The Mayor Has Questions: We Have Answers
“Yes, I’m in favor of it. And yes, I’m pushing for it.”
Rose Scott presses Mayor Andre Dickens on Beltline Rail on WABE’s Closer Look. Image Courtesy WABE. Atlanta Photographer: LaShawn Hudson.
These were Mayor Andre Dickens’ words during his recent WABE interview with Rose Scott about Beltline light rail. The Mayor gave that clear answer during the first minute of a 10-minute segment on Beltline transit as part of a broader interview on city issues.
For that, we’d like to thank him and say we agree that getting answers to important questions that assure the project’s success is important and responsible. BeltLine rail can be under construction next year if the Mayor does not delay further.
But after that hopeful start, the rest of the Beltline transit portion of the interview felt like an Excel Spreadsheet of reasons why the project may not move forward, cost coming in at number one. It was almost as if the mayor was mainlining naysayers' litany of complaints to tell Atlantans: I’d like this to happen, but there needs to be an adult in the room, I am that adult, and I’m awaiting an analysis before I make the final call.
Glaringly absent in the mayor’s Beltline transit comments was any mention of why Beltline light rail is a good idea; the vision of Beltline light rail as an ambitious citywide re-development project unrivaled by any other other project in the nation in its potential to transform a city.
3,732 affordable dwelling units are already built in the Beltline TAD. 5,100 are planned, and the Mayor wants 10,000 around the city, most of which can be on the Beltline. What’s missing is the transit. See Map/Graphic of Affordable Housing Units
That a full Beltline light rail loop is a one-time investment to supercharge upward mobility and provide access to all Atlantans in a way no other transit project can. That the mayor’s priorities of affordable housing and mobility for the city’s residents, which he discussed during the Rose Scott interview but didn’t connect to transit, can best be delivered through Beltline light rail.
Let’s look at affordability. It's well known that the permanence of a rail project is an asset. That affordability follows rail in a way it simply doesn’t follow Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or autonomous vehicles/pods. And that the permanence of rail will be an asset in the economic development of the sections on the Beltline, the South and Southwest parts of the trail in particular, that have historically suffered from lack of investment and development.
Affordable housing, as the mayor said, is meant to be spread all around the Beltline and elsewhere in Atlanta, making the direct connection to high-capacity transit for residents who live in affordable units all the more pressing. It’s not affordable if car ownership is needed, and it’s not a desirable life if it means living too far away from a job and the city’s amenities.
“We’ve been saying ‘we have a window [to do this] before Atlanta becomes unaffordable.’ That window is closing,” said Beltline concept visionary, city planner and consultant Ryan Gravel at a June Center for Civic Innovation (CCI) panel on Beltline light rail.
“Transportation is a big investment. It determines where you work, where your kids go to school, where you live…..We need to follow through on what Atlantans want,” Gravel continued at the June CCI forum.
“If we just had a MARTA station at Murphy Crossing, that would not be enough. We still need to have Beltline rail. The very power of the Beltline is that it fills in the gaps within the existing MARTA system.”-Murphy Crossing Developer Joel Dixon. Saporta Report, Apr 1, 2024 photo credit Maria Saporta
Already the need for mass transit to, from, and along the Eastside Trail is obvious. Krog Street and Ponce City Market bookend a corridor chock full of tens of thousands of residents, millions of square feet of new retail, new hotels, some of the city’s most popular parks and two Atlanta Public Schools.
Mayor Dickens made some important points regarding defining costs during the interview. Foremost among them was that no one can tell him what Beltline light rail will cost when the full loop is completed and how much more money beyond that will be needed to operate and maintain it. These are important and forward-thinking questions.
But eventually, the cost of waiting for the answers before moving forward outstrips the ability of any tax to pay for the project.
We know the first section of light rail, the Streetcar East Extension (SCE), which connects the existing downtown streetcar to the Beltline and Krog Street Market to Ponce City Market on the Beltline, is projected to come in at $230 million and is funded by More MARTA’s half-penny sales tax. How will the five remaining segments of Beltline rail be paid for?
Part of the answer is federal funding, grants that haven’t been applied for but are available. And other leaders are saying that.
On August 5, Rep. Nikema Williams (D-District 5 GA) told Rose Scott on "Closer Look” that she’s “all for light rail” and that the problem seems to be mostly about dollars. “It’s a funding issue and that’s where we come in” she said.
Check out this video clip of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in Atlanta in 2021. He references Beltline rail as exactly the type of project the Biden administration’s “Build Back Better” program is meant to fund.
But you gotta ask for the money to get it, and so far other cities have collectively received more than $15 billion from Secretary Buttigieg, while Atlanta has received less than $100 million, none of it for rail projects.
Growing the funding pie is the recipe for success. This could mean a combination of federal funding and another SSD or T-SPLOST. It means private sector involvement. It will definitely mean some creativity. But it all flows from the decision to move forward with Beltline rail.
“Transportation is a big investment. It determines where you work, where your kids go to school, where you live...We need to follow through on what Atlantans want.”
The Mayor asks how will we make business owners in the path whole during construction and minimize their losses and inconvenience. Other cities like Portland have faced these challenges too. And have succeeded.
Mayor Dickens again touted his Beltline infill-station plan, which Beltline Rail Now wholeheartedly supports. But why, at the same time, is the mayor fixated on the cost of the already-approved Beltline light rail project? Beltline light rail and the four infill stations should be looked at as complementary. MARTA infill stations get riders to the Beltline; light rail, meanwhile, connects riders to 45 Beltline adjacent neighborhoods along the loop while also connecting them to MARTA stations and to the broader system during Mayor Dickens’ time in office. The mayor also expressed misgivings regarding the appropriate mode for Beltline transit, suggesting that streetcar light rail is an outdated technology.
The last MARTA-style heavy rail infill station to open in the USA is the Potomac Yards station in Alexandria. The cost was $373 million when the station opened in October 2023. It took 14 years from the acceptance of the idea by the city to opening. Potomac Yards Metrorail Station Washington DC. Image courtesy wsp.com
Has he not seen the 2019 Atlanta BeltLine Inc. (ABI) report that clearly and demonstratively shows light rail to be the best and preferred mode of choice for the Beltline’s unique nature? That report and prior studies categorized BRT as a poor choice for the transit corridor for many reasons, including a capacity roughly half that of light rail when comparing one bus to one light rail car. BRT is also ill-suited for the corridor’s tight turning radius because it’s unable to turn around and reverse directions.
And just last month HDR, the design and engineering firm hired by MARTA to produce the Streetcar East Extension final design, ruled out autonomous technologies on the Beltline in its official final recommendations to MARTA. It also affirmed the viability, comparable cost, and aesthetic desirability of the grass track railbed, essential to keeping the Beltline green.
These are some of the answers out there.
All of which leads one to wonder: is it really cost and mode that has the mayor second-guessing light rail on the Beltline? Or is it something else? Maybe it’s that a small group of politically connected Eastsiders have his ear on this issue. And he hasn’t seriously given weight to the project’s merits as a catalyst for the priorities most important to him.
Beltline light rail should be about what it can do for Atlantans and the different kind of city it will allow us to build and not about the perceived obstacles along the way.
If you agree, email Mayor Dickens and email individual Atlanta City Council members and the mayor to expedite the construction of Beltline rail.
*The Beltline transit segment of the mayor's WABE interview with Rose Scott starts at 32:00.
