Bob Amick: Beltline rail bad for business

A legendary Atlanta restaurateur is ringing alarm bells this morning about Beltline rail.

“Out of necessity, entrepreneurs are close observers of the lay of the land around them,” Bob Amick writes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Those of us who run restaurants and other customer-facing businesses are always on the lookout for threats and opportunities. It’s pretty clear to me which of those the Beltline streetcar is.”

Amick, who’s founded scores of successful restaurants over the last 50 years, recalls jogging decades ago along the abandoned rail corridor that would become the Beltline. Later, when the corridor was still a kudzu-covered wasteland, he opened TWO urban licks in the Old Telephone Factory

“But we watched — and participated — as a slowly unfolding miracle took place just outside what was then our back door,” he writes. “Pretty soon, it made business sense for us to reorient TWO urban licks, so that instead of turning our backs on a vacant right of way, we would face the best public space in Atlanta.”

Until Mayor Andre Dickens called earlier this year for a reconsideration of the rail idea, that public space was under threat, he says. “A totally unnecessary streetcar that somebody dreamed up in a classroom a quarter-century ago was being rammed through with no attention paid to what an incredible place the Beltline has become — and what might be destroyed in the process.”

While he can see that the streetcar threatens businesses, Amick insists he’s more concerned that it would badly damage the Beltline for everyone.

“Will many people be less attracted to the Beltline once it becomes more cramped and metallic, less open and green,” he asks.

“I’ve long thought the better course was obvious,” he continues. “We should expand on the BeltLine’s success and make it safer for everyone by building a separate path for pedestrians through the green right of way set aside for rail. That way people on foot won’t have to worry about getting hit by scooters and bicycles. And the scooters and bicycles won’t be frustrated by having to weave around pedestrians. Then, we should take the money we saved by not throwing it into the streetcar and put it into building more transit in places where it’s actually needed.”

Thank you, Bob. We couldn’t have put it better.

To read the entire guest column, click here. (FYI: It’s behind the AJC paywall.)