Amtrak at a glance:
- Georgia is served by four long-distance Amtrak trains.
- They are: the Crescent, operating between New York and New Orleans; the Silver Meteor and the Silver Star, operating between New York and Miami; and the Palmetto, operating between New York and Savannah.
- A total of 192,000 passengers boarded and alighted at the five Georgia Amtrak stations in 2013.
- Of these, 99,000 boardings and alightings were at the Atlanta Peachtree Street Station. Savannah had the second-highest number of boardings/alightings, approximately 70,000 yearly.
The discussion about building a central terminal in metro Atlanta to unite intercity passenger rail, MARTA rail and local bus service has been comatose for years, but it’s beginning to show signs of life.
Nothing has been officially proposed, or even officially discussed. But what’s got people talking is a suggestion by the developer revitalizing the old Doraville GM auto assembly plant that an Amtrak station could be a good addition to the 165-acre redevelopment. Which happens to be adjacent to MARTA’s Doraville station. From which MARTA already offers passenger bus service.
Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. Metro Atlanta could have a bonafide multimodal transit station — a perpetual dream deferred since at least the 1970s.
The GM plant is conveniently located just off I-285 between Buford Highway and Peachtree Industrial Boulevard. Two Atlanta-based companies, the Integral Group and Macauley + Schmit, say they plan to include a movie studio and a walkable mix of neighborhoods, retail and office space on the property.
“If our partners, being Norfolk Southern and MARTA and GDOT, are interested in (an Amtrak station) happening there, we could make accommodation,” said Integral CEO Egbert Perry. “They have had discussions. We’ve really only been in one, maybe two.”
So what do the partners think?
“I think that’s fantastic,” Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry said during a Thursday meeting with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s editorial board. “It makes sense. You’re connected to MARTA, and you can get to anywhere on that same line.”
The department’s only involvement to date has been one “very brief” discussion with Norfolk Southern, according to a GDOT spokeswoman.
MARTA has been involved in past studies that looked at several potential locations for a new Amtrak station. The Doraville site emerged as one of the best alternatives because of its proximity to MARTA and I-285, said MARTA’s Chief Operating Officer Rich Krisak. It also would provide a long-term parking solution for Amtrak travelers at the Doraville MARTA station lots.
“Obviously we’re not going to fund an Amtrak station,” Krisak said. “But I think I could see us together pursuing and supporting funding for a station. I think MARTA would be very supportive of it.”
It's no secret that Amtrak has been hunting for a new station location for years. Its historic Brookwood Station on Peachtree Street in Buckhead has limited parking, is not well outfitted for disabled people and is too small to work effectively as a hub.
Right now, Amtrak travelers must disembark at the Peachtree Street station (which serves about 100,000 passengers yearly) and take a bus to reach a MARTA station.
Amtrak and Norfolk Southern are saying very little about the potential for a Doraville move. A spokeswoman for Amtrak said no proposal has been put forth.
A representative for Norfolk Southern acknowledged having talks about building a new passenger rail station. He said nothing had been discussed about Doraville specifically.
Transit advocates have long believed that the city situated on the Perimeter with a population of about 10,000 would be an ideal place to link Amtrak and MARTA.
It would be a boon to local tourism, since people from all over the country could board a choo-choo bound for Atlanta and then hop on a MARTA train to get around locally, said Lee Biola, president of Citizens for Progressive Transit.
“If the conditions are right financially to do it in Doraville, that’s great because that’s a rail-to-rail connection,” Biola said. “A lot of us hope that eventually there will still be a connection to downtown Atlanta, where high-speed and regular trains would all come together downtown. But I see this as a step toward that.”
Even if a station were built in Doraville, McMurry said that wouldn't necessarily spell an end to the prospects for building a multimodal transit station at a site where one has long been envisioned, near Five Points MARTA station in Downtown Atlanta in an area known as The Gulch.
“Who says there has to be one hub?” McMurry said.
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