BeltLine adjacent Amsterdam Walk redevelopment project that straddles the Virginia-Highland and Morningside neighborhoods off the busy Monroe Drive corridor.

As a resident of Old Fourth Ward, located near the proposed Streetcar East expansion, Ian strongly supports both this extension and the larger project of bringing rail to the entire Atlanta Beltline.

The BeltLine has already shown its potential to change how people navigate the city. It is a major corridor that should include all types of accessible public transit. There's no evidence the Southside portion of the recreation trail will be used in the same way the Eastside Trail is being used.

Light rail, a trusted mode of transportation across the world, grows in capacity as ridership does, and preserves the BeltLine greenway that is so cherished. Doing nothing? That would be a colossal missed opportunity – 22 miles of dedicated right of way with zero connectivity to the 45 neighborhoods it rings.

Are you as gobsmacked as we are by the mayor’s latest interview?!? Has he really done a 180, or will this keep going and end up as a 360? Although we've walked straight forward on our mission from day 1, we're getting dizzy.