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The Glenwood Park/Cabbagetown corridor looks promising. The only glaring problem is that it won’t be anchored by a Marta station. That will impact foot traffic because most people will drive there. The biggest difference from NE developments and the new infill developments in the south is foot traffic. I’m not saying cities like Baltimore or Pittsburg have great foot traffic and vibrancy, but they’re traditional urban built environment will create foot traffic naturally after redevelopment.
Atlanta isn’t really a vibrant pedestrian city so that’s a perplexing problem to overcome and I don’t know how to correct it. It’s the same issue suburban TOD projects suffer from. They are built urban, but they’re dead from a pedestrian experience. The surrounding neighborhood density is too low and the mode share has very low pedestrian and transit counts by household.
Those neighborhoods are on the Beltline so they’ll get transit eventually.
The Glenwood Park/Cabbagetown corridor looks promising. The only glaring problem is that it won’t be anchored by a Marta station. That will impact foot traffic because most people will drive there...
1. The Beltline passes right through Glenwood Park - so, Beltline Transit will pass through Glenwood Park (with a stop).
2. Moreover, the Beltline passes along the eastern flank of Cabbagetown - so, Beltline Transit will pass along along the eastern flank of Cabbagetown (with a stop).
3. There has long been talk of placing an infill MARTA stop at Cabbagetown - on the northern flank.
Last edited by aries4118; 12-13-2020 at 04:18 PM..
Those neighborhoods are on the Beltline so they’ll get transit eventually.
How is the beltline light rail project progressing? I read that there were issues. Is it back on track? I sure hope so. The beltline won't be the same without transit.
1. The Beltline passes right through Glenwood Park - so, Beltline Transit will pass through Glenwood Park (with a stop).
2. Moreover, the Beltline passes along the eastern flank of Cabbagetown - so, Beltline Transit will pass along along the eastern flank of Cabbagetown (with a stop).
3. There has long been talk of placing in an infill MARTA stop at Cabbagetown - on the northern flank.
Just read this after the other poster brought it up.
"Connecting MARTA to the BeltLine has been a longtime mission of ABI — it was part of BeltLine Founder Ryan Gravel’s 1999 master’s thesis, after all. In late-2019, the City of Atlanta secured $2.8 million to kick off the light rail project. Those funds will specifically cover the surveying project that starts Monday. “It will also provide data that can help determine potential station locations,” ABI announced when the funds were first secured nearly a year ago.
It’s unclear when the rail transit would actually be built and where specifically the funding to move forward with the actual construction would come from. Reps for ABI on Saturday did not immediately respond to What Now Atlanta’s request for comment."
This is troubling news and aligns with what I have been reading. Why doesn't Atlanta create a taxing district for all the developments and make them pay for the light rail project?
"Connecting MARTA to the BeltLine has been a longtime mission of ABI — it was part of BeltLine Founder Ryan Gravel’s 1999 master’s thesis, after all. In late-2019, the City of Atlanta secured $2.8 million to kick off the light rail project. Those funds will specifically cover the surveying project that starts Monday. “It will also provide data that can help determine potential station locations,” ABI announced when the funds were first secured nearly a year ago.
It’s unclear when the rail transit would actually be built and where specifically the funding to move forward with the actual construction would come from. Reps for ABI on Saturday did not immediately respond to What Now Atlanta’s request for comment."
This is troubling news and aligns with what I have been reading. Why doesn't Atlanta create a taxing district for all the developments and make them pay for the light rail project?
Pretty sure Fulton/Dekalb County have a sales tax for MARTA.
"Connecting MARTA to the BeltLine has been a longtime mission of ABI — it was part of BeltLine Founder Ryan Gravel’s 1999 master’s thesis, after all. In late-2019, the City of Atlanta secured $2.8 million to kick off the light rail project. Those funds will specifically cover the surveying project that starts Monday. “It will also provide data that can help determine potential station locations,” ABI announced when the funds were first secured nearly a year ago.
It’s unclear when the rail transit would actually be built and where specifically the funding to move forward with the actual construction would come from. Reps for ABI on Saturday did not immediately respond to What Now Atlanta’s request for comment."
This is troubling news and aligns with what I have been reading. Why doesn't Atlanta create a taxing district for all the developments and make them pay for the light rail project?
Here is the briefest history of what is going on....
It is already in one.
The self-taxing district was started just before the great recession and property values plummeted.
There was additional litigation from the city school board and they took issue to using their portion of the increase in property taxes for the effort. In Georgia there are separate millage rates for schools and the city/county. The revenue goes to the different groups that have separate elected leaders, the elected school board operates their budget separate from the city. They had been attempting to use a TAD, Tax allocation district, where the increase in tax receipts cause from an increase of property values in the corridor would be used for the Beltline TAD.
So the TAD revenue, set to last 30 years, took two huge hits and those hits came early. Now the Beltline TAD is still in use. They are still at work and have actually been successful. The catch is more resources have been placed into planning, environmental site clean up, right of way acquisition, creation of public parks along the route, and creation of the greenway. The Beltline could easily be called successful in many of their efforts, even without transit. They have accomplished alot. They still have projects in motion.
Fast forward on Transit... The city is including the Beltline transit projects onto their long-term planning lists and is in all of the city and regional plans for funds. The issue is the Atlanta list is quite expansive. There are many projects for transit growth in the City of Atlanta beyond the Beltline. They have sought our funding sources in different ways. Currently, they have passed an additional 0.4% sales tax (on top of the 1% MARTA sales tax) to fund capitol costs on transportation expansion. That funding is only generated from the City of Atlanta, not the region or the county.
