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Transit Experts Will Explore Beltline Options

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

Sep. 20--Gwinnett County developer Wayne Mason has hired a team of transit experts to explore the best options for his five-mile section of the 22-mile Beltline around intown Atlanta.

Mason, who purchased the rail corridor from Norfolk Southern railway, plans to redevelop the property with high-density residences and retail space. He has pledged to donate about half his land for mass transit, pedestrian trails and green space. Mason's property stretches from DeKalb Avenue to I-85 and passes by the Carter Center, Piedmont Park and Ansley Mall.

The team hired by Mason's Northeast Atlanta Beltline Group includes New York-based STV, Omaha-based HDR Inc. and Georgia-based Jordan, Jones & Goulding. The consultants have been involved in implementing streetcars and light-rail systems in Charlotte, Houston, Dallas, Tampa and Portland, Ore.

"We have a team that's unsurpassed," Mason said. "I put them up against anybody in the country."

The Beltline development is part of a city plan to help transform the central part of Atlanta. The Atlanta City Council is considering creating a tax allocation district that would capture tax dollars from increased development in the area to pay for green space, mass transit and other public improvements.

But that scenario calls for transit to be among the last things built along the Beltline. For Mason, hiring the transit team is a way to speed up that process. The study is to be completed this November.

"I think transit in my part of the Beltline will work as a stand-alone," Mason said. "It makes a lot of sense for the guys who are developing it to put the transit in. This doesn't have to be government-sanctioned or federally funded."

That said, Mason pledges to share the results of the study with all the transportation and planning agencies involved. The study will determine the most viable transit option for his corridor and how it would link up with the rest of the regional mass transit network, potentially tying in to MARTA's east and north lines. The team also will analyze the building and operating costs of the system.

Charlie Hale, a planner with HDR Inc. who worked on the Portland streetcar, said the transit system will be "at a scale that fits with the existing neighborhoods."

While the team seeks to determine the best option for Mason's part of the Beltline, it will not try to dictate what would work for the rest of it. But Mason understands how private developers can get a project on a fast track.

"I've seen a number of successful transit projects get started just this way," he said. "A property owner or private citizen tries to get the transit going."

Mason, who visited Portland earlier this year, was impressed at how quickly and cheaply a streetcar could be built.

If waiting for governments to act is going to take too long, Mason said that one option would be for him and other developers to build the transit themselves.

"I could build it myself," he said. "But it might not make economic sense."

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Source: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

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