The Atlanta Regional Commission and the City of Atlanta are teaming up to scout locations for a potential new home for an Amtrak station.
According to ARC officials, the current Amtrak station (known as Brookwood Station) on Peachtree Road between Midtown and Buckhead has many challenges: It’s too small, there are few services nearby, it’s located about a mile from the nearest MARTA rail station, and it’s not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
The Passenger Rail Station Alternatives Study, which formally kicked off last week with a stakeholder engagement meeting, seeks to identify a location in Downtown Atlanta that offers improved customer service, ADA accessibility, and multimodal connections for rail travelers.
Atlanta is currently served by Amtrak’s Crescent line, which connects New Orleans, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and New York. One southbound train leaves Atlanta each morning, while a northbound train leaves overnight. About 78,000 passengers arrive and depart Brookwood Station each year.
The study comes as Amtrak and state officials have discussed potential passenger rail expansion in Atlanta to serve places like Nashville, Charlotte, Macon, and Savannah.
Amtrak is also working to bring all of its stations, including Brookwood, into compliance with the ADA by 2027.
The city and ARC are seeking public input to inform their study, and a survey and more information are available at the project website. The survey will remain open through October, and a draft plan is expected by December.
The Atlanta City Council passed a resolution in 2022 supporting a new Amtrak station and formally requested that ARC conduct the alternatives study in 2024. The study area for the new station is roughly bounded by North Avenue to the north, Memorial Drive/Fair Street to the south, Jackson Street on the east, and Walnut Street/Vine Street/Marietta Street on the west.
Atlanta once had two Downtown train stations, including the grand Terminal Station on Spring Street, which was demolished in 1972 to make way for the Richard B. Russell Federal Building. The smaller Union Station, located just west of what is now the MARTA Five Points station, was demolished in 1972.
The small Brookwood Station was built in 1918 to serve what was then the city’s outskirts. Atlanta Preservation Center Executive Director David Y. Mitchell said he hopes the discussion of a new Amtrak station will also include preserving Brookwood.
“Atlanta owes its very existence to the railroads, and as a work of the eminent Atlanta architects, Hentz, Reid and Adler, the Brookwood Station represents a phenomenal example of the “Through Station” design concept,” Mitchell said. “Brookwood Station contributes a sense of human scale and dignity to a lacking urban environment in which it is located, making its preservation essential.”
There has been discussion and vision planning for a new Downtown multimodal station for nearly 15 years, with The Gulch property – now home to the rising Centennial Yards mixed-use development – as a preferred site.
Rough Draft’s first reporting on the proposed multimodal station was in 2011, while renderings were released in 2013 showing an ultra-modern station meant to serve as a hub for MARTA, regional passenger train service, local and regional buses, and an expanded Atlanta Streetcar. State lawmakers resurrected the idea in 2017, but the project went dormant again.
