ATLANTA — MARTA is poised to start work on extending the Atlanta Streetcar. The transit agency board is expected to approve a contract this week to engineer an extension up the most popular part of the Atlanta BeltLine.
"I like to bike. Sometimes I walk," said T'Shaka Bailey, a schoolteacher who uses the BeltLine regularly.
"Oh I love it. There’s a lot of energy in it," added Vicky Compos, an Atlanta resident and regular BeltLine user.
Few Atlanta amenities have the devoted following of the Atlanta BeltLine.
"You can see skating, biking, walking, running, music," added Campos.
Yet backers said the trail is incomplete without public transit running alongside the pedestrian walkway.
"I think it finally delivers on a promise for folks who moved there ten or fifteen years ago when this was promised," said Matthew Rao, who founded BeltLine Rail Now, an advocacy group.
Some fans of the BeltLine aren’t sold on that promise.
"I think it boils down to one thing and that’s space, if it becomes too congested. Because right now on a Saturday or Sunday, it’s pretty congested on the BeltLine," said Mike Worley, a regular BeltLine user who also said he's a fan of public transit and used it when he worked in Downtown Atlanta.
The transit envisioned for the BeltLine is the Atlanta Streetcar. It has run for eight and a half years downtown with very few passengers.
"Every time I was on it, just a handful of people were on it," Worley said.
The existing streetcar line runs mostly on a loop through downtown.
The extension would take north by northeast to connect with the BeltLine at Irwin Street. From there, the streetcar would have five stops on a one and a half mile stretch along the BeltLine’s eastside trail before reaching Ponce de Leon Avenue.
Thursday, MARTA is expected to approve $11.5 million just to engineer the plan.
"They can arrive by scooter, on foot, on bicycle and they can go home on street car" if they so choose, said Rao.
Rao said the streetcar on the Beltline will connect to tens of thousands of new residents who have moved into trendy properties nearby over the last decade. But it’s also a tough sell to some.
"BeltLine is sports, it’s music, it’s fun. And I think the rail... I think it will hurt," Campos said.
MARTA projects starting streetcar service on the BeltLine in just four years – at an estimated $200 million plus --- a cost that may be revised upward.