Dickens puts transit expansion plans back on track

Mayor Andre Dickens put Atlanta’s transit plans on a more viable track Thursday when he and a top aide outlined an integrated approach to mobility before the MARTA Board of Directors.

At the heart of that reset is the idea that, by serving riders, transit can uplift communities.

“It’s not just a transit plan. It’s an equity plan,” Courtney English, the mayor’s point man on the issue, told the board. “It’s a plan to close those long-standing (demographic gaps between rich and poor neighborhoods) and ultimately make Atlanta the best place in the country to raise a child.”

The scheme outlined by Dickens and English mirrors in many ways the integrated mobility strategy that Better Atlanta Transit in January urged the city to consider.  Key components include trails and bike lanes to serve as “first and last mile” connectors to buses and trains; a more complete bus rapid transit network than currently approved for More MARTA; and the installation of four MARTA infill stations at sites where the Beltline crosses heavy rail lines.

The mayor isn’t calling for an end to the dream of Beltline rail. The Streetcar Extension East to Beltline remains one of the segments in his proposed bundle of projects.

But he would shift the first leg of Beltline rail in a more equitable and less problematic direction. He wants MARTA to prioritize rail along the Beltline’s southern crescent, where it might spur investment and housing at specific “nodes” and would intersect with multiple transit crossings.

“We think that the Beltline in its initial form is going to be multimodal,” the mayor told the board.  “There will be some places where there’s light rail, and there will be some places where there’s other types of transit in the short term because it takes so long to build out 22 miles of a loop and certain parts of (the Beltline) are already extremely dense with a lot of activity, a lot of walking, a lot of commercial nodes, a lot of restaurants.”

This map from a presentation by the mayor’s office places the eastern half of the Hollowell Parkway-North Avenue bus rapid transit line among “Phase 1” transit expansion projects.

He also proposes extending the existing Atlanta Streetcar in order to improve its ridership performance. One leg would go west toward Atlanta University Center and the Westside Beltline. Another would go north along Luckie Street. Unlike the route of the existing section of the streetcar, Luckie Street, Northside Drive and Ralph David Abernathy Jr. Boulevard are relatively wide roadways, which could allow the streetcars to run in dedicated lanes to improve speeds and reduce stop-and-go traffic.

BAT still has questions about the cost of streetcars compared to other transit modes, such as bus rapid transit. But the segments outlined in the mayor’s plan are more likely to be viable than the Extension East.  By prioritizing neighborhoods that are heavily dependent on transit, the they’re more likely to attract riders, with the added benefit that the new legs won’t cause upheaval along the already densely developed Eastside Trail.

Dickens’ plan culminates a yearlong review within the administration in search of the best way forward for the More MARTA transit improvement program. The mayor reopened the debate in February 2024 by ordering city departments to review the possibility of funding the four infill stations, as well as a bus rapid transit line along the rapidly developing and heavily transit dependent Hollowell Parkway-North Avenue corridor. Those projects would be in addition to three BRT lines already funded by More MARTA and in various stages of development.

On Thursday, the mayor proposed moving ahead with the infill stations and the Hollowell-North BRT line. (It’s notable that English’s slideshow presents the eastern segment of the Hollowell BRT, from Ponce City Market to the Bankhead MARTA, as a “Phase 1” project, apparently placing it ahead of any of the streetcar segments.

He also added a new leg of BRT to the map: The Summerhill line currently under construction would be extended to Thomasville Heights, which is one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city and which has limited transit service.

We’re particularly pleased by the emphasis the mayor’s plan places on trails and bike lanes. With the popularity of e-bikes, scooter-sharing apps and all manner of accessible single-person vehicles, we’ve long argued that micromobility has grown into a powerful tool to address the problem of first-mile and last-mile connections.

English’s slideshow called for “building a trails-to-transit network that interfaces seamlessly with walkable & bikeable infrastructure.” It also calls for a relaunch of the city’s public bikeshare program “with docking stations at high-traffic transit stops.”

And it calls for expending MARTA Reach on-demand service, which the transit agency is already proposing as part of its NextGen bus route revamp.

The big question, of course, is how to fund Dickens’ more expansive version of More MARTA. That is likely to be particularly difficult with a president occupying the White House who has vowed to cut federal aid to transit.

Toward that end, English urged MARTA to be more aggressive in pushing for leases to build “transit-oriented communities” (TOCs) at heavy rail stations.

The mayor and his staff should be commended for coming up with an ambitious, yet more realistic plan to expand transit in the city.

If you agree, we hope you’ll let the mayor know that you appreciate the progress he’s making toward connecting our city while making it less car dependent by emailing him: adickens@atlantaga.gov

To view, the presentation by Dickens and English, click here. To view the slideshow, click here.