A week ago, many of you stood with us on the steps of City Hall along with many others following on Facebook Live as we listened to powerful speakers for BeltLine rail. We also made a call to action, asking that you email Mayor Andre Dickens to urge him to please stand by his promise to build Beltline rail, beginning with the Streetcar East Extension. 

And you delivered! Many thanks to all of you for following through. Your attendance at the rally and your emails to Mayor Dickens had a great impact!

This week we learned that not only is Mayor Dickens sticking with his plan to build Beltline rail, but, in addition, he is also planning to connect it to four new MARTA infill stations. This will make the Beltline even more relevant as a way to tie together all of intown Atlanta through its connections to MARTA heavy rail around the BeltLine loop. Mayor Dickens’s plan represents the core vision that can maximize all the benefits that BeltLine rail can bring. This is cause for celebration and gratitude.

The Mayor has gone big, creating a whole new vision of transit for the future of the city. In announcing the four new MARTA stations, he has created a plan that re-frames BeltLine rail and all of the More MARTA program, lifting it up by announcing with one broad stroke an idea so powerful that it will transform the way the city grows and prospers for the next hundred years.

One important development that Mayor Dickens announced Monday in his State of the City address involves the construction of a new infill station at Murphy Crossing. This long-sought infill station connection will provide service to our neighbors in a woefully underserved part of town desperately in need of more transit. Both Campbellton Road BRT and BeltLine rail will connect beneath the new MARTA platform, resulting in a multi-modal transit hub planned without any parking for cars for those living there, benefitting existing residents and the thousands more to come. 

We are now asking you to email Mayor Dickens once more. This time we ask that you please thank him for sticking to his promise to build BeltLine rail, especially in light of his big new plan. This larger, networked vision can truly provide equity and opportunity to ALL Atlantans. 

Mayor Dickens campaigned on building BeltLine transit and on his determination to be Atlanta’s first “transit mayor.” His campaign theme was “I will draw circles, not lines.” His new vision for BeltLine rail transit centered around four new MARTA infill stations represents the most important circle he can draw.