ThreadATL

Broken sidewalks

ADA Listening Session this week! Atlanta's DOT invites members of the disability community to explain the barriers they experience on city streets.

Thursday Feb 5
MLK Recreation & Aquatic Center
110 Hilliard Street

There's an online option listed:
atldot.atlantaga.gov/resources-2/...

Oops! "Voted" is wrong above -- that should be "supported." The legislation has only been introduced, not voted on yet. Still, very good news!

Thanks to Jason Dozier and to all who voted for this!

Atlanta City Council has introduced legislation banning new storage facilities in the Beltline overlay! This is great news. Improving the land-use around this future transit route is essential.

Bus schedule

The GOOD news: MARTA trains are still running this weekend during the winter weather! Rail to the rescue.

The BAD news: almost all bus routes are cancelled beginning Saturday morning. Only these eight will be in service.

More info:
itsmarta.com/marta-implem...

Great reporting from @saraegregory.bsky.social on a sad subject:

A committee representing the City, the Beltline, and MARTA secretly voted to halt all work on Eastside Beltline rail several months ago, bypassing the required step of a public vote from the MARTA board. Atlanta deserves better.

Norfolk Southern HQ could lose more than 1,000 jobs after Union Pacific merger, filing says - Atlanta Business Chronicle About half of the roughly 2,000 headquarters jobs at Norfolk Southern would be relocated or eliminated after its $85 billion merger with Union Pacific, accoring to estimates in a regulatory filing.

The best excuse for Atlanta’s $1.9B Gulch giveaway was jobs. NS would only move staff from Norfolk if residents forked over $$$ for CIM to buy NS dirt. What a fiasco!
://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2025/12/19/norfolk-southern-union-pacific-merger-filed.html?

Home | ATL Zoning 2.0 Atlanta operates with legacy zoning. Help us develop Version 2.0 to meet the new world challenges and aspirations of a 21st century city.

Take a look at the latest draft of the city's new zoning code at atlzoning.com

Planner Caleb Raciot reports that the new code prohibits front-facing parking, blank walls, super-blocks, and other auto-oriented patterns.

...but there are still far too many dead spaces within a few blocks of the streetcar tracks. Matching high capacity, fixed-route transit with excellent urbanism (and vice versa) is something Atlanta needs to focus on.

/end

In addition to extending the streetcar route to -- and onto -- the Beltline, and providing it with dedicated lanes, the land-use along the route is in need of attention. Good things are absolutely happening on Auburn Avenue in terms of renovation and construction...

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YouTube video by Classy Whale Can Atlanta's Awful Streetcar Be Fixed?

This video critique of the Atlanta Streetcar is getting a lot of views and comments. What are your thoughts about it?

One issue that doesn't get enough exposure in the video is land-use.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OFS...

Boosting the level of walkable density (including affordable housing) near MARTA is key, as is deploying new rail in places with the capacity for growth to support it, such as the Eastside Beltline. We've already got one slam dunk at the airport. Let's do the same with the rest of the city!

/End

These stats are staggering. They show what a huge achievement in rail we have with this Plane Train. And while that's a big ego boost for us, the fact that the rest of the city outside the airport struggles to find this level of success with rail efficiency should be a concern.

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> The Plane Train moves about 89,285 riders per mile per day. For comparison, the New York City Subway (pre-Covid) carried roughly 22,152 riders per mile. There are only two transit lines in the world that move more people per mile, and they're in Tokyo and Hong Kong.

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Stats from the post:

> If the Atlanta Plane Train were its own transit agency it would rank as the 11th largest in the country due to its phenomenal 250,000 daily riders

> Dallas, the ninth-largest city in America, moves fewer people on its entire rail system than the 2.8-mile Plane Train does

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The Busiest “Rail Line” You’ve Never Heard Of Is In the Suburbs of Atlanta Atlanta’s 2.8-mile Plane Train quietly moves more people each day than most American transit systems, and might be the most efficient rail line in the Western Hemisphere.

The Transit Guy has an excellent post about the success of the Plane Train inside Atlanta's airport. This is the train system that takes passengers to and from terminals.

By ridership, it's one of the 15 busiest train systems in the nation!

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thetransitguy.substack.com/p/the-busies...

With this gift, Atlanta Urban Development Corporation (an organization tasked with developing mixed-income housing on publicly owned land) plans to remake these 22 acres into "transit-connected, vibrant community hub that prioritizes the needs of local residents."

