BeltLine Rail Now

Another day, another coordinated attack on Beltline light rail by this city’s business class.

This time an AJC Op-Ed from Eric Tanenblatt of Dentons Law Firm.

The same Dentons that counts as clients autonomous vehicle manufacturers who stand to gain financially should pods be put on the Beltline. Curiously, the AJC failed to include this disclosure in its identifier of Tanenblatt and Dentons in its initial rollout of the column. (It added this fact to Tanenblatt's Op-Ed bio two days later after getting complaints).

The same way the AJC failed to disclose Cox Enterprise's three percent ownership stake in Rivian in Cox Chair Alex Taylor’s AJC Op-Ed from a few weeks ago. A column that advocated for more electric vehicles (Rivian was named) as a solution to Atlanta's congestion problem.

What else is wrong with Tanenblatt’s column? For one, the technology for which he advocates – 60-person autonomous trams – doesn’t exist.

Furthermore, Tanenblatt seems to advocate for autonomous vehicle technology as a way to get people to the Beltline as opposed to a transit mode ON the Beltline.

The whole point of Beltline rail is connecting the 45 neighborhoods on the 22-mile loop through the greenway transit right of way that's already in place beside the recreational trail. Expert study after expert study, spanning 20-plus years, confirms light rail is the preferred mode of transit for ON the Beltline.

If Tanenblatt is taking the position that autonomous shuttles should be used solely to get Atlantans to the Beltline, well then he's advocating for just one more automobile on the road.

Shared autonomous vehicles, not rail, are the future of the Atlanta Beltline

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS AT STREETS ALIVE THIS SUNDAY! PLEASE RSVP.

StreetsAlive moves to the Westside on June 14th, and BRN will be there. But we still need a FEW MORE VOLUNTEERS to staff our booth and to help at the beginning and end with setup and take-down. There are several shifts available! Want to move the conversation about Beltline rail forward with the public and the international visitors here for World Cup? We'd love to have you with us.

Signup at the linktree in our bio (IG) or at https://bit.ly/streets-alive-june-2026.

FRIDAY JUNE 12TH-4PM and 6PM

As The Beltline opens the Southside Trail, we celebrate the connection of northwest, west southwest southeast east and northeast Beltline into one continuous path. This is a big milestone, but it's missing one thing- the transit at the heart of it.

Join us at 3:45PM in Pittsburgh Yards for the 4PM ribbon cutting. We stand together with BRN T-shirts as a reminder that the Beltline will only be finished when Beltline rail makes this same connection. It won’t be finished until we build and all 22 miles of light rail, connect all 45 Beltline communities, 20 Atlanta Public Schools, 5 MARTA stations and more.

Details for meeting up at the linktree in our bio. And afterwards if you feel like joining us for a social hour find us at Estoria just south of the Krog tunnel starting at 6:00

Cabbagetown resident and Atlanta native Brandon Sutton takes issue with the facts in a recently published by Denton's partner and AV attorney and advocate Eric Tannenblatt.

Tannenblatt wrote that "The question is not whether the Beltline should include mobility options that connect people to jobs, neighborhoods and opportunity. The question is what form those connections should take." He went on to advocate that paving the Beltline for autonomous buses was the new high-tech way to save money in implementation and deliver the project faster.

Sutton's Letter To The Editor (and the original op-Ed) are both available at the linktree in our bio.

Sutton fired back:

"Whether buses have drivers or not, they still must navigate the same Atlanta traffic, just like Waymo cars are doing currently. Leveraging the dedicated corridor that’s out of traffic for high-capacity accessible public transit connecting intown neighborhoods is the key to making the Beltline (and the city) work effectively for the masses. The only way for autonomous shuttles to truly qualify as Beltline transit, a 2-lane dedicated road must be paved in the right of way that currently exists next to the trail, with all the concrete that comes along with it. Is that what most Atlantans really want? I suspect not."-Brandon Sutton in the AJC 06.11.26 in his letter entitled "Beltline shuttles are no replacement for light rail". -Brandon Sutton

Sutton is bike and transit commuter and professional cultural strategist and a volunteer lobbyist at Citizens' Climate Lobby. He has previously written in Saporta Report and for BRN's Rail Writers column. 🚊

https://www.ajc.com/opinion/2026/06/readers-write-10/

From our friend Brooks Payne. Well said!

