Atlanta has a leadership problem. In a closed-door meeting by a little-known committee, a vote was taken to terminate progress on More MARTA’s signature project: Beltline rail.
The very people who championed the project became the ones to propose ending it, wasting six years, millions of dollars and countless hours of public engagement.
It is the latest example of needless delay in the More MARTA program, where, nine years and nearly $800 million in, we don’t have a single new transit project in service.
We are seen in the eyes of others everywhere as a “transit outlier” — a city that has the reputation of planning and funding rail transit expansion without actually delivering it.
In May 2025, the Program Governance Committee — an oversight body created by the Intergovernmental Agreement between the city of Atlanta and MARTA specifically for the More MARTA program — quietly voted to halt the Streetcar East Extension.
The vote was initiated by Atlanta Beltline Inc. CEO Clyde Higgs, who answers to Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens.
There was no public announcement afterward. No City Council briefing. No MARTA board debate or vote. And while the meeting itself wasn’t a secret, the result was withheld for months. That is what many mean by “secret.”
The public only learned of the change because of solid reporting by the AJC. Without that dogged journalism, we would still not know that the only fully funded, construction-ready segment of Beltline rail had been nixed.
Why should voters approve future referendums?
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Atlanta Beltline Inc. held quarterly public engagement meetings for over 20 years and built consensus around the complete Beltline vision, which includes the 22-mile loop of light rail.
How ironic — and appalling — it is that their CEO initiated the most consequential action to disempower the public in the Beltline’s history. Between June and January, Higgs appeared on numerous occasions to announce the state of Beltline rail to the media and public but never mentioned the substantial change.
This is no minor mistake. It’s a breach of public trust. No voter or council member should approve future sales tax referendums, Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax or Tax Allocation Districts extensions for transit because neither the city nor MARTA considers them binding.
Why attend ABI’s quarterly meetings now if they don’t take the public’s transit aspirations seriously? Without guarantees built into future referendums or legislation that funds specific transit programs, the future will be an extension of the past.
Not only have Atlantans been betrayed, but agreements have been violated. The IGA requires that significant program changes be communicated to the City Council. That did not happen. Substantial changes to the program require a vote by MARTA’s board. That did not happen. Instead, a consequential decision affecting a 40-year, multibillion-dollar transit program remained a secret.
Eastside Beltline rail plans were moving forward
To understand why this is so damaging, let’s look at the timeline.
In 2016, Atlanta voters approved the More MARTA sales tax specifically to expand transit in the city, with Beltline transit a top project on the list. This referendum received an unprecedented 71% voter approval. Years of planning followed. Studies. Community meetings. Environmental reviews. Design contracts. Roughly $800 million has flowed from taxpayers to MARTA.
By July 2023, the Streetcar East Extension — a project connecting the existing downtown streetcar and including the first 1.4 miles of Beltline rail — was funded and nearing the start of final design.
Over $8 million was spent on studies and design. MARTA’s board, with the mayor’s full support, awarded an $11 million final design contract to respected engineering firm HDR. They were about $1 million toward making the project shovel-ready when the PGC held its vote. The only objector: MARTA’s then-CEO Collie Greenwood, who believed MARTA must show progress on vetted projects like SCE that could be built now.
SCE can be in service in three years. No other rail project in More MARTA is even close. It will take seven to 10 years from where we are now for any other segments of Beltline rail to be completed. The proposed infill stations will take even longer.
Streetcar East — and the rest of the 22-mile Beltline rail loop — are important to making the entire city accessible without a car and to relieving pollution and congestion. Extending the downtown streetcar makes it successful by connecting downtown to the Eastside. Its well-known problems are easily fixed.
Car ownership should not be required to live in Atlanta
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Inaction and continued reevaluation of priorities have consequences far beyond the Beltline. MARTA is pursuing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants for Campbellton Road bus-rapid transit and other projects at the Federal Transit Administration. The FTA evaluates reliability and readiness to deliver. What message does it send if major decisions can be reversed by the latest mayor after years and millions spent? In the middle of a search for a new CEO to replace Greenwood, what signal does this give to candidates for the job about what they’d encounter here?
And what of equity? A city that cares about affordability cannot be one where car ownership is mandatory to access employment and all the city offers. Transit is economic infrastructure. Without it, inequality widens. Withholding direct transit access now to the city’s biggest opportunity zone is the most inequitable decision MARTA and the mayor could make.
Atlanta is at a crossroads. The committee vote alone doesn’t constitute killing the Streetcare East Extension. MARTA’s board must vote on that.
Mayor Dickens says he supports Beltline rail, and we take him at his word. Now is the moment to prove it. He can urge MARTA and ABI to fix the downtown streetcar, resume final design work on its extension and simultaneously start the design for the rest of the loop, including the four infill stations. It’s a both-and equation.
Dickens can demonstrate that he will do what it takes to see Beltline rail open this decade. If he wants us to pass another sales tax referendum or the TAD extensions he has advocated, he must do those things, because right now, the trust is gone.
Matthew Rao is the Chair of Beltline Rail Now, a nonprofit advocacy group that holds leaders and officials accountable for the delivery of all 22 miles of light rail on the Beltline. Rao has been an Atlanta area resident since 1975. He graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a degree in industrial design and has been a city resident on and off for more than 30 years.
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