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Microsoft gifting portion of Westside campus property to City of Atlanta Transit-connected acreage fronts Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway where two projects didn't take off

Urbanize Atlanta reports that Microsoft is giving 22 acres near Bankhead MARTA Station to the City for development. This is part of the land Microsoft purchased several years ago with hopes of putting a major headquarters on it -- hopes that fizzled.

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atlanta.urbanize.city/post/microso...

New bike lane

It's not open yet, but the bike lane under construction on Juniper Street looks pretty impressive. The wayfinding signage seems like a nice touch.

Thanks to Councilmember Jason Dozier for introducing legislation to eliminate parking minimums citywide in Atlanta at today's City Council meeting!!

This is a great proposal.

New partnerships needed to create a healthy Downtown and Atlanta region  - SaportaReport Read New partnerships needed to create a healthy Downtown and Atlanta region  by Maria Saporta for SaportaReport here.

Maurice Cox, a national leader in city planning, is consulting with Atlanta on how to make Downtown "a thriving neighborhood."

"Cox spoke of transforming auto-centric spaces into pedestrian-oriented spaces...the goal is to create 20-minute neighborhoods"

saportareport.com/new-partners...

To get around GA's ban on rent control, Atlanta has to offer developers an 'out' for inclusionary zoning (requiring affordable homes): paying in-lieu fees that go into a fund for building affordable homes elsewhere.

The fees were recently increased, so that's good news.

19% of Downtown Atlanta is covered in parking according to this analysis. Honestly, that number seems a bit low. Here's the parking-apocalypse near Underground Atlanta & Five Points MARTA.

We've got a lot of work to do in order to right this wrong & make better use of land in the city center.

This would be an improvement!

Atlanta is using most of its housing trust fund to pay down bond debt & employee salaries instead of creating new homes (which is ridiculous).

Councilmember Matt Westmoreland has a plan for ensuring that most of the fund creates affordable housing.

MARTA rail has limited reach, but we can improve what we have — ThreadATL The combo of suburban sprawl and a compromised rail plan has worked to limit the reach of MARTA rail for Atlanta’s regional residents, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a brighter future for the rai...

The combo of suburban sprawl and a compromised rail plan has worked to limit the reach of MARTA rail for Atlanta’s regional residents. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a brighter future within the footprint of rail coverage that we do have.

www.threadatl.org/blog/marta-r...

Atlanta Housing secures $60 million in financing to build affordable apartments at Civic Center site - Atlanta Business Chronicle Approximately $60 million in financing has been secured for the first phase of the redevelopment.

A long-promised apartment building for low income seniors is slated to begin construction at the empty Civic Center property "soon" & be completed late 2027. $60 mil in funding is secured.

No other construction has been announced yet for the property.

www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news...

Congrats to @cardenonwheels.bsky.social for being selected by Atlanta City Council as the interim Council member for District 2 (my district)! Good choice, y'all.

And thanks to @atlpresscollective.com for the great coverage.

Draft Network | MARTA NextGen Bus The Draft NextGen Bus Network would reduces waiting time for most people and allow most residents of the region to reach more jobs more quickly.

MARTA's interim CEO says the bus network redesign launch will no longer happen in 2025

The redesign reduces the number of routes while increasing the frequency of bus service:
www.martanextgenbusnetwork.com/adopted-fina...

New timeline coming "soon"...
www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2025/09/09/a...

Addressing homelessness in Atlanta: The fight for Housing First In the wake of Cornelius Taylor’s death, Atlanta navigates the homelessness crisis with a new plan. But do its goals serve residents?

Must read from the @atlpresscollective.com

atlpresscollective.com/2025/09/05/a...

Instagram post: "Atlanta built the trails. Now they're canceling the rails?"

A transit advocacy group in NYC cleverly uses Atlanta's failure to get rail started on the Beltline as a warning: build the rail first, before the 'trail' component sparks anti-transit outrage from residents who don't want to rock the booming-property-values boat.

www.instagram.com/p/DN58BSXEbZB

Could Atlanta tap Midtown’s explosive growth to fund affordable housing? A city councilmember has a plan to turn Midtown’s explosive growth into a new funding stream.

This is a good writeup about the complexity of providing affordable homes through fees, density bonuses, and requirements for below-market-rate units.

It also raises questions: how can we put affordable homes in places with good transit access & safe streets?

atlantaciviccircle.org/2025/08/27/m...