It really was no secret that Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens eventually would back away from the eastside Beltline rail plan. You know, the one that would have cost a quarter-billion dollars for a little more than 2 miles of light rail.
I’ve called it a boondoggle in the making, an expensive bar-hopping party vehicle in a high-end part of town. It’s good to see the mayor, who has been an east Beltline rail backer, finally come to his senses. He’s been hinting at it for more than a year.
At a meeting last week, the mayor and one of his chief lieutenants, Courtney English, sprang a sweeping new draft of the city’s transit plans on MARTA. And to the rest of humanity, for that matter.
English told the MARTA board: “We are committed to building rail on the Beltline; however, not in the form that has been previously discussed.”
Now, there has been a lot of discussion, debate and kvetching over the years on this subject — especially regarding the plan of starting light rail on the Beltline’s crowded east trail.
So it was a big surprise for Team Dickens to drop a transit bomb on MARTA’s board members, telling them the eastside segment now would be relegated to “Phase II.”
In essence, the plans would be placed on a shelf, then tossed away by some future mayor.
“Phase I” would be to try to fix the existing boondoggle, which is the downtown streetcar. It would be extended a few blocks to the eastside Beltline but not on the eastside Beltline.
I noted to English that the streetcar doesn’t work well because it’s always stuck in traffic; English told me the city is weighing making Auburn and Edgewood avenues one-way to give the vehicle its own dedicated lane.
The interesting part of English’s presentation is that there would be three megarail projects included in Phase II.
Credit: Matt Reynolds
Credit: Matt Reynolds
The first would be the now-fading eastside plan. The second would be a route tying downtown’s streetcar to the westside Beltline (it would run on streets). And third would be a rail line on the southside trail. The line on the Beltline’s south loop would start on Glenwood Avenue in East Atlanta and head some 5-plus miles west to Murphy’s Crossing in Southwest Atlanta.
Murphy’s Crossing is a 20-acre parcel of the former State Farmers Market that keeps getting ... just ... this ... close to being renovated, but still hasn’t.
The South and Westside plans seem to now have the mayor’s support, given English’s salesmanship to the MARTA board.
English presented a series of charts showing Atlanta to be a Tale of Two Cities, a Dickensian (Charles, not Andre) saga. In it, the Northside, which is largely white, educated and has broadband and health insurance, is doing quite nicely, whereas the Southside, which is primarily Black, is lagging.
The presentation noted there’s a “direct connection between the negative health, economic and social outcomes experienced by those living in South and West Atlanta and the decades of public policies designed to foster racial segregation.”
This was the setup to say that the plans to have streetcar heading west and on the south loop of the Beltline “help increase our equity because we are tracking more density into underserved areas.”
“We can change the trajectory of the city of Atlanta,” he later added. “We can fix all the horrible stats that we talked about. It’s not a transit plan. It’s an equity plan.”
Now, the term “equity” may be in disfavor in Washington and at the State Capitol. But it still holds sway in Atlanta. The Beltline Rail Now! (their exclamation point, not mine) and other eastside rail supporters often use the term “equity” to sell their plans. Most of them are white, educated and progressive. It carries more sway when Black folks use that term, especially in those circles.
Councilwoman Marci Overstreet, who represents Southwest Atlanta, has expressed “equity” concerns in the past about the eastside Beltline getting preference over areas like hers, where people actually rely on transit.
I called her this week to ask about Dickens’ plan.
“The first time I heard about it was on the news,” Overstreet told me. “It sounds like they are thinking through things. It doesn’t sound like a solidified plan. ... It’s, ‘Let’s look at this. Let’s look at that.’“
Credit: City of Atlanta
Credit: City of Atlanta
Overstreet, who is running for City Council president, said she hopes Dickens brings his vision to the council’s transportation committee.
I sent the mayor’s people a note saying these plans seem to have been pulled out of a hat. English responded by saying they were born out of studies from a couple of consulting companies who mulled over the city’s transit plans. I didn’t have much time to read through the reports with my deadline looming. But it seems that rail on the less-crowded Beltline’s south loop would be about $86 million per mile (or $430 million for 5 miles.)
The reports even dive into building a “skytrain,” so they really studied all transportation modalities. Even pie in the sky.
Ultimately, it looks as if the mayor is throwing out a lot to everyone while not really saying anything specific to anyone — but at the same time backing away from the boondoggle eastside rail.
I mean, he could have just said that. But it is an election year.
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