Mayor Dickens has many choices, but only one leads to Beltline Rail now!
After decades and millions invested publicly and privately, abandoning BeltLine rail is akin to leaving it a transit dustbowl. Image credit Beltline Rail Now 2025 Ian Burr
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 in March 2024, placing Atlanta in an expensive holding pattern while its transit-hungry citizens await a decision. This was after the MARTA Board unanimously approved the project in July 2023, with the mayor’s full support.
We are 9 years into the More MARTA program with nearly 700 million in taxes collected and no transit expansion to show for it. Image: Bill Dayone http://Dreamstime.com.
So where are we now? Mayor Dickens asked Atlanta Beltline Inc. (ABI) in March 2023 to reanalyze various transit options on the Beltline, along with their associated costs and timelines. He is expected to announce the results of these analyses soon. What does this mean?
We believe the mayor will take one of the following four paths.
1. Mayor Dickens does nothing. He announces no future rail on the Beltline or that we still don’t know enough and need to study it more. Perhaps he’ll suggest we need to wait until 2030 to decide if and where we should begin. We do not see this as the likely scenario as he has said that rail transit needs to be on the Beltline and there is no other feasible alternative.
2. He announces a plan to pave the dedicated transit right-of-way along the Beltline with a parallel trail for bikes and scooters. We see this as unlikely as it would preempt any mass transit, and there is no funding mechanism currently to build out this path. Not to mention the amount of greenspace that would need to be removed for the new roadway.
3. He announces we will build Beltline rail, but for perceived equity reasons it will start on the Southside. While this sounds good, it would take eight years to complete the necessary design and engineering plans to begin building on the Southside. This scenario would be politically expedient for the mayor as it allows him to try and thread the needle of showing support for Beltline rail while killing a project that agitated some wealthy individuals along the Eastside Trail. But essentially it kicks the can down the road for eight years and could result in the end of the promise of any rail on the Beltline. This makes little sense when we have a project we can begin building in 2025 with funding already set aside for it.
4. He continues forward with the Streetcar East Extension, building out the only segment of the Beltline where rail is currently shovel-ready while accelerating the design and planning work necessary to build rail quickly on the Southside. This would be the most equitable solution and would also ensure that Beltline rail happens. Starting Beltline rail on the Eastside Trail is the only solution that puts rail on the Beltline in this decade, nearly 14 years after taxpayers began forking over what is now more than $100 million a year in More MARTA sales taxes. We need to walk and chew gum at the same time and take on projects at different levels of readiness simultaneously. We need to build the Streetcar East Extension while getting the Southside shovel-ready for Beltline rail.
Light rail in grass tracks with multipurpose trail is moving forward in Texas. National firm AECOM will build the 10-mile, 7-billion dollar project opening in 2033. Image courtesy Austin Transit Partnership 2025.
This will not only ensure that rail does not get killed off in the intervening years….it will guarantee that rail on the Southside is more beneficial and useful through connections to rail on the Eastside Trail, which is now one of the city’s leading opportunity zones. Let’s remember, this is not about one project or one segment…it’s about building a transit system.
As the mayor recently noted, building Beltline rail is about making a city we want to live in 50 years or 100 years from now. We couldn’t agree more. Beltline rail is critical not just for the short term, but also for our long-term quality of life. This type of investment is never inexpensive but is nevertheless essential to building a sustainable, desirable city. Delays will just increase project costs, sap the faith of the public and their trust in the mayor, MARTA, and others, and make it increasingly difficult to make Atlanta the city we want to live in.
We need Mayor Dickens to stand up to the small group of connected, wealthy, influential insiders who came out of the woodwork once they saw Beltline rail would actually be built. Through the work already done by advocates for this project, including engagement and outreach to neighborhood associations, NPUs, small business leaders, and everyday Atlantans, widespread city support for Beltline rail is well-established
It’s not too late. We can still expand transit along the Beltline by 2030 while putting the city of Atlanta and its transit authority in a position to apply for federal funds to build rail on the rest of the Beltline in four years after President Trump leaves office. This strategy ensures the delivery of Beltline rail as fast as possible.
Mayor Dickens just needs to summon the political courage to move forward on Beltline rail and start construction on the first segment, the Eastside Trail, in 2025.
The Streetcar East Extension connects Peachtree Center MARTA to Ponce City Market and the rest of the East Side Trail area with a one-seat ride. Construction could start next year and passenger service in 2028. Image courtesy Atlanta Beltine Inc.
