Getting Around Town

The landscape of Atlanta is ever-changing and often riddled with cranes, scaffolding, and traffic delays galore. The dynamic additions to the city scape are attracting companies and individuals in droves to call Atlanta home. However, one of the city’s major drawbacks has been access to public transportation, or the lack thereof.

Much to the delight of residents, newbies and veterans alike, Atlanta is finally doing something about it. Transit Oriented Development, or more familiarly referred to as TOD, is MARTA’s answer to revitalizing areas surrounding train stations as well as the idea to build more bus and rail lines. Accord to their website, MARTA describes TOD as “development that is vibrant, pedestrian-friendly, and genuinely integrated with transit. MARTA is pursuing TOD in an effort to increase ridership, generate new revenue and to support both local community development and regional economic development.”

Construction at the King Memorial station is slated to begin soon and projected to be completed in 2021. This will result in a new, mixed-use development including modular residential homes. The homes will be pre-fabricated and assembled on site making the development process move more quickly than most. The idea is to have the proximity of the development increase ridership of the transit system while also incorporating affordable housing options in an area that has experienced exponential cost increases in the recent years.

Another positive proposed addition to the reach of MARTA is the Clifton Corridor, a light rail line that aims to connect the Avondale station to the Lindbergh station via an artery through the Clifton campuses of Emory University and the Center for Disease Control. This will reduce the congestion on the roads in the area, allow for increased connectivity, and allow access for emergency transport to function with greater ease. MARTA does not have exact dates for the project but hopes to have it up and running in the next five years.

Another project in the beginning stages is the construction of a tower at the North Avenue Station. MARTA has just recently begun looking in to third-party assistance for the project but hopes the finished product, along with the other TOD initiatives, will increase connectivity with both rail and bus transportation.