Beltline for Everyone
Dear Beltline Rail Now Supporters,
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. And whether the first stretch to Ponce City Market on the Eastside Trail, paused by MARTA and the Mayor during its final design earlier this year, will resume its trajectory to move passengers in 2028.
A lot is at stake. Right now. Opinions at City Hall are still being formed. If you’re a longtime follower of ours, you know what Beltline Rail Now stands for: the delivery of the entire 22 miles of Beltline rail and the other More MARTA projects. We work to implement this plan, which MARTA and the City finalized after voters approved in 2016 by a 71% margin the only transit expansion in the City of Atlanta since 2001..
That’s why BRN commissioned this exciting and inspirational video from professional documentary filmmaker and journalist Adam Shumaker to showcase the real, widespread and sustained desire for Beltline rail. A BELTLINE FOR EVERYONE answers the questions “Who is the Beltline for, and why do we need to fulfill the promises and plans for light rail on the Beltline ?”
In 1999, when Ryan Gravel published his graduate thesis at Georgia Tech, Atlanta became the first city to propose the idea of a modern greenway that fuses transit and trails with focused dense urban development. The rest is history. The Beltline has become the largest, most vibrant urban redevelopment project in the United States. Civic leaders worldwide have taken notice, visited the Beltline, and copied the concept.
But the vision for the City of Atlanta’s reinvention of this former industrial area into a place for all people remains elusively incomplete without its most important and central infrastructural element: the light rail transit that makes the Beltline truly a connector of people everywhere to the most popular destinations in the City. We can’t afford to miss this chance by turning our backs on more than 25 years of forward movement toward a city that works for everyone and lifts people up as it connects them to each other, moving all Atlantans toward an affordable and sustainable future in the City of Atlanta.
You’ve been with us through the roller coaster of the last 6 years, and it’s time to make a final push to the finish line. Watch this video. Donate here to support this and other significant investments that BRN is making in turning the tide of private opinion by amplifying what we know is public opinion: Beltline Rail Now!
