Thursday, January 3, 2013
Transit Future of Atlanta's transit 'slowed, but not stopped' after T-SPLOST failure
Posted by Max Blau @maxblau on Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 4:37 PM
Mayor Kasim Reed told the AJC that public-private partnerships are the key to Beltline transit moving forward, and that he's in "at least three" different conversations with private sector partners. He hopes that he'll be able to announce a new development along those lines sometime in 2013.
In last month's CL cover story regarding the Beltline's next steps, Thomas Wheatley touched on its future transit plans, saying that:
But the past is the past and Beltline officials are moving forward. When exactly we'll actually see transit, which sources say remains a "high priority," is unknown. Transit planners at ABI are awaiting the completion of a so-called implementation plan that allows Atlanta residents to say what they'd most like to see built.Mayor Kasim Reed is actively negotiating with the private sector to build key segments of the rail line. But how such a deal would actually work is complicated - would the private company operate the rail line or just build it? For the last several months, Beltline transit planners have been considering just such an approach. But don't hold your breath.
With the vision for the Beltline's transit component still up in the air, however, the downtown streetcar between the King Center and Centennial Olympic Park will most likely come to fruition before anything else. It's expected to open in 2014 and would be Atlanta's first transit rail expansion in more than a decade.
A larger question is whether the Beltline segments originally included in the list of proposed T-SPLOST projects would remain the same as before. Were it to have passed, the transportation tax would have paid for transit along the $2.8 billion project's southwest and northeast segments, including on-street spurs connecting to Midtown. If so, that would allow for both transit initiatives to connect and create a "bigger urban transit network" throughout the city which could, one day, link to future lines throughout the region.
"I don't make the distinction between the Beltline and the streetcar network," Tom Weyandt, the mayor's transportation policy advisor, told the AJC. "We're going to be expanding the streetcar network, and portions of it are going to be on the Beltline."
Two other possible projects that fall under the Georgia Department of Transportation's authority are possible, but seem unlikely to happen anytime soon. Feasibility studies for the proposed multimodal passenger terminal proposed for "the Gulch" in downtown are still underway. The total cost of that facility is also still up in the air. As for high-speed rail, Reed has called it "an inspiring idea." But beyond his outspoken advocacy, there seems to be few expectations that the rail line between Atlanta and Savannah will become a reality anytime soon.
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