The Atlanta BeltLine’s Southside trail — long mocked as the gap where the city’s signature greenway project abruptly ends in southwest Atlanta — is finally within sight of completion.
Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. confirmed Wednesday that the two-mile segment between the Oakland City MARTA station and the West End MARTA station is on track to open to pedestrians and cyclists by mid-October, ahead of the originally promised 2027 deadline.
For the residents of some of the city’s most park-poor neighborhoods, the news is real. It’s also a long time coming.
What opens this fall
The completed segment runs roughly from Ridge Avenue SW in the north — where the existing trail currently dead-ends near the Murphy Crossing food-hall site — south past Westview Cemetery, through West End, and down to Lawton Street, a short walk from the West End MARTA station.
It includes:
- A 12-foot-wide paved trail with separate pedestrian and cyclist lanes
- Three new access points with restrooms and water fountains
- Two bridges over active CSX rail lines
- A trailhead plaza at West End MARTA with bike parking and a small café kiosk
“It looks like a real park, not a sidewalk. That matters when you’re trying to convince someone who doesn’t feel safe on the streets that this is a place to be.”
— Lillian Park, executive director of the West End business association
What isn’t opening
Three other Southside gaps remain — and they’re years away:
- Southwest corridor gap — the segment south of West End to Adair Park and then to the BeltLine’s south entrance near Langhorn Street. Construction starts 2028.
- Westside gap — the connection across the Westside Provisions and Howell Mill area, currently blocked by a CSX-owned rail spur. No construction date.
- Northwest corridor — the stretch from the existing trailhead near Bobby Dodd Stadium down to the future interchange with the Proctor Creek greenway. In design, no funding.
The most frustrating of these for transit advocates is the westside gap. Until a deal is reached with CSX, the trail can’t connect at all with the busy Howell Mill / Westside Provisions district.
Why it took so long
The Southside segment’s biggest hurdle wasn’t engineering — it was land. Roughly 60 percent of the right-of-way sits on parcels the BeltLine had to acquire from a patchwork of private owners, MARTA, CSX, and the city.
Acquisition negotiations dragged through three mayors. The breakthrough came in late 2024, when the Georgia Department of Transportation used a state infrastructure-loan program to backstop the final handful of property purchases.
The other delay: CSX. Two of the three new bridges cross CSX rail, and the freight railroad’s review process for any structure over its tracks added roughly 18 months to the project, BeltLine staff confirmed.
The numbers
By the time the Southside opens, Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. will have spent roughly $580 million in public and private funds on the overall project. The Southside segment alone accounts for about $112 million, with the bulk covered by a federal RAISE grant and a More MARTA bond tranche.
That’s a lot of money for two miles of trail. But it’s also a connective thread that’s been missing for nearly a decade from a city that promised its residents a single, unbroken 22-mile loop by 2030.
Elena Vásquez covers Atlanta city hall and transportation for WACN 21. Reach her at evasquez@wacn21.com.