Let’s fight inequity for real. 🚊 So far it’s been “We removed the 80 million APS would lose so we could excuse our inconsistency in delivering what we ran on and promised by 2030.” I love Atlanta. But I’m off the NRI train if we’re picking and choosing inequities to address. Transportation Equity is just as important as housing. #FILA #beltlinerail #neighborhoodreinvestmentinitiative #wedeservebetter

The future belongs to the youth of today. But what kind of future will we give them? Recently, we found out what a group of 11- and 12-year-olds thinks about the Beltline rail and what that would mean for their futures.

Last month, Board Members Cristy Lenz and Matthew Rao met Paideia teacher Hugh Hunter and his students to give his 7th graders the transit advocates’ point of view on the Beltline, a topic they’d studied before the tour. Even before the tour, five of them wrote an essay and gave public comments supporting Beltline rail at a City Council meeting. They were warmly received. And they should be taken seriously. These pre-teens know something their leaders have convinced themselves to "unknow."

Last month, Board Members Cristy Lenz and Matthew Rao met Paideia teacher Hugh Hunter and his students to give his 7th graders the transit advocates’ point of view on the Beltline, a topic they’d studied before the tour. Even before the tour, five of them wrote an essay and gave public comments in support of Beltline rail at a City Council meeting. They were warmly received. And they should be taken seriously. These pre-teens know something their leaders have convinced themselves to "unknow."

Read the entire blog from this amazing group of young people at https://beltlinerailnow.com/news/2026/6/1/connecting-atlanta-a-7th-grade-vision-for-the-beltline-rail

It's been a week! Heading into the holiday a week ago, Alex Taylor, chairman of Cox Enterprises (founded by his great grandfather in 1898), used the newspaper he owns, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1868) to publish an op-ed about trains being “19th century technology.”

We assume he wrote it under electric lights (1802), at a QWERTY keyboard (1870s), in order to tell Atlanta (1837) that the future of transportation is more cars (1880s). He recommends we look at Jacksonville (1822), whose autonomous minivans move a whopping 70-ish people per day as a model.

But somehow, we are supposed to believe Atlanta's modern-day would-be robber baron (1870) that electric light rail is an outdated technology? Like the other technologies above, light rail has advanced and has seen as much or more high-tech advancement as other mobility technologies.

The age of an idea is not the issue. Whether it works is.

Light rail works. Car dependence does not.

Finish the trail. Keep the green. Build the rail. 🚊🚊

AND see BRN's rebuttal to the Taylor opinion piece at https://www.ajc.com/opinion/2026/05/atlanta-beltline-rail-is-not-a-threat-failing-to-build-it-is/?gift_article_code=S3kwZXpKUlVEaW9xYnhkMlNoNGlpN0ZGMkZfLXRDRzF6enp6UXFDSTBxNDoxNzgyNTAzNjY0OmVhMjZmMWQyNzY0Njc3Njc&utm_campaign=articlegifting and again this Sunday in the AJC in the E-paper edition.

Alex Taylor asked what he would do differently with the Beltline. Our response?

Finish it.

The Beltline was never supposed to be only a trail. It was always a bigger promise: trails, parks, affordable housing, economic development, and transit working together to reconnect Atlanta.

Rail is not a threat to the Beltline. Rail is part of the Beltline.

The answer is not more cars. The answer is not giving underresourced neighborhoods coupons for Uber. The answer is not buying the city 1,000 Rivians. The answer is not privatizing our public infrastructure, steering taxpayer dollars into the pockets of investors.

Atlanta voters approved transit. Atlantans have been paying for it. The Beltline was designed for it.

Finish the trail. Keep the green. Build the rail. Finish the Beltline.

Read the full op-ed at the link in bio.