We love transit, and we love the Beltline.
That’s why we want to pause the Beltline streetcar.
“There’s a good argument to skip building the pricey streetcar route on the Beltline and simply pave the unused space with added lines for bikes and scooters.”
— Bill Torpy, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Better Atlanta Transit is leading a campaign to find alternatives to the Beltline streetcar.
We believe it’s time to pause and reconsider the $2.5 billion project, which would install dual-track rails with a concrete bed, barriers and overhead wires on the entire 22-mile loop.
In addition to being inequitable and unnecessary, the streetcar threatens one of the city’s great success stories: The Beltline itself.
As a coalition of transit advocates, equity leaders, planners, business owners and community activists, we support equitable and sustainable mobility for all Atlantans.
The Beltline Streetcar works against those goals. It would consume the lion’s share of Atlanta transit dollars for the next two or three decades. Meanwhile, projects that would do more to improve mobility and equity are going unfunded.
The Atlanta Streetcar East Extension includes the first phase of Beltline rail.
It would carry the streetcar from its current terminus in the Old Fourth Ward, along narrow residential streets, onto the Beltline at Irwin Avenue. Then, it would travel along the Beltline to Ponce City Market.
The cost is estimated at $230 million. The project is well into its design work. And construction, slated to begin early 2025, will turn the most popular stretch of the Beltline’s Eastside Trail into a work zone for the better part of three years.
Once complete, the tracks and barriers will tighten space available to pedestrians, cyclists and other users. Access both onto and across the Beltline will become more difficult.
The streetcar’s next phase is uncertain. If the East Extension is completed, some transit leaders say it would make sense to continue north to Lindbergh station.
MARTA MAP
Don’t throw good money, after bad, at the Atlanta Streetcar.
The streetcar shuffles, mostly empty, between Centennial Park and the King District. On an average weekday, it carries around 900 people. That’s a third of its ridership projections — 10 years ago.
Conceived and built by Atlanta Beltline Inc., the streetcar was turned over to MARTA in 2018. It’s astoundingly expensive to operate (see graphic). In 2022, it drained nearly $5 million from MARTA’s budget. Ridership expectations aren’t robust for the East Extension, so that operating shortfall is expected only to get bigger.
The streetcar has been even worse for busineses. A predicted boom along Auburn and Edgewood avenues never materialized. In one survey, 40 percent of Edgewood Avenue businesses didn’t survive the construction period.
This is a cautionary tale for the Beltline.
BEFORE
AFTER (based on current design documents)
The Beltline streetcar’s red lights are flashing.
We need to pay attention to them. On the route to the Beltline through the King Historic District, two sets of tracks will be crammed down residential streets that are too narrow even for one. Old Fourth Ward residents are furious. And it’s not even clear how well the streetcar will be able to move in such tight quarters.
On the Beltline itself, a 40-foot-wide strip will be cleared of trees, greenspace and public art to make way for tracks, barriers and overhead wires.
The tracks and barriers will make it more difficult to get onto the Beltline, or to cross it to shop, grab a bite or hang out. Restaurants and shops fear losing business because customers will have a harder time reaching them.
The streetcar also eliminates forever the possibility of doing something better with the 40-foot-wide right-of-way.
More pedestrians and cyclists use the East Side Trail today than are projected to ride the streetcar in 2028. Why not consider a separate “heels” path for pedestrians while reserve the existing “wheels” path for bikes, scooters and the like?
More viable transit projects aren’t being funded.
In 2016, Atlanta residents approved the half-penny More MARTA sales tax to invest in transit across the city. Before the vote, the list of potential More MARTA projects topped 70.
In 2018, that was winnowed down to 17. And last year, MARTA scheduled only nine of them to move ahead this decade, with eight more scheduled for the 2030s. Five of the 17 are for parts of the streetcar. But even that won’t even be close to enough to complete the 22-mile loop.
So rail boosters are pushing for a larger share. They’ve proposed hiking the streetcar’s More MARTA allotment from $570 million to $930 million. That would mean even less money for all the city’s other transit needs.
The boosters’ $2.5 billion plan also would raid other transit funding sources. This would cut available resources for road repairs, bike lanes, Beltline trail completion and other transit needs over the next two decades.
Their plan banks on $1 billion in federal funds – an optimistic assumption considering that the extension hasn’t qualified for federal funds.
If the federal money doesn’t materialize, one of two things will happen: The streetcar will be left as a partially completed grand idea. Or there will be a push to divert even more money from more urgent transit needs and to strain even more city priorities.
It’s time for a fresh conversation about the Beltline’s future, as well as transit’s future in Atlanta.
Alternatives to the rail plan should be considered. Atlanta transit has more urgent needs than a vanity project serving only well-to-do neighborhoods. And there are better ways to enhance the Beltline as an innovative transportation corridor.
One option would be to build a separate, well-landscaped walking trail in the right-of-way now reserved for the streetcar. With separate “heels” from “wheels” paths, cyclists and the like could get to their destinations faster without endangering pedestrians. Innovative technologies might also be incorporated into the solution; without the streetcar, room could be made for tiny, self-driving electric shuttles.
We aren’t pushing for any one of these options. But we do ask that MARTA and the city reconsider the Beltline streetcar.