Fresh Loaf

Atlanta mayoral candidates Lisa Borders, Mary Norwood, Kasim Reed and Jesse Spikes will sit down on Tuesday, Sept. 29, at All Saints Episcopal Church on West Peachtree Street to give their views on the Beltline, the $2.8 billion 22-mile loop of parks, trails and (hopefully) transit.

The Beltline, which has made considerable traction in the last year, also faces difficult hurdles. Its main funding source, a tax allocation district, relies on increased development along the loop. As we all know, there’s not a whole lot of that going on at the moment. There are also neighborhood-level debates over density and concerns about equitable funding and transparency. The next mayor will sit on the Beltline board and have to weigh in on those discussions.

The forum, which is sponsored by the Atlanta Preservation Center, BeltLine Network, Citizens for Progressive Transit, Park Pride and PEDS, will be moderated by former Atlanta City Council President Cathy Woolard. Woolard, who’s now with humanitarian organization CARE, was the public-works project’s biggest cheerleader while at City Hall.

The two-hour event begins at 6 p.m. For directions to All Saints Episcopal Church, go here.

(Courtesy Atlanta Beltline Inc.)

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Leading up to Liz Coyle’s jump into the District 6 race for Atlanta City Council, there were questions as to whether the Atkins Park resident would have to resign from her position as community representative on the Beltline board of directors.

Candidate Liz Coyle

At first Coyle planned to step down from the post, a nonpaying, citywide gig to which the Council appoints a community member. Then, at a monthly meeting of an advisory board tasked with overseeing how taxpayer dollars are spent on the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit, Coyle told members she was advised by the Atlanta Development Authority’s counsel that she didn’t have to.

Neither does Alex Wan, one of Coyle’s many opponents in the District 6 race. He serves on the ADA’s TAD and finance committees. (Here’s a list of ADA board members.)

Some residents, however, are raising questions in the politically active district (and in the comments of Fresh Loaf posts). Some of them deal with confusion over the candidates’ status on the boards, others involve concerns that candidate still serving on boards could pose a potential conflict of interest.

Can Coyle and Wan run for office and serve on the boards? Yes, they can. To understand why, you’ve gotta examine ADA’s organizational structure.

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RAIL RALLY Beltline supporters say Amtrak, GDOT's plans jeopardize Beltline

When it comes to the future of public transit in Atlanta, there’s good news and there’s bad news.

The good news: After decades of bowing at the throne of roadbuilders, the Georgia Department of Transportation says it’s finally taking off the kneepads and getting serious about train service that would connect Atlanta to other cities in the Southeast.

The bad news: Thanks to an unexpected tiff between GDOT and city of Atlanta officials, the Beltline — the transformative 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit that would one day circle the city — might be in jeopardy. That’s because the train service that GDOT is suddenly embracing would have to run on or near the proposed Beltline tracks. What’s more, Piedmont Park, the city’s most iconic greenspace, might have to be severed by a heavy-rail route in order to accommodate GDOT’s vision.

Last week, CL first reported that GDOT — working in tandem with Amtrak — threw a wrench in Beltline officials’ plans for light-rail, trails and additional green space near Piedmont Park. Just as Norfolk Southern, the current owner of the tracks in question, was about to surrender them to the city, GDOT and Amtrak stepped in and halted the proceedings. Those two agencies now say the tracks in dispute are vital to their own vision for commuter rail.

“Simply put, because of GDOT’s boorish behavior and AMTRAK’s willingness to play along, the future of the city of Atlanta is at stake,” Mayor Shirley Franklin wrote in an urgent letter to U.S. Congressman John Lewis to seek his assistance.

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From the Beltline Network:

RALLY TO SAVE THE BELTLINE

LET’S SHOW HOW MUCH THE PEOPLE SUPPORT ATLANTA’S LIGHT RAIL, TRAIL, PARK, ARBORETUM, AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND EQUITABLE DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE!
THIS SATURDAY, January 31, 2009, 2:00PM
MEET ALONG THE BELTLINE TRACKS AT THE INTERSECTION OF 10TH AND MONROE IN MIDTOWN

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Yesterday, the Georgia Department of Transportation said its out-of-the-blue opposition to allowing light-rail along the Beltline near Piedmont Park — a move it made with the help of AMTRAK — didn’t necessarily mean the end of the city’s 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit. A GDOT spokesman  said both intercity rail and light-rail could run side-by-side along the 3.5-mile rail line. There would have to be modifications, of course. But it’s do-able, he said.

Beltline officials, however, say that’s virtually impossible. Federal regulations, safety concerns and neighborhood opposition would most likely prevent that possibility, Atlanta Beltline Inc. CEO Terri Montague told an Atlanta City Council committee yesterday.

Add to the fact that residents and developers have invested time, money and energy into a vision of that portion of the $2.8-billion project that includes lower-speed people movers and lush parks with bike trails, and you can see why a train roaring behind the neighborhood isn’t exactly what stakeholders had in mind. Atlanta Councilmember Kwanza Hall, whose district has seen much of that investment — e.g. City Hall East’s proposed mixed-use revival and the recently announced Historic Old Fourth Ward Park near the Masquerade — estimates the city and others have spent as much as $250 million on that portion of the Beltline. Stakeholders feel their investment is in jeopardy and that the loss of this key part of the project could send financial and logistical ripples throughout the Beltline, impacting the possibility of transit and smart-growth development in Atlanta.

GDOT and AMTRAK say they’re protecting future options for commuter rail. Their trains couldn’t run alongside freight traffic on tracks to the west of Atlanta, they argue, because the routes don’t make logistical sense. Nevermind that the rails in dispute run smack into DeKalb Avenue. Quite a roadblock! (There’s a study about this that I’ll post in a few minutes.)

So how was the decision to halt the Beltline in Northeast Atlanta made? According to David Doss, a GDOT boardmember from Rome, he and his fellow officials weren’t aware of the agency’s move until the news media came calling yesterday. And he even sits on a special committee that specifically focuses on transit.

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Man, the Beltline can be pretty confusing, huh? So can writing about transit agency disputes.

To put it plainly: The vision of a 22-mile loop of transit, parks and trails is now in jeopardy after the state Department of Transportation and AMTRAK unexpectedly announced they had their own heavy-rail plans for the project’s northeast section along Piedmont Park.

On Wednesday, members of the Beltline Network, a citizen group that supports the project, will meet for a special-called meeting to discuss how to keep the $2.8 billion “Emerald Necklace” — the largest public-works project of its kind in the country — on track.

Liz Coyle, chair of the Beltline Network, writes in an “urgent” e-mail sent yesterday to members (emphasis added for the more civic-minded Fresh Loaf readers who want to get involved):

I am calling a special meeting of the BeltLine Network on this Wednesday, January 28, at 4:30pm at Trees Atlanta, 225 Chester Avenue. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss and strategize a community response to a threat to BeltLine transit. I will provide more details as available at the meeting, but to summarize the situation and get right to the point, AMTRAK has begun condemnation proceedings on the NE Corridor of the BeltLine. This is in response to Norfolk Southern Railroad (NSR), Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. (ABI) and Atlanta Development Authority (ADA) pursuing rail abandonment on the Northeast Corridor (aka the “Decatur Belt”) with the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB), a necessary step to advancing light rail transit in the BeltLine corridor. Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) and AMTRAK have filed Motions to Stay the abandonment proceedings.

More on Coyle’s e-mail and the issues — and questions — surrounding this dispute after the jump.

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