MARTA BRT project delayed by long-forgotten parking garage, trolley lines

The $91 million bus rapid transit line is a nearly 5-mile loop that will pass through the Capitol Gateway, Summerhill and Peoplestown neighborhoods to connect downtown Atlanta with the Southside Beltline trail. It is being paid for, in part, with money from the half penny More MARTA sales tax approved by voters in 2016.

Bus routes like this function more like rail. They typically have fewer stops and run in bus-only lanes, avoiding typical car congestion.

MARTA General Manager and CEO Collie Greenwood has compared the Summerhill construction process to peeling an onion to reveal layer after layer. And every layer of this project has come with surprises.

Issues have been uncovered along the whole route, he said.

Along Hank Aaron Drive, crews resurfacing the road ran into household water supply lines that were buried shallower than normal, just inches from the surface of the road. Those lines had to be relocated deeper.

Then, a set of trolley tracks were discovered along Hank Aaron Drive. The tracks run from Glenn Street to Pollard Street, which until the 1940s was served by at least one of Atlanta’s many streetcar and trolley lines.

Streetcars used to be a common sight throughout the city, beginning in the late 1880s when Joel Hurt’s company designed the first streetcar line as a means of getting to and from Inman Park, the suburban community he was building at what was then the edge of the city.

At one point, there was so much competition from rival streetcar companies running duplicative routes along the same narrow streets that there was trolley congestion, according to a book about the introduction of the automobile in Atlanta by Howard Preston.

Still, streetcar congestion was nothing compared to what the car would bring, Preston wrote. Automobile effects were felt quickly: As early as 1920, a Chamber of Commerce report declared traffic had become “well-nigh unbearable.” By 1925 — a time when there were just over 47,000 cars registered in Fulton County — the chamber newsletter declared traffic was “Atlanta’s greatest problem.”

Credit: Unknown

Credit: Unknown

Credit: AJC

Credit: AJC

The former streetcar lines along Capitol Avenue, which is now Hank Aaron Drive, ran service until at least 1946, according to maps from the time included in a report to the Georgia Department of Transportation.

The last of the historic streetcars went out of service in Atlanta in 1949. The modern-day Atlanta Streetcar began ferrying passengers in 2014.

In addition to the tracks on Hank Aaron Drive discovered last year, MARTA construction crews recently unearthed a second set of trolley tracks downtown. This set are on Mitchell Street at Forsyth Street, a MARTA spokesperson said.

The GDOT report shows multiple streetcar routes ran along Mitchell Street in the mid-1940s.

The historic nature of both sets of tracks meant MARTA had to pause construction and consult with the Federal Transportation Administration and the State Historical Preservation Office.

“Historic is good if you’re an archaeologist, but it’s not good if you’re a project manager,” Greenwood told state lawmakers when giving them an update on the project’s delays last year.

MARTA eventually got the go-ahead to leave the tracks in place.

Credit: MARTA handout

Credit: MARTA handout

Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Perhaps the most puzzling discovery has been the underground parking garage discovered downtown. It wasn’t on any blueprints.

The garage was found when crews were drilling in the sidewalk along Forsyth Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Drive SE and Mitchell Street, a spokesperson said. This stretch is not along the BRT route but is needed for utilities.

Crews have temporarily covered the hole in the sidewalk over the parking garage with a steel plate. It is in the city’s right of way, so city staff are working with the owner on a resolution, the MARTA spokesperson said.