AMTRAK

On Monday, the Atlanta City Council introduced a resolution to spur AMTRAK investment in the Gulch.

The resolution, 22-R-3645, notes the value of AMTRAK expansion in the city “as a part of the Gulch development,” and invites AMTRAK to “publicly present, detail, and answer questions about its vision for expanded passenger rail, to include any plans for new routes, service facilities, and stations throughout the metro area.”

It’s an important move by the new council to access federal funds to redevelop the Gulch. Georgia is set to receive $1.4B over the next five years for public transportation.

Read the full resolution here and here.

#TransitEquityDay

Georgia Dems write to GDOT

AJC – Georgia Democrats in Congress say infrastructure money could boost public transit

22.01.26_GDOT-letter-on-transit_Delegation_signedDownload

Thank you to our members of Congress for asking some important questions 🚇

State of MARTA 2022

This week was the State of MARTA 2022. The virtual event celebrates MARTA’s essential workers, announces new federal funding and EV charging stations, and previews new EV bus routes in the year ahead.

MARTA CEO Jeffrey Parker also unveiled the long-awaited new rolling stock, which are set to replace the 40-year old rail cars and launch MARTA into the 21st century at last. The Stadler deal, inked in 2018, will run $646 million and should see the first trains in 2023.

Reasons for replacing the aging rolling stock were delay times and expensive repairs. The modern, gangway-style Stadler rail cars are wrapped in a minimalist MARTA-brand ribbon chosen by riders and feature ADA spaces, digital signage, charging outlets, and luggage racks. Things a modern transit system has! The exterior lighting can change color to show the line the rider is taking.

You can watch the full State of MARTA here:

The hardware is ready. It’s time to build Terminal Station to give Atlanta #MoreMARTA

terminal-station-at-night

We learned that Jeffrey Parker passed away on Friday evening. Our hearts and our prayers go out to his family and friends.

Week 13

End of the line

This is the last post before the holiday break 🎄

Today’s lesson is about the Atlanta Zero Mile Post, a stone marker which was originally erected at the terminus of the Western and Atlantic railroad, way back in the mid-19th century.

Its location would become the first State Square, and eventually, Atlanta.

Atlanta History Center. The inscription reads W&A RR 00

Terminus. That’s a word that fans of The Walking Dead might recognize. In the TV show, Deputy Rick Grimes and the other Atlanta survivors hike along the rails to the train station Terminus – the end of the line – hoping to find safety. “Those who arrive survive,” read the signs they follow.

But Terminus is not all it seems, nor is it just a Walking Dead location. That’s right, if you’re just joining us, Terminus was the original and first name for the city. Its limits were defined as one mile in all directions from the Zero Mile Post:

downtown Atlanta 1864
State Square and the original city limits

Maybe that’s why, in 1977, the Zero Mile Post was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Maybe that’s also why, in 2019, preservationists were outraged when the Zero Mile Post was delisted from the register, unearthed from its downtown location, and placed in the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead.

Put another way, the marker no longer sits at the “zeroth mile,” but has been rehomed miles north among Atlanta’s richest zip codes. It’s now accessible only with a $23 ticket to the History Center (seniors pay $19!)

Zero Mile Post was fundamental to my drawings for Terminal Station in Week 10, because it should be (carefully) returned to its original location downtown and its National Register status reinstated. It is indispensable to the city’s founding and central to how Atlanta moved before autos. It should be central to the new MARTA terminal, where riders meet from all directions.

Riders transfer trains via the underground sanctum at Zero Mile

That Zero Mile was stripped of its status in the first place is pretty unbelievable, but unsurprising given Atlanta’s long record of erasure in the name of industry. We have a unique chance to make it right and open a new avenue for tourism.

That’s all for now. It feels good to start this blog and more to come. Next year I’ll be hosting a few guests.

We get one chance at restoring and reconnecting downtown, so McGowan, Ressler, Mayor Bottoms and mayor-elect Dickens, if you’re reading: do the right thing! Consider the impact this development will have on regular people, your neighbors, and the Atlanta region

You can reach out at build@terminalstation.org

It’s clear you’re pursuing the Battery model, and while an entertainment center for game day is always great, the World Series is over. The Battery sits empty.

Don’t build Centennial Yards so it can sit empty every offseason. Not when Atlanta needs its weekday transit terminal. We don’t need L.A. Live, we need Penn Station.

Perhaps there’s a way to have both by rebuilding Terminal Station.

Week 6

It looks like CIM Group got the land grab of the century, and all it cost them was 33M. On Thursday Oct 14, CIM Group president Brian McGowan presented Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms with a giant novelty check for 33.5M under the guise of “community benefits.”

Brian McGowan, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, and Richard Ressler

In return, Atlanta taxpayers will give away nearly 2 BILLION in incentives to construct the glitzy Centennial Yards, a plan which still does not include a terminal station for MARTA, for greater Georgia, and for the Southeast

For some context, here’s a pie chart of the deal your mayor and council just made

Legislation will promise Gulch money for affordable housing initiatives

Once again, here is the Gulch redevelopment you deserve, priced originally at 1B:

You can visit our Maps page to see your local station

Terminal Station 1905

Week 3

Where’s the wye?

In an aerial plan released in July, Centennial Yards insists the project is “designed to blend with adjacent communities in style and scale,” which seems like a glib way of saying they’ve heard your concerns, but they’re still not building a terminal station

Centennial Yards releases updated master plan (20 July 2021)

Where’s the wye?

Save The Gulch!

Here’s the 2013 video produced by FX Collaborative of the Gulch development you deserve

FXFOWLE and Cooper Carry-designed $1B Atlanta Intermodal Project Wins Federal Acceleration