ABOUT THE ATLANTA STREETCAR
What you need to know if you plan to ride.
Cost: Free for the first three months; $1 a ride thereafter. Free to children younger than 10 years old.
Hours: The streetcar will run 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays; 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. Fridays; 8:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. Saturdays and 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sundays.
Should you walk or ride?
Two streetcars will run during the hours of operation. They will make the one-way trip in about 9.9 minutes, and will arrive at stops about every 15 minutes. The average person can walk the one-way route in about 26 minutes, so if you miss one vehicle and the next car isn’t coming for 15 minutes, it might make sense to walk.
Sharing the road with streetcars:
During testing, the streetcars were involved twice in collisions with motor vehicles. In both cases, the drivers of the motor vehicles were cited. Cars can drive on roads that have streetcar tracks, but streetcar personnel stress that trying to pass a streetcar is a mistake.
Bicyclists should try to cross the streetcar tracks at right angles to avoid having a wheel snared.
San Francisco and New Orleans are known for their street cars. But Atlanta and other cities have developed or proposed streetcar lines in recent years. Among them:
Dallas, Texas
Kansas City, MO
Salt Lake City, UT
Seattle
Tucson, AZ
Washington, D.C.
SOURCE: USA Today
San Francisco and New Orleans are known for their street cars. But Atlanta and other cities have developed or proposed streetcar lines in recent years. Among them:
Dallas, Texas
Kansas City, MO
Salt Lake City, UT
Seattle
Tucson, AZ
Washington, D.C.
SOURCE: USA Today
San Francisco and New Orleans are known for their street cars. But Atlanta and other cities have developed or proposed streetcar lines in recent years. Among them:
Dallas, Texas
Kansas City, MO
Salt Lake City, UT
Seattle
Tucson, AZ
Washington, D.C.
SOURCE: USA Today
Packed with passengers and freighted with local and national expectations, Atlanta’s streetcar made its inaugural trip Tuesday, the culmination of years of work and a $98 million investment.
The trip along Auburn Avenue to Woodruff Park downtown took less than five minutes. But its duration belied the sizable aspirations the trip represented. Atlanta officials are betting the project — which has suffered delays and rising costs — will reinvigorate tourism and encourage business investment along the looping 2.7-mile route.
In addition, President Barack Obama’s transportation legacy hinges in part on his ability to move the nation toward rail. Atlanta’s streetcar is one of the first completed projects in that effort.
“This is a project that I believe will be a model for other cities across the United States of America,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said at a ceremony following the first ride.
The streetcar is owned by Atlanta and operated by MARTA. A $47.6 million federal transit grant helped cover the cost.
Two streetcars will run during the hours of operation, on a track that connects Centennial Olympic Park, the King Center, Georgia State University and the Peachtree Center Marta rail station. It is scheduled to arrive at stops about every 15 minutes. Reed envisions an expansion that one day will connect the downtown streetcars to the 22-mile Atlanta Beltline, also under development.
There’s no shortage of big expectations for the new streetcar system.
Reed has billed the project as an economic dynamo that will attract business investment and well-educated millennials with a taste for urban living. He said more than $400 million in new construction has begun within five miles of the streetcar since city officials announced the project in 2010.
Supporters say the streetcars also will boost tourism. It opened just in time for Wednesday’s Chick Fil-A Peach Bowl at the Georgia Dome, which will draw tens of thousands of visitors downtown.
The Rev. Gerald Durley, pastor emeritus of Providence Baptist Church, said the streetcar will bring Atlanta residents together by transporting them to parts of the city they might not otherwise visit.
Those expectations set a high bar for the streetcar’s performance. But Durley isn’t worried.
“Set your expectations high,” he said. “You get what you expect to get.”
Tuesday, scores of dignitaries packed the cars elbow to elbow for the first trip, and several hundred people gathered at Woodruff Park for an official ribbon cutting.
The streetcar was originally supposed to open in May 2013, but delays and safety concerns pushed back the opening. And changes to the project – including Reed’s insistence on using new instead of used streetcars – inflated the cost from about $70 million to nearly $100 million.
Critics have called the streetcar an expensive toy and an inadequate response to Atlanta’s transportation needs. On his Facebook page Tuesday, William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, blasted the project as an “almost $100 million taxpayer funded boondoggle.”
Others were more enthusiastic.
“I wanted to be a part of history,” said Junisha Stratton, 37 of Atlanta, who rode the streetcar.
Atlanta resident Betty Barnes spent most of her ride trying to explain the downtown geography to her 13-year-old granddaughter Katehya Barnes. For Betty Barnes, the route may be limited, but it hits the high points in her life.
“I go to church at Ebenezer and I do the market,” she said, referring to Ebenezer Baptist Church and the Sweet Auburn Curb Market, both of which are stops for the streetcar. “This would work for me.”
Business owners along the loop looked on Tuesday’s festivities with a mixture of relief and anticipation.
Many said they suffered steep revenue declines for months at a time as construction crews tore up roads and blocked traffic. Sisters Bookshop in the Sweet Auburn Curb Market is still recovering from a big drop in customer traffic and sales.“I would say almost half, but we survived,” said Pam Culbreath, who, with her sister, Caroline Walker, runs the bookstore.
But most of those business owners also said they’re hoping the sleek blue streetcars will soon bring a steady stream of tourists, conventioneers and business travelers to the streets outside their shops.
“My gut tells me it’s going to be good,” said Culbreath.
On the new boarding platform just outside the 90-year-old building, dozens of people were waiting to squeeze into the packed streetcars.
“We’re hoping it will generate a lot of downtown visitors,” said Culbreath.
Staff writers Chris Joyner and Aaron Gould Sheinin contributed to this report
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