It only generated a bit over $300m over 5 years, where it must be renewed with a new spending list after.
The Beltline will get $66m, but that will most be used to purchase all the remaining right of way and possibly some seeder money to leverage other funds. Much of the rest goes to sidewalks programs, greenways, bike lanes, pedestrian improvements, and traffic signal optimization. (all things Atlanta needs)
In the meantime they are creating several BRT corridors in the city and also trying to get funding for a LRT route to the Emory University/CDC area.
So that is where we are today.... It isn't being abandoned, but they are prioritizing all of the other projects that still influence redevelopment, without the expensive cost of transit.
Here is the briefest history of what is going on....
It is already in one.
The self-taxing district was started just before the great recession and property values plummeted.
There was additional litigation from the city school board and they took issue to using their portion of the increase in property taxes for the effort. In Georgia there are separate millage rates for schools and the city/county. The revenue goes to the different groups that have separate elected leaders, the elected school board operates their budget separate from the city. They had been attempting to use a TAD, Tax allocation district, where the increase in tax receipts cause from an increase of property values in the corridor would be used for the Beltline TAD.
So the TAD revenue, set to last 30 years, took two huge hits and those hits came early. Now the Beltline TAD is still in use. They are still at work and have actually been successful. The catch is more resources have been placed into planning, environmental site clean up, right of way acquisition, creation of public parks along the route, and creation of the greenway. The Beltline could easily be called successful in many of their efforts, even without transit. They have accomplished alot. They still have projects in motion.
Fast forward on Transit... The city is including the Beltline transit projects onto their long-term planning lists and is in all of the city and regional plans for funds. The issue is the Atlanta list is quite expansive. There are many projects for transit growth in the City of Atlanta beyond the Beltline. They have sought our funding sources in different ways. Currently, they have passed an additional 0.4% sales tax (on top of the 1% MARTA sales tax) to fund capitol costs on transportation expansion. That funding is only generated from the City of Atlanta, not the region or the county.
It only generated a bit over $300m over 5 years, where it must be renewed with a new spending list after.
The Beltline will get $66m, but that will most be used to purchase all the remaining right of way and possibly some seeder money to leverage other funds. Much of the rest goes to sidewalks programs, greenways, bike lanes, pedestrian improvements, and traffic signal optimization. (all things Atlanta needs)
In the meantime they are creating several BRT corridors in the city and also trying to get funding for a LRT route to the Emory University/CDC area.
So that is where we are today.... It isn't being abandoned, but they are prioritizing all of the other projects that still influence redevelopment, without the expensive cost of transit.
The Emory LRT might be the best transit project in the county. Connects two very large residential/employment nodes together through rather dense neighborhoods.
The Emory LRT might be the best transit project in the county. Connects two very large residential/employment nodes together through rather dense neighborhoods.
There are definitely some major benefits to connecting the Emory/CDC, but there is actually one critical problem with the route. It isn't dense at all in the center of the route. It is actually very spread out extreme low-density suburban neighborhoods, even by Atlanta standards, with zoning protections.
The primary goal of the project is just to link the Emory/CDC campus with the existing system, which is an island surrounded by the least dense suburbs. There is also very little redevelopment potential for land-use and transit to grow together, just a few small nodes. Those neighborhoods have zoning protections and little to no public support to change. It is truly a situation where you could buy up just 200 homes on large lots and build all new urban neighborhoods with thousands of residences around transit, but that will never be allowed to happen.
They created a second part of the route that goes east past the Emory/CDC area and it goes into some redevelopment prone areas, but will not be the first phase of the project and it is a meandering route that add length and time to reaching Emory/CDC as a destination.
The Beltline isn't a major destination in itself, but has several moderate destination nodes, but it goes through denser neighborhoods that have a much higher chance for redevelopment change for the area works better with transit on the whole corridor.
Without reaching conclusions/opinions, this has pit many local interests against each other when the projects are trying to attract limited funding resources.
There are definitely some major benefits to connecting the Emory/CDC, but there is actually one critical problem with the route. It isn't dense at all in the center of the route. It is actually very spread out extreme low-density suburban neighborhoods, even by Atlanta standards, with zoning protections.
The primary goal of the project is just to link the Emory/CDC campus with the existing system, which is an island surrounded by the least dense suburbs. There is also very little redevelopment potential for land-use and transit to grow together, just a few small nodes. Those neighborhoods have zoning protections and little to no public support to change. It is truly a situation where you could buy up just 200 homes on large lots and build all new urban neighborhoods with thousands of residences around transit, but that will never be allowed to happen.
They created a second part of the route that goes east past the Emory/CDC area and it goes into some redevelopment prone areas, but will not be the first phase of the project and it is a meandering route that add length and time to reaching Emory/CDC as a destination.
The Beltline isn't a major destination in itself, but has several moderate destination nodes, but it goes through denser neighborhoods that have a much higher chance for redevelopment change for the area works better with transit on the whole corridor.
Without reaching conclusions/opinions, this has pit many local interests against each other when the projects are trying to attract limited funding resources.
It shows phase 1 and Phase 2 and you can see the high capital costs
I personally don't even see why Clifton Corridor would be prioritized over Beltline rail. There are two major destinations on that route (CDC and Emory) surrounded by single-family neighborhoods. The Beltine runs through the densest neighborhoods in Atlanta when you exclude Downtown and Midtown. They have the most potential for high ridership numbers and since the suburbs are so against funding transit at all connectivity within the city itself needs to be prioritized.
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