Better Atlanta Transit

There is a great need for better Atlanta transit.

The current plans are obsolete.

There have been no comprehensive transit plan updates since:

• Before the 2017 transit referendum;

• Before COVID with its ongoing disruption of settlement patterns, thus shifting the locations of origins and destinations essential to plan transit coverage and routing;

• Before the explosion of and still emerging transit technologies;

• Before radical shifts in travel behavior, driven by commuter patterns, technology, and healthy living habits.

The rising question over the wisdom of building transit on the Atlanta BeltLine should be part of a broader discussion over the development of transit in the city, the author contends. (Credit: Mike Dobbins, David Pendered)

Meanwhile, the Atlanta BeltLine trail has emerged as a great resource for accommodating and vitalizing these behavioral changes with trails and parks.

The trail/park network as it develops is stimulating substantial economic development activity and housing development, albeit inequitably, exacerbating the polarizing wealth divide by displacing populations and businesses of lower income.

The crying needs of trails and parks, right now, is to build on their success by using the existing right-of-way to create parallel trails separating walkers and joggers from scooters and bikers.

At the same time, better serving the needs of people dependent on transit for access to jobs and services grows ever more urgent, unmet by the plans identified in the 2017 referendum process.

So what should we do about it?

• Pause current plans and projects to incorporate these transformative problems and opportunities into a comprehensive transit plan update, filtered through capital and operating cost benefit analyses;

• In the planning, recognize the need for heightened transit connectivity between emerging origin and destination hotspots, particularly for the transit-dependent work force, in short, connect the dots;

• Incorporate consideration of all existing and emerging alternative travel modes, including, as a current and urgent example, the need to better connect the Ponce area to Downtown and to Midtown, perhaps even removing and replacing the usually empty Downtown light rail with an electric rubber-tired vehicle;

• The planning process should be open, transparent, and fun;

• The city and MARTA should stop spending money on projects proven to not work.

Finally and overall, build on strengths, on what works, like the BeltLine trail/park network. Do not destroy its future.