BUS TOURS OF BELTLINE
Free, narrated bus tours of the Atlanta Beltline run every Friday and Saturday morning. The tours depart from the Inman Park MARTA station at 9:30 a.m. and return by 12:30 p.m. Space is limited, and the tours book up very fast. The reservation system opens at 9 a.m. on the 15th of each month for the following month's tour dates. For information, go to beltline.org and click on the "Get Involved" tab. There you'll also find listings for other tours, classes, sporting activities and volunteer opportunities taking part in parks and trails around the Beltline.
They may be the most physically fit police officers in town — and the most likely to encounter the Curiosity Factor.
"People come up to us all the time, asking, 'What is this, who built it, where else does it go?'" said Lt. Jeff Baxter, commander of the Atlanta Police Department's Path Force Unit, which last summer began patrolling the Atlanta Beltline full time on bike and on foot. "So many people want to know: 'What is this?'"
Long answer: The Beltline is a long-range redevelopment project to create a “necklace” of parks, multiuse trails and transit along an old 22-mile railroad corridor. It’s not scheduled to be fully completed until 2030. Already, though, some 7 miles of wide, smooth paved trails and another 4 miles of “interim” hiking trails are open in four different areas of the city.
Shorter answer: The Beltline's one of the hottest things happening here now, right down to its how-do-you-get-a-reservation bus tour and, soon, its own app.
And, perhaps inevitably, some growing pains.
“Atlanta is not a town that has a pedestrian and bike culture ingrained in it,” said Ethan Davidson, director of communications for Atlanta Beltline Inc., the entity charged with overseeing the planning and execution of the Beltline. (A separate, nonprofit organization, the Atlanta Beltline Partnership, works with neighborhoods, faith organizations and others to raise awareness about the Beltline, help address social concerns related to new development and raise funds.)
ABI is about to launch an etiquette campaign that Davidson vows will be “fun” and help nudge things along. “People are already starting to form that culture. The Beltline is the great laboratory where it’s starting to come together.”
Usage numbers attest to the popularity of the Eastside Trail, which stretches from Reynoldstown to Ansley Park (counting the interim trails) and sweeps Piedmont Park and such colorful neighborhoods as Virginia-Highland and Inman Park into its close embrace. Over the past month, about 10,000 people have hit the trail each weekend, said Davidson, who predicts that figure will double during popular events such as the Dogwood and Inman Park festivals later this month.
“I’m not sure if anyone really understood what the impact was going to be,” said Shireen Herrington, the general manager of two restaurants — Parish and Two Urban Licks — that quite literally back up to the Eastside Trail. “When we first opened at ‘Two,’ the backside of the restaurant had a chain-link fence with razor wire on top. Then the Beltline came and brought families and strollers and bikers. The fence came down and the back’s now another entrance.”
There aren’t official usage counts yet for either the Northside Trail, a woodsy idyll connecting three parks near Piedmont Hospital; or for the West End Trail, which sweeps alongside history-soaked neighborhoods and a vibrant business district on its way to sprawling Westview Cemetery; or for the Southwest Connector Trail, whose first completed phase winds through a gorgeous patch of forest and runs right into the PATH Foundation’s Lionel Hampton Trail.
But unofficial observations on recent balmy weekday afternoons showed the former to be particularly popular with joggers and stroller-pushing mothers, and the latter two with hikers and bikers exploring the rugged sections of interim trail.
Now imagine what'll happen when the weather gets really nice.
“I’m thinking farmers market on our dock on the weekend,” enthused Paris on Ponce owner Skip Engelbrecht, who converted the loading dock of the quirky orange-hued Midtown store into an entrance off the Eastside Trail, complete with a sign self-proclaiming it a “Beltline Relief Stop.” “I would love to have a Sunday bloody mary bar!”
Alcohol’s not permitted on the Beltline itself, although people who’ve overindulged elsewhere still turn up there sometimes.
“Unfortunately, we do a lot of interventions,” said Herrington, the restaurant GM, who’s more concerned about people who refuse assistance, particularly inebriated young women walking the trail at night. “I’m not sure where they’re coming from, maybe (events) in Piedmont Park or at other venues.”
That's one reason the Path Force's arrival has been so welcome, observers say. It operates out of its own precinct on the ground floor of the Lofts at Reynoldstown Crossing, an affordable housing development created by ABI along the Eastside interim trail. The 18-officer force (including three supervisors) serves as a visible deterrent to everything from graffiti and cyclists riding too fast to more serious crimes such as car break-ins on nearby streets (there are no official Beltline parking lots).
“Before the police came, we had some snatch-and-grab problems,” Kay Stephenson, a Trees Atlanta docent, told the group she was leading on a recent Beltline Arboretum Walking Tour of the Eastside Trail. “That’s virtually stopped.”
The fascinating walking tour and a narrated bus tour that books up faster than photos with the Phipps Santa are among a growing number of free classes and excursions organized regularly by the Atlanta Beltline Partnership. Most take place on the trails or in one of six parks that have already been built from scratch — including an enormously popular skate park in the Historic Fourth Ward stretch of Beltline — or significantly expanded and improved as part of the Beltline project.
They are a way of confronting head-on an unavoidable reality of this long-term work in progress: Many people still aren't sure exactly what all the Beltline is. And where it already is.
Luckily, any day now, there’s an app for that.
“We hear it from people all the time, ‘Where’s the Beltline, how do I get on it, where can I take a run?’” ABI communications coordinator Jenny Odom explained about the app, which should be available a little later this year for iPhone and Android devices. “You understand just how many people want help planning a visit.”
