The Atlanta Beltline hosted a virtual meeting on Aug. 12 to present draft recommendations for a light rail corridor in the northwest corner of the city, as well as station locations in the Southwest and Southeast portions of the 22-mile loop.
The current cost estimate to bring transit to the Beltline is more than $3.5 billion in 2025 dollars. The cost includes $270 million for transit vehicles and $210 million for support facilities. The funding mechanism and operations budget – and where it would come from – are still unknown.
During Tuesday night’s meeting, Beltline Project Engineer Shaun Green presented various alignment plans for the Northwest Quadrant, which would connect Bankhead to Armour Yards.
One plan Green presented had an elevated rail line running down the center of Peachtree Road (think Chicago’s L or portions of the New York subway in Queens or Brooklyn), but the “preferred” corridor parallels the CSX freight line.
The “CSX Alignment” plan ticks many of the boxes requested by residents and potential riders, including serving the quadrant’s largest employee center – Piedmont Hospital.
Green said the 5.5-mile CSX Alignment was the lowest cost (currently $800 million), would offer the fastest travel time, and offer direct access at the rear of the Piedmont Hospital campus.
There are still numerous challenges to the CSX Alignment, including working out a deal to have light rail in close proximity to freight trains along the CSX corridor.
The Northwest Quadrant would have eight stations, including Donald Lee Hollowell in Bankhead, Marietta Boulevard South, Marietta Boulevard North, Howell Mill Road at CSX Howell Yard, Northside Drive, Collier Road/Piedmont Hospital, Peachtree Street North, an Armour Yards. The exact locations of the stations are approximate, Green said.
Green also unveiled alignments and stations for the Southwest and Southeast Quadrants of the Beltline.
The Southwest stations would include Murphy Avenue, which is where Mayor Andre Dickens has said he wants a new infill MARTA rail station to serve the planned Murphy Crossing mixed-use development. Other stations would be located at Lawton Street, Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard, Langhorn/Enota, Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, and Joseph E. Boone Boulevard before connecting at Hollowell Parkway.
Southeast stations include Metropolitan Parkway, Pryor Road, Milton Avenue (which would be aligned to connect with MARTA’s under-construction Summerhill Bus Rapid Transit line), Hill Street, Boulevard, and Glenwood Avenue.
Although attendees at the virtual meeting were allowed to ask questions, it was notable that questions about the extension of the Atlanta Streetcar from Downtown up the Beltline’s busy Eastside Trail to Ponce City Market were passed over. Staff said they would respond to other questions at a later date.
Beltline officials said another meeting would take place this fall after staff had time to digest the draft plans and consider public comment.
In March, Mayor Dickens said he was “reprioritizing” Beltline transit to begin on the Southwest side of the city, putting the nearly shovel-ready extension of the streetcar to the Eastside Trail in limbo.
In April, Dickens released a list of four infill MARTA stations he wanted to see built to link heavy rail with the Beltline’s light rail. Those stations include the aforementioned Murphy Crossing, Krog Street/Hulsey Yard, Joseph E. Boone between Ashby and Bankhead, and Armour Yards.
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Transit advocacy group Beltline Rail Now released a statement Wednesday afternoon blasting the plan as just another “dreamy” slide deck after Dickens stymied plans for the Eastside Trail
“We want to believe these latest plans are real. We want to believe they’ll become more than a PowerPoint fantasy. But how are we supposed to get swept up in the vision when Mayor Dickens just announced his intention to scuttle the first phase of Beltline rail, the part that’s shovel-ready, fully funded, and could be in service by 2028? The design is nearly complete. We’ve already spent $13 million on engineering. The money exists right now. And yet, we’re told to wait.”
Beltline Rail Now said the plan presented on Tuesday nigh was “ambitious” and “exactly what this city needs.”
“We’re calling on Mayor Dickens and his administration to step back up. Recommit to building the part of this system we can build now. Use the Beltline TAD [Tax Allocation District] and every available resource to fund the full design and engineering of this plan. Let’s stop pretending we need another study. We need steel in the ground. We need tracks. We want to ride.”
This story has been updated to include a statement from Beltline Rail Now.