A Time to Pause
Let’s Not Permanently Damage the BeltLine as We Know it Today
Before we reach a point of no return by spending billions of taxpayer dollars to put a noisy, large streetcar on the BeltLine that will take decades to build, let’s first make sure that we don’t take away the things Atlantans love about the BeltLine – a beautiful green trail that thousands of people use every day.
Supporters of Better Atlanta Transit favor transit to and on the BeltLine; it needs to be appropriate transit.
Do we really want to interrupt and separate the BeltLine with a concrete or fence barrier and overhead cables?
Instead, let’s also address other transportation needs that exist throughout the city, such as lack of public transit in southwest, severe west side congestion, the Clifton Corridor, and many others. We should not start spending billions of dollars creating a streetcar on the BeltLine that takes away more urgent projects that would serve a greater community.
Moreover, we should ask ourselves if taxpayer dollars could be better spent to improve current MARTA services.
A 2017 local referendum had 73 transportation projects on the ballot. However, today, most of them have been drastically changed or eliminated.
That is why we need to have a post-COVID public debate about strategic transit decisions that will impact Atlantans for generations to come.
Of immediate concern, according to former Planning Commissioner and Yale-trained architect Michael Dobbins, is the plan to connect the downtown streetcar to the Ponce City Market area. This would cram the two-track project through residential and small business neighborhoods into and along BeltLine trail/park right of way. Dobbins noted that this disruption would replace the green, tree-dotted, and ever-more popular trail and park territory with a fenced-off rail system.
“It would prevent meeting the ever greater functional and safety need to expand the trail to separate people on foot from people on wheels. It would severely limit cross-connectivity from one side of the BeltLine to the other. And it would disrupt the lively business and culture scene that has popped up west of the trail. This 5-year construction period would wreak havoc on existing, stable residential and business use patterns and would cost upwards of a quarter billion dollars,” said Dobbins.
The quarter of a billion dollars mentioned above is just an estimate. Recently, for just the 3-mile distance from Lindbergh Station to Ponce City, MARTA had to double the projected cost to almost half a billion dollars.
Today, MARTA has already begun to spend millions of dollars on design and planning for rail without meaningful community input or an examination of where there are greater transportation needs throughout the city.
This comes at a time of significant decline in MARTA rail, streetcar, and bus ridership. In fact, the ridership of MARTA was much higher just a few years ago.
Therefore, before we move forward on spending such vast taxpayer dollars, let’s take a pause.
Let’s make sure we preserve the BeltLine as we know it today.
Let’s preserve the miles of green trail and green space that makes the BeltLine so unique for walkers, joggers, and bicyclists.
Let’s consider widening the BeltLine to include additional trails and expand our green areas for public enjoyment.
Let’s upgrade MARTA services to ensure they are clean and safe.
Let’s be wary of spending $600 million on the first two phases of the streetcar. We would likely abandon that idea after realizing it does not work, and then extending a “streetcar to nowhere.”
Finally, let’s just pause on building a streetcar on the BeltLine. Instead, finish the construction of the entire pedestrian loop before we commit to billions of taxpayer dollars that could permanently damage the BeltLine as we know it today.
