Project Statement

Few planning projects achieve the environmental, social, and economic impact the Atlanta BeltLine has achieved for Atlanta. Known as a congested, car-dependent city with anemic public transport and insular neighborhoods, Atlanta has in two decades repurposed nearly 60 percent of the 22-mile rail corridor that encircles its city center. Multi-use public art trails now facilitate broader access to essential goods, services, and amenities while connecting diverse communities along the corridor. A linear arboretum and native meadow species provide vital ecological services. When completed, the public greenway and linked transit will form a continuous loop connecting 45 neighborhoods and 1,300 acres of parks.

Project Narrative

The Atlanta BeltLine is the realization of an ambitious collective vision to reorganize access to goods and services, greenspace, housing, and transit options across 45 historic neighborhoods around Atlanta. Inspired by the walkability and scale of Paris’s urban experience, the BeltLine has transformed a 22-mile corridor of mostly abandoned industrial railroad infrastructure into a continuous multi-use trail, linear arboretum, and multimodal loop around the city. The project has been not only transformational for the physical city, but it has also changed the way people think about living in Atlanta.

The corridor comprises the tracks of several linked 19th-century railroad lines, encircling the city center. Originally intended to enable the railroads to bypass the city center, the integrated system of rail lines has found a second life by connecting intown neighborhoods to each other and restoring unity and cohesion to the urban fabric.

Development of the Atlanta BeltLine design typologies coincided with the documentation of the Eastside Trail, the project’s first completed segment. Over a 10-month period in regular meetings with the client, the design team leveraged the coincidence to explore and evaluate ideas under real-world conditions, leading to a stronger design in support of the final organizing strategy: “22 miles of continuity through 22 miles of variety.” Design elements inspired by the corridor’s historic railroad identity create continuity, while an ever-changing landscape provides variety. The interplay of continuity and variety mimics the rhythm of the railroad path as it passes through the city’s diverse communities.

The hardscape palette establishes a consistent and recognizable character for the entire loop. Appearance, durability, honesty, and ease of maintenance informed the selection of the palette, which relies on a simple but elegant family of materials—granite, concrete, and stainless steel. By contrast, distinct landforms, art installations, and vegetative palettes define the “character rooms” along the trail, the expressions of each neighborhood’s spirit and identity.

An innovative linear arboretum, consisting of both native and adapted species, helps to define these character rooms. Native Piedmont meadow grasses and wildflowers complete the composition, creating a soft, richly textured ground plane that provides wide expanses of habitat. With the planned creation of over 85 acres of native meadows, the BeltLine has a significant ecological footprint.

Fifteen years into the project, approximately $800 million in public investment has led to more than $8.2 billion in private investment.  2,977 of the planned 5,600 affordable workforce housing units along the corridor have been constructed to date.  Constructed trail segments have set a new benchmark for public realm design and execution in Atlanta, inviting new and existing businesses to orient their storefronts to the activated greenways. the BeltLine has catalyzed an altogether different type of development for Atlanta: dense, urban, pedestrian-focused, socially cohesive environments. Scheduled for completion in 2030, the project will continue to evolve a civic and cultural space that is at once deeply rooted in the city’s history, deeply committed to its future well-being, and unlike any other Atlanta experience.