HomeMy Public PortalAbout140_020_ped friendly-09162016090331.pdfA Glorified Sidewalk, and the Path to Transform Atlanta - NYTimes.com
U.S.
Page 1 of 11
SUBSCRIBE I LOG IN
A Glorified Sidewalk, and the Path to Transform
Atlanta
0
Slide Show 1 Atlanta's Be'tLine: An Ambitious Plan to Bring a City Together Planners say the biking and
pedestrian loop, when finished, will link 45 of the city's neighborhoods, and has already proven to be a boon to
civic pride.
By RICHARD FAUSSET
SEPTEMBER 11, 2016
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/us/atlanta-beltline.html 09/16/2016
A Glorified Sidewalk, and the Path to Transform Atlanta - NYTimes.com Page 2 of 11
ATLANTA — Could this traffic -clogged Southern city, long derided as the epitome
of suburban sprawl, really be discovering its walkable, bike -friendly, density -
embracing, streetcar -riding, human -scale soul?
The answer is evident in the outpouring of affection that residents here have
showered on the Atlanta BeltLine, which aims to convert 22 miles of mostly
disused railway beds circling the city's urban core into a biking and pedestrian
loop, a new streetcar line, and a staggeringly ambitious engine of urban
revitalization.
Even though just a small fraction of the loop trail has been completed, Atlantans, in
one of the purer expressions of America's newly rekindled romance with city life,
have already passionately embraced the project. And like any budding romance, it
is full of high hopes — for an Atlanta that is more racially integrated, less congested
and, in a change refreshing to many here, more focused on improving the lives of
residents rather than just projecting a glittering New South image to the rest of the
world.
It's not just Atlantans who see something that is potentially transformative.
"It's the most important rail -transit project that's been proposed in the country,
possibly in the world," said Christopher B. Leinberger of the George Washington
University School of Business, who follows urban redesign projects and has for
years called Atlanta "the poster child of sprawl."
More than 30,000 people have taken a three-hour bus tour of the proposed loop;
the answer to "Have you taken the tour?" has become a kind of litmus test of
Atlanta civic pride.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/us/atlanta-beltline.html 09/16/2016
A Glorified Sidewalk, and the Path to Transform Atlanta - NYTimes.com
Page 3 of 11
"It was just an idea, really," Ryan Gravel, who first submitted the BeltLine idea to city officials in 2001, said
recently. "I never imagined we'd actually do it."
DUSTIN CHAMBERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Last year, more than 1.3 million people used a completed two-mile path along the
loop, the Eastside Trail, which opened in 2012, and a second, three-mile section of
the path is under construction on the city's historically African-American west side.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of residents strutted their way along the existing
trail in the annual BeltLine Lantern Parade, begun in 2010, that borrows much
from the culture of New Orleans.
To hear the parade organizer, Chantelle Rytter, describe it, the Atlanta pageant
might as well be a jazz funeral for the death of the city's old reputation, which she
sums up in three words: "Soulless parking lot."
ADVERTISEMENT
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/us/atlanta-beltline.html 09/16/2016
A Glorified Sidewalk, and the Path to Transform Atlanta - NYTimes.com Page 4 of 11
She added: "There's
live no sBeltLine."
S40 women's apparel,
iewel a ed sidewalk says
America. The current
nited States' largest
decadesofApoplzlation loss because of
Such enthusiasm for w
much about the social
decade has been one o
cities. But Atlanta previ
suburbanization and wh teJ[ig
The tide has turned significantly in recent years. Planners now say Atlanta's
population, which stands at about 463,000, could double in the next 15 years.
Many of the new residents could end up living along the BeltLine.
In a study this year, Mr. Leinberger and a colleague, Michael Rodriguez, showed
that areas they identified as "walkable urban places" in the nation's 30 largest
metro areas were gaining market share over car -dependent suburban areas for
"perhaps the first time in 6o years," and earning higher rental premiums.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/us/atlanta-beltline.html
09/16/2016
A Glorified Sidewalk, and the Path to Transform Atlanta - NYTimes.com Page 5 of 11
People played kickball at a park on a trail on the BeltLine's south side.
DUSTIN CHAMBERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The High Line in New York, which turned an elevated stretch of Manhattan rail
line into a linear park, is perhaps the best known of the nation's urban
infrastructure makeovers. Chicago's has also converted an old elevated track into a
greenway, christening it the 606. Miami's Underline is reimagining 10 miles of
underused land under its elevated Metrorail system as an art -lined "urban trail."
Still, many say Atlanta's plans stand out.
Private investment along the entire proposed route has surged to S3 billion.
Foundations and private donors have given more than S54 million for paths, parks
and other amenities. Home prices have risen in formerly overlooked working-class
neighborhoods where the BeltLine is set to expand.
