A Constant Restart?
Today marks 3 years since the MARTA Board, led by Chair Thomas Worthy, voted unanimously to advance Beltline rail via Streetcar east, funding the final design and a construction timeline that will lead to Beltline rail opening in 2026.
For years, supporters have consistently asked us two questions: Why are powerful people against Beltline rail? And who is behind the effort to stop it? How did our Mayor Andre Dickens go in such a short time from being Beltline rail’s biggest champion- and our would-be “Transit Mayor”- to a lynch pin of the opposition, stalling its progress for years and casting doubt on its future?
Beep Throat is a brand-new exposé website that pulls back the veil on that timeline and the personalities who orchestrated a subversion of Atlanta Beltline Inc.’s mission and the undermining of a voter-approved referendum that has collected more than $800M in our taxpayer dollars.
Voters overwhelmingly passed the More MARTA referendum in 2016, choosing to tax themselves for 40 years to fund Beltline rail and other transit expansion projects within the city of Atlanta.
Over two years, from 2023 to 2025, an elite and well-connected group worked behind the scenes (and directly engaged with Mayor Dickens and the public) to derail the first segment of Beltline rail, the Streetcar East Extension to Ponce City Market. That segment was already in final design and, had work continued, would have been poised to enter service in 2026.
So what can we say about all of this? A lot.
Mayor Dickens folded quickly. After nearly a decade spent advancing Beltline rail, including Streetcar East, the Mayor, in a matter of weeks in 2023, subtly backed away from that support, seeking an explanation he could give the public that would not come for nearly two more years. It wasn’t about the money; it wasn’t about feasibility; it wasn’t about MARTA or its abilities. It wasn’t about the widespread value Beltline rail would bring to all. It was about a small group of influential people who wanted the Mayor to stop.
And he did.
| On map | Date | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nov 2016 | More MARTA referendum (1/2 penny sales tax) for transit. |
| 2 | Dec 2021 | Dickens elected as Mayor. |
| 3 | Jan 2022 | Mayor Dickens' inaugural address specifically pledged Beltline rail would open during his term and reach completion by 2030. |
| 4 | June 2022 | Consultants Kimley-Horn completed the 30% design for SCE (Streetcar East). |
| 5 | July 2023 | MARTA's Board unanimously advanced the SCE to final design, awarding HDR (HDR Engineering Inc) $11.5 million to prepare the project's construction. |
| 6 | Aug 2023 | A group of influential Atlanta Eastsiders, developers, and restaurateurs meet with Mayor Dickens, urging him to backtrack on SCE. |
| 7 | Sept 2023 | At the State of the Beltline Breakfast, ABI CEO Clyde Higgs and Mayor Dickens appeared to be at odds. Higgs presented light rail plans featuring large-scale imagery, but the Mayor's keynote address suggested investigating alternative transit options instead. Notably, Dickens did not credit light rail as a personal achievement or a project ready for implementation. |
| 8 | Jan 2024 | In his State of the City address, Dickens urges the construction of MARTA infill station on the Beltline, leaving rail out of his content. |
| 9 | Feb 2024 | HDR receives its contract from MARTA and begins work on the SCE final design. |
| 10 | Feb 2025 | The Mayor publicly reaffirms his commitment to Beltline rail. |
| 11 | Mar 2025 | At a MARTA meeting, the Mayor publicly withdrew support for Streetcar East, the Beltline's first rail segment. He urged a fourth re-prioritization of the More MARTA program to start on the Southside—an area lacking design work, with service at least 7–10 years away. |
| 12 | Jan 2026 | Our current state of affairs. |
Clicking on the link to BeepThroat.com might prompt a warning that you’re attempting to access inappropriate content. And, well, perhaps with good reason.
A story unfolds across the site that is unseemly, even seedy, and some would say more scandalous than the 1970s adult film Deep Throat, which was banned in many places across the country.
Deep Throat was the name used by Mark Felt, the confidential and anonymous source who leaked details of President Richard Nixon’s Watergate criminality to Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein. The Post broke the story to the public in a series of articles that appeared in the paper at the height of its journalistic freedom and integrity.
We can only hope that Beep Throat’s meticulous documentation, reporting, and layered information on a variety of related details will have a similarly eye-opening effect on those who want the answers to “why” and “who” behind the effort to overturn the results of a voter-approved referendum.
One thing is certain: Mayor Dickens folded quickly. After nearly a decade spent advancing Beltline rail including Streetcar East, in a matter of weeks in 2023 the Mayor came off that support subtly at first, seeking an explanation he could give to the public that would not come for nearly two more years. It wasn’t about the money, it wasn’t about the feasibility, it wasn’t about MARTA or its abilities. It wasn’t about the widespread value the project would bring to all. It was about a small group of influential people who wanted the mayor to stop, and he did.
We hope there’s more coming from Beep Throat. There’s way too much for a single post not to share more.
