ABI kicks off Northwest Trail construction

Construction of Segment 5 (lower left) of the Beltline Trail Northwest Quadrant begins this week. Credit: Atlanta Beltline Inc.

Long-awaited trail construction through the Beltline’s tricky northwest quadrant is set to begin this week.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Tyler Wilkins reports:

Atlanta BeltLine Inc. plans to hold a June 24 groundbreaking ceremony for [a section that] will run 0.7 miles from the intersection of Marietta Boulevard and Huff Road to Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard and English Street. Construction is expected to last for 14 months.

The section, referred to by ABI as Segment 5, is planned to abut the northern end of the Westside Trail, just north a major rail yard. Unlike most other parts of the Beltline, it won’t be built on an abandoned rail bed. It won’t go along roads either. Instead, it will zig-zag into various right-of-ways as it picks through a light industrial area and by small townhome developments in the Blandtown neighborhood..

Segment 5 will end just west of the city’s Hemphill Waterworks. From there the trail will head northeast by the water works reservoirs – still zig-zagging on its way to hooking up with the Northeast Trail near Armour Drive. A short segment, through Tanyard Creek Park and by the Bobby Jones Golf Course is already completed.

Funded in part by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the segment is part of a big push to complete seven more miles of trail in time for the 2026 World Cup. But Segment 5 is the only new part of the Northwest Quadrant expected to be completed by then.

According to ABI’s 2022 Northwest Beltline Feasibility Study, the quadrant “is, arguably, the most difficult segment of the BeltLine trail to deliver.”

That may also be true for the controversial Beltline streetcar, because there isn’t an abandoned rail bed in the northwest quadrant. ABI hopes to deal with that problem by obtaining rights to use the still active Amtrak and CSX right-of-way for transit.