Candidates in the 2017 mayoral race, meanwhile, are turning BeltLine promises
into central elements of their campaigns.
"If you like the BeltLine now, you're going to love it when I'm your mayor," says the
campaign website for Cathy Woolard, a former City Council president.
The BeltLine idea was submitted to city officials in 2001 by a former Georgia Tech
graduate student, Ryan Gravel. He grew up in the Atlanta suburbs, but had spent a
year studying in Paris, where he got around without a car.
BeltLine
Atlanta
ATLANTIC
STATION
BANKHEAD
ATLANTA
1 1AI11 /CDCITV
MIDTOWN
Ponce City ■
Market
DOWNTOWN
Atlanta -
Eastside
Beltline Trail
Existing
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/us/atlanta-beltline.html 09/16/2016
A Glorified Sidewalk, and the Path to Transform Atlanta - NYTimes.com Page 6 of 11
On a weekday afternoon in late August, as a packed BeltLine tour bus made its way
through both charming historic neighborhoods and blocks plagued by drugs and
crime, a guide called Mr. Gravel a "rock star" of urban planning.
"It was just an idea, really," said Mr. Gravel, now a planner in Atlanta. "I never
imagined we'd actually do it."
ADVERTISEMENT
Mr. Gravel and other advocates maintain great expectations. Upon completion in
2030, they say, the $4.8 billion project will connect 45 neighborhoods — rich and
poor, black and white — thus easing old divisions of class and race. Organizers say
it will promote healthy living and reduce obesity, and will provide new jobs,
affordable housing, performance space, areas for urban farming and public art, as
well as 2,000 acres of new and upgraded parks.
For all its economic success, locals have long known that Atlanta has had
numerous unmet needs.
Mark Pendergrast, an Atlanta -born author, in a forthcoming book about the
BeltLine, notes that the city, by at least one measure, suffers from the worst
income -inequality gaps of any major American city; soul -deadening sprawl and
commuting times; and neighborhoods that have been chopped up by highway
construction and mangled by misguided loth -century "urban renewal" projects.
For Joe Peery, 54, a commercial artist and longtime Atlantan, the BeltLine feels
like a shift in the way the city conceives its big dreams. In the past, he said, Atlanta
disappointed him with its big projects. The 1996 Summer Olympics struck him as
corporate and cheesy: "a huge money grab," he said. In contrast, the BeltLine
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/us/atlanta-beltline.html 09/16/2016
A Glorified Sidewalk, and the Path to Transform Atlanta - NYTimes.com Page 7 of 11
lavishes attention on the neighborhoods where — as Mr. Peery and Ms. Rytter, the
Lantern Parade organizer, would both agree — Atlanta's low-key soul resides.
Ellen Dunham -Jones, a Georgia Tech professor, largely abandoned driving for biking two years ago, in part thanks
to the BeltLine, her new path to the grocery store.
DUSTIN CHAMBERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
"If not for the development of the BeltLine, I would have been driven out of here,"
Mr. Peery said.
Mr. Gravel is surprised that the existing BeltLine has become such a gathering spot
— a place to promenade, take outdoor yoga classes, and wander in and out of
trendy restaurants.
But he and others know there are challenges ahead. Much of the project's future
funding will hinge on whether voters will approve, in November, two citywide
ballot measures that will raise sales taxes by a total of nine -tenths of a cent.
Gentrification fears are also widespread. The city has built only a small fraction of
the 5,600 affordable housing units it promised along the loop, largely because the
recession from 2007 to 2009 depressed property values and lowered the revenue
from a tax -increment funding plan.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/us/atlanta-beltline.html 09/16/2016
A Glorified Sidewalk, and the Path to Transform Atlanta - NYTimes.com Page 8 of 11
Officials at Atlanta BeltLine Inc., the quasi -governmental agency overseeing the
project, have pointed to other plans they hope will keep low-income residents
along the BeltLine. But some residents are skeptical in a city that has torn down
nearly all of its traditional public housing complexes in recent years.
"Instead of helping poor people around here fix up their property, they're going to
give them pennies on the dollar and they're going to move," said Lena Shepard, 79,
a shopper at a west side grocery store along the BeltLine.
But Shudarrian Butler, 30, a barber working nearby, was looking forward to the
new path. Maybe more whites would come to this neighborhood, he said. And
maybe that was a good thing.
"It may blur that racial line a little bit," he said. "Maybe we'll learn to live amongst
each other."
RELATED COVERAGE
Contributing Op -Ed Writer: What Happened to the Great Urban Design
Projects? FEB 12, 2016
Atlanta Journal: Hoping to Resuscitate a Portion of the City's Heart
APR 28, 2015
Now Atlanta Is Turning Old Tracks Green FEB 14. 2013
Most Popular on NYTimes.com
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/us/atlanta-beltline.html 09/16